
Don't Die of Heart Disease
During my "hiatus" I've been doing research in a variety of different areas that interest me. After a personal experience with basal c...
The Deal
Founders have little to no diversification. They are all in on one idea, company, and mission. It's an insanely high-risk, high-reward endeavor. As founders become increasingly wary of this level of risk concentration, they begin to think about ways to mitigate it. One idea I've heard repeatedly is the notion that a group of founders can self-assemble and contribute a percentage of their equity in their company to a shared pool. That way, if they fail and one of the other founders in the grou...

Sequoia Wants It Hard
I have seen a lot of young first-time founders play it fast and loose in their fundraising processes the past several years. It’s been frothy times, so I think it brings out a lot of strange behavior. It got me thinking of when I was a young founder and the things I’d do, particularly one specific story that I tell people when I get asked “what not to do” when fundraising. Back in 2010 Steve and I launched GroupMe to much fanfare. It got a lot of attention out the gate because we built it at ...

Don't Die of Heart Disease
During my "hiatus" I've been doing research in a variety of different areas that interest me. After a personal experience with basal c...
The Deal
Founders have little to no diversification. They are all in on one idea, company, and mission. It's an insanely high-risk, high-reward endeavor. As founders become increasingly wary of this level of risk concentration, they begin to think about ways to mitigate it. One idea I've heard repeatedly is the notion that a group of founders can self-assemble and contribute a percentage of their equity in their company to a shared pool. That way, if they fail and one of the other founders in the grou...

Sequoia Wants It Hard
I have seen a lot of young first-time founders play it fast and loose in their fundraising processes the past several years. It’s been frothy times, so I think it brings out a lot of strange behavior. It got me thinking of when I was a young founder and the things I’d do, particularly one specific story that I tell people when I get asked “what not to do” when fundraising. Back in 2010 Steve and I launched GroupMe to much fanfare. It got a lot of attention out the gate because we built it at ...
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Yesterday, Matt and I published a post about vertically integrated and AI-first approaches to building companies that are transforming physical industries, specifically as it relates to accelerating the energy transition and mitigating the climate crisis. The article is a reflection of something that I've come to deeply appreciate about USV. We have conversations about topics that sometimes span a day, weeks, or months. Then, at some point, we are ready to share that conversation with the world and we synthesize it on the USV site.
My partner Andy said this phrase that I love: "USV is a conversation." I didn't understand it before I joined, but now I do. The conversation never ends. It may pause on a particular theme for a beat, but it picks back up and is in a constant state of evolution. Sometimes we've talked about something enough and the best way to move it forward is to invite the public to participate in it.
Another thing I now appreciate is how collaborative writing can be. After blogging here on my own for several years, it had been a while since I wrote articles with colleagues. Andy and I co-wrote a piece on healthcare. He has a beautiful way with words and an elegantly Socratic style. I learned a lot in the process of trying to meld our words together. The experience was unfamiliar and a little hard at first, but ultimately more fun than going it alone (and I think it yielded a better result, too). Similarly, Matt is exponentially more sophisticated than I am when it comes to everything climate related. I sent him a miserably shitty first draft that was a reflection of our internal conversations and emails around the topic, and he took the outline, evolved it, and filled it with substance.
This collaborative process is a continuation of the conversation, just on the page instead of aloud in the room. Sometimes it can feel hard to start it up, but once you're in the flow of it, it can take you to unexpected and important places.
Yesterday, Matt and I published a post about vertically integrated and AI-first approaches to building companies that are transforming physical industries, specifically as it relates to accelerating the energy transition and mitigating the climate crisis. The article is a reflection of something that I've come to deeply appreciate about USV. We have conversations about topics that sometimes span a day, weeks, or months. Then, at some point, we are ready to share that conversation with the world and we synthesize it on the USV site.
My partner Andy said this phrase that I love: "USV is a conversation." I didn't understand it before I joined, but now I do. The conversation never ends. It may pause on a particular theme for a beat, but it picks back up and is in a constant state of evolution. Sometimes we've talked about something enough and the best way to move it forward is to invite the public to participate in it.
Another thing I now appreciate is how collaborative writing can be. After blogging here on my own for several years, it had been a while since I wrote articles with colleagues. Andy and I co-wrote a piece on healthcare. He has a beautiful way with words and an elegantly Socratic style. I learned a lot in the process of trying to meld our words together. The experience was unfamiliar and a little hard at first, but ultimately more fun than going it alone (and I think it yielded a better result, too). Similarly, Matt is exponentially more sophisticated than I am when it comes to everything climate related. I sent him a miserably shitty first draft that was a reflection of our internal conversations and emails around the topic, and he took the outline, evolved it, and filled it with substance.
This collaborative process is a continuation of the conversation, just on the page instead of aloud in the room. Sometimes it can feel hard to start it up, but once you're in the flow of it, it can take you to unexpected and important places.
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