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WWDC Keynote and iPhone 4
Albert Wenger – Jun 8, 2010
I was really surprised that Steve Jobs did not announce more cloud capabilities for Apple during his WWDC keynote. It had been rumored that MobileMe might become free and Apple has been investing heavily in data centers. I believe that [...] Read more
More On the Carried Interest Taxation Debate
Albert Wenger – Jun 7, 2010
Last week I wrote briefly about my position in the carried interest taxation debate. Since then the debate has gotten a bit more heated with opposing posts by Chris Dixon and James Robinson. Chris argued that this is a matter [...] Read more
Back to the City
Albert Wenger – Jun 4, 2010
We have been living in the burbs since shortly after our third child was born, which makes it easy to keep track. Shockingly we are rapidly approaching a decade there! We are fortunate to have a (near) perfect setup – [...] Read more
Five (Not So) Easy Pieces of Legislation to Help Internet Startups
Albert Wenger – Jun 3, 2010
A few times over the last couple of months I have been asked what government could do to help startups. I believe there are five different areas that could really make a difference. The first two are specific to the [...] Read more
The Carried Interest Taxation Debate
Albert Wenger – Jun 2, 2010
My partner Fred has come out in support of taxing carried interest as income instead of capital gains. I agree with Fred’s position because I do not believe that this change will result in less investment in startups.Taxes generally cause [...] Read more
Final Hiring Update
Albert Wenger – Jun 1, 2010
We are excited to announce that we will shortly have two new members for the Union Square Ventures team! They will introduce themselves on this blog as soon as they are ready to do so (no additional details for now, [...] Read more
Learning from the Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Albert Wenger – Jun 1, 2010
The Deepwater Horizon accident is a terrible lesson in not testing backup plans. Yes, it is probably impossible to test the various way of trying to stop a well under exact conditions (i.e. with a gushing well), but the constant [...] Read more
The Artist is Present and Powerful
Albert Wenger – May 28, 2010
Saw the Marina Abromovic show “The Artist is Present” at MOMA yesterday. I was not a big fan of performance art previously, but was really moved by this. The combination of seeing a live performance with recording and broadcasting the [...] Read more
Margins in the Cloud
Albert Wenger – May 27, 2010
Historically in the software business high gross margins were considered essential. It is not clear to me that the same logic will apply for cloud-based services. Their cost structure might wind up being quite different. Much smaller development teams can [...] Read more