Category: Blog Post
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The Top Three AGI-Proof Careers and What They Reveal About Our Humanity and The Future
I’m very interested in what society looks like if we achieve AGI but don’t end up in a totally unrecognizable utopia/dystopia. One question is what work will be meaningful in such a world. A lot of what we do today will be rendered irrelevant, but I’ve developed some conviction that…
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Volteras
One of the most exciting trends in energy is the rise of programmable power. Energy devices have become increasingly software-controllable. Developers can now build large virtual energy systems out of many small decentralized assets. We’ve been investing across the programmable power stack from foundational hardware to app-layer networks. At present,…
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You Can Just Program Biology
The Information Age was a consequence of two developments: the ability to work with information programmatically and the democratization of that capability. We are now entering a similar period in biology. We can now program life itself with the ever cheaper tools of synthetic biology. We believe this era of…
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Bell’s Inequality
I recently finished Quantum Computing for Everyone, which is a great intro to the basic ideas and math behind quantum computing. I particularly enjoyed its account of Bell’s inequality, which offers a great lesson in the history of science. In the early 20th century, physicists worked out the core of…
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Humane Genomics
We recently announced our first biotech investment at USV in a company called Humane Genomics. They engineer viruses that can be made to selectively infect different kinds of cells. To start, they’re focused on viruses that kill cancer cells (“oncolytic viruses”). The first oncolytic viral therapy to be approved in…
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Against The End of History of Venture Capital
I’ve written previously about the deep tech opportunity. While lean software startups have been a great place to invest venture capital over the last thirty years, I believe we’re living through a shift where future returns in venture capital will be more driven by companies that engage in fundamental innovation.…
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Cactos
The dramatic reduction in the cost of solar energy means we can cheaply produce clean power– but only when the sun is out. Batteries are a natural companion to solar, capable of soaking up surplus energy when the sun is shining, and using that energy or feeding it back to the…
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Presto
Electric vehicles are a prime example of how electricity will be used in more complex ways as we electrify everything to reduce carbon emissions. As batteries, they enable shifting electricity usage in time, and as vehicles, they enable shifting usage in space. At USV, we’ve been interested in facilitating this…
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The Deep Tech Opportunity
Venture History Modern venture history begins with General Georges Doriot’s American Research and Development (ARD) Corporation. ARD invested in a wide range of novel technologies, from off-shore oil and radiation detection to, most importantly, minicomputers. As Tom Nicholas notes in his VC: An American History, ARD’s value grew at an…
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Collaborative Intelligence
Humans are not simple creatures. Although we like to present ourselves as coherent wholes to the outside world, on the inside, we’re divided. Marvin Minsky argues in The Society of Mind that minds are composed of smaller agents, each with specialized roles and drives. Inside Out similarly imagines the mind…
Matthew Mandel 