Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds but the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote goes on to refer to Pythagoras, Socrates and Newton and so may it doesn’t refer to logical consistency but rather to the ability to learn from new information and form a new opinion based on that. Be that as it may (any Emerson scholars here?) there seems to me a logical inconsistency in the arguments of many staunch privacy advocates. They want to be simultaneously pro strong privacy yet anti DRM and pro Gener...

I have been meaning to write this post ever since I read about Tim Cook’s speech on how Apple protects its customers’ privacy. Since then there have been posts arguing that Google’s (and others’) approach has merits because it allows for creating a better customer experience and also because it supports free services that are accessible by more people. But neither convenience nor price is the most important tradeoff here. Instead it is the limitations on general purpose computing that Apple i...

Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds but the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote goes on to refer to Pythagoras, Socrates and Newton and so may it doesn’t refer to logical consistency but rather to the ability to learn from new information and form a new opinion based on that. Be that as it may (any Emerson scholars here?) there seems to me a logical inconsistency in the arguments of many staunch privacy advocates. They want to be simultaneously pro strong privacy yet anti DRM and pro Gener...

I have been meaning to write this post ever since I read about Tim Cook’s speech on how Apple protects its customers’ privacy. Since then there have been posts arguing that Google’s (and others’) approach has merits because it allows for creating a better customer experience and also because it supports free services that are accessible by more people. But neither convenience nor price is the most important tradeoff here. Instead it is the limitations on general purpose computing that Apple i...

The greatest trick Uber ever pulled was to convince regulators that it is an open technology platform. That trick may no longer work if the California verdict that some Uber drivers are employees is upheld (I am assuming that the company will appeal the decision). For disclosure, USV has two related investments with Hailo and Sidecar. Both companies have struggled and to no small degree because they did not pull the same trick. Hailo focuses primarily on the licensed market where rates are se...

The greatest trick Uber ever pulled was to convince regulators that it is an open technology platform. That trick may no longer work if the California verdict that some Uber drivers are employees is upheld (I am assuming that the company will appeal the decision). For disclosure, USV has two related investments with Hailo and Sidecar. Both companies have struggled and to no small degree because they did not pull the same trick. Hailo focuses primarily on the licensed market where rates are se...

I have been writing a lot about the impact of technology on the labor market, arguing that we need a Universal Basic Income. My basic premise is that technological progress is making it harder and harder for people to earn enough to cover their basic needs. Across these posts I have encountered a set of objections to the idea that technology can cause under- or even unemployment. While I have addressed these elsewhere in separate posts I thought it would be a good idea to pull them together h...

I have been writing a lot about the impact of technology on the labor market, arguing that we need a Universal Basic Income. My basic premise is that technological progress is making it harder and harder for people to earn enough to cover their basic needs. Across these posts I have encountered a set of objections to the idea that technology can cause under- or even unemployment. While I have addressed these elsewhere in separate posts I thought it would be a good idea to pull them together h...

We all know that valuations in the private markets are high at the moment and generally ahead of public market valuations. There are multiple reasons for this including principal agent issues in venture capital and most importantly the potential for exponentially increasing returns in network effects businesses. The one I want to focus on today though is a potentially wrong assumption about long run profitability. Craigslist has not invested in a native mobile experience and as a result there...

We all know that valuations in the private markets are high at the moment and generally ahead of public market valuations. There are multiple reasons for this including principal agent issues in venture capital and most importantly the potential for exponentially increasing returns in network effects businesses. The one I want to focus on today though is a potentially wrong assumption about long run profitability. Craigslist has not invested in a native mobile experience and as a result there...

The first week on my first job after college I came into work super early and left super late. At the end of the week my then boss called me into his office and said: “it’s great that you are so enthusiastic about this job, but you are setting a high bar for everyone’s expectation of you — what will they think when you come in a bit later next week?” I have never forgotten that because it embodies a critical lesson: what others expect of us is in no small part determined by our own behavior (...

The first week on my first job after college I came into work super early and left super late. At the end of the week my then boss called me into his office and said: “it’s great that you are so enthusiastic about this job, but you are setting a high bar for everyone’s expectation of you — what will they think when you come in a bit later next week?” I have never forgotten that because it embodies a critical lesson: what others expect of us is in no small part determined by our own behavior (...

We spend a lot of time in tech inventing and building new things. Some people are perfectly happy doing so without needing a deeper reason — some simply want success, others wealth, and many are excited about the potential to make the world a better place. Still I am struck by an undercurrent of dissatisfaction even among people who have accomplished a lot. I attribute that to the lack of a deeper purpose. Few people in tech seem to accept an easy religious answer to the question of why we ar...

We spend a lot of time in tech inventing and building new things. Some people are perfectly happy doing so without needing a deeper reason — some simply want success, others wealth, and many are excited about the potential to make the world a better place. Still I am struck by an undercurrent of dissatisfaction even among people who have accomplished a lot. I attribute that to the lack of a deeper purpose. Few people in tech seem to accept an easy religious answer to the question of why we ar...

This past Saturday was Video Hackday in New York City. It had been organized by the team at Ziggeo with the help from many others, including a great roster of sponsors. I enjoyed participating and wrote a little hack that you can see here. Even though I am pretty rusty as a developer, I managed to write something that let’s anyone ask a written question (which then lives at its own URL – all handled via Firebase) and others can answer by recording a video response (recording and playback from...

This past Saturday was Video Hackday in New York City. It had been organized by the team at Ziggeo with the help from many others, including a great roster of sponsors. I enjoyed participating and wrote a little hack that you can see here. Even though I am pretty rusty as a developer, I managed to write something that let’s anyone ask a written question (which then lives at its own URL – all handled via Firebase) and others can answer by recording a video response (recording and playback from...

I have been telling lots of people that I am writing a book about our transition past the industrial economy. If you have been reading Continuations for a while you know that this has been the subject of much of my writing here. So why write a book? For starters I greatly enjoy reading books so the idea of writing one is appealing. But what is the goal, what am I trying to accomplish with the book? The key reason is that I am trying to influence where we are headed. Earlier this week I tweete...

I have been telling lots of people that I am writing a book about our transition past the industrial economy. If you have been reading Continuations for a while you know that this has been the subject of much of my writing here. So why write a book? For starters I greatly enjoy reading books so the idea of writing one is appealing. But what is the goal, what am I trying to accomplish with the book? The key reason is that I am trying to influence where we are headed. Earlier this week I tweete...

Tonight I will be participating in a panel discussion about Universal Basic Income. One of the key arguments for UBI is that we need to decouple people’s ability to meet their basic needs from traditional work because of the rise of automation. This is the case I make in my TEDx talk. But there is another way of framing the problem that has been on my mind. It starts with my contention that the current transition is as profound as the ones from the forager age to the agrarian age and from the...

Tonight I will be participating in a panel discussion about Universal Basic Income. One of the key arguments for UBI is that we need to decouple people’s ability to meet their basic needs from traditional work because of the rise of automation. This is the case I make in my TEDx talk. But there is another way of framing the problem that has been on my mind. It starts with my contention that the current transition is as profound as the ones from the forager age to the agrarian age and from the...