The Curious Engineer

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Jordan Cooper's Blog: startups, venture capital, etc…

jordancooper.blog

Thoughts on venture capital, startups, technology, and life.

Tech news / industryEssays / personalAI / ML

’10’15’20’25
Posts
360 from 4 Nov 2009 to 3 Sep 2025
Posting
now and then
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://jordancooper.blog/feed/

2025 5

  1. Friend.com
  2. It’s a WONDERful life with ChatGPT
  3. Current Ideas and investment wishlist
  4. A very good move
  5. A Better Stance

2024 5

  1. Lifelogging in the age of AI
  2. Pace Fall Residency
  3. Where I End and You Begin
  4. Pace Summer Residency
  5. You Think AI is Going To Kill Ads on the Internet? It’s not…

2023 7

  1. The Purpose of Life
  2. AIs are living on my Macbook Pro
  3. AI Reading Group NYC
  4. Role of AI Agents in Social Applications
  5. AI, Robotics, and the future of our species
  6. There’s No Market For This Post
  7. Support

2022 11

  1. What I’m chasing down these days
  2. We lost a good one
  3. An Odd Ritual
  4. Lightweight Contacts DAPP And The Path To A Ubiquitous Protocol
  5. Immersion and Perspective
  6. Anon-first world
  7. We Saved a Seat For You
  8. Spending & Passing Time
  9. Swapping Stamps
  10. Bronzing Tina’s Shoes
  11. Pace II

2021 17

  1. Pace x Pace
  2. December 13th, 2021…the one and only
  3. DA(ctivism)O
  4. Tree Grown Money
  5. Flipping My Script
  6. On taking and giving credit
  7. The Robot I Want
  8. An evolution in care and coverage
  9. Syncing Curves
  10. The Times They Are a Changing
  11. Let’s DAO this
  12. Growing the GP at Pace
  13. The bit rate of writing
  14. NFTs…beyond digital art and collectibles
  15. Improving VC to VC Meetings
  16. A mind-blowing business model
  17. Stranger Danger

2020 17

  1. Credit Where Credit is Due
  2. DNS for online/offline addresses
  3. On Skipping Brunch, Service, and the Pursuit of 10 People
  4. Pace x Mulberry
  5. The Rent is Too Damn High
  6. Deconstructing the Fortune Teller
  7. Snipers and Fortune Tellers
  8. A Mindshift
  9. A letter to my son from the depths of isolation
  10. On Board Service
  11. What the world might look like
  12. Silver Lining
  13. Hack Idea: ~Waze for Coronavirus
  14. Processing risk and response
  15. A Counterintuitive Proposal for How AR Will Unfold…
  16. Blockchain Based Gift Tax Hack
  17. A Depressing Startup Opportunity

2019 9

  1. You Gotta Know When to Hold Em’
  2. And Then There Were Three
  3. Associate with me @ Pace Capital
  4. Technical CEOs
  5. 33 Questions We Asked Ourselves Before Starting Pace Capital
  6. Pace Capital
  7. Concert ticketing 2.0?
  8. Airpods as the next platform, part three
  9. Airpods as the next platform, Part deux

2018 15

  1. Greatness at all costs
  2. Wework for the rest of the country
  3. Hack Idea: ~Calendly for the self-aware
  4. Juuled in the face? maybe here’s why
  5. On Equal Partnership
  6. Welcome to crypto, here are the only 10 things worth working on
  7. Airpods as the next platform (and the native applications therein)
  8. Chasing a Perfect Storm
  9. On $80M Series A rounds…
  10. Team Design
  11. Amazing people
  12. Is this bear ever gonna hibernate?
  13. Society is Breaking
  14. Hack: Ethereum vs. the NRA
  15. Bubble-Gazing in San Francisco this Winter

2017 25

  1. What Wall St Wants
  2. Falling in love/hate with Telegram
  3. “Experts” won’t be first
  4. Clearest and most in depth podcast I’ve seen on Crypto
  5. An update on Crypto Club and notes from last meeting
  6. Venture Capital in a “post-blockchain” world
  7. Crypto in the context of online classifieds
  8. An experiment in “open presence”
  9. sat down to write a normal blogpost and a baby protocol came out
  10. Paradoxical Protocols
  11. Cryptocoins: Inherently More Valuable Than Startup Equity?
  12. I was an investor, she was a founder…
  13. “Show me one good application built on the blockchain” and other such challenges
  14. Crypto Investment Club #2 (evolved)
  15. What I Look for in Cryptocoins
  16. Build this: Blockchain based genomic data protocol
  17. The Universe took my iphone
  18. Last Mile Thinkers
  19. The path to billions of “programmers”
  20. A moment of guilt
  21. Vlog #4: new office, new observations, new data, new constraints
  22. Blockchain based Tax Resistance aka “Resistcoin”
  23. Vlog #3: Cooper’s Pyramid of Fund Design
  24. Career thoughts: next steps
  25. Smiling is a choice

2016 23

  1. On Snapchat Spectacles
  2. Honesty is so hot right now
  3. 6 Considerations when buying Snapchat stock post-IPO
  4. what it’s like to meditate
  5. On Burning Out
  6. The nuances of a livestream
  7. Psychopaths in Startupland
  8. A Break from the Dividing Noise
  9. On Angst and Intention
  10. Balance and Kindness
  11. Free $1B (or maybe $50M) idea: Pryntcoin
  12. Dummies guide to abstract crytpothinking
  13. Is abundant data redefining morality?
  14. Redeye
  15. Life is an experiment
  16. Exploring the increasingly porous “membrane” btwn Information Technology and Biology
  17. Justinkan, Grantcardone, and the voices of Snapchat
  18. A Viral VC Model
  19. experiencing loss by not really experiencing it
  20. Tough but necessary change for Wildcard
  21. Virtual Assistants as Parallel Human Processors
  22. Beyond Pixels
  23. Your Complex Relationship with Your Phone

2015 14

  1. New Release: Wildcard Communities
  2. stream of consciousness on markets
  3. A story about our new Head of Marketing at Wildcard
  4. 7 Months in the making…
  5. Beta release of Wildcard 2.0: Know the day
  6. Wierd idea: The Moody’s or S&P of startupland
  7. Saying Goodbye to Lerer Ventures
  8. Facebook Instant Articles, Cards, and a developing native web
  9. Startup is the new normal
  10. Matters of the present and future
  11. We can do better
  12. Wildcard Update: New Card Types, New Search, 3rd Party Apps
  13. VP of Marketing at Wildcard
  14. New School Thinkers, Where Are you at?

2014 17

  1. Kind of a heavy one
  2. This isn’t the death of the web, it’s the birth of the native web
  3. The Dopamine Squirt You Got From Fab’s Failure
  4. Launch Day
  5. Not Every Datapoint Demands an Insight
  6. A More Thoughtful Approach…
  7. Creating Fast Moments
  8. A note on Wildcard’s $7 Million Series A round
  9. When to walk from a deal
  10. Wildcard Recruiting Secrets
  11. Give it a minute
  12. A reality marred with blindness
  13. The most special thing about cards that nobody is talking about
  14. Developing a “One Sentence”
  15. An Unusual Growth Metric
  16. Women at Wildcard
  17. The Day is Upon Us

2013 41

  1. The Money Ain’t a Thing
  2. Going Uncomfortably Fast
  3. How I spend my time as a startup CEO
  4. Bitcoin, Taxes, and a Path to the Promised Land
  5. 4 things about Bitcoin that make my head spin
  6. A PM opportunity worth leaving Google for
  7. Wildcard Programming Challenge
  8. Understanding Snapchat
  9. 10x improvement
  10. an unorthodox walk home
  11. Running Wild
  12. Two Minds
  13. Cards, Cards, Cards…
  14. California Dreams
  15. Everybody Close Your Eyes
  16. Visualizing the seat you want
  17. UX Design is on my Mind
  18. What is Wildcard?
  19. Bootstrapping to an A round isn’t all roses
  20. $3 Million Buckaroos
  21. Thoughts on youth from a train
  22. Someone build this: Uber for Cash $
  23. In response to @aweissman on “interestingness”
  24. Two Ways to Stay Cool When Stressed
  25. When I’m Creating…
  26. Right Hand Intern/Apprenticeship
  27. Flow State
  28. Keeping it Simple
  29. I want you to feel limitless
  30. Life is an Amazing Opportunity
  31. Using the internet on my phone is breaking my heart
  32. A rant for the haters of Andrew Mason
  33. From Disciple of @cdixon to Selectively Stealth
  34. What Really Happens When You Fail in Startupland
  35. When the wise thinks himself wise
  36. Bad Asses Make Peace with Unanswered Questions
  37. Vine: Data Compression Applied to the Human Experience
  38. Watching stars fall
  39. The crumbling network of startupland
  40. When Founders Melt
  41. A Human Foundation

2012 42

  1. Devastating Pain
  2. The Edge
  3. We Can Do Anything
  4. Mobile Distribution Hack
  5. on an inspired day
  6. Vision
  7. Thoughts From the Dugout of Team Suffering
  8. My Ambitions
  9. 7 thoughts about sensors
  10. The Health of Our Ecosystem
  11. What’s Next?
  12. Sharing platforms punch inner monologue in the face
  13. Winning is not a goal worth setting
  14. Inorganic “Acceleration” is the Pits
  15. Strategy for a Soft Landing
  16. Every photo you take increases my life expectancy…thanks
  17. when did “re” become an acceptable prefix to imagination?
  18. Email to John Lilly, now a blog post to you
  19. I see the light…i swear
  20. Bio is the new Social (ish)
  21. Rise Strange Thinkers, We Need YOU
  22. Fuck Pride
  23. This Desk
  24. Lessons from my Psychedelic Barber
  25. How to get out of tight spots
  26. 7 things I’m thinking about now and an invitation for computer scientists
  27. the bizarre social currency behind “hearts” and “likes”
  28. Fix your own fucking printer (a non-tech founder’s guide to starting up)
  29. Why Facebook really bought Instagram
  30. In Pursuit of “Brain Doppelgangers”
  31. a disruption with implications as large as the advent of the internet
  32. The question you should never ask investors in a pitch (and my answer to it)
  33. 3 Short Thoughts
  34. 8 steps to building an A+ engineering team
  35. Fear not Zebras, I’m still resting
  36. On Heading West
  37. So you got written up in Techcrunch, now don’t be an idiot
  38. Screen no more
  39. The Sky is Falling
  40. …
  41. One day I woke up and twitter sucked
  42. Fighting blindspots and understanding Pinterest

2011 38

  1. Profile of a Starter
  2. They did a bad bad thing
  3. My Predictions for 2012
  4. The 2 states in which a blogger doesn’t suck
  5. Victory is When UX Escapes the Walls of an Application
  6. A “post-social” view of Occupy Wall Street
  7. We launched our new Data as a Platform and Hyperpublic Labs
  8. An Interruption to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming
  9. On Endurance, Recruiting & Catching Big Waves
  10. 4 Life Hacks derived from 7 Days without Internet
  11. Moving in Ambiguous Markets
  12. Data for Dummies
  13. Building an engineering team from the bottom up
  14. Sticky Summer Night
  15. Sponges Scale, Faucets Don’t
  16. Revealed: A few secrets about Hyperpublic
  17. Guest Post: Betting on NYC and Joining Lerer Ventures
  18. The State of the Web
  19. Population Density, Local, and the Disruptive Snowman
  20. Senior Associate / Principal at Lerer Ventures
  21. Keith Rabois says “great entrepreneurs don’t blog”
  22. Twas the night before Disrupt
  23. Sit down, pour yourself a drink, what dimension are you in?
  24. Whitespace for the taking
  25. The Downside of “Demo Day”
  26. Can’t is a four letter word
  27. Open Letter to Seed Investors
  28. #WINNING @ SXSW and #LOSING in Japan
  29. Sharing the spotlight is the fastest way into the spotlight
  30. Fred Wilson Nails Early Stage Distribution Playbook
  31. My “Golden Syndicate” & 4 Free Passes to Medieval Times for Your Great Employee #5
  32. As the web distributes, will human beings follow?
  33. Palo Alto to NYC…No Pit Stops
  34. Was Your Decision to Read This Conscious?
  35. Seed Stage Valuation Guide
  36. Online We’re Googling, Offline Still Stumbling
  37. Mentorship, Maturation, and Youthful Hubris
  38. “Why We Shoot” (how smart phones are changing our concept of a “photo”)

2010 57

  1. Hyperpublic Xmas Invitational 2010
  2. MICROSOFT…Vincent Chase…Hyperpublic
  3. The world can’t be 70% off forever, right?
  4. Why We Connect
  5. East Village Experiment
  6. Newly Seed Funded? Don’t Commit to Monthly Updates
  7. The Social Challenge of Releasing Early
  8. I am tired of reading blog posts from “bubble predictors”
  9. Founders: Are you Leaning far Enough?
  10. 5 tips for your first day at a new startup
  11. A picture speaks a thousand words
  12. Execution, Reflection, and the Friction Therein
  13. Living in a State of “Anonymity PLUS”
  14. Physical vs. Social Proximity at a Cafe
  15. Startup Networking Pro-Tip: How to Exit a Conversation
  16. If you’re building for $1B, is “Focus” a Farce?
  17. NYT says Tech is Changing our Brains, but What About our Language?
  18. How Many People Are You Consuming in a Day?
  19. Back to the Basics
  20. When The Dragons Emerge
  21. It Takes Confidence to Become King, but Humility to Stay King
  22. Thoughts on classifieds, Craigslist and local
  23. Product Genius
  24. Privacy Going the Way of the [Finch]
  25. Offloading Human Memory to the Cloud
  26. Memorial Day in StartupLand
  27. Fold often before going “all in”
  28. Where to focus when “dating” investors
  29. Lost In Translation
  30. Experimenting on the Edges of Your Product
  31. A Parable for 3rd Party App Developers
  32. Apple hit’s “RESET” on the LBS market
  33. Founder / Life Balance
  34. Why am I trying to build a “pre-market” for home rentals?
  35. So You Signed a Term Sheet? You’re Not Out of the Woods Yet
  36. “Pull” Your Ideas from the Ether
  37. The Blurring Line between Commerce and Ad Models
  38. Stress = |Expectation – Actuality|
  39. Seeding a Community…JumpPost’s Playbook
  40. “Minimum Viable Lawyering”
  41. The Emergence of VC/Angel Syndicates
  42. 5 Reasons Founders Hate the Question “So What Do You Do?”
  43. Trees, Sharks & Change
  44. Full of “Potential” = Full of You Know What…
  45. For Every iPhone User in NY, A Conspiracy Theory
  46. 35 Gut Checks When Founding Your First Company
  47. Charles Darwin Would Have Loved the Mobile Internet
  48. Founders Beware: True “Advisors” Don’t Ask for Free Equity
  49. This Makes JumpPost Happy
  50. Twitter Slows, What Blippy Thinks It Knows
  51. FundlessFund Hijacks My Blog Today
  52. Introducing the Fundless Fund…get involved
  53. Effects of Entrepreneurship of Savings (Graph)
  54. 5 Reasons Why Lying is Stupid in Startups (and Life)
  55. The Practice of Patience (Founder’s Tip)
  56. Give us your [rich], your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free
  57. Newsflash: Your Startup Is Not In The Playbook

2009 17

  1. Entrepreneurial DNA Transcends Context
  2. Progression of Thoughts in an Entrepreneur’s Day
  3. The 3 Most Important Words in a Founder’s Vocabulary
  4. “Drop In” to the Zone
  5. Gilt, Groupon, One Kings Lane, Oh My
  6. The “Real” Behind Online Analytics (Entrepreneur’s Therapy Session)
  7. Seed Investor’s Guide to Finding the Next Twitter
  8. “Open Sourced” Job Spec
  9. Founders Need Rock Hard Abs
  10. Quantitative valuation of a human life (from a guy who stinks at math)
  11. Consumer Liquidity, Fingerhut, and Good vs. Evil
  12. Talking to $1 Billion CEO’s
  13. NYC Venture Capital War
  14. Minimizing “Freak out” execution
  15. The Gmail Hoody: Breaking down offline communication dropoff
  16. Idea, Execution…and Gumption
  17. Michael Jackson: VP of Product