Jul 12, 2018Healthcare’s evolution: 3 major changes that will impact cost, delivery, and qualityOver the next five to ten years, the way healthcare will be delivered, measured, charged for, and paid for in the United States will significantly change. …Healthcare7 min readHealthcare7 min read
Jun 22, 2018What Most People Get Wrong About Bitcoin and CryptocurrencyIn almost everything I read or discuss about Bitcoin, the blockchain, and crypto, someone conflates currencies, commodities, and technologies. It’s led to a lot of misunderstanding, and at least a little Dunning-Kruger effect. I’ve spent much of my life studying economics in some form, and have been following the rise…Bitcoin14 min readBitcoin14 min read
Apr 20, 2018Customers — The Future of Venture Capital and AcceleratorsThere are two things a startup needs: 1. Money 2. Customers Everything else is secondary (okay fine, tertiary). The former keeps the lights on, but the latter is what makes a business. It should seem strange then that for most of the history of VC, funds have focused on providing…Venture Capital5 min readVenture Capital5 min read
Mar 29, 2018Watching the watchers(the case for an open surveillance network and a panopticoin) — Back in 2008, Adam Jackson pointed a webcam out of his apartment facing the street. He lived in an area of San Francisco — the tenderloin — notorious for its street crime. It got popular, and then the death threats started, and Adam took the camera down. At the time…Privacy7 min readPrivacy7 min read
Oct 20, 2017Leaving Silicon ValleyA few days ago I read a post by Mike Hudack about San Francisco. He called it a dystopia. He was (and is) right, and it’s why my wife and I recently picked up the pieces of our lives and moved from the peninsula to Boston. Mike was part of…Startup5 min readStartup5 min read
Aug 19, 2016The Quest for Quiet in the Open OfficeOpen offices, despite increased noise about their flaws, continue to be popular. Startups have them, and as startups are innovative, their offices must hold the secret to innovation. (N.B. I’ll share the real secret to innovation at the end of this post.) …Headphones6 min readHeadphones6 min read
Published in Posts from Emmerge·Jun 2, 2016The Conversational Interface and the Rise of Dumb AIWith the enormous amount of hype around chat bots, and the launches of bot frameworks and APIs from Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Telegram, the rush to be an early mover has placed being involved before having a reason to be involved. …Messaging8 min readMessaging8 min read
Published in Posts from Emmerge·Mar 16, 2016Mediums Matter(or why email just won’t die) — When we started Emmerge, we had a vision of unifying email and chat into a single inbox, combining the convenience and fluidity of messaging with the openness and universality of email. It didn’t work. But it wasn’t for technical reasons. We solved those. We figured out how to deliver messages…Messaging4 min readMessaging4 min read
Published in Posts from Emmerge·Nov 16, 2015No More SilosOnce upon a time there was a system that allowed people to communicate and work together. Anyone could write to anyone else, at any time. Nobody owned it. Instead, it was based on an open standard that everyone in the world recognized. It could be saved, exported, imported, and edited…Productivity3 min readProductivity3 min read
