Writing

USV occasionally engages in debate on public policy issues that impact the freedom to innovate and the health of the web. During the past year, we have advocated in favor of the FCC's 2015 open internet rules (aka "net neutrality") [...]  Read more

Today the FCC is expected to approve its latest open internet rules, concluding the latest (but certainly not last) round in this now decade-long fight. We believe -- along with many others -- that this set of rules will help [...]  Read more

America's idea of itself is inextricably tied to the opening of the American West. In the 19th century America embraced the entrepreneurs, and rugged individuals who sought to reinvent themselves by going west.  Joe Manchin seems to have forgotten who [...]  Read more

Today, we have joined a large and diverse group of companies, non-profits and consumer advocates in an open letter urging the US government to allow internet and telecom companies to freely report statistics on government surveillance requests.As we've discussed before, [...]  Read more

This week, Senator Schumer introduced legislation that would take a whack at patent trolls: the Patent Quality Improvement Act aims to make it easier and cheaper for companies facing spurious infringement suits to defend themselves. This is not a complete [...]  Read more

Today we are excited to bring together a group of thinkers and doers to USV to discuss how networks are transforming our society and economy Read more

Yesterday Twitter announced that they plan to amend the assignments agreements that they sign with their employees. They call this proposed amendment the Innovator's Patent Agreement. I've been aware of this effort inside of Twitter for a while and I [...]  Read more

Last night, I had the honor of speaking at the Center For Democracy and Technology's 2012 Annual Dinner. Here is what I shared with the audience:I started working in technology 30 years ago and for most of that time thought [...]  Read more

We have previously written about why the Protect IP Act (PIPA) is bad for innovation. The same is true of the House version of this bill which is called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In fact, SOPA goes beyond [...]  Read more