Venture Capitalist Albert Wenger on Basic Income and World After Capital

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Albert Wenger is a venture capitalist and partner at Union Square Ventures. He was the president of del.icio.us and oversaw the company’s sale to Yahoo eventually becoming an investor in a number of companies such as Etsy, Tumblr, and Twitter. Not only that but he is a venture capitalist who supports basic income, argues for rolling back of intellectual property rights and foresees a World After Capital. All in all a perfect guest for my podcast.

During our 1 hour discussion with Albert Wenger we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: his take on the technological singularity and whether AI is an opportunity to make money; the agrarian, the industrial and the knowledge age; universal computation and zero marginal cost; knowledge, wisdom and philosophy; intellectual property rights, creative commons and progress; universal basic income, how to pay for it and the recent Swiss referendum; the limits of capitalism; technological unemployment.

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Who is Albert Wenger?

Albert Wenger is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), a New York-based thesis-driven venture capital firm investing in networks, infrastructure for the new economy, and enablers of open, decentralized data. His wife Susan Danziger co-founded and runs Ziggeo. Together, they have three wonderful children.

Before joining USV, Albert was the President of del.icio.us from founding through the company’s sale to Yahoo. Albert graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT.