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.