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Playing Your Role
Fred Wilson – Dec 17, 2017
Investing in many different companies, with different founders, different cultures, and different missions requires the ability to adapt to each and every one. I like to think about it as playing a role in a play. Even though I am [...] Read more
SoundCloud Home
Fred Wilson – Dec 14, 2017
Our portfolio company SoundCloud , which makes one of the most popular apps in the world , is launching a new Home experience in it’s mobile apps today. SoundCloud is the first place musicians post their music and it is [...] Read more
How to Hire for HR: Lessons from 18 USV People Ops Leaders
Bethany Crystal – Dec 13, 2017
Within our USV portfolio network, we are continuously looking for opportunities to “level up” the collective knowledge across the companies that we work with every day. As these businesses evolve and grow their customers and user communities, we also have the unique opportunity to observe how these companies build out their organizations from the inside -- which often falls to the role of the HR and People Ops team. Read more
Return On Hard Decisions
Fred Wilson – Dec 13, 2017
I spent much of yesterday going through board decks and other year-end reports. It was an incredibly gratifying experience after a hard year. I spearheaded quite a few restructurings this year. A lot of people lost their jobs as a result [...] Read more
Doug Jones Victory: Trump is Vulnerable
Albert Wenger – Dec 13, 2017
At our house we were all refreshing our computers furiously starting at 8pm with ever increasing excitement as the evening progressed. We were absolutely thrilled when Doug Jones victory was certain. If Doug Jones can win in Alabama, the state [...] Read more
Battle for the Internet: Fight for Net Neutrality
Albert Wenger – Dec 12, 2017
Later this week the FCC Commission is expected to vote along party lines to do away with net neutrality in the US. I have written extensively about why net neutrality is important for innovation. I will not rehash any of [...] Read more
AlphaZero Chess: Computers Will Think Differently from Humans, Letting them Outperform Us (on Many Tasks)
Albert Wenger – Dec 11, 2017
Planes fly differently from birds. Cars move differently from horses. And computers think differently from humans. That had always been my assumption but if you needed more proof, Google’s AlphaZero program, which had previously shown novel ways of playing Go, [...] Read more
Proceed With Caution
Fred Wilson – Dec 10, 2017
The CEO of Coinbase , a company that I am on the Board of, wrote a note to all of their customers on Friday. That note, which he also posted to his blog , urged caution in the trading of [...] Read more
Video Of The Week: Samir Desai at Slush
Fred Wilson – Dec 9, 2017
One of the most impressive startup executions I have witnessed in the past ten years is what the team at Funding Circle has pulled off. They have gone from a team of friends with an idea to the largest non [...] Read more