The Venturesome Economy: Entrepreneurship and Disruption in a Networked Age
Brad Burnham, Union Square Ventures
in conversation with Matthew Bishop, The Economist
NExTWORK is a one-day, interdisciplinary conference that will feature world-renowned business leaders, technologists, and thinkers exploring the promise and peril of the network's future, as well as the most pressing digital issues and opportunities today.
Bio
Matthew Bishop
Matthew Bishop is the U.S. business editor and New York bureau chief of The Economist. His new book, The Road from Ruin: How to Renew Capitalism and Put America Back on Top, with Michael Green, was published by Crown in February 2010. Philanthrocapitalism, his previous book (also with Mr. Green) was on the global revolution under way in philanthropy. Mr. Bishop is also the author of Essential Economics, The Economist's official layperson's guide to economics. Mr. Bishop is the author of several of The Economist's special report supplements, most recently "A Bigger World," which examines the opportunities and challenges accompanying the rise of emerging economies and firms. Before joining The Economist, Mr. Bishop was on the faculty of London Business School.
Brad Burnham
Brad Burnham co-founded Union Square Ventures in 2004. The New York firm focuses on Web service and social media start-ups with the potential to change markets; its early-stage investments have included Del.icio.us, Etsy, FeedBurner, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Meetup, Tacoda, Tumblr, Twitter, and Zynga.
Burnham began his career in information technology at AT&T, where he held a variety of sales, marketing, and business development positions until 1990, when he spun Echo Logic out of Bell Labs. That venture was a catalyst for the creation of AT&T's investment arm, and when Echo Logic was sold in 1993, Burnham joined AT&T Ventures, becoming a general partner in 1996. There, he was responsible for 14 investments, including Argon Networks, Audible, Avesta Technologies, Classic Sports Network, Multex Systems, Paytrust, and Physicians Online. Burnham currently serves on the boards of Bug Labs, GetGlue, Hashable, Indeed, Meetup, Pinch Media, SimulMedia, and Tumblr.
Venture capitalist Brad Burnham compares social networking groups to sovereign nations. Burnham sees Facebook as Putin's Russia and Apple as a monarchy.
Using personalized services without losing privacy is totally possible using the Personal Data Locker . Most VC's are aware of this new paradigm, but its emergence would clearly result in a power shift and antagonize the incumbent financial powers who currently control data. Data-centric companies like Google and Facebook stand to lose the most from this move from the existing "Push" model to the "Pull" model, which is the inevitable future.