As an immigrant to America, I have enjoyed many 4th of July celebrations over the years. Given the Brexit vote, I woke up today wondering though what it means for a nation to be independent in the world we live in. All the big problems we face as humanity such as climate change, infectious diseases, taxation of multinational corporations are global problems. America can’t solve any of these problems by itself. Neither can any other nation. What we really need is a declaration of In-TER-depend...

As an immigrant to America, I have enjoyed many 4th of July celebrations over the years. Given the Brexit vote, I woke up today wondering though what it means for a nation to be independent in the world we live in. All the big problems we face as humanity such as climate change, infectious diseases, taxation of multinational corporations are global problems. America can’t solve any of these problems by itself. Neither can any other nation. What we really need is a declaration of In-TER-depend...

I have been meaning to write about my recent experience with Google App Engine and also about the Pokemon Go phenomenon. And I will eventually do so, but given the events in the US this past week these topics seem trivial to me at the moment. The statistics make it abundantly clear that deadly force is used by police against Black Americans at a much higher rate than against whites. When you add that to statistics about incarceration, poverty, disease and more the weight of evidence on the lo...

I have been meaning to write about my recent experience with Google App Engine and also about the Pokemon Go phenomenon. And I will eventually do so, but given the events in the US this past week these topics seem trivial to me at the moment. The statistics make it abundantly clear that deadly force is used by police against Black Americans at a much higher rate than against whites. When you add that to statistics about incarceration, poverty, disease and more the weight of evidence on the lo...

I have been writing here on Continuations and in my book World After Capital that we need to be vigilant and defend democracy. Many people are taking the Brexit vote as evidence that direct democracy is a bad idea. While I am not necessarily a strong advocate for direct democracy I do think this conclusion is flawed. The UK does not have a direct democracy culture. In fact this is only the third referendum ever held in the UK! Why does this matter? Because if you want any shot at direct democ...

I have been writing here on Continuations and in my book World After Capital that we need to be vigilant and defend democracy. Many people are taking the Brexit vote as evidence that direct democracy is a bad idea. While I am not necessarily a strong advocate for direct democracy I do think this conclusion is flawed. The UK does not have a direct democracy culture. In fact this is only the third referendum ever held in the UK! Why does this matter? Because if you want any shot at direct democ...

I went to bed last night at a time when some of the early results started to indicate that Brexit might happen and woke up to that reality. Here are some thoughts that are kicking around my head: 1. The results are another example of how easy it is to underestimate the level of frustration that has accumulated in parts of the population. The better the system is working for you the easier it is to make this mistake. The US presidential election is another clear example. 2. The easiest and mos...

I went to bed last night at a time when some of the early results started to indicate that Brexit might happen and woke up to that reality. Here are some thoughts that are kicking around my head: 1. The results are another example of how easy it is to underestimate the level of frustration that has accumulated in parts of the population. The better the system is working for you the easier it is to make this mistake. The US presidential election is another clear example. 2. The easiest and mos...

Yesterday I attended MongoDB World here in Manhattan. There was a huge turnout and excellent sessions but the most exciting part of the day for me was the announcement of MongoDB Atlas. Atlas is MongoDB as a service (part of the DBaaS, data base as a service, category). This means you no longer have to worry about configuring servers, you get backup with point-in-time recovery, and your cost is usage based. The reason I am especially excited about this is because we are beginning to come back...

Yesterday I attended MongoDB World here in Manhattan. There was a huge turnout and excellent sessions but the most exciting part of the day for me was the announcement of MongoDB Atlas. Atlas is MongoDB as a service (part of the DBaaS, data base as a service, category). This means you no longer have to worry about configuring servers, you get backup with point-in-time recovery, and your cost is usage based. The reason I am especially excited about this is because we are beginning to come back...

When we first invested in Wattpad in 2011, we were excited about the community for writing and reading stories that was growing all around the world. Much as happened since then, including the publication of After which was a breakout hit and is being developed into a movie. Based in part on the success of After, the company launched Wattpad Studios to deepen collaboration with the entertainment industry. Today, Wattpad is announcing the first such partnership: a co-operation with Turner. M. ...

When we first invested in Wattpad in 2011, we were excited about the community for writing and reading stories that was growing all around the world. Much as happened since then, including the publication of After which was a breakout hit and is being developed into a movie. Based in part on the success of After, the company launched Wattpad Studios to deepen collaboration with the entertainment industry. Today, Wattpad is announcing the first such partnership: a co-operation with Turner. M. ...

The Star Trek replicator stands as the ultimate dream of on-demand manufacturing. The bad news is that despite advances in 3D printing we are many breakthroughs (including nearly abundant energy) away from realizing that dream. The good news is that we are finally finding ourselves on the cusp of a paradigm shift in manufacturing away from mass production to fast, low cost, small series (including single part) capabilities. The shift is being led by a new crop of startups, including Plethora ...

The Star Trek replicator stands as the ultimate dream of on-demand manufacturing. The bad news is that despite advances in 3D printing we are many breakthroughs (including nearly abundant energy) away from realizing that dream. The good news is that we are finally finding ourselves on the cusp of a paradigm shift in manufacturing away from mass production to fast, low cost, small series (including single part) capabilities. The shift is being led by a new crop of startups, including Plethora ...

Yesterday we publicly announced our 2016 fund and with it an evolution that has taken place behind the scenes at USV. Andy and I are now the managing partners with Fred, Brad and John continuing to invest and participate fully in the firm. John’s post and Fred’s post explain this in more detail. So instead of also writing about this change, I want to reflect on what I have learned from the past and share what I am excited about for the future. I have now spent over two decades in and around s...

Yesterday we publicly announced our 2016 fund and with it an evolution that has taken place behind the scenes at USV. Andy and I are now the managing partners with Fred, Brad and John continuing to invest and participate fully in the firm. John’s post and Fred’s post explain this in more detail. So instead of also writing about this change, I want to reflect on what I have learned from the past and share what I am excited about for the future. I have now spent over two decades in and around s...

As I wrote in my earlier blog post, VR is something that needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Once you do experience it, get past the initial amazing fascination and start playing games a fairly glaring problem reveals itself: how to navigate the amazing worlds that are all around you. Yes, there is some limited motion tracking but it tends to be constrained to whatever space you may have in your room, which tends to be a few square meters at best (and when you reach the edge of y...

As I wrote in my earlier blog post, VR is something that needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Once you do experience it, get past the initial amazing fascination and start playing games a fairly glaring problem reveals itself: how to navigate the amazing worlds that are all around you. Yes, there is some limited motion tracking but it tends to be constrained to whatever space you may have in your room, which tends to be a few square meters at best (and when you reach the edge of y...

Both individually and collectively we learn more from our failures than from our successes. Failures make us question our assumptions, successes generally don’t. I therefore welcome the hack of the DAO (even if I wind up losing the 0.5 BTC I had converted to Ether and invested). It is exposing a lot of assumptions and that is the path to learning. The hack will not be the end of smart contracts or blockchains. Instead it will be more like the early failures in aviation. They are what gave us ...

Both individually and collectively we learn more from our failures than from our successes. Failures make us question our assumptions, successes generally don’t. I therefore welcome the hack of the DAO (even if I wind up losing the 0.5 BTC I had converted to Ether and invested). It is exposing a lot of assumptions and that is the path to learning. The hack will not be the end of smart contracts or blockchains. Instead it will be more like the early failures in aviation. They are what gave us ...