Decentralized Finance
While we wait for the blockchain/crypto technology to scale to the point where it can be the foundation of mainstream consumer applications (games, social media, e-commerce, etc), there is a sector where scalability is a little less important and where [...] Read more
The Diverse Syndicate
Startups are generally not funded by just one investor. They are usually funded by a collection of investors; the angel syndicate, followed by the seed syndicate, followed by the VC syndicate. This gives the founder the opportunity to gain insights [...] Read more
Uncertainty Wednesday: Fooled by Small Numbers
The last couple of Uncertainty Wednesdays examined fallacies based on statistical phenomena such as imperfect correlation and the base rate. Another one of these has to do with small numbers. A famous example of this fallacy occurred when a study [...] Read more
Market, Team, Product
I get asked frequently whether it is better to back the team or the product (the “jockey or the horse”). It is not that simple in my view. When I think about the big wins we have had over the [...] Read more
World After Capital: Freedom from Wanting
NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital is the first subsection in the chapter on psychological freedom. It deals with freeing ourselves from wanting as a crucial part of exiting the Job Loop. With the extraordinary success of capitalism built [...] Read more
The Hidden Cost Of Extending Option Exercise Periods
Many people in startup land believe that the answer to the challenges around forcing departing employees to exercise vested options is to simply extend the option exercise period to the maximum (ten years) allowed by the IRS. It certainly is [...] Read more
Take back the night: Are we retreating away from tech to smaller social circles?
There seems to be a push back toward “living room” culture and salon environments, rather than a continuation of the “all-tech, all the time” movement If 2019 is shaping up to be anything so far, it’s the year in which [...] Read more
The Warren Breakup Plan
Elizabeth Warren made news this weekend with her plan to breakup Google, Amazon, and Facebook (and also Apple ). Let me first say that I am sympathetic to Warren’s position. I particularly don’t like the way that Google, Apple, and [...] Read more
Audio Of The Week: Ayah Bdeir
I wrote a bit last Monday about the 60 Minutes piece last Sunday night about getting to gender equity in STEM education. My message in that blog post was that there are many innovators in this sector and not everyone [...] Read more
