Writing

2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day , an annual event supporting environmental protection and increasingly dedicated to fighting the climate crisis . Much had been planned, but due to COVID19 those plans had to be scrapped. Instead there [...]  Read more

The lockdown measures put in place have started to flatten the curve, but they are hugely disruptive and even if we were better about freezing the economy than we are, we cannot possibly maintain them until we have a vaccine [...]  Read more

Something that consistently surprises me is how many people have a fundamentally static worldview. Their motto appears to be: Things are as they are and nothing will change. Never mind that history is full of massive change. And even more [...]  Read more

There has been a lot of discussion of whether or not startups qualify for forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the SBA (part of the CARES Act). I don’t want to rehash the arcana of affiliation rules [...]  Read more

Private property has become so prevalent in the world that we rarely think about the commons. Most people consider the subway as a public good, it is part of “public transport” after all. But they are unlikely to recognize the [...]  Read more

Now that we are finally going on lockdown here in the US in order to flatten the curve  of the COVID19 crisis, we also need to take drastic measures to put the economy on suspended animation. In particular, I propose [...]  Read more

I have written a few general posts about the COVID19 crisis already. Today I want to address all of those running a company or making management decisions with a simple message: avoid generic business advice! By generic advice I mean [...]  Read more

I wrote a post about flattening the curve last week. I believe this week we will see some kind of government enforced lockdown in the US similar to the one in place in Italy, Spain and France . It is [...]  Read more

On February 25th we sent a Coronavirus Preparedness email to all of USV’s portfolio company CEOs. Since then it has become clear that many countries, including the US, have far underestimated the severity and spread of COVID19. As of March [...]  Read more