Shows
The Slow HunchFred Wilson & Brad Burnham (Union Square Ventures)In this special episode of the Slow Hunch, I sat down with Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham, founding partners of USV. Since founding USV in 2003, Fred and Brad have backed companies like Twitter, Etsy, Cloudflare, and Coinbase while developing an investment thesis focused on enabling new forms of value creation through open access to networks, capital, and knowledge. Fred and Brad bring decades of investment experience, having seen multiple tech cycles from the early internet to mobile, cloud, crypto, and now AI. What makes their partnership unique is how they've maintained their intellectual curiosity and dr...2025-03-201h 15
The European VCBek Ventures’ Cem Sertoglu on avoiding the temptation of AUM and staying disciplinedToday, Andreas talks with Cem Sertoglu, Managing Partner at Bek Ventures, a global venture capital firm that recently closed a $250M fund that was three times oversubscribed. Formerly known as Earlybird Digital East, Bek Ventures focuses on founders with their roots in Central and Eastern Europe, a region Cem calls "Dynamic Europe."With over a decade of experience, the Bek Ventures team has supported global successes like UiPath, Payhawk, and Peak, the first unicorns in Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, respectively, and has been recognized by HEC as the best-performing venture firm globally since 2010. Cem shares insights into...2025-01-2253 min
Onboard - Make the most of your Startup BoardMatt Blumberg - Everyone's Gotta Have a BossIn this Episode I talk to Matt Blumberg, the co-author or "Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors", THE book on boards in high-growth companies.
He is the CEO of Bolster, a company reinventing executive search to be more founder-friendly, placing executives for everything from a project, to a fractional role, to full-time role, to a board seat, with better technology and differentiated engagement models. He sold his company Return Path in 2019 after reaching 100m$ in revenue and working with the likes of Fred Wilson from USV or Brad Feld.2025-01-1723 min
INDIE AUDIOWhere Are They Now with Joshua Schachter from Del.icio.usOnce upon a time, when MTV played music videos, their more mature sister channel, VH1, had a show called “Where Are They Now”. The idea behind the show was to track down notable artists of previous generations to see where life had taken them once they’d stepped out of the spotlight. OK boomer, what does this have to do with the indieverse specifically, and the culture of technology more broadly?In most creative fields, whether it's art, fashion, architecture, etc., there's a deeply held sense of respect, even reverence, for the innovators who came before...2024-12-201h 07
Boardroom Governance with Evan EpsteinHeidi Roizen: On Startup Governance and The Startup Solution.(0:00) Intro.(1:35) Start of interview. *Link to our first episode: E6 from June 2020.(2:18) On the origin story of her new podcast: The Startup Solution with Heidi Roizen. (4:23) The Case of the Boardroom Blow-Up. How entrepreneurs should go from 'pitching' to 'partnering' with their investors. "Entrepreneurs get stuck in pitch mode." On terms "happy ears" and "jazz handy." On the golden rule of the boardroom: no surprises. "A board meeting should be a working meeting, it should not be a performance." On "Boardzillas."(15:55) What should entrepreneurs know about how VC funds works? On VC...2023-09-051h 01
Clock Speed with Shamus MadanHow To Stand Out When Pitching Investors w/ Rebecca Kaden (General Partner at USV)In this episode, Shamus Madan talks with Rebecca Kaden about her journey into venture capital, the startup culture in New York, and the significance of network effects in startups. They discuss memorable investment meetings, tips for pitching, and how to approach VCs. They also explore the future of venture capital, efficient company building, and potential growth areas.
Today Rebecca Kaden, a General Partner at the famed venture firm Union Square Ventures, joins the podcast. USV is based in NYC and is known for thesis-driven investing in companies like Twitter, Polygon, Coinbase, Stash, Duolingo, Cloudflare, Twilio, Etsy, and more.
2022-12-1915 min
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch20VC: Coinbase's Brian Armstrong on Real vs Fake Emergencies, Coinbase's Failed NFT Launch, The Politicisation of Leadership, Why This Crypto Winter is Different From The Past & Brian's Development and Insecurities as a Leader Brian Armstrong is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Coinbase, the easiest place to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Over the last 10 years, Brian has led Coinbase to today, a public company with over 3,500 employees and revenues of over $7.5BN in 2021. Brian also raised venture funding before going public from some of the best including Fred Wilson @ USV, Micky Malka @ Ribbit, Marc Andreesen @ a16z and Garry and Alexis at Initialized. Prior to founding Coinbase, Brian was a Product Manager @ Airbnb. In Today's Episode with Brian Armstrong We Discuss: 1.) Founding Coinbase: 2022-11-0741 min
AcquiredACQ Sessions: Jason CalacanisWe kick off ACQ Sessions with the-behind-the-scenes story of All-in, from the world’s greatest moderator himself Jason Calacanis. ACQ Sessions is our new, occasional “MTV Unplugged” version of Acquired: a great IRL guest, a bottle (or two) of wine, and no script. We talk about everything you’d imagine we would over wine with JCal — All-In, bestie relationships, money & politics in Silicon Valley, who his influences and mentors have been (one surprise — the great Fred Wilson of USV!), what motivates him to keep grinding and why, at age 50+ when he could easily be winding down he’s instead speeding up in...2022-10-042h 30
曼報 Manny's NewsletterEP17｜App Store 商業模式末日已近？聊聊紐約傳奇創投 USV• Aespa 新曲與 CAWMAN 新媒體 • Elon Musk 不買 Twitter 了 • 歐盟 DMA 法將在 2023 正式上路 • 紐約傳奇早期創投：USV • USV 的投資原則三部曲 • 專注，並且對自己誠實 【推薦閱讀】 Union Square Ventures: The Thinkers AVC（Fred Wilson 的電子報） 【你可以透過以下平台追蹤《曼報》】 電子報 - https://manny-li.com/ FB - https://www.facebook.com/mannyyhl/ IG - https://www.instagram.com/manny_li/ Powered by Firstory Hosting2022-07-101h 09
Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managersUnion Square Ventures' Rebecca Kaden on their theme based investing approach, fund sizing for USV, and navigating hot marketsFollow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.This week we have Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures, who are with a doubt one of the very best venture firms in the world having backed companies such as Stripe, Twitter, Etsy, LendingClub, and Coinbase.The firm is also very thesis and mission-driven, including investing in the future by addressing issues like the climate crisis. It was founded in 2003 by Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham and currently has $1.9B in AUM.2022-02-0945 min
Nouveau DépartUne autre approche du capital-risqueBonjour à tous ! Cette édition vous donne accès en avant-première à la conversation que j’ai eue la semaine dernière avec Marie Ekeland, figure du capital-risque en France et fondatrice de la nouvelle société de capital-risque 2050. Nos échanges m’ont beaucoup fait pensé à l’ouvrage majeur de l’une de mes idoles, Carlota Perez, dont je vous propose une courte note de lecture en préambule.Carlota Perez est une économiste spécialiste de l’histoire économique et des questions d’innovation. Originaire du Venezuela, elle a commencé sa carrière dans le secteur de l’énergie et travaillé sur le...2021-01-2047 min
ACQ2 by AcquiredVC Fundamentals Part 4: Portfolio Construction & Management (with Jaclyn Hester & Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group)We continue our VC Fundamentals series with Portfolio Construction & Management — how do you build and manage a fund's portfolio as a whole, beyond each individual portfolio company and investment decision? We brought in two of the very best people in the world to help us dissect this topic: Jaclyn Hester & Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group. Jaclyn and Lindel have been early and longtime LPs in some of the best venture funds in the world: USV, True, Spark — and of course Foundry — and now also sit on the GP side of the table at Foundry. Tune in for a master class...2020-11-301h 16
Bank On ItNugget of the week - Investment clarity through a clear thesis with @USVAbout this nugget: This nugget was pulled from episode 213 from an interview with John Buttrick, One of the partners at Union Square Ventures. This nugget is on Investment clarity through a clear thesis. Subscribe to Bank On It on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio and you’ll get these nuggets delivered every Wednesday morning. This nugget is on how Union Square Ventures determines investments through a crystal clear investment thesis. Most founders and venture capitalists are familiar with USV, for multiple reasons such as Fred Wilson and the A VC blog, it’s...2020-01-1509 min
Leap TakersEpisode 4: David Lu - Learnings from starting a venture fundDavid Lu (@davidjlu) is an up & coming venture capitalist based in Sydney and Singapore, who is constantly traveling the world on the hunt for great investments. He is a Partner @256 Ventures, a global cryptocurrency VC fund, investing in a portfolio of diversified digital assets.
Previously, David founded Australia’s first student VC called, Textbook ventures. He also regularly writes academic papers around the topics of entrepreneurial ecosystems, startup roadmaps and early-stage fundraising. Forbes wrote an article about David with the title “Why Being A Young Investment Partner Isn't Always A Good Thing”.
Please follow me on Ins...2019-07-0242 minBank On ItEpisode 213 John Buttrick from Union Square VenturesEvery week the show host John Siracusa talks with impressive fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the remarkable stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with John Buttrick, partner at Union Square Ventures. USV is recognized as one of the top VCs worldwide. Current partners are Brad Burnham, John Buttrick, Rebecca Kaden, Albert Wenge...2019-04-2537 min
Piloting your LifeInvesting in startups and helping them reach their goals as an angel investor with Gotham Gal, Joanne WilsonWho is Joanne Wilson? Joanne Wilson is a New York City based investor and has had many careers. She started out in retail, eventually moving to the wholesale arena. She then transitioned to the media side of the technology world, before once again reinventing herself as an investor. She is currently an active angel investor with a portfolio of over 90 companies such as Food52, Sweeten, Vengo, Nestio, Shippabo, Flip, Clutter, and Union Station. She has been involved in numerous real estate transactions from beginning to end and continues to make investments in that world. Joanne is an investor in a few restaurants in the...2018-10-1634 min
LatinxAmerica's podcastPablo Navarro: Bridging Financial Capital and Human CapitalLatinxAmerica features @Pablo Navarro - a Latino entrepreneur who is focused on building bridges between Colombia and the US through Macondo Venture Partners. He has a passion for empowering the next generation of Latinx tech and entrepreneurial leaders. You can listen to his personal journey and his professional path from amazon to a startup and on to a VC. Some of the resources he mentions are: https://a16z.com/author/ben-horowitz/ and http://www.usv.com/about/fred-wilson and you can reach Pablo Navarro at pabnavarro@gmail.com 2018-07-2635 min
The Full Ratchet (TFR): Venture Capital and Startup Investing Demystified157. USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, the Consumer Echo Chamber & Customer Obsession (Rebecca Kaden)Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures joins Nick to discuss USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, Consumer Brand Building & Customer Obsession. In this episode, we cover: I've heard you talk about Allbirds, Zullily, and others before, can you highlight a few notable investments from your time at Maveron? Previous career as a journalist? Did you write about tech? How'd you end up joining Maveron? Why the move to USV? Fred Wilson said: "Each partner who has joined USV has done two things very well. First, they have figured how to operate inside of our shared investment thesis...2018-02-1534 min
The Full Ratchet: VC | Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startup Investing | Fundraising | Crowdfunding | Pitch | Private Equity | Business Loans157. USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, the Consumer Echo Chamber & Customer Obsession (Rebecca Kaden)Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures joins Nick to discuss USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, Consumer Brand Building & Customer Obsession. In this episode, we cover: I've heard you talk about Allbirds, Zullily, and others before, can you highlight a few notable investments from your time at Maveron? Previous career as a journalist? Did you write about tech? How'd you end up joining Maveron? Why the move to USV? Fred Wilson said: "Each partner who has joined USV has done two things very well. First, they have figured how to operate inside of our shared investment thesis...2018-02-1536 min
The Full Ratchet: VC | Venture Capital | Angel Investors | Startup Investing | Fundraising | Crowdfunding | Pitch | Private Equity | Business Loans157. USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, the Consumer Echo Chamber & Customer Obsession (Rebecca Kaden)Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures joins Nick to discuss USV's Newest GP on Leveraged Growth, Consumer Brand Building & Customer Obsession. In this episode, we cover: I've heard you talk about Allbirds, Zullily, and others before, can you highlight a few notable investments from your time at Maveron? Previous career as a journalist? Did you write about tech? How'd you end up joining Maveron? Why the move to USV? Fred Wilson said: "Each partner who has joined USV has done two things very well. First, they have figured how to operate inside of our shared investment thesis...2018-02-1536 min
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham @ USV, How CEO's Can Operationally Utilise Their Board & The Single Most Important Quality of A CEO with Andrew Parker, General Partner @ Spark CapitalAndrew Parker is a General Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Slack, Oculus, Medium, PostMates, Cruise (acq $1Bn) the list goes on. As for Andrew, he has led Spark’s investments in Carta, Kik, PanoramaEducation, Socratic, Splash, Particle and Quantopian. Prior to joining Spark in 2010, Andrew was a member of the investment team at Union Square Ventures. Before becoming an investor, Andrew did UI design and user-experience testing at Homestead Technologies and was a web developer at Groupspace.org. In Today’s Episode You Wil...2018-01-2924 min
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | InvestorsSaaStr 158: 3 Core Skills of The Best Performing SaaS CEOs & The Inflection Points In The Scaling of SaaS Teams & How To Mitigate Them with Mike McDerment, Founder & CEO @ FreshbooksMike McDerment is co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the #1 cloud-based accounting software designed exclusively for service-based small business owners. Starting from his parent’s basement, Mike has grown Freshbooks to more than 10m users worldwide and raising over $75m in VC funding from the likes of Accomplice and Georgian Partners. Mike is also the co-author of Breaking the Time Barrier, downloaded more than 250,000 downloads since its release. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Mike came to enter the world of SaaS with the founding of Freshbooks from his parent’s basement? Why does Mike disagr...2018-01-1530 min
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | InvestorsSaaStr 158: 3 Core Skills of The Best Performing SaaS CEOs & The Inflection Points In The Scaling of SaaS Teams & How To Mitigate Them with Mike McDerment, Founder & CEO @ FreshbooksMike McDerment is co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the #1 cloud-based accounting software designed exclusively for service-based small business owners. Starting from his parent’s basement, Mike has grown Freshbooks to more than 10m users worldwide and raising over $75m in VC funding from the likes of Accomplice and Georgian Partners. Mike is also the co-author of Breaking the Time Barrier, downloaded more than 250,000 downloads since its release. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Mike came to enter the world of SaaS with the founding of Freshbooks from his parent’s basement? Why does Mike...2018-01-1530 min
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch20VC: Duolingo's Luis von Ahn on How CEO's Can Scale With The Company, How VC Herd Mentality In The Valley Really Works and How Chatbots & AI Play A Role In The Future of EdTechLuis Von Ahn is the Founder & CEO @ Duolingo, the leading language learning platform with over 100m users. They have backing from some of the best in the investing world with over $100m in funding from the likes of USV, Kleiner Perkins, NEA, Google Capital and even Ashton Kutcher. Prior to Duolingo, Luis is known for inventing CAPTCHAs, being a MacArthur Fellow (“genius grant” recipient), and selling two companies to Google in his 20’s. Luis has been named one of the 10 Most Brilliant Scientists by Popular Science Magazine, one of the 20 Best Brains Under 40 by Discover. In Today’s Episode Yo...2017-10-1325 min
The Reboot Podcast#45 What's Love Got to Do with It? - with Brad Feld & Fred Wilson"Wisdom, then, is a deeper way of knowing. Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life, and the divine. Wisdom is the way that you learn to decipher the unknown; and the unknown is our closest companion. So wisdom is the art of being courageous and generous with the unknown, of being able to decipher and recognize its treasures." - John O'Donohue from "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom" We are so fortunate to welcome Brad Feld and Fred Wilson back to the Reboot Podcast. Jerry, Brad, and Fred have a friendship and history...2016-08-0159 min
The Reboot Podcast#45 What's Love Got to Do with It? - with Brad Feld & Fred Wilson"Wisdom, then, is a deeper way of knowing. Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life, and the divine. Wisdom is the way that you learn to decipher the unknown; and the unknown is our closest companion. So wisdom is the art of being courageous and generous with the unknown, of being able to decipher and recognize its treasures." - John O'Donohue from "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom" We are so fortunate to welcome Brad Feld and Fred Wilson back to the Reboot Podcast. Jerry, Brad, and Fred have a friendship and history...2016-08-011h 00
Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FSEp102 – Bitcoin halving, Bud and Pokemon Go!
Articles we discuss in the news:
1. The Financial Brand – What can banks learn from Pokemon?
https://thefinancialbrand.com/59873/banking-mobile-social-pokemon-go-app-engagement/
2. Overdrafts more expensive than payday loans says ‘which’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36746372
3. Fred Wilson says “Corporate VCs are the devil”
https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/corporate-venture-capital-investment-disadvantages-fred-wilson-usv/?utm_source=The+Financial+Revolutionist+Weekly+Briefing&utm_campaign=23e67c8e48-Weekly_Briefing_No_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbba91202b-23e67c8e48-76962253
4. Amex gets into SME lending
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160705/TECHNOLOGY/160709995/amex-challenges-square-on-deck-with-small-business-oans-online?utm_source=The...2016-07-201h 45
Fintech Insider by 11:FSEp102 – Bitcoin halving, Bud and Pokemon Go!Articles we discuss in the news:
1. The Financial Brand – What can banks learn from Pokemon?
https://thefinancialbrand.com/59873/banking-mobile-social-pokemon-go-app-engagement/
2. Overdrafts more expensive than payday loans says ‘which’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36746372
3. Fred Wilson says “Corporate VCs are the devil”
https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/corporate-venture-capital-investment-disadvantages-fred-wilson-usv/?utm_source=The+Financial+Revolutionist+Weekly+Briefing&utm_campaign=23e67c8e48-Weekly_Briefing_No_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbba91202b-23e67c8e48-76962253
4. Amex gets into SME lending
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160705/TECHNOLOGY...2016-07-201h 44
Fred Wilson's A VCThe Behavior Of Your Users Normally Doesn't Change (a post by @FredWilson)"A few weeks ago the traffic coming to the new usv.com dropped off by 20 or 30% week over week. Brian and Nick were wondering if it was related to the new design we rolled out at the end of January. They decided to take a deep dive into our analytics to see what was going on. I told them it had to be some sort of plumbing issue. Something that was hooked up to usv.com must have gotten unhooked. Because I have rarely seen the behavior of an entire user base change drastically overnight because of something like a...2014-02-1302 minFred Wilson's A VCWhat's So Special About DonorsChoose.org? (a post by @FredWilson)"So Fast Company has selected DonorsChoose.org as one of its most innovative companies and on top of that, they decided to put DonorsChoose founder Charles Best on the cover of the magazine and write a longer article about them as well. It's pretty unusual that a non-profit would be selected for such a list and highlighted in this way. But then again, DonorsChoose is a pretty unusual non-profit. I've been fortunate to have been involved with DonorsChoose for the past seven or eight years and have been on their board for the past three or four. So I thought...2014-02-1003 minFred Wilson's A VCLightweight Engagement Gestures (a post by @FredWilson)"I was on vacation with my friend John and he asked me how I used the favorite button on Twitter. I told him it is a way to tell people that I've seen the tweet when I do not want to reply. I use it in two primary ways. To signal that I saw and liked a tweet. And to signal that I saw a tweet to the person who sent it. The two are different only in that in the second case, I probably did not like the tweet but I still wanted to acknowledge it. I really like...2014-02-0601 minFred Wilson's A VCDream It. Code It. Win It. (a post by @FredWilson)"I attended a CS Teacher Meetup last night at USV. We talked about a lot of things but focused on the issue of getting more girls to code. It's an important issue that I think we are starting to make good progress on. Though not focused on girls per se, I heard about a neat coding challenge that is happening this Spring called Dream It. Code It. Win It . This is a programming challenge (not a Hackathon) aimed at High School and College students. It is organized by the MIT Club of New York, MIT Enterprise Forum, and Trading Screen...2014-02-0401 minFred Wilson's A VCiOS8, Health Data, and Open Data (a post by @FredWilson)"News is leaking out of Apple that iOS8's primary feature will be health and fitness data. Rumors are that there will be a new app called Healthbook that will track a plethora of health and fitness data that iPhones and related devices (iWatch?) will be able to collect on the person carrying the devices. This is interesting to me on a number of levels. We have been looking at this sector for a while and one of the things that has kept us (USV) from making investments in this space is the sense that all of this data capture...2014-02-0201 minFred Wilson's A VCTumblr (a post by @FredWilson)"I read this in an analyst report published on Yahoo! yesterday: We believe Tumblr is an underappreciated asset with fast growing user base and engagement levels. We think Tumblr may actually be capable of creating as much value as Yahoo! core. It's not clear to me how much value the "Yahoo! core" has so it is not possible to put a number on this statement. But it is telling. I have been using Tumblr every day for almost seven years now. USV invested in Tumblr in the fall of 2007 and we ceased being investors last year when Tumblr was sold...2014-01-3002 minFred Wilson's A VCBitcoin Tuesday (a post by @FredWilson)"There are at least three Bitcoin events that I know of in NYC today. I do not think any of them are public events but the fact that there are three in a single day is interesting to me. This morning, NYC's Economic Development Corporation is hosting a Bitcoin breakfast with some of the leading banks and financial services companies in NYC to discuss Bitcoin. My partner Albert will be attending that. Also in lower manhattan, Ben Lawsky , New York State's Superintendant of Financial Services, will be holding hearings about Bitcoin. I have been asked to testify and will do so...2014-01-2802 minFred Wilson's A VCThis For That (a post by @FredWilson)"My partner Brad, who is the conscience of USV, said something in one of our recent monday team meetings that has been rattling in my brain ever since. It was a throwaway line for him. He probably doesn't even remember it. But I do. We were talking about some investment opportunity and one of us turned to him and asked him what he thought. He said, "I generally can't get excited about anything that is this for that." What he meant by "this for that" is Airbnb for boats, or Snapchat for business, or Dropbox for videos. What Brad is...2014-01-2602 minFred Wilson's A VCYou Are Not Your Work (a post by @FredWilson)"My friend Gary said this to me the other day in an email. He wasn't talking about me but he could have beeen. Last night I went to bed thinking about my work, dreamt about my work, and woke up thinking about my work. It's been that way for me since I started Flatiron in the mid 90s. To some extent it's been that way for me since college. Fortunately I have the Gotham Gal and three awesome kids to keep me from going fully into the fire . I spent the past four days skiing wtih my family and some...2014-01-2103 minFred Wilson's A VCInvesting In Startups In Europe (a post by @FredWilson)"One of the big european tech conferences starts today. It's called DLD and my partner Albert is giving a talk there tomorrow. The last big european tech conference was LeWeb and I gave a talk there . You might wonder why we fly across the pond to attend and talk at these events. The answer, as Sten Tamkivi explains in TechCrunch , is that europe is a great place to invest in startups. Sten lists five reasons that european startups are exciting: 1) Talent 2) New Models 3) 400 million customers 4) Global skills 5) Security and privacy I agree with all of those but to me the bi...2014-01-1901 minFred Wilson's A VCWomen Entrepreneurs Festival 2014 (a post by @FredWilson)"The fourth annual Womens Entrepreneur Festival starts this evening and continues all day tomorrow. The Gotham Gal and her friend Nancy Hechinger , who is on the faculty at NYU's ITP program , are the founders and festival chairs. The goal of the WE Festival is "to sow the seeds for a community of women entrepreneurs, to expose women who have not yet taken the entrepreneurial leap to women who have." This year's theme is "be bold" and we all know that being bold is a requirement for entrepreneurship (and life I would argue). This year's event, like the three before it...2014-01-1401 minFred Wilson's A VCBitcoin - Getting Past Store Of Value and Currency (a post by @FredWilson)"Lightspeed India has a post with ten predictions for Bitcoin in 2014 . It's a good read and I agree with many of them. But prediction number 7 is the one I am most interested in right now: 7. The use of Bitcoin will evolve beyond âstore of valueâ or âtransactionsâ The underlying Bitcoin protocol makes itself applicable beyond the use cases of âstore of valueâ and âpaymentsâ. The Bitcoin foundation took a huge step in allowing meta data to be included in the blockchain. This will unlock a lot of innovation and maybe even prompt regulators to acknowledge the potential of Bitcoin, making it all the more difficul...2014-01-1302 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: usv.com daily email blast (a post by @FredWilson)"For those of you who have made a habit of visiting usv.com regularly to see what the usv community is reading and discussing, we now have a way of getting that via email. Here is how 1) go to usv.com 2) on the upper right, click "Log in with Twitter". If you don't see that option you are already logged in and can go on to the next step. 3) once you are logged in, click "Settings" in more or less the same place on the page 4) under Settings, make sure we have your correct email addres, then look for Daily...2014-01-1001 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Mutual Company (a post by @FredWilson)"I remember a time when I was growing up when many of the savings banks and insurance companies were mutual companies. A mutual company is one where the customers own the company, more or less. It seems like the concept lost favor and many of these banks and insurance mutual companies were " demutualized " in the 80s and 90s. I don't really profess to understand all the reasons and history behind mutualization and demutualization. I suspect some of you may know a lot more than me about this stuff. I started thinking about mutual companies after reading Joe Nocera's column in...2014-01-0802 minFred Wilson's A VCA Web Service For Qualified and Accredited Investo (a post by @FredWilson)"I just finished filling out a sixteen page questionnaire for an investment the Gotham Gal and I are making. I fill out this identical form about once or twice a month for various investments we make. Each time I get the form, I find a version I filled out previously in my archived email and copy the answers line by line. It's complicated and I want to make sure I answer the questions correctly. This form is created by lawyers to make sure that we are qualified and/or accredited investors. They also use this form to verify our tax...2014-01-0702 minFred Wilson's A VCNew Outlets & New Voices (a post by @FredWilson)"The greatest thing about blogging is that it has opened up so many new voices and new outlets. Just in the past few weeks, we have two new outlets, both from WSJ veterans. The All Things D team has flown the coop and has resurfaced as Recode . The formula seems to be pretty similar to All Things D, the team is intact (at least it looks so to my untrained eye) and the format is familiar. They will do a big conference to anchor the whole thing. At least right now, it seems that the only things that have really ch...2014-01-0203 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Purity Of Angel Investing (a post by @FredWilson)"Though I have made a few angel investments here and there over the years, it has never been my primary approach to investing in startups. I joined a venture capital firm when I was 25 years old and have been working at a venture capital firm ever since. I grew up in the business of investing other people's money and that is how I have gone about investing in startups ever since. Over the past five years, I have watched The Gotham Gal build a portfolio of angel investments . She has invested in almost fifty companies in the past five years...2013-12-2703 minFred Wilson's A VCHour Of Code (a post by @FredWilson)"This is CS Ed Week and this year we are celebrating it with an Hour Of Code. The idea is to get every student to spend an hour this week writing code.
If you want to do this with your kids (at home or in school), here are some resources to try:
The Codecademy Hour of Code iPhone app - download this on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and learn the basics of coding in an hour. As many of you know, Codecademy is a USV portfolio company and millions of people have used Codecademy to start learning to...2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCMobile Shopping (a post by @FredWilson)"I've been doing some holiday shopping. I like to do all my shopping online. I don't really enjoy being in stores and I like the convenience of having the items delivered to me.
This holiday season, I've been trying to shop more on mobile, both phone and tablet. I am doing this partly because I want to see what the experience is like and partly because as I spend more time shopping on mobile, I realize it's easier in some ways.
It feels to me that as a reaction to the shrinking real estate that is available in mobile, particularly...2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Personal Hangouts (a post by @FredWilson)"I have had a personal conference calling bridge number since the mid 90s. I know the number by heart. I give it out all the time via email, text, and kik. It does not require a participant code. When I type my host code, we are all connected. I have not found a better model for voice conference calls in the almost twenty years I have been using this number.
But more and more I am doing hangouts instead of calls. And I want the same experience for hangouts. It used to be possible to get a "static URL" for...2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCLarge Networks, Big Data, And Healthcare (a post by @FredWilson)"Zander posted this NY Times opinion piece to usv.com yesterday and it's been rattling around in my head since then. The author suggests that big data is coming to health care and bringing with it many issues that will have to be resolved. I am sure that is so. But I also think the intersection of big data and health care and our large networks thesis is likely to produce some interesting investment opportunities for us and some valuable health care services for consumers.
Jason Karlawish, the author of the NY Times opinion piece, writes:
This is a revolutionary...2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Disqus Thumbnail Ads"Arnold suggested we discuss these ads last week so we are going to do that. But first some background.
Disqus, which is a USV portfolio company, offers a free ad-supported service for both commenters and publishers. Their first ad product is promoted discovery which has been a link oriented product for the past year. Publishers opt into promoted discovery and share revenues with Disqus if they opt-in.
Recently, Disqus added the option for publishers who are running promoted discovery to switch from links to thumbnails. I decided to make that switch and turned on thumbnails a week or two ago...2013-12-1802 min