Nick Grossman

Verified Personal Content

8 months ago

For the last 15 or so years, I’ve been blogging occasionally on this website. Unfortunately, towards the end of last year, I lost control of my...

Bitcoin as Battery

10 months ago

One of my favorite things about crypto is that, every so often, your conception of what it is changes. Bitcoin at first was “weird internet...

Two Screens for Teachers

Dec 14 2020

Sometimes, an answer to a hard problem is so simple and elegant that you’re surprised it wasn’t obvious earlier. Two Screens for Teachers...

No Wasted Footsteps

Sep 23 2020

This summer, we moved into a new house. Moving is a lot of work. As part of moving out of our old house, we got rid of a lot of junk that we had...

Hardware-based Identity

Jul 31 2020

I’ve written before about how re-structuring identity is one of the most interesting opportunities on the web today. Today’s identity...

The Beauty of Focus

Jul 27 2020

It has been a stressful year, in so many ways. This morning, I opened up my Calm app to attempt to resurrect my meditation habit. I have had an...

Second Chance Studios

Jul 2 2020

Several years ago, I started volunteering at Defy Ventures, a program that helps formerly incarcerated individuals start their own businesses...

The Slow Hunch

Jun 30 2020

One of my favorite ideas from the last 10 years is “The Slow Hunch” which my friend Steven Johnson popularized in his book Where Good...

The 1k Project

Jun 11 2020

It has been a long few months, and many people’s lives have been turned upside down in untold ways. One way to help is through the 1k Project...

Listening

Jun 3 2020

In the wake of the events of the past few weeks, I am trying to focus my efforts on listening. Here are some things I’m listening to: Dear...

Quarantine Creativity

Apr 3 2020

Continuing to look for glimmers of hope and positivity in the middle of this crisis, one area that is for sure glimmering is at-home creativity. I...

Post-COVID: Which Behaviors Will Stick?

Mar 24 2020

It’s an overwhelming time right now. Everyone in the world is focused on COVID-19, and to varying degrees, is changing the way they live. From...

The Great Shift to Video

Mar 17 2020

It has been astonishing (and largely encouraging) to see nearly every activity that can be shifted to video begin to go there. Over the past few...

Simple Systems

Mar 9 2020

I think a lot about systems — for personal organization, for business automation, for urban information, for financial infrastructure, for the...

Forcing Change

Mar 2 2020

I’m supposed to be in Europe this week to speak at a conference and attend another one, but I decided to stay home, to be safe. I am hearing...

Bird by Bird

Feb 24 2020

Sometimes things can get overwhelming. Tasks can seem too big to even begin. This, of course, is not true. Every journey begins with a single step...

Cryptographic Identity

Feb 17 2020

Last week I wrote about the inherent tension between data portability and privacy, and suggested that one solution would be an exportable...

Data Portability and Privacy

Feb 15 2020

Earlier this week, I spoke at a Justice Department / Stanford conference about antitrust issues in the tech sector. Our panel included Patricia...

Proof of Transfer (PoX)

Feb 10 2020

Last week, the Blockstack team formally rolled out their proposal for a new mining mechanism for the Stacks blockchain called Proof of Transfer (PoX)...

The Friendly Wake-up Call

Feb 3 2020

Last year around this time, I had a major medical scare which shook me pretty hard. The details don’t matter, but the takeaway was that...