Francis Fukuyama’s book “The End of History and the Last Man” identifies liberal democracy in combination with capitalism as the winning way to organize society. Fukuyama wrote in 1992 at a time when the data seemed to support that conclusion. The book also presents a historical framework based largely on Hegel to argue why this has to be so and why it represents an end state. All of this now looks like a premature victory march. For reasons that will become clearer in future posts, I will re...

Francis Fukuyama’s book “The End of History and the Last Man” identifies liberal democracy in combination with capitalism as the winning way to organize society. Fukuyama wrote in 1992 at a time when the data seemed to support that conclusion. The book also presents a historical framework based largely on Hegel to argue why this has to be so and why it represents an end state. All of this now looks like a premature victory march. For reasons that will become clearer in future posts, I will re...

As promised (threatened?) I am going to use Continuations to think out loud about what I believe is the beginning of a transition away from an industrial age to an information age. I know those terms aren’t perfect but that will be part of the discussion itself. Why am I doing this? First, I believe that this transition will be as important to humankind as the previous transitions that have taken place from the forager age to the agricultural age and from there to the industrial age. Those tr...

As promised (threatened?) I am going to use Continuations to think out loud about what I believe is the beginning of a transition away from an industrial age to an information age. I know those terms aren’t perfect but that will be part of the discussion itself. Why am I doing this? First, I believe that this transition will be as important to humankind as the previous transitions that have taken place from the forager age to the agricultural age and from there to the industrial age. Those tr...

Since our trip to Africa was a family vacation and I really didn’t want business to intrude I wound up not spending time with startups in Nairobi. But I did talk to a lot of people we encountered about their use of technology. Mobile communication is almost everywhere. Only when we went into more remote Samburu territory did we not have a cell signal. Many people are still using feature phones but Android is making rapid headway. An iPhone is considered to be a real luxury item and very few p...

Since our trip to Africa was a family vacation and I really didn’t want business to intrude I wound up not spending time with startups in Nairobi. But I did talk to a lot of people we encountered about their use of technology. Mobile communication is almost everywhere. Only when we went into more remote Samburu territory did we not have a cell signal. Many people are still using feature phones but Android is making rapid headway. An iPhone is considered to be a real luxury item and very few p...

I still remember how much I loved reading cyberpunk. During yesterday’s Satoshi story development I was struck by how much of the future envisioned in these stories has become a reality. Having a mysterious creator of a system of global reach that provides an important breakthrough in distributed computing is as riveting as anything I read back then. What’s even better is that it feels to me like we are in the early chapters with much more yet to come! So that got me thinking about what else ...

I still remember how much I loved reading cyberpunk. During yesterday’s Satoshi story development I was struck by how much of the future envisioned in these stories has become a reality. Having a mysterious creator of a system of global reach that provides an important breakthrough in distributed computing is as riveting as anything I read back then. What’s even better is that it feels to me like we are in the early chapters with much more yet to come! So that got me thinking about what else ...

Earlier this week I started writing about wealth and financial capital as part of examining how the various components of the industrial system are beginning to break down. I will have more to say about the financial capital portion of wealth in upcoming posts but wanted to first provide more data and more context. As was pointed out in the comments Thomas Piketty provides a lot of data that he and others collected and form the basis for his book “Capital in the 21st Century” (which I just st...

Earlier this week I started writing about wealth and financial capital as part of examining how the various components of the industrial system are beginning to break down. I will have more to say about the financial capital portion of wealth in upcoming posts but wanted to first provide more data and more context. As was pointed out in the comments Thomas Piketty provides a lot of data that he and others collected and form the basis for his book “Capital in the 21st Century” (which I just st...

While gathering up additional data for the next post on wealth, here are some thoughts on the Heartbleed security vulnerability. At USV we sent out a notice of the issue to all the heads of engineering as well as all of the CEOs. This was easy to do since as part of the USV network we have these groups pre-defined. It was immediately clear based on the severity of the issue that this requires CEO level attention. For an example of an excellent response from one of our portfolio companies, her...

While gathering up additional data for the next post on wealth, here are some thoughts on the Heartbleed security vulnerability. At USV we sent out a notice of the issue to all the heads of engineering as well as all of the CEOs. This was easy to do since as part of the USV network we have these groups pre-defined. It was immediately clear based on the severity of the issue that this requires CEO level attention. For an example of an excellent response from one of our portfolio companies, her...

Last week I introduced my view that the various interlocking components of the industrial system are beginning to break down. The first one I mentioned was that “financial markets have been allocating capital into vast asset bubbles instead of into productive investments.” To dig deeper into this claim a good starting point is to look at wealth. The following chart shows the growth of private wealth in the United States, where private wealth is the sum of household and nonprofit organizations...

Last week I introduced my view that the various interlocking components of the industrial system are beginning to break down. The first one I mentioned was that “financial markets have been allocating capital into vast asset bubbles instead of into productive investments.” To dig deeper into this claim a good starting point is to look at wealth. The following chart shows the growth of private wealth in the United States, where private wealth is the sum of household and nonprofit organizations...

We just got back from nearly three weeks in Africa spent mostly in Kenya and a bit in Tanzania. I have tons of great photos of animals and nature which I may eventually post elsewhere but for Continuations I figured I would share some of my impressions. William Gibson once wrote that “the future is already here – it is just not very evenly distributed.” That quote stuck in my mind as we experienced an enormous gradient between the bustling city of Nairobi (with 4 million or so inhabitants) an...

We just got back from nearly three weeks in Africa spent mostly in Kenya and a bit in Tanzania. I have tons of great photos of animals and nature which I may eventually post elsewhere but for Continuations I figured I would share some of my impressions. William Gibson once wrote that “the future is already here – it is just not very evenly distributed.” That quote stuck in my mind as we experienced an enormous gradient between the bustling city of Nairobi (with 4 million or so inhabitants) an...

If you ask someone who they are on the Internet, they will likely give you an email address or point to their profile on Twitter, Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn. Some people might instead reference a profile on a more industry specific network such as Behance for creatives or Doximity for doctors. Others use a personal home page provider like about.me and an even smaller fraction have their own domain. This is a pretty unsatisfactory state of the world from both an individual and a service cre...

If you ask someone who they are on the Internet, they will likely give you an email address or point to their profile on Twitter, Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn. Some people might instead reference a profile on a more industry specific network such as Behance for creatives or Doximity for doctors. Others use a personal home page provider like about.me and an even smaller fraction have their own domain. This is a pretty unsatisfactory state of the world from both an individual and a service cre...

With last week’s P=NP? Tech Tuesday will take an indefinite break. First, we are heading to Africa for the rest of March (longest vacation in 20+ years). Second, when we come back I will be using Continuations to significantly elaborate on the ideas brought up first in my post on Entering the Information Age and then in my talk at DLD on The Big Questions about the Future. I am looking forward to this new phase of Continuations and promise to return with renewed energy.

With last week’s P=NP? Tech Tuesday will take an indefinite break. First, we are heading to Africa for the rest of March (longest vacation in 20+ years). Second, when we come back I will be using Continuations to significantly elaborate on the ideas brought up first in my post on Entering the Information Age and then in my talk at DLD on The Big Questions about the Future. I am looking forward to this new phase of Continuations and promise to return with renewed energy.