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Landing on a Comet: The Power of Knowledge
Albert Wenger – Nov 13, 2014
Yesterday we landed a probe on a comet. I am saying we because this is a major accomplishment for humanity. For reference, powered heavier-than-air flight was invented only a tad more than one hundred years ago. It is important to [...] Read more
From Net Neutrality to Access Liberty: Let’s Build a Coalition
Albert Wenger – Nov 11, 2014
Yesterday President Obama came out strongly in support of the admittedly awfully named principle of net neutrality. I wish he had done so sooner but will take it now. This is an absolutely critical principle to maintain in order to [...] Read more
Startups Creating Most Jobs Should Not Be A Surprise
Albert Wenger – Nov 6, 2014
About once a year there is a headline like this one from Forbes “The Surprising Truth About Where New Jobs Come From” that points to a study showing that most job creation is in startups. Now the only thing that [...] Read more
Strengthen Communities by Supporting ChangeX
Albert Wenger – Nov 5, 2014
We all live in communities and it is up to us to make our community stronger. There tends to be no shortage of people who want to contribute to that. But many find it difficult to get going: it can [...] Read more
Liberate Apps Through Protocols: Lets Update IRC!
Albert Wenger – Nov 3, 2014
One of the apps on your phone is unlike all the others: the web browser. There are many reasons it is different but here is the most fundamental one – you tell it what to connect to! Pretty much every [...] Read more
Realtime Payments Innovation: BBVA Connects to Dwolla’s FiSync
Albert Wenger – Oct 30, 2014
A lot of technology gets built through layering new systems on top of old ones to the point where some stacks look like an archeological dig at Troy. There is nothing wrong with that approach per se, except that over [...] Read more
Shared Equipment: 3D Printer Innovation (Shapeways & HP)
Albert Wenger – Oct 29, 2014
Historically when a new and initially expensive piece of technology became available, all we could do was admire it from a distance and hope that some day in the future a cheaper version would be available for all of us [...] Read more
The Cost Of Loyalty
Fred Wilson – Oct 26, 2014
In the local transportation market, we now have lots of options in addition to mass transit. Here in NYC, we have taxis, Lyft, and Uber. In SF and LA, we have taxis, Sidecar (our portfolio company), Lyft, and Uber. Around [...] Read more
What To Do (and Not) About Online Discourse
Albert Wenger – Oct 24, 2014
GamerGate has laid bare a fundamental fault line for online discourse. A. Words matter. Anyone dismissing tweets threatening violence along the lines of “sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me” is trivializing the power [...] Read more