Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...

Intent-based Collaboration Environments
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Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...

Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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Share Dialog
Share Dialog
This is one of my favorite French sayings - the more things change, the more they stay the same.
We had a great meeting yesterday with the entire leadership team of one of the companies from our portfolio. There was a broad ranging discussion from trademark issues to strategy to business develoment. Throughout, there were two schools of thought present - that on the web everything is different versus only some things being different. I subscribe to the latter view.
Take business development for example. Caterina Fake coined the Biz Dev 2.0 term for publishing APIs and letting others just start using them, then reach out to those who do. I believe that is a great approach and has worked incredibly well for many companies in our portfolio, with Twitter being the best case in point. But it does not mean that the old form of business development has gone out the window entirely. If you only go the passive API route you are likely to leave some potentially huge opportunities untapped. Not everyone will be aware of your service or API or what they could do with it or why it would benefit them. While you are small and just getting going you may not want to bother with that, but as you grow it would be a mistake not to. Even google which is often seen as the apotheosis of API-based self service has a formidable traditional biz dev team.
This is one of my favorite French sayings - the more things change, the more they stay the same.
We had a great meeting yesterday with the entire leadership team of one of the companies from our portfolio. There was a broad ranging discussion from trademark issues to strategy to business develoment. Throughout, there were two schools of thought present - that on the web everything is different versus only some things being different. I subscribe to the latter view.
Take business development for example. Caterina Fake coined the Biz Dev 2.0 term for publishing APIs and letting others just start using them, then reach out to those who do. I believe that is a great approach and has worked incredibly well for many companies in our portfolio, with Twitter being the best case in point. But it does not mean that the old form of business development has gone out the window entirely. If you only go the passive API route you are likely to leave some potentially huge opportunities untapped. Not everyone will be aware of your service or API or what they could do with it or why it would benefit them. While you are small and just getting going you may not want to bother with that, but as you grow it would be a mistake not to. Even google which is often seen as the apotheosis of API-based self service has a formidable traditional biz dev team.
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