We had an interesting discussion yesterday about blogging. In particular, we talked about my blogging in relation to my employment at Union Square Ventures. Blogging is a very powerful medium, and you never know who is reading. While its very easy to put up a "My opinions aren't that of my company" note, that doesn't mean that there won't still be some entrepreneur who reads my blog and decides that USV isn't the kind of firm they want to work with. Of course, my penchant for flip commentary and shooting from the lip doesn't help that. Now, of course, flip commentary about baseball or kayaking is unlikely to have that kind of effect, but opinionated commentary about companies and technology might.
In addition to my potential for saying something out of line that isn't reflective of my firm, I'm more concerned about putting myself out there as more of an expert on something than I am. Its so easy for blog content to proliferate around the net, and perhaps I'll post some kind of groundbreaking insights that everyone will want to trackback to. (It could happen!) All of the sudden, I've put myself out there as someone who knows something more than they really do, and, at this point, that's not something I'm particularly comfortable with.
Therefore, I've decided to institute some new policies around here, in the form of a policy statement:
- I am employed by Union Square Ventures as an analyst, not a partner. The opinions expressed on this site are not necessarily reflective of the opinions of other employees of the firm, nor of the official positions of the firm (if there are such things) and should not be construed as such.
- I have decided not to post my opinions, for the foreseeable future, on technology and venture capital related topics in terms of their viability or potential success as a business. From time to time, I reserve highlight what technologies I find useful from a technology consumer standpoint or point out what features I would like to see added to existing products as a consumer.
- I will not be posting any discussion about companies that Union Square Ventures is looking at for a potential investment or is currently invested in. However, I may actually use or link to some of their publicly available services on my blog as a user. Obviously, if we like a company enough, its not unlikely that we would use their services.
- I will not be posting any internal business and technology related discussions, whether it be with Brad and Fred or with any companies I might speak to. Fred can post on such discussions if he so chooses on his own blog, and Brad, well, I'm sure Brad will cave eventually on the blogging.
- Please send any business plans you might have to Union Square Ventures through our website, and not directly to me. This is my personal site and while Charlie as a person is an analyst for a venture capital fund, this site is not about that fund and mention of its activities are incidental to descriptions of my life.