As more regular readers of Continuations will know I have been working on a book that pulls together many of the ideas I have been writing about here. So where does this effort stand? The good news is that over the summer I have produced a 120 page draft together with another writer. The bad news is that I know everything that’s wrong with that draft and it’s a lot. Some problems are small, such as inconsistent tone of voice as there are two writers. Others are large, such as missing sections...

This time in my Ask Me Anything series, I got a tough question about what kind of institutions we need to provide fairness in the age of the Internet. For example akin to what Public Libraries were in the age of books: These three freedoms are what I spend a lot of pages on in my book draft. They are in a way the opposite of institutions. In some ways the reason is that I think most existing institutions are broken and need to gradually be replaced with something quite different and I want pe...

As more regular readers of Continuations will know I have been working on a book that pulls together many of the ideas I have been writing about here. So where does this effort stand? The good news is that over the summer I have produced a 120 page draft together with another writer. The bad news is that I know everything that’s wrong with that draft and it’s a lot. Some problems are small, such as inconsistent tone of voice as there are two writers. Others are large, such as missing sections...

This time in my Ask Me Anything series, I got a tough question about what kind of institutions we need to provide fairness in the age of the Internet. For example akin to what Public Libraries were in the age of books: These three freedoms are what I spend a lot of pages on in my book draft. They are in a way the opposite of institutions. In some ways the reason is that I think most existing institutions are broken and need to gradually be replaced with something quite different and I want pe...

Capital is no longer scarce. This is an assertion I made a while back in my post “Land, Capital, Attention: This Time it Is the Same.” Today I want to elaborate on that a bit. Estimates put global investible capital at north of $100 trillion. Global GDP by comparison is around $80 trillion and as an approximation global gross output is likely around $160 trillion. It is important to keep in mind that the capital needed to just operate a steady state economy is meaningfully less than gross out...

Capital is no longer scarce. This is an assertion I made a while back in my post “Land, Capital, Attention: This Time it Is the Same.” Today I want to elaborate on that a bit. Estimates put global investible capital at north of $100 trillion. Global GDP by comparison is around $80 trillion and as an approximation global gross output is likely around $160 trillion. It is important to keep in mind that the capital needed to just operate a steady state economy is meaningfully less than gross out...

I have stayed away from commenting on Trump because I prefer to address issues rather than individual politicians. But Trump’s call yesterday to block the entry of all Muslims into the US requires a broad based response. Even Dick Cheney came out saying that this “goes against everything we stand for” (and this from the man who supported torture). I am an immigrant to the United States and one of the things that most attracted me was the profound sense of freedom. The freedom to study where a...

I have stayed away from commenting on Trump because I prefer to address issues rather than individual politicians. But Trump’s call yesterday to block the entry of all Muslims into the US requires a broad based response. Even Dick Cheney came out saying that this “goes against everything we stand for” (and this from the man who supported torture). I am an immigrant to the United States and one of the things that most attracted me was the profound sense of freedom. The freedom to study where a...

If you are like me and use your phone as your only camera, then eventually you wind up with thousands of pictures in your camera roll. That often means that when you want to show off a specific picture to friends or share it via email you wind up swiping furiously to find it. That stops today (ok, today if you are on iOS and you’ll have to wait a bit for Android). Just download the Forevery Photo App.The app is powered by our portfolio company Clarifai’s image and video recognition technology...

If you are like me and use your phone as your only camera, then eventually you wind up with thousands of pictures in your camera roll. That often means that when you want to show off a specific picture to friends or share it via email you wind up swiping furiously to find it. That stops today (ok, today if you are on iOS and you’ll have to wait a bit for Android). Just download the Forevery Photo App.The app is powered by our portfolio company Clarifai’s image and video recognition technology...

Investment contracts, whether for debt or equity, cannot possibly cover all foreseeable future contingencies. This means at varying points in the life of a company there will be bargaining situations. How well everyone does in this depends on the possibility of a hold-up, which allows one party to extract better economics for itself. The term hold-up comes from crime, meaning a robbery, but in economics it used for entirely legal situations, which might still leave you feeling as in “we were ...

Investment contracts, whether for debt or equity, cannot possibly cover all foreseeable future contingencies. This means at varying points in the life of a company there will be bargaining situations. How well everyone does in this depends on the possibility of a hold-up, which allows one party to extract better economics for itself. The term hold-up comes from crime, meaning a robbery, but in economics it used for entirely legal situations, which might still leave you feeling as in “we were ...

For your Sunday viewing pleasure, here are the next two questions and answers in my Ask Me Anything series. Question 3 is about an area of physics – dark matter and energy – that I don’t know anything about: If you want to add your own question, you can do so here.

For your Sunday viewing pleasure, here are the next two questions and answers in my Ask Me Anything series. Question 3 is about an area of physics – dark matter and energy – that I don’t know anything about: If you want to add your own question, you can do so here.

One of the amazing things that’s happening in the world is that technologies that once were expensive and available only to large companies can now be used by individuals. For instance, we all carry supercomputers in our pockets in the form of smartphones. Today I am excited to be announcing that USV invested in Munich-based SimScale, which makes engineering simulations available to anyone with a web browser. You can read more about SimScale in my USV blog post.

One of the amazing things that’s happening in the world is that technologies that once were expensive and available only to large companies can now be used by individuals. For instance, we all carry supercomputers in our pockets in the form of smartphones. Today I am excited to be announcing that USV invested in Munich-based SimScale, which makes engineering simulations available to anyone with a web browser. You can read more about SimScale in my USV blog post.

Have you ever been in a super stressful situation that afterwards, when things had calmed down, possibly weeks or months later felt like it was part of a dream or a movie? Well startups can be a lot like that especially around critical events such as a potential financing or sale of a company or a product launch. I have been calling it the “Fog of Startups” after the expression the “Fog of War” but as I will point out in a minute that analogy is problematic. Why did I think of this analogy in...

Have you ever been in a super stressful situation that afterwards, when things had calmed down, possibly weeks or months later felt like it was part of a dream or a movie? Well startups can be a lot like that especially around critical events such as a potential financing or sale of a company or a product launch. I have been calling it the “Fog of Startups” after the expression the “Fog of War” but as I will point out in a minute that analogy is problematic. Why did I think of this analogy in...

I recently started a new feature where you can ask me anything by recording a video. Turns out that I got two closely related questions about education and skills for a future in which machines can do more and more. Here are the questions with my answers. Question 1 I hope you enjoy watching these as much as I enjoyed recording them! And there are already more questions, so more answers coming soon.

I recently started a new feature where you can ask me anything by recording a video. Turns out that I got two closely related questions about education and skills for a future in which machines can do more and more. Here are the questions with my answers. Question 1 I hope you enjoy watching these as much as I enjoyed recording them! And there are already more questions, so more answers coming soon.