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

Trust and fairness

I was at an event last night, where the moderator, Preeti Varathan from QZ observed that there seemed to be a lot of cynicism in the blockchain / crypto space — in other words, that the whole thing was essentially premised on a distrust of existing systems (fiat currencies, large internet companies, etc). It’s an… Continue reading

Web platforms as regulatory systems

This is part 3 in a series of posts I’m developing into a white paper on “Regulation 2.0” for the Program on Municipal Innovation Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  For many tech industry readers of this blog, these ideas may seem obvious, but they are not intended for you!  They are meant to help bring… Continue reading

Technological revolutions and the search for trust

For the past several years, I have been an advisor to the Data-Smart City Solutions initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  This is a group tasked with helping cities consider how to govern in new ways using the volumes of new data that are now available.  An adjacent group at HKS is the… Continue reading

Bureaucracy and Trust

Yesterday, I spent the day at a meeting on “city innovation” at Harvard’s Kennedy School, with 30 or so CIOs, CTOs, and other technology executives from around the country. I did a short presentation on predictive analytics and cities (slides here) — thanks so much to everyone who sent in comments and who emailed me… Continue reading