Yesterday I woke up to the news that Bengt Holmström was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics along with Oliver Hart. I have had the good fortune to have had Bengt as one of my PhD thesis advisors at MIT, together with my thesis chair, Erik Brynjolfsson and Birger Wernerfelt. All three of them were incredibly generous with their time, which is even more remarkable given that it became increasingly clear that I was not going to pursue an academic career. Bengt’s work on incentives is hugely im...

Yesterday I woke up to the news that Bengt Holmström was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics along with Oliver Hart. I have had the good fortune to have had Bengt as one of my PhD thesis advisors at MIT, together with my thesis chair, Erik Brynjolfsson and Birger Wernerfelt. All three of them were incredibly generous with their time, which is even more remarkable given that it became increasingly clear that I was not going to pursue an academic career. Bengt’s work on incentives is hugely im...

The IPO process is pre-Internet and that needs to change ASAP. With the tech IPO window open we are once again being treated to the maddening spectacle of the opening pop in which the first trade price is massively above the IPO price. All sorts of theories are proffered for why that is rational and the right thing to do. It isn’t. In the year 2016 here is how a company should go public. The company, with the help of banks, brokers and the exchange should build a complete buy and sell order b...

The IPO process is pre-Internet and that needs to change ASAP. With the tech IPO window open we are once again being treated to the maddening spectacle of the opening pop in which the first trade price is massively above the IPO price. All sorts of theories are proffered for why that is rational and the right thing to do. It isn’t. In the year 2016 here is how a company should go public. The company, with the help of banks, brokers and the exchange should build a complete buy and sell order b...

Yesterday evening, Allen Lau from Wattpad helped me organize a small casual dinner with other entrepreneurs and investors in Toronto. We have three existing investments in Toronto: Wattpad and Figure 1 in the city and Kik in Waterloo. Toronto has all the makings of a great ecosystem for tech startups and I am sure over time we will be finding more exciting companies here: 1. There are schools with excellent engineering programs, including the world renowned Waterloo and University of Toronto ...

Yesterday evening, Allen Lau from Wattpad helped me organize a small casual dinner with other entrepreneurs and investors in Toronto. We have three existing investments in Toronto: Wattpad and Figure 1 in the city and Kik in Waterloo. Toronto has all the makings of a great ecosystem for tech startups and I am sure over time we will be finding more exciting companies here: 1. There are schools with excellent engineering programs, including the world renowned Waterloo and University of Toronto ...

Today’s post is over on the USV blog: We are endorsing Hillary Clinton as a team. We explain why we are taking this unusual step. Here is my previous personal endorsement.

Today’s post is over on the USV blog: We are endorsing Hillary Clinton as a team. We explain why we are taking this unusual step. Here is my previous personal endorsement.

As a quick reminder for those who may have missed the beginning, Uncertainty Wednesday is a series about, well, uncertainty. We are in the middle of limits on observations. To understand why these matter and how they relate to uncertainty, you should go back to the initial post in the series which lays out a framework. So far we have covered the following limitations on observations: foundational, resolution and measurement error. Today we will cover the cost of observation. One reaction to t...

As a quick reminder for those who may have missed the beginning, Uncertainty Wednesday is a series about, well, uncertainty. We are in the middle of limits on observations. To understand why these matter and how they relate to uncertainty, you should go back to the initial post in the series which lays out a framework. So far we have covered the following limitations on observations: foundational, resolution and measurement error. Today we will cover the cost of observation. One reaction to t...

Today the team at Clarifai is releasing an amazing second version of their API that makes two breakthroughs available to every developer: custom training and fast visual search. The beauty of Clarifai’s API when it first launched was that you could be up and running in minutes and get great results with their models. But what if you wanted to train your own concepts? Well, if you were a bigger customer willing to pay, Clarifai would train a custom model for you. With the newly released versio...

Today the team at Clarifai is releasing an amazing second version of their API that makes two breakthroughs available to every developer: custom training and fast visual search. The beauty of Clarifai’s API when it first launched was that you could be up and running in minutes and get great results with their models. But what if you wanted to train your own concepts? Well, if you were a bigger customer willing to pay, Clarifai would train a custom model for you. With the newly released versio...

So far in Uncertainty Wednesday we have seen two different limits on observations: the foundational limit that all observation necessarily entails compression of reality and the further compression resulting from the resolution of measurement. Today we will look at measurement error as a limit on observation. Thanks to a tweet from a reader, I have the perfect opening example for today. The following is from a show call 99% Invisible, which had an episode called “On Average” that has the foll...

So far in Uncertainty Wednesday we have seen two different limits on observations: the foundational limit that all observation necessarily entails compression of reality and the further compression resulting from the resolution of measurement. Today we will look at measurement error as a limit on observation. Thanks to a tweet from a reader, I have the perfect opening example for today. The following is from a show call 99% Invisible, which had an episode called “On Average” that has the foll...

One of the key criteria for the longterm success of any computer system would seem to be stability. For instance, if there is an app that crashes your phone you will use it less or even uninstall it. While it is frustrating when this happens, it is quite amazing that computer systems have any stability at all given their complexity. Compared to most systems that humans had previously created, computers are by far the most complex, especially once you factor in the software that runs on them. ...

One of the key criteria for the longterm success of any computer system would seem to be stability. For instance, if there is an app that crashes your phone you will use it less or even uninstall it. While it is frustrating when this happens, it is quite amazing that computer systems have any stability at all given their complexity. Compared to most systems that humans had previously created, computers are by far the most complex, especially once you factor in the software that runs on them. ...

Today’s post is over at USV announcing our investment in New York City based Code Climate. I have known Bryan for years and admired what he, Noah and the rest of the team have built with very little outside money. Code quality will become ever more important and putting quality first is the key to also achieving speed to market and low cost. Read more about it also on the Code Climate blog.

Today’s post is over at USV announcing our investment in New York City based Code Climate. I have known Bryan for years and admired what he, Noah and the rest of the team have built with very little outside money. Code quality will become ever more important and putting quality first is the key to also achieving speed to market and low cost. Read more about it also on the Code Climate blog.

Today in Uncertainty Wednesday we are coming to the last limit on observations: their impact on reality. As a quick refresher at the beginning of the series I introduced the framework in which uncertainty is the result of limits on our ability to observe and explain reality. Since then we have been working through various limits on observations, starting with a foundational limit, the resolution of observations, measurement error and cost of observation (which following a reader comment I wil...

Today in Uncertainty Wednesday we are coming to the last limit on observations: their impact on reality. As a quick refresher at the beginning of the series I introduced the framework in which uncertainty is the result of limits on our ability to observe and explain reality. Since then we have been working through various limits on observations, starting with a foundational limit, the resolution of observations, measurement error and cost of observation (which following a reader comment I wil...