Writing
Choose
Understanding Insurance Fundamentals
Albert Wenger – Mar 4, 2016
Yesterday with the NYU Stern class that I am co-teaching with Arun Sunderarajan we focused on the fundamentals of different businesses. The class is about product market fit but looking for that doesn’t mean you can ignore the economics of [...] Read more
The Endangered Critical Process in the Digital Age
Albert Wenger – Mar 2, 2016
Today marks my 8-year anniversary of blogging. I have learned so much from it and want to thank everyone who has engaged in the comments over the years. I am particularly grateful for comments that are critical and for ones [...] Read more
Announcing Blockstack: Decentralized DNS and Identity for Blockchain Applications
Albert Wenger – Feb 25, 2016
The blockchain holds great promise for developing decentralized protocols and applications such as marketplaces (e.g., openbazaar), registries for digital and physical assets (e.g. mediachain) and social networks that have no value extraction by a controlling company. Everyone who wants to [...] Read more
Trust and Democracy: The Odd Parallels between Trump and Apple
Albert Wenger – Feb 24, 2016
Confidence in the US Congress is near an all time low according to a Gallup poll on “Confidence in Institutions.” People have stopped trusting government. And government has done a lot to deserve it. Politicians have taken huge sums of [...] Read more
Key-Based Device Unlocking (Question/Idea re Apple Case)
Albert Wenger – Feb 17, 2016
There is a ton of confusion out there about Apple’s refusal to comply with a court order. The most level headed account I have been able to find is by the Register and I highly recommend reading it. The question [...] Read more
Possible Recession and Operational Excellence in Tech
Albert Wenger – Feb 12, 2016
I have not been blogging much because I have been working on my book, but many people have asked me about the markets. So here are my thoughts. Much of the recovery in the labor market since 2008 had been [...] Read more
The Future of Programming
Albert Wenger – Feb 3, 2016
I learned how to program on this Apple II over 30 years ago. Over that time period – as a first approximation – programming has stayed the same. Yes, I have learned new tools and new programming languages, but programming [...] Read more
Even If You Could Use 100% of your Brain, Machines Will Still Beat You (not just at Go)
Albert Wenger – Jan 28, 2016
So I admit that I enjoyed watching Lucy, the Luc Besson movie with Scarlett Johanssen as the eponymous Lucy, who by virtue of an inadvertent overdose of a designer drug manages to use 100% of her brain capacity. She turns [...] Read more
Foursquare: Building the Business
Albert Wenger – Jan 14, 2016
We first invested in Foursquare in 2009 when the company was just getting going because we believed that location was a native aspect of smartphones. Since then our conviction about the importance of location to the mobile experience has continued [...] Read more