The Slow Hunch (Nick Grossman)

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 drive to understand emerging technologies and business models, after 20+ years of working together. 

I've been lucky enough to have a front-row seat to their approach, and it was really special to have this conversation over multiple mugs of tea in my living room in New York City. 

In many ways, USV has been their collective slow hunch - an exploration of how emerging tech intersects with the world and how to be part of it.

Hope you enjoy this conversation! 

Chapters: 

• 00:00:00 Cold open
• 00:10:40 How USV was formed
• 00:17:16 Fred and Brad on their investment philosophy
• 00:24:01 Overcoming early challenges
• 00:27:43 The emergence of web2
• 00:30:59 The initial promise of social media
• 00:34:04 Investing in Twitter
• 00:39:11 The early days of Bitcoin
• 00:45:55 The risk of market consolidation in AI 
• 00:49:39 Fred and Brad reflect on their mistakes
• 00:57:18 The Impact of AI
• 01:07:23 The future of technology
• 01:09:50 What keeps them going after 30+ years

In this episode of the Slow Hunch, I spoke with Jake Heller, co-founder and CEO of Casetext, a legal tech startup that pioneered the use of large language models in the legal industry.

Jake and his co-founders built Casetext over a decade —  going through multiple pivots before eventually finding PMF as an AI tool that helped lawyers do better and faster legal research. In 2023, Casetext was acquired by Thomson Reuters for $650 million. 

In this conversation, Jake recounted how an early relationship with the research team at OpenAI got them access to GPT-4 (before the launch of ChatGPT!) and how they decided to hard pivot over the course of just two weeks. 

As a former lawyer himself, Jake has a unique take on the challenges of building and selling cutting-edge software in an industry that has traditionally been a late adopter of tech. 

This was a really fun conversation (you can probably tell because it’s longer than our usual episodes). 

Hope you enjoy! 

Chapters 

• 00:00:00 Cold open
• 00:06:15 How Jake found himself in legal tech
• 00:10:07 Building Casetext
• 00:28:41 Getting early access to GPT-4 
• 00:38:21 The AI pivot 
• 00:46:38 Convincing the team
• 00:57:03 Engineering solutions to improve real-world performance 
• 01:07:06 Jake’s thoughts on the future of the legal industry
• 01:14:29 Closing thoughts

In this episode, I spoke to Dani Grant, CEO of Jam.dev, a tool that reimagines the way software teams communicate about and fix bugs.

Dani brings an infectious energy to her work. Before starting Jam, she worked at Cloudflare and was an analyst at USV, where we first crossed paths.

For Dani, Jam isn’t just about making software teams more efficient—it’s about unlocking human potential and bringing the future closer, faster.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Cold open 
• 03:23 What Dani is building at Jam 
• 05:15 Reflections on her time at Cloudflare 
• 08:11 On the joy of building 
• 09:36 Why bug reporting matters 
• 12:50 On AI and the future of software development 
• 16:04 Why crafting beautiful products is important 
• 19:23 On building trust with AI products
• 26:21 Building products using decentralized data 
• 30:21 Life growing up in Mountain View 
• 37:26 The power of cold emails 
• 42:44 How learning the flute influenced Dani 
• 48:28 Finding meaning in the startup journey 
• 51:24 The importance of team dynamics 
• 56:04 Nick’s reflections as an investor

The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

I spoke with Amir Haleem, founder of Helium and CEO of Nova Labs, about his journey building the world's largest decentralized wireless networks.

Amir started Helium in 2013, with the initial vision to make it easier to connect IoT devices to the internet. After trying the traditional telecom playbook, he realized that combining crypto incentives with community participation could actually be key to scaling a truly global wireless network.

In our conversation, we spoke about how Amir came to this realisation, and how he tackled all the challenges that come with building and securing such a network, from dealing with sophisticated attempts to game the system, to managing a decentralized and diverse community of stakeholders.

Through Nova Labs and Helium, Amir wants to enable a future where decentralized communities play a major role in building and maintaining the networks that connect us.

Hope you enjoy this conversation!

Chapters: 

• 00:00 Cold open 
• 05:51 Amir’s thoughts on crypto incentives
• 11:15 The tradeoffs with community-led building
• 14:17 The pivot from IoT to wireless networks
• 25:28 Challenges with establishing “proof of coverage”
• 28:45 The balance between speed and perfection
• 42:43 Adapting to industry changes
• 45:24 Amir’s take on why entrepreneurship is so important
• 52:18 Amir’s closing reflections

I spoke to Fraser Kelton, General Partner at Spark Capital and the former Head of Product at OpenAI. Fraser played a key role in the launch of ChatGPT, which is widely considered AI's "iPhone moment."

Before his stint at OpenAI, Fraser built Koko, a platform that was initially built to provide cognitive behavioral therapy at scale, transitioned to AI-driven online content moderation, and eventually acquired by Airbnb in November 2018. 

At Airbnb, as Fraser experimented with early models like BERT and GPT-2 to scale Koko's content moderation efforts, he realized that transformer models could "turn all of the internet into training data," dramatically accelerating the progress of AI.

Fraser cold emailed Ilya Sutskevar and ended up joining OpenAI—helping them transition from a research lab into a company that ships compelling consumer and enterprise products. He offered a behind-the-scenes look at the development of GPT-3 and ChatGPT, and the decisions that led up to their release.

Looking ahead, Fraser discussed how transformer architectures could be applied to biology, disrupting traditional medicine as we know it. He spoke about how we are overestimating the short-term impact of AI, and under-appreciating the scale of change over the next 10-30 years.

Throughout his career, Fraser has been driven by a mission to support brilliant technologists in creating a better future. His insights offer a glimpse into the past, present, and future of AI at a pivotal moment in the technology's development. Enjoy!

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Cold open
• 00:02:56 Fraser's background as a founder and at OpenAI
• 00:04:33 The origin story of Koko and online cognitive behavioral therapy
• 00:10:22 Koko’s pivot to content moderation
• 00:13:15 Playing with BERT and GPT-2 at Airbnb
• 00:28:00 Cold emailing Ilya Sutskevar and joining OpenAI
• 00:35:00 The cultural moment of ChatGPT's launch
• 00:42:20 Overestimating short-term impact and underestimating the long-term potential of AI
• 00:44:13 The transformative potential of AI in biology and medicine
• 00:48:02 Supporting brilliant technologists to create a better future

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The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral. 

In this episode, I spoke to Muneeb Ali, the co-founder of Stacks — a Bitcoin L2 that aims to make BTC more programmable and scalable. 

At USV, we originally backed Muneeb and his co-founder Ryan Shea back in 2014. Our shared hypothesis was that Bitcoin had the potential to impact more than just finance—it could be a new foundation for the internet itself. 

Of course, this idea wasn't as obvious back then. In my conversation with Muneeb, we used his personal and professional journey to trace the origins of this idea—starting with his PhD in computer science at Princeton leading up to his fascination with Bitcoin and work on Stacks today. 

Muneeb offers insights into the technical and cultural challenges of innovating within the Bitcoin ecosystem, and shares his vision of a future where BTC serves as the foundation for the next generation of decentralized applications.

Chapters:

00:00:00 Cold open
00:01:35 Muneeb's background in computer science and peer-to-peer systems research
00:06:29 Transitioning from academia to entrepreneurship
00:09:00 The "aha moment" - Bitcoin solving the global state problem
00:11:16 Evolution of Muneeb's vision for Bitcoin
00:15:00 Comparing different approaches to blockchain architecture
00:22:48 The current landscape of blockchain ecosystems
00:26:29 Challenges of building on Bitcoin and navigating community resistance
00:29:43 The Stacks Nakamoto upgrade and its potential impact
00:32:44 Decentralization versus user experience
00:37:38 Future vision for Bitcoin L2s and a decentralized internet

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The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

In this episode, I spoke to Steven Johnson - one of my favorite authors and thinkers. Steven has written 14 popular books, including “Where Good Ideas Come From” which inspired the name of this podcast and my blog, The Slow Hunch.

Steven has an unmatched ability to stitch together ideas from technology, science, and history to make stories come to life. He has had a significant impact on the way I see the world today.

In this conversation, we double clicked on Steven's journey to unlock “networked thought” through the use of tools, and the micro insights that gradually led him to NotebookLM, a tool that he is currently co-creating with the team at Google Labs.

Hope you enjoy this conversation!

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Cold Open
• 00:01:56 Intro
• 00:05:14 The origins of NotebookLM
• 00:08:36 Steven's early interest in technology
• 00:13:31 The concept of "The Slow Hunch"
• 00:15:24 The importance of capturing ideas and sparks
• 00:21:24 How the rise of the internet enabled "networked thought" 
• 00:30:20 When LLMs came into the picture
• 00:45:25 Building NotebookLM
• 00:49:32 Steven's view on "Conversational Hypertext"
• 00:52:27 How AI changes the act of knowledge curation
• 00:54:48 Closing thoughts

The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

In this episode of the Slow Hunch, I spoke with Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky. 

Originally conceived as an initiative within Twitter under Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was designed to transform Twitter from a closed platform to an open protocol-based network. Jay initially joined as an external researcher before being selected to lead the project, ultimately negotiating for Bluesky's independence before Elon Musk’s acquisition. 

Jay believes thoughtful systems design can reshape our online experiences. With Bluesky, she wants to prioritise user choice, portability, and the ability to vote with their feet if the platform makes changes they don't like.

This was a conversation about social media’s “adjacent possible”  - a potential shift from closed, monolithic platforms toward open, extensible systems that encourage experimentation and innovation at all levels.

Hope you enjoy!

Chapters:

• 00:00 Cold open
• 04:00 Jay’s background: from systems theory to digital rights activism 
• 08:35 Trade-offs in systems design
• 16:19 The AT Protocol (atproto)
• 17:19 Bluesky’s origin story
• 25:26 How Bluesky differs from earlier decentralized social attempts 
• 28:01 Giving users the ability to pick feeds and moderation 
• 30:16 Early days of Bluesky
• 32:50 Public launch
• 37:24 Social media’s adjacent possible 
• 46:13 Closing thoughts

In this episode, I spoke to Zoe Weinberg, founder and managing partner of ex/ante, a venture fund focused on technology that enhances human agency.

Zoe actively invests in a growing number of founders committed to empowering users by giving them control over their data and digital identities.

Our conversation explored the ever present threat of digital authoritarianism, the product tradeoff between privacy and convenience, the potential of portable digital identities, and how emerging technologies impact democratic values.

I hope you find this conversation insightful.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Cold open 
• 03:15 Human agency and technology
• 12:30 Zoe's thoughts on digital authoritarianism and surveillance capitalism
• 20:18 The product tradeoff between convenience and privacy
• 25:40 Portable digital identities
• 30:05 Zoe's take on tech and the state of democracy
• 36:20 The importance of user agency in emerging tech
• 40:12 Zoe's journey to founding ex/ante
• 45:00 Business models that support user agency
• 50:15 The potential of AI-driven privacy solutions
• 54:45 Closing reflections

The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.