Writing

I have watched so many leaders over the years in my various roles as lead investor, board member, board chair, investor, and advisor. And one thing I have learned from this front-row seat is that leading from the heart is [...]  Read more

The first project launched this week on our portfolio company Blackbird ‘s platform. It is a friends and family program at a restaurant in Williamsburg Brooklyn called Gertie . Blackbird wrote about it today on their excellent Supersonic blog : [...]  Read more

USV is an investor in Bolster , a marketplace for fractional and full-time executive talent for startups and growth companies. This week Bolster launched a daily short (5min) podcast and email with actionable insights and advice from founders, operators, and [...]  Read more

Mike Zamansky is the person who got me interested in K12 Computer Science Education in NYC, a cause I have now contributed almost fifteen years of my life to. Our family’s public charity, Gotham Gives , has been funding the [...]  Read more

Last Thursday, three new blog posts hit USV.com announcing our three new analysts: This is our tradition at USV. When someone starts at USV, we ask them to write a post on the USV blog introducing themselves. This helps founders [...]  Read more

I saw Dan Primack assert that the venture capitalist’s customer is their limited partners in this tweet about the Citizen app, the recap, and their VCs: Regular reminder that, ultimately, VC funds works for their limited partners, not for their [...]  Read more

When a new technology comes to market, we often look for “native” applications of that technology. What is a “native” AI application? What is a “native” Web3 application? I have not seen a better articulation of “native” than my partner [...]  Read more

First and foremost, this is not tax advice. I am not a tax advisor and you should never take anything you read here as tax advice. If you read something here that makes you think you should take some tax-related [...]  Read more

I’d guess that upwards of half of USV’s portfolio companies have changed the name of their company during their lifetime. It is not hard to understand why. Founders start out with an idea and not much more. By the time [...]  Read more