Posts from April 2019

Our portfolio company Dronebase is announcing some big news today.

They are going to be offering thermal imaging missions in partnership with FLIR, the leading provider of thermal sensors. And FLIR has made a strategic investment in Dronebase.

What is thermal imaging? Thermal imagery, which is also called infrared imagery, is the ability to see a much larger portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than what is visible to the eye. This page from FLIR’s website does a good job of explaining the technology.

If you put a FLIR thermal sensor on a drone, you can learn a lot more about buildings, equipment, terrain, etc, etc. The military sector has been doing this for years and the commercial sector is starting to use the technology a lot now too.

Here is an image of a roof captured with a traditional drone camera:

And here is an image of a roof captured with a drone using a FLIR thermal sensor:

This drone mission, recently run by Dronebase, identified water damage and leakage on this roof.

So what is the big deal here?

Dronebase offers the world’s largest drone pilot network. They have pilots all over the world who are skilled at operating commercial drone missions. And they have an API that captures information from drone missions at scale. Now enterprise customers can use their pilot network and API to capture thermal imagery. This will significantly reduce the cost and increase the availability of drone-based thermal imagery to enterprises of all sizes and locations.

If you want to learn more, you can contact Dronebase here and start using thermal imagery to improve your business operations.

I finally got around to reading the Political Advertising Report from Tech For Campaigns. My conclusion is we are going to see our phones light up with political messages over the next year and a half. Here is why:

So let’s brace ourselves for the messages that are going to start coming into our phones from politicians over the next 18 months. Mobile advertising works.

I am closing comments to this post because I don’t want to turn this blog’s comments into a soapbox for certain people and we all know who they are.

Over the last decade, the costs of scaling a company in the bay area, NYC, and many other startup regions in the US has escalated sharply. We have encouraged our portfolio companies that are located in these high cost regions to build out secondary locations where they can hire high quality engineering and other talent at lower costs. Locations in North America that have been attractive to our portfolio companies are cities like Des Moines, Indianapolis, Toronto, and a number of others.

Another approach that has worked well for our portfolio companies is to have a secondary location outside of the US, where talent can be hired a much lower cost than the US.

So it was with interest that I read this in Zoom’s IPO prospectus;

we have a high concentration of research and development personnel in China

It turns out that Zoom has most of its engineering team in China, where they can hire high quality engineering talent at much lower cost.

Look at this P&L.

Zoom spends most of its opex on sales and marketing because it has kept its engineering costs lower as a result of building product in China.

This is something to think about as you scale your company.

I wrote a post last year called The Heartbeat in which I advocated for a cadence and a rhythm in an organization.

I was reminded of that in this exchange on Twitter over the last 24 hours:

I am a fan of routines and set cadences

— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) April 7, 2019

Many of USV’s portfolio companies use an OKR process to create this rhythm in their teams. What I have learned from watching these companies and listening to how the teams talk about the OKR process is that to some extent it is “form over substance” in that the process is ultimately more important than the specific objectives and key results that flow through the process.

I am not saying that teams shouldn’t be thoughtful in setting objectives and committed to hitting them. They should.

But I am saying that the regular setting of objectives (quarterly is a time frame most companies use) and the weekly or bi-weekly reporting against them is the most valuable thing that comes from the process. It sets the heartbeat and keeps it. And that is so valuable.

Many VC firms, including USV, use a weekly team meeting, often on Mondays, to align the group, report on the week that has past, and focus on the week to come. That weekly cadence allows us to be responsive to entrepreneurs, come to relatively quick decisions as a group, and stay in sync.

Public companies report on a quarterly basis. That rhythm sets up a cadence of setting expectations (guidance) and reporting on results (earnings reports). It is not entirely different from the OKR process in a few important ways. It creates a cadence that is super valuable for execution and performance.

I am a fan of all of these processes. They set a cadence and rhythm for an organization and force decision making and provide for timely execution.

The best companies master this and working in those organizations is fun and rewarding. Setting objectives and meeting them on a regular basis is a virtuous system that brings out the best in people and teams.

Earlier this week, Kara Swisher interviewed Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker, who run NYU’s AI Now Institute.

It is an interesting and thought provoking discussion. I don’t personally love Kate and Meredith’s answers on how society should be thinking about these issues. They feel very “20th century” to me.

But regardless of what you think about their particular take on the issues, I do think we all ought to be paying a lot of attention to AI and its impact on and role in our society. It is important.

Code Society is like Schoolhouse Rock for Computer Science. They use hip hop music and videos to teach computer science concepts to diverse communities.

They are doing a $40k project on Kickstarter (and are about half way there) to create content and applications. I backed it earlier this week and you can back it here.

I am not a fan of Orthodoxy.

I appreciate the power of religion although I am not religious personally. I respect the followers of Allah, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and other religious figures. I know that the beliefs of religious people give them great comfort and a purpose in life.

What I don’t appreciate is when a person of faith believes so deeply that they cannot tolerate beliefs that are different from theirs. I call this Orthodoxy and it has led to wars, horrible crimes, and many other bad things. It is the downside of what is and should be a very positive thing for humanity.

We see this same behavior developing in the crypto sector. Bitcoin and other cryptoassets have become a belief system. That is at the core of their value. Why would I give you $5000 of my dollars for one of your Bitcoin? Because I believe in Bitcoin and want to own it.

This faith in the value and power of cryptoassets is good. It is necessary for all of the other good things that can come of them.

But like religion, there is an Orthodoxy in these communities that borders on obsession and leads some people to be extremely intolerant of any other community or cryptoasset. The crypto community calls these people “maximalists”, a term I don’t like and don’t use.

I believe that we will see many cryptoassets emerge to solve different kinds of problems, just as we have seen many different religions develop to serve different groups of people. This diversity is good. It leads to a richness of thought and innovation that moves us forward.

If someone wants to believe deeply in one thing and nothing else, we should understand and appreciate it. But when that leads to hatred, nastiness, and ridicule, we should reject it. We should call it out for what it is and we should not accept it.

Here in NYC, we are about halfway into a 10-year effort to get computer science classes into every public school building in NYC. We are already seeing significant impact and outcomes.

Most of the students taking CS classes at school live in neighborhoods in NYC where there are no tech companies and they can’t see the pathway that they are on if they want to be. That is where the Annual Computer Science Fair comes in.

This year was the sixth annual CS Fair. We invite high school students who are taking CS classes to take the morning off from school and come to the Armory in Washington Heights and meet tech companies that they could one day work for and colleges/universities that they could attend.

I spent much of yesterday at the Fair and had the honor of taking Mayor de Blasio, who has been funding CS4All since the early days of his administration, through the event. Here are some photos from what is always a fantastic day for me.

The Annual CS Fair would not be possible without the financial support of tech companies who underwrite the expenses. I would like to thank the major sponsors for making this possible.

Yesterday morning, in raw, windy, 30 degree weather in NYC, I took a walk up the Highline to Hudson Yards. As I made the turn west at 29th street, I saw The Shed emerge through the tall buildings.

The Shed is a new arts institution created to commission works from artists, both emerging and established, across multiple genres. It is all about facilitating and celebrating artistic innovation.

I got involved with The Shed about four years ago around the time Alex Poots was selected as the Chief Executive and Artistic Director. Alex is an impresario of the modern age, comfortable working across many genres and with artists of all kinds, from Grammy-winning musicians to kids he sees dancing in the streets. It is Alex’ ability to stitch all of this together and make it coherent, entertaining, and inspiring that infected me with an interest in what The Shed can be.

I have consulted with The Shed on technology matters and the Gotham Gal and I have been benefactors as well.

Yesterday The Shed was dedicated and the opening performance, The Soundtrack of America, which features performances from roughly thirty emerging black musicians, will open friday night. We will be there.

The person who made The Shed happen is my friend Dan Doctoroff. It was a proud moment for me yesterday to see Dan standing up on stage talking about this thing that he helped to make happen.

It is my hope that The Shed will have the same cultural impact on NYC that Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, and similar arts institutions have had.

It is really rewarding to get involved in projects like this. Watching the idea come together, then watching it get built, and then watching it open. It reminds me that imagination and will can achieve so much.