Yesterday, we had a team offsite at USV, which included a “presentation party” where a bunch of us gave 3-minute presentations on a variety of topics. It was actually a perfect window into everyone’s personality — Andy gleaned lessons about venture capital from music lyrics (of course), Albert talked about beauty in math focusing on… Continue reading
Author: Nick Grossman
Building a culture of success
My son played in a baseball tournament this weekend. His team did well, and finished as the runner-up. The team that beat them in the finals played really well, but more importantly, it was obvious that they had a strong culture of success. From the moment they walked on the field, they had a noticeable… Continue reading
The Trust Equation
This week was the annual USV CEO Summit, one of my favorite moments of every year (remarkably, this was my 8th summit, and they seem to get better and better). The theme of this year’s summit was “Trust”, which, for those paying close attention, is the anchor of USV’s investment thesis 3.0. We have been… Continue reading
Setting up a system
Like most people, I have struggled over the years to comes up with a organizational/productivity system that works for me. Disclaimer: I do not yet have it down perfectly, and am not claiming guru status. But I do have a few things that have worked pretty well, and I have noticed some things that others… Continue reading
The power of community
Community is a funny thing. It can sound like a fluffy word or concept, but it’s actually really powerful. Maybe more powerful than many things. Community is about helping people feel connected and aligned. When people are connected, they feel warm and good, and part of something bigger than themselves. When people are aligned, each… Continue reading
What decentralization is good for (part 3): growth
Picking back up the series on what decentralization is good for (part 1, part 2), today I want to focus on one of the most exciting aspects of decentralization: growth. In this case, when I say “decentralized”, what I really mean is “open and non-proprietary”. The two often go hand-in-hand. Ok, so why are open,… Continue reading
Changing your life
Just about 10 years ago, I had a migraine that lasted two weeks. I have never been in such pain; even an ER visit and a morphine drip didn’t touch it. Then, 6 months later, I had a stomach pain that just wouldn’t go away. Finally I went to the hospital, and it turned out… Continue reading
Leading vs. following
Last night I went to see RAIN, a Beatles tribute band, with my friend and neighbor Jeff. If you haven’t been to one, tribute bands/shows are kind of odd: on the one hand, typically technically/musically perfect (the tribute band can play the entire catalog of the original band flawlessly); and on the other hand, the… Continue reading
What decentralization is good for (part 2): Platform Risk
Continuing on the theme of what decentralization is good for, this week I would like to focus on one of the most powerful drivers in the near-term: Platform Risk. Platform Risk is is the risk that the tech platform that you build your product/app/business/life on will become a critical dependency, will become unreliable, and/or worse,… Continue reading
Unlocking a new skill
Over the long weekend, I spent a bunch of time with my kids doing outdoor cold weather activities. I love the winter, and I love winter sports — there is something about being outside on a cold, sunny day that gets my blood moving and makes me feel great. Those who have read this blog… Continue reading
Blockstack Hong Kong: From Agile to Immutable
I gave this talk at the Blockstack Decentralizing the World Tour in Hong Kong earlier this month: Continue reading
What decentralization is good for (part 1): Resilience
Recently, Simon Morris, a long-time BitTorrent exec, wrote a provocative series of posts on the nature of decentralization, in the wake of BitTorrent Inc’s acquisition by TRON. They are relatively short and a good read: Why BitTorrent Mattered — Bittorrent Lessons for Crypto If you’re not Breaking Rules you’re Doing it Wrong Intent, Complexity and the Governance… Continue reading
The Octopus Card
I am in Hong Kong this week for Blockstack‘s Decentralizing the World Tour (more on that in a forthcoming post). I arrived yesterday and have been exploring the city a bit. The first observation is how awful the air quality is. Holy cow. This report from Plume Labs (snapshot from the time when I took this… Continue reading
Managing digital addiction
USV’s book club book for this month is Drug Dealer, MD, by Dr. Anna Lembke, Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford Hospital – so we have spent a bunch of time recently talking about addiction. It is not a stretch to hypothesize that we, as a society, are at a moment of heightened addiction, generally… Continue reading
Paying down debt (financial, technical, and otherwise)
Debt is a complicated subject. On the one hand, it is empowering — it lets you get a quick start on something, and lets you do things that would not be possible otherwise. There are times when it is useful, necessary, and unavoidable. I think about “debt” in the broadest possible terms: times when you… Continue reading
Google Pixel Slate: first impressions
For the past week or so, I have been experimenting with the Pixel Slate, Google’s new hybrid tablet/laptop. Here is me typing this blog post right now, on the train to NYC. For a longer, more technical analysis, this review from The Verge is good. The Pixel Slate is an odd machine, and I am still… Continue reading
A Visual Guide to the Howey Test
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am not your lawyer. I have been in an uncountable number of conversations over the past few years discussing the question of what defines a “security” in the context of cryptocurrencies, cryptonetworks, and token offerings. Here is my current understanding, including a number of key questions I… Continue reading
Crypto fundamentals
Our good friend Chris Burniske was on Squawk Box this morning. I got up and watched it. You can see the video here. Of course there is interest in the crypto market right now, as it is falling hard. I suspect there are many out there who are enjoying the drop, waiting for the bubble… Continue reading
Getting hands-on
One of my favorite things to do is get my hands into something and figure out how it works, whether that’s an app, or a gadget, or a house. For example, over the past few months I have been renovating our basement, turning an unfinished, dank storage area into a playroom for the kids. Here… Continue reading
The dangers of unstoppable code
With real-time, interconnected, self-executing systems, sometimes when things wrong, they go really wrong. I wrote about this general idea previously here. Yesterday, while I was writing my post on Trusted Brands, I was doing a little searching through my blog archives, so as to link back to all the posts categorized under “Trust”. In the… Continue reading