Hacker News: cdixon

New comment by cdixon in "Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip"

cdixon — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 00:07:48 +0000

Commoditize the complement: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

New comment by cdixon in "Putting $10M into UBeam illustrates what is wrong with tech investing"

cdixon — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 19:54:06 +0000

VCs almost always bring in outside experts to diligence ideas that they are qualified can't diligence themselves. That happened extensively here.

New comment by cdixon in "Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy"

cdixon — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:10:52 +0000

Sounds like you are interested in philosophy after all! :) Whether and how there can be a priori knowledge is an old philosophical question.

New comment by cdixon in "Full Stack Startups"

cdixon — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:23:55 +0000

Yeah I thought about using "vertical integration" but that's a pretty overloaded term at this point. Usually refers to existing businesses buying up suppliers/buyers to control production and pricing. I think "whole product" (from Crossing the Chasm) might also work. Happy to call it something else but I think it's useful to have a word for what's happening.

New comment by cdixon in "Stored Hashcash"

cdixon — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 06:48:18 +0000

It is Bitcoin. I was just trying to present some of the ideas behind Bitcoin without all the baggage of the word.

"small casual payments" (first paragraph of original Bitcoin paper)

cdixon — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 06:08:13 +0000

Article URL: http://nonchalantrepreneur.com/post/72056390713/small-casual-payments

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004404

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by cdixon in "Why I'm Interested in Bitcoin"

cdixon — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 02:03:55 +0000

My view is that the whole system was designed for a different era and not for the web. The problems include 1) consumer having to fill out a form at each merchant, 2) consumer having to decide if she trusts the merchant (1 & 2 lead to the strategic asset of "cards on file"), 3) the bank trying to determine with probabilistic algorithms whether it was really me paying, 4) the security of the whole system is very flawed. 5) all the money spent on marketing these services (including rewards) when instead the services should be baked into the internet.

That said, I agree with you that the digital cash / new behaviors are the most interesting part of Bitcoin. Just much harder to explain.

New comment by cdixon in "Why I'm Interested in Bitcoin"

cdixon — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 01:55:30 +0000

My guess is the exchange fees will go down over time and instead Bitcoin companies will end up making money selling additional services.

New comment by cdixon in "Why I'm Interested in Bitcoin"

cdixon — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 20:24:22 +0000

I think the original Bitcoin paper said it well: "small casual payments."

To pay online right now, you have to decide: 1) do I trust this vendor 2) do I want to fill out this form with all my info

Generally this (plus transaction fees) only make sense for transactions above $10.

The vendor responds by trying to build a relationship with you- by building brand trust and by pushing you toward an ongoing relationship (recurring payments, creating an account etc). This is why "cards on file" is considered a major business asset online.

As a result, any online service that doesn't make the cut is forced to resort to an advertising based business model.

New comment by cdixon in "Why I'm Interested in Bitcoin"

cdixon — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 18:28:20 +0000

Definitely interested in lots of other uses for the ledger. If you or someone you know is working on something, we (a16z) would love to talk. I'm hoping next year we'll see a lot more startups building on top of the Bitcoin protocol.

New comment by cdixon in "Why I'm Interested in Bitcoin"

cdixon — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 18:20:55 +0000

I also think this issue is going to become more urgent as native mobile apps that do have a "global" (OS-wide) payment system become more dominant. Open web needs something analogous to compete.

New comment by cdixon in "Why I'm Interested in Bitcoin"

cdixon — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 18:09:57 +0000

Here's one model that could work. Think of Bitcoin as analogous to physical cash. Cash = small casual payments in offline world. Bitcoin = small casual payments in online world. (btw, the original Bitoin paper says this pretty explicitly). I don't keep my savings in (physical) cash. I keep some spending money there. Similarly you will have your internet spending money. You'll converts to and from USD occasionally but not on every transaction. Maybe some people will store value in Bitcoin but they will be the exceptions.

But ultimately smarter people than me will figure out the right model. That's the beauty of software platforms.

Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience

cdixon — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 05:01:43 +0000

Article URL: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/science/brainlike-computers-learning-from-experience.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6978464

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by cdixon in "Great books about mathematics"

cdixon — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 16:24:19 +0000

Great list. I would also add:

What is Mathematics? http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Elementary-Approach-Ideas-...

New comment by cdixon in "Bitcoin and the Byzantine Generals Problem"

cdixon — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 04:33:51 +0000

Yes, our investment was very publicly disclosed on my blog, Coinbase's blog, and multiple news sites. Also, I was posting positive things on my blog about Bitcoin long before I (or a16z) had a financial interest.

I am interested in Bitcoin as a new payment system / economic protocol for the Internet. I don't think people should buy Bitcoins for speculative purposes. On the other hand I'd love to see more developers build things on top of the Bitcoin protocol. My job is to invest in new technologies and I believe Bitcoin is one of the most interesting new technologies in the past 20 years.

New comment by cdixon in "Bitcoin and the Byzantine Generals Problem"

cdixon — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 01:21:40 +0000

We (a16z) would love to see more innovation along these lines and would be excited to try to help.

New comment by cdixon in "Bitcoin and the Byzantine Generals Problem"

cdixon — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 01:09:46 +0000

I agree it's imprecise. But I'd argue the de facto fees in the existing system are much higher than 2.5%. The biggest cost are all the transactions that should happen but don't. Most merchants/payment companies block payments from dozens if not hundreds of countries due to fears of fraud.

New comment by cdixon in "Oculus VR raises $75M"

cdixon — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 04:23:37 +0000

We invested in Oculus after we saw a demo of the new prototype. For me, it was up there with the first time I saw Apple II, Mac, the web, Google, iPhone etc.

New comment by cdixon in "How to Raise Money"

cdixon — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 20:05:02 +0000

I'd strongly recommend having a presentation in the pitch meeting. It helps control the flow of the meeting and ensure you cover all the important points.

New comment by cdixon in "Hardware startups"

cdixon — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:24:36 +0000

Agreed. That is a ridiculously hard problem but in my opinion perhaps the most important tech problem of our time.