Joey DeBruin

What if we had a “US Department of Experiments” with the power to grant temporary waivers from Federal, State, and City laws — when safe and ethical to do so — for the purposes of learning what policy interventions actually work?

One of our theories is to seek out opportunities where there’s a major change. Major dislocation in the way things are. Wherever there’s turmoil, there's indecision. And wherever there’s indecision, there’s opportunity. So we look for the confusion when the big companies are confused. When the other venture groups are confused. That’s the time to... See more

So what’s the alternative? Well, novelty search is a form of non-objective search. Instead of following the stepping stones that appear to lead to the objective, simply collect stepping stones that lead in interesting directions. Focus on newness, regardless of where it leads.

I don’t think ‘public utility’ is the most useful metaphor to understand what Twitter and its peers actually are.Public utilities make sense when the product is a simple commodity, essential for everyday life, and delivered through a set of pipes that are incredibly expensive to install and maintain.

There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed