Jason Pontin

For two decades, during the flourishing of technology journalism that followed the dot.com boom, I ran magazines and wrote for a variety of publications. Today, I’m a partner at DCVC, helping deep tech startups solve big problems in health, sustainability, and industrial transformation. I still write.

Employing new technologies to solve the important problems within reasonable timeframes.

Here’s how to speak in a polity where we loathe each other. Let this be the Law of Parsimonious Claims: 1. Say nothing you know to be untrue, whether to deceive, confuse, or, worst of all, encourage a wearied cynicism. 2. Make mostly falsifiable assertions or offer prescriptions whose outcomes could be measured, always explaining how your assertion or prescription could be tested. 3. Whereof you have no evidence but possess only moral intuitions, say so candidly, and accept you must coexist with people who have different intuitions.1 4. When evidence proves you wrong, admit it cheerfully, pleased that your mistake has contributed to the general progress

Chemistry, Economics, History, Innovation, Life Sciences, Philosophy, Technology