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Good News on Net Neutrality
Albert Wenger – Feb 5, 2015
Yesterday FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that he would be pursuing Title II classification for wired and wireless ISPs as a way to ensure net neutrality. This is potentially a big step forward on a topic that I have written [...] Read more
Ethics of Algorithms
Albert Wenger – Feb 4, 2015
Slightly belated we have another topic of the over at usv.com: The Ethics of Algorithms. I have written a bunch about this topic in the past, for instance when discussing the need for an opposing view reader or the danger [...] Read more
Pricing APIs: Ziggeo
Albert Wenger – Feb 2, 2015
API pricing requires striking a tricky balance between the needs of developers and the cost/profitability of the provider. I am on the boards of several companies that provide APIs as their primary business model, including Twilio, Dwolla and Sift Science [...] Read more
Secrets: Do We Really Need Them?
Albert Wenger – Jan 29, 2015
I have written on and off about my ambivalent feelings about a society where we value individual privacy over collective intelligence. Whenever I bring up this argument there is a counter to the effect of “but we need secrets” or [...] Read more
Community Ownership?
Albert Wenger – Jan 27, 2015
I am very excited about what we are doing over at usv.com with the Topic of the Week. Last week we discussed undoing incumbent marketplaces and this week it is about community ownership of applications. We wanted usv.com to be [...] Read more
Undoing Incumbent Marketplaces: Lowering the Take Rate
Albert Wenger – Jan 26, 2015
A big part of our investing at Union Square Ventures is to find businesses that have network effects. Marketplaces fit with that because participating in a marketplace tends to become more valuable as the marketplace grows (that’s assuming the marketplace [...] Read more
BIG and BOT Policy Proposals (Transcript)
Albert Wenger – Jan 23, 2015
Here is the transcript of my talk about a Basic Income Guarantee and the Right to be Represented by a BOT from TEDxNewYork. All of our economic theory, all of our business practice, all of our public policy, they were [...] Read more
TEDxNewYork: BIG and BOT Policy Proposals
Albert Wenger – Jan 16, 2015
In my talk at Techconomy Detroit I proposed two policy measures for dealing with the transition to the information age: a basic income guarantee (universal basic income) and what I then called the right to an API Key. At the [...] Read more
Secular Stagnation: GDP is the Wrong KPI
Albert Wenger – Jan 13, 2015
The secular stagnation discussion has a bad title and sounds wonkish but is extremely important – it is about nothing short of understanding what the economy is and should be about. If you want a lot of detail you can [...] Read more