Writing
Choose
AI + Crypto: Best and Worst Cases
Nick Grossman – Jun 28, 2023
I think of AI and crypto as two very different, but very much related, elements of society moving from the industrial age to the digital age. At USV, we (along with lots of others over the years) have used the [...] Read more
Motivating via Excitement vs. Fear
Nick Grossman – Jun 25, 2023
My favorite song from the past two years was Chris Stapleton’s Starting Over , the second verse of which goes like this: This might not be an easy time There’s rivers to cross and hills to climb Some days we [...] Read more
Odyssey
Nick Grossman – May 25, 2023
3.5 billion people in the world do not have access to reliable electricity, and over $1T in renewable energy investments are needed in emerging markets in the next decade. Achieving this coverage can only happen if we can greenlight [...] Read more
Being in Motion
Nick Grossman – Feb 27, 2023
I find myself today flying across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, en route to Denver for ETH Denver followed by LA for the Upfront Summit . I often end up writing blog posts on planes — partially because of the [...] Read more
Beautiful Permanence & Messy Change
Nick Grossman – Feb 8, 2023
I am traveling home today from Switzerland, having been there for a week for a few board meetings (and also some amazing skiing in between, notching a life goal I’ve had since I was a teenager). Every time I travel [...] Read more
Ostrom
Nick Grossman – Dec 7, 2022
One of the pillars of the USV investment thesis is “trusted brands”, and a core component of brand trust is structural alignment. Structural alignment means that from a fundamental business model perspective, the company’s economics and incentives are aligned with [...] Read more
USV Algorand Transparency Statement, Q4 2021 – Q2 2022
Nick Grossman – Jul 2, 2022
As part of an ongoing effort to bring transparency and clarity to the Algorand project, we have published regular transparency statements on our Algorand holdings and activities. Transactions: From Q4 2021 through Q1 2022, USV sold Algos constituting roughly 20% [...] Read more
Memory as a Service
Nick Grossman – May 4, 2022
Part of the USV investment thesis is “Access to Knowledge ”. To date, most of our investing in this area has primarily been around consumer learning platforms, like Duolingo, Quizlet, Codecademy, Outschool, Brilliant and others. These platforms are generally focused [...] Read more
Ceramic
Nick Grossman – Feb 16, 2022
As my partner Brad noted in 2019, the first generation of the internet (aka “Web 1”) was built as a “stateless” system. In other words, data packets could be moved around the network, but the network itself couldn’t store them [...] Read more