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World After Capital: Patents (Informational Freedom)
Albert Wenger – Jan 14, 2019
NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital continues the topic of Informational Freedom, discussing overreach in the patent system and offering prizes as an alternative mechanism. This is timely as the patent office has unfortunately issued new rules that will [...] Read more
On Crypto and Trust Minimization
Albert Wenger – Jan 11, 2019
What does it mean to trust someone? Usually, that person (or company, or technology) can take actions that share a bunch of characteristics: the action has a material impact on us, we cannot directly observe the action or judge its [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Network Effects and Prices and Investment Returns, Oh My!
Albert Wenger – Jan 9, 2019
In today’s edition of Uncertainty Wednesday, we will look at how uncertainty in markets is highly dynamic. Something can be a sure thing for a while but not forever. There is a – potentially apocryphal – story about Ron Conway’s [...] Read more
Staying Optimistic: Happy New Year!
Albert Wenger – Dec 31, 2018
It is easy to feel pessimistic at the end of 2018. CO2 emissions are still climbing rapidly and reached an all time high in 2018, with severe weather events accelerating globally. Facebook and Twitter continue to be used for manipulation [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Geo-engineering Edition
Albert Wenger – Dec 19, 2018
I have written fairly extensively here on Continuations about climate change, including several times as part of Uncertainty Wednesday. I have also previously stated my support for geo-engineering research as far back as 2009 and again more recently in 2016. [...] Read more
World After Capital: Copyright (Informational Freedom)
Albert Wenger – Dec 17, 2018
NOTE: I have been posting excerpts from my book World After Capital. Currently we are on the Informational Freedom section and the last week’s post was on being represented by a bot. Today looks at the rolling back copyright. Once [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Leadership under Uncertainty
Albert Wenger – Dec 12, 2018
A startup founder I know likes to say that their leadership style is “frequently wrong, but never in doubt.” Often that expression is applied as a critique, such as in Cheryl Wheeler’s song Driving Home, but the founder meant it [...] Read more
World After Capital: Bots for All of Us (Informational Freedom)
Albert Wenger – Dec 10, 2018
NOTE: I have been posting excerpts from my book World After Capital. Currently we are on the Informational Freedom section and the previous excerpt was on Internet Access. Today looks at the right to be represented by a bot (code [...] Read more
Regulation for Facial Recognition Technology
Albert Wenger – Dec 7, 2018
When Brad Smith from Microsoft had called for the regulation of Facial Recognition technology in July I was concerned about where that might go, as it could easily result in stifling innovation. I was therefore relieved to see the principles [...] Read more