Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I set up the first example which I called Zoltar as a machine thatonly prints out two different fortunes: it either prints “You will have a Good day tomorrow” or “You will have a Bad day tomorrow.” For brevity we will refer to these as G and B respectively. And I asked how to use the Uncertainty Wednesday framework to think about uncertainty here. This requires us to do two things. We have to think about what our observations are (and how those have clear limits) a...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I set up the first example which I called Zoltar as a machine thatonly prints out two different fortunes: it either prints “You will have a Good day tomorrow” or “You will have a Bad day tomorrow.” For brevity we will refer to these as G and B respectively. And I asked how to use the Uncertainty Wednesday framework to think about uncertainty here. This requires us to do two things. We have to think about what our observations are (and how those have clear limits) a...

For 2017 I made two New Year’s resolutions. The first is to get into better shape (yes, like just about everyone else judging from the crowd at the gym today). The second is to finish my book World After Capital. For that I will need some help. I am looking for a research assistant who can help me fill in the many instances in World After Capital where it says “XX” or “YY” instead of an actual number, or where I have made a note that I need a source or additional data. There are also a bunch ...

For 2017 I made two New Year’s resolutions. The first is to get into better shape (yes, like just about everyone else judging from the crowd at the gym today). The second is to finish my book World After Capital. For that I will need some help. I am looking for a research assistant who can help me fill in the many instances in World After Capital where it says “XX” or “YY” instead of an actual number, or where I have made a note that I need a source or additional data. There are also a bunch ...

Last week I noticed that I had received several cold emails from entrepreneurs that started in exactly the same fashion:Apologies for the cold email, I usually get an introduction, but my network in New York area isn’t so strong. I found Union Square Ventures while I was looking for top class Venture Capital looking to invest in the tech industry.So I decided to tweet about it because it appeared as if people had just copied a template. Sure enough the source for this is a blog post titled “H...

Last week I noticed that I had received several cold emails from entrepreneurs that started in exactly the same fashion:Apologies for the cold email, I usually get an introduction, but my network in New York area isn’t so strong. I found Union Square Ventures while I was looking for top class Venture Capital looking to invest in the tech industry.So I decided to tweet about it because it appeared as if people had just copied a template. Sure enough the source for this is a blog post titled “H...

In Uncertainty Wednesday today we continue our analysis of the Zoltar example, which I introduced two weeks ago. We came up with the super simple expression B + G = N, where B is the number of Bad fortunes, G is the number of Good fortunes and N is the number of all fortunes. Now while this may still strike you as simply an accounting identity, let’s consider the case of N = 1. Because these have to be integers, it must be the case that either (B = 1 and G = 0) or (B = 0 and G = 1). Why do th...

In Uncertainty Wednesday today we continue our analysis of the Zoltar example, which I introduced two weeks ago. We came up with the super simple expression B + G = N, where B is the number of Bad fortunes, G is the number of Good fortunes and N is the number of all fortunes. Now while this may still strike you as simply an accounting identity, let’s consider the case of N = 1. Because these have to be integers, it must be the case that either (B = 1 and G = 0) or (B = 0 and G = 1). Why do th...

Seems that roughly every 4 years I consider which laptop to buy and use. In 2008 I switched from a Panasonic CF-W2 to a Macbook Air. At the time I was on my second Panasonic and I had been using each for roughly 4 years. The CF-W2s were lightweight, rugged and chock full of features. In 2012 I considered switching from my Macbook Air but instead bought a replacement one. That was four years ago and I have now been on a Macbook for 8 years. My current Macbook Air is showing signs of aging. The...

Seems that roughly every 4 years I consider which laptop to buy and use. In 2008 I switched from a Panasonic CF-W2 to a Macbook Air. At the time I was on my second Panasonic and I had been using each for roughly 4 years. The CF-W2s were lightweight, rugged and chock full of features. In 2012 I considered switching from my Macbook Air but instead bought a replacement one. That was four years ago and I have now been on a Macbook for 8 years. My current Macbook Air is showing signs of aging. The...

I have not been writing a lot because I am still digesting much of what the outcome of the US election and Trump’s presidency may bring. One thought that is forming though is that States will play a much bigger role going forward. If federal legislation in healthcare, labor, environment, etc. is rolled back that creates an opening for States to step in. That may be an opportunity as much or even more than a threat. We can have more variety of policies which at a time of great change will prod...

I have not been writing a lot because I am still digesting much of what the outcome of the US election and Trump’s presidency may bring. One thought that is forming though is that States will play a much bigger role going forward. If federal legislation in healthcare, labor, environment, etc. is rolled back that creates an opening for States to step in. That may be an opportunity as much or even more than a threat. We can have more variety of policies which at a time of great change will prod...

In 2011 I gave a talk at conference that The Media Kitchen had organized about the impact of mobile on marketing. While everyone else presenting was talking about how to make mobile ads work, I was openly critical of advertising on mobile platforms altogether arguing that ads were (a) mostly annoying given the small screen size and (b) likely to be replaced by direct commerce. I just tried to find my slides from that talk but unfortunately came up empty. I was reminded of the talk when I read...

In 2011 I gave a talk at conference that The Media Kitchen had organized about the impact of mobile on marketing. While everyone else presenting was talking about how to make mobile ads work, I was openly critical of advertising on mobile platforms altogether arguing that ads were (a) mostly annoying given the small screen size and (b) likely to be replaced by direct commerce. I just tried to find my slides from that talk but unfortunately came up empty. I was reminded of the talk when I read...

Having been fortunate to take two weeks off on a family vacation and stayed away from most news, I feel ready to tackle 2017. Going into this new year I am reminding myself of two principles that apply equally well to startups and to politics. 1. Change produces information. This is something I often tell founders and CEOs when they sense that something is wrong in their companies but they can’t quite figure out what it is. Depending on what you think it might be, pick a change and see what n...

Having been fortunate to take two weeks off on a family vacation and stayed away from most news, I feel ready to tackle 2017. Going into this new year I am reminding myself of two principles that apply equally well to startups and to politics. 1. Change produces information. This is something I often tell founders and CEOs when they sense that something is wrong in their companies but they can’t quite figure out what it is. Depending on what you think it might be, pick a change and see what n...

So far Uncertainty Wednesday has been, ahem, somewhat abstract and dry. A challenge for me in writing anything, including World After Capital, is that I like to proceed methodically, which means putting foundations first (note to self: this makes for boring reading and I need to fix that). But now that we have the foundations in place, we can actually start to look at an example and will hopefully see it in a new light. We are on the grounds of a fair or carnival when we come upon a machine t...

So far Uncertainty Wednesday has been, ahem, somewhat abstract and dry. A challenge for me in writing anything, including World After Capital, is that I like to proceed methodically, which means putting foundations first (note to self: this makes for boring reading and I need to fix that). But now that we have the foundations in place, we can actually start to look at an example and will hopefully see it in a new light. We are on the grounds of a fair or carnival when we come upon a machine t...

And we are back! Sorry for the, ahem, uncertainty about when Uncertainty Wednesday would appear. I decided to work less this year on vacation and that included not blogging. Today we will wrap up the Zoltar Example. In Part 3, I first introduced the idea that even a very simple explanation in the form of the equation B + G = N (reminder B is a bad fortune, G a good one and N the total number of fortunes) let’s us start to reason about the uncertainty involved. In particular, I discussed why a...

And we are back! Sorry for the, ahem, uncertainty about when Uncertainty Wednesday would appear. I decided to work less this year on vacation and that included not blogging. Today we will wrap up the Zoltar Example. In Part 3, I first introduced the idea that even a very simple explanation in the form of the equation B + G = N (reminder B is a bad fortune, G a good one and N the total number of fortunes) let’s us start to reason about the uncertainty involved. In particular, I discussed why a...