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Tech Tuesday: A Prioritization Heuristic
Albert Wenger – Jun 25, 2013
Startups are heavily resource constrained and so prioritization of what to work on becomes paramount. In today’s Tech Tuesday I want to share an important heuristic that many companies can benefit from. The point of departure for this the well [...] Read more
Firebase
Albert Wenger – Jun 20, 2013
Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I have always had mixed feelings about this quote because as an engineer my reaction to something really advanced like self driving cars is to want [...] Read more
In Praise of Internet Exceptionalism
Albert Wenger – Jun 13, 2013
I have been meaning to write about “internet exceptionalism” since I read a post titled “It Always Comes Down to Math” but various political and economic events intervened. The key quote summarizing the post is “but at the end of [...] Read more
Surveillance: Beware the Turkey Argument on Terrorism
Albert Wenger – Jun 12, 2013
I think it is super important in the current debate about government surveillance to separate two different arguments. First, I have stated and continue to believe that large scale secret programs without supervision and without checks and balances are unacceptable [...] Read more
Amee: Building the Network for Environmental and Financial Risk
Albert Wenger – Jun 10, 2013
At USV we look for businesses that have network effects and use the internet to do things that simply weren’t possible before. We are particularly thrilled when we can find opportunities that also have the potential of having a positive [...] Read more
Some Thoughts on NSA’s Prism Program
Albert Wenger – Jun 7, 2013
By now it is no longer a secret that the NSA has been conducting a massive data gathering effort on US citizens. Let me say right up front: doing this in secret and reviewed only in closed door hearings and [...] Read more
Internet and Income Inequality: We Need To Think Ahead
Albert Wenger – Jun 6, 2013
On Twitter this morning I received a link to a Guardian piece titled “In the digital economy, we’ll soon all be working for free – and I refuse” by Suzanne Moore. What caught my attention was not so much the [...] Read more
The Problems with CALEA-II
Albert Wenger – Jun 5, 2013
The FBI is asking for an update to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) which mandated a backdoor for communications gear. This revised version known as CALEA-II is asking for such a backdoor to be extended to [...] Read more
Tech Tuesday: Technical Debt
Albert Wenger – Jun 4, 2013
The topic fo today’s Tech Tuesday is one that every startup I have ever seen struggles with: what to do about technical debt. First off, what is technical debt? The Wikipedia page explains it as “the eventual consequences of poor [...] Read more