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The 40% Rule
Fred Wilson – Feb 10, 2015
I was catching up on Brad Feld's blog this morning and saw that he had posted about the "40% rule" for SAAS companies. I was at the same board meeting as Brad and came away similarly impressed by the simplicity [...] Read more
Machine Intelligence Progress is Accelerating
Albert Wenger – Feb 10, 2015
I don’t (yet) worry about a Terminator or Matrix like scenario where machines take over the world and subjugate humans. But it is useful to remind oneself of the rate of progress that has been taking place. I started programming [...] Read more
NYC Should Tax High End Absentee Apartment Buyers
Albert Wenger – Feb 9, 2015
The New York Times has been running a great series about high end real estate ownership in the city titled “Towers of Secrecy”. The upshot is that much of it is owned by people who are rarely if ever here. [...] Read more
The Carlota Perez Framework
Fred Wilson – Feb 8, 2015
I was reading William's post on the potential crash in the Bitcoin sector this morning and I thought of Carlota Perez. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of Carlota's work, her research around [...] Read more
Good News on Net Neutrality
Albert Wenger – Feb 5, 2015
Yesterday FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that he would be pursuing Title II classification for wired and wireless ISPs as a way to ensure net neutrality. This is potentially a big step forward on a topic that I have written [...] Read more
Ethics of Algorithms
Albert Wenger – Feb 4, 2015
Slightly belated we have another topic of the over at usv.com: The Ethics of Algorithms. I have written a bunch about this topic in the past, for instance when discussing the need for an opposing view reader or the danger [...] Read more
Pricing APIs: Ziggeo
Albert Wenger – Feb 2, 2015
API pricing requires striking a tricky balance between the needs of developers and the cost/profitability of the provider. I am on the boards of several companies that provide APIs as their primary business model, including Twilio, Dwolla and Sift Science [...] Read more
Secrets: Do We Really Need Them?
Albert Wenger – Jan 29, 2015
I have written on and off about my ambivalent feelings about a society where we value individual privacy over collective intelligence. Whenever I bring up this argument there is a counter to the effect of “but we need secrets” or [...] Read more
Community Ownership?
Albert Wenger – Jan 27, 2015
I am very excited about what we are doing over at usv.com with the Topic of the Week. Last week we discussed undoing incumbent marketplaces and this week it is about community ownership of applications. We wanted usv.com to be [...] Read more