Writing
Choose
The Power of Continued Innovation: MongoDB Adds Transactions
Albert Wenger – Feb 16, 2018
Yesterday I did a fireside chat at our portfolio company Shippo and someone asked the question how a company can continue to be successful and grow over a long period of time. My answer was: continue to innovate. A company [...] Read more
Algorand
Albert Wenger – Feb 15, 2018
We have been writing about the importance of decentralized protocols going back to 2013. Since then a lot has happened, including a run up in the price of Bitcoin (and eventually other crypto currencies), the launch of Ethereum, the rise of ICOs and with them the funding of many new projects. And yet it feels to us that we are still in what Carlota Perez calls the “Installation Phase” of a new technology. That’s the period when a market attracts a lot of capital to help build out the necessary infrastructure. Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Spurious Correlation (Part 3)
Albert Wenger – Feb 14, 2018
So the last two Uncertainty Wednesday posts have been about spurious correlation. Today, I want to give an example of easy it is to observe spurious correlation. To that end I wrote a little Python program which I will show [...] Read more
World After Capital: Digital Technology (Zero Marginal Cost)
Albert Wenger – Feb 12, 2018
NOTE: Last week’s blog post was the current introduction to my book World After Capital. Today’s post covers the first half of the chapter on Digital Technology, which discusses how zero marginal cost is unlike anything found in the analog [...] Read more
Velocity by Code Climate
Albert Wenger – Feb 7, 2018
Today our portfolio company Code Climate is launching its new “Velocity” product into public beta. The product provides teams with data driven insights into the speed of their development process. It answers important questions, such as where in the process do engineers have to wait (e.g. long continuous integration times or long wait for code to be reviewed)? Or, how much work in progress is accumulating (and how much risk does that contain)? For more examples of the types of insights provided by Velocity, you can see the product launch page. Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Spurious Correlation (Cont’d)
Albert Wenger – Feb 7, 2018
Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced the topic of spurious correlation. Since then I have discovered a site that gives some fantastic examples of (potentially) spurious correlations. Here is one: The coefficient of correlation is 0.9926, i.e. almost 1 (which would [...] Read more
World After Capital: Introduction
Albert Wenger – Feb 5, 2018
NOTE: This is the current state of the introduction for World After Capital. It provides an overview of the key ideas from the book. In case you missed it, last week’s blog post has the work in progress note and [...] Read more
Hiring New Analysts
Albert Wenger – Feb 1, 2018
We are excited to announce that we are recruiting two new analysts at USV. Analysts at USV are part of the investment team and work closely with partners both on current portfolio and potential new investments. They gain exposure to our large network of startup and growth companies, as well as insight into our investment decision process. Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Spurious Correlation (Intro)
Albert Wenger – Jan 31, 2018
In the last Uncertainty Wednesday post on Sample Variance, I wrote that “Inference from data without explanations is how people go deeply wrong about reality.” It occurred to me that the best way to illustrate this is by writing about [...] Read more