Bitcoin and the Brave Future of Browsers

Josh Metnick is a veteran entrepreneur and startup investor, most recently serving as VP of Blockchain Strategy for Raise Marketplace Inc and CTO of Wrapports LLC, the parent company of The Chicago Sun-Times.
In this opinion piece, Metnick argues that a new bitcoin-powered browser called Brave could not only bring users a more private and ad-free Internet experience, but it could also claw back much needed revenue for online content providers, too.
The first question I typically ask a founder or co-founders is a simple one: ‘Why did you name your company X?’ I want to know the story behind the name.
In my experience, the best stories, the deepest stories, tend to convey the mission, the ambition, the scope and the culture of the founding team.
For example, I remember walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago with Andrew Mason while he was explaining this new company concept called The Point. My first question was; ‘Andy, if you tell 100 people to visit ThePoint.com, how many are going to type in Point.com, a domain that somebody else owns?”
In the case of ThePoint.com, every marketing dollar spent would have bled off and benefited another domain name – Point.com. And, it was just plain uninspiring.
A week or two later, I met Andrew at the same spot. Andrew seemed like he was bursting at the seams to tell me the new name of the company. He had this dead-honest huge smile on his face when he said ‘Groupon! We are a group coupon.’
Think what you may of the company over the years, what the startup has or hasn’t become, but I’ll never forget seeing that intense moment of clarity in a founder’s eyes.

This post was published at Coin Desk on September 18, 2016.