Writing

At USV, our climate thesis is about both mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis. One way we can adapt to the climate crisis is by building a more resilient energy supply system. Demand Response is one of many approaches [...]  Read more

Nuclear power (both fission and fusion) has the potential to provide much of the energy the world needs without the damaging effects of carbon emissions which are warming our planet. And yet nuclear power is politically unpopular in many parts [...]  Read more

I’ve always been interested in tapping into the “crowd” to fund things that need to happen and that our current institutions can’t figure out how to support. Our investment in Kickstarter back in 2009 is an excellent example of that. [...]  Read more

As we all prepare for the fall back to school/back to work season, I thought I’d touch on a topic that has been top of mind for me for the last six months. The covid pandemic taught many of us [...]  Read more

We like to do a lot of deep dives at USV. We pick areas that we think will present interesting investment opportunities over the next five to ten years and then spend time researching them. We like to talk to [...]  Read more

Joe Hovde wrote a blog post about AVC last week. He analyzed all of the blog posts on AVC to find trends and other interesting tidbits. He charted the number of posts a month I have written here over the [...]  Read more

I recently read Joseph Tainter’s outstanding book “The Collapse of Complex Civilizations,” which I recommend . It should be required reading for all politicians. Tainter’s theory is one of diminishing returns to bureaucracy, which we are clearly experiencing across many [...]  Read more

I recently read Joseph Tainter’s outstanding book “The Collapse of Complex Civilizations,” which I recommend . It should be required reading for all politicians. Tainter’s theory is one of diminishing returns to bureaucracy, which we are clearly experiencing across many [...]  Read more

In about a month, an important moment will happen in the world of crypto/web3. The Ethereum blockchain will move from a proof of work consensus mechanism to a proof of stake consensus mechanism. This event is known as “The Merge” [...]  Read more