Brad Burnham

Brad Burnham
Born	Brad Burnham
Nationality	American
Occupation	Venture capitalist, managing partner
Employer	Union Square Ventures
Known for	Co-founding Union Square Ventures

Brad Burnham is an American venture capitalist and co-founder of Union Square Ventures (USV), a New York City-based venture capital firm that has become one of the most prominent early-stage investment firms in the technology sector. Alongside co-founder Fred Wilson, Burnham helped build USV into a firm known for its thesis-driven approach to investing, with a particular focus on large networks of engaged users, open protocols, and decentralized platforms. Over the course of his career, Burnham has been an influential voice in debates around internet policy, data ownership, platform economics, and the structural dynamics of the technology industry. His investment philosophy has emphasized what he describes as "skinny platforms" — infrastructure layers that provide value without extracting disproportionate rents from participants — and he has been a consistent advocate for decentralized models of technology that distribute power more broadly across networks. Through USV, Burnham has participated in investments in a wide range of notable technology companies, and he has written and spoken extensively about how internet-era businesses create and capture value.

Career

Union Square Ventures

Brad Burnham co-founded Union Square Ventures alongside Fred Wilson, establishing a venture capital firm that would go on to develop a distinct investment thesis centered on networks, platforms, and protocols. The firm, based in New York City, differentiated itself from many Silicon Valley-based venture firms by its geographic location and by its emphasis on a clearly articulated investment philosophy. USV's approach under Burnham and Wilson focused on identifying and investing in companies that could build large, engaged networks of users and that operated at key leverage points in the technology landscape.

Burnham played a central role in shaping USV's intellectual framework, particularly around what the firm termed its "thesis" — a set of evolving principles that guided the firm's investment decisions. This thesis-driven approach meant that USV would articulate publicly the kinds of businesses and structural dynamics it found compelling, and then seek out companies that fit within those parameters.

Investment Philosophy: Skinny Platforms and Decentralization

One of the concepts most closely associated with Burnham's thinking is the idea of "skinny platforms." In a 2015 interview with Shareable, Burnham articulated his view that the most valuable and sustainable technology platforms are those that remain thin — providing essential coordination and infrastructure services without accumulating excessive control over data, user relationships, or economic value. Burnham argued that the dominant technology platforms of the era, such as large search engines and social networks, had become "fat" platforms that extracted disproportionate rents from the ecosystems they supported.

This analysis led Burnham to advocate for and invest in technologies and companies that aimed to decentralize control and distribute value more equitably among network participants. He expressed interest in open protocols, blockchain-based systems, and other technologies that could enable coordination without centralized gatekeepers.

Investments in Decentralized Technologies

Consistent with his stated investment philosophy, Burnham and USV made several notable investments in companies and projects focused on decentralized technologies and open protocols.

Protocol Labs

In May 2017, Union Square Ventures announced an equity investment in Protocol Labs, a company focused on building protocols and tools for a more decentralized internet. Protocol Labs was known for developing the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a peer-to-peer protocol for storing and sharing data, and Filecoin, a decentralized storage network. The investment reflected USV's and Burnham's conviction that open, decentralized protocols could serve as foundational infrastructure for the next generation of internet applications.

In the blog post announcing the investment, USV stated its belief in the potential of decentralized protocols to challenge the dominance of centralized platforms. The investment in Protocol Labs was consistent with USV's broader thesis that value in the technology ecosystem was increasingly migrating to the protocol layer, and that investing at this layer could generate significant returns while also supporting a more open and equitable internet architecture.

OB1 and OpenBazaar

In June 2015, Union Square Ventures introduced OB1, a company building on the OpenBazaar protocol — a decentralized, peer-to-peer marketplace that operated without a central intermediary. In announcing the investment, USV emphasized its belief in "emergent, decentralized, start-up innovation," noting that institutions, whether public or private, inevitably become resistant to the disruption that characterizes healthy markets and democratic societies.

The investment in OB1 exemplified Burnham's broader thesis about skinny platforms and decentralization. OpenBazaar aimed to create a marketplace where buyers and sellers could transact directly, without paying fees to a centralized platform operator, and where no single entity controlled the flow of commerce. This aligned with Burnham's view that the most sustainable and equitable technology infrastructure is that which distributes power and value broadly rather than concentrating it in the hands of platform operators.

Views on Data Ownership

Burnham has been a vocal advocate for individual data ownership, arguing that the prevailing model in which large technology companies collect, aggregate, and monetize user data represents a structural imbalance of power in the digital economy. In a November 2019 article in The Block, Burnham's views on data ownership were explored in depth. The article examined what it means to "own your data" in the context of Burnham's broader vision for a more decentralized internet.

Burnham argued that individuals should have greater control over the data they generate through their online activities, and that technologies such as blockchain and decentralized identity systems could provide the technical infrastructure necessary to make data ownership practical. He envisioned a future in which users could selectively share their data with service providers on their own terms, rather than being forced to accept the all-or-nothing data collection practices of dominant platforms.

This perspective connected directly to Burnham's investment activities at USV, which included investments in blockchain-based projects, decentralized protocols, and companies working on privacy-preserving technologies. Burnham's advocacy for data ownership was not merely theoretical; it informed the firm's allocation of capital toward companies and projects that sought to shift the balance of power in the digital economy from platforms to individuals.

Internet Policy and Regulation

Beyond his investment activities, Burnham has engaged actively in policy debates surrounding the technology industry. He has spoken and written about the need for regulatory frameworks that account for the unique dynamics of network-based businesses, and he has argued that traditional antitrust frameworks may be insufficient to address the market power of dominant internet platforms.

Burnham's policy engagement has included participation in public forums, conferences, and written commentary on topics including net neutrality, platform regulation, and the role of open protocols in fostering competition. His perspective, shaped by his experience as both an investor and a close observer of technology markets, has emphasized the importance of maintaining open, competitive markets in the technology sector and the risks of allowing a small number of dominant platforms to control critical infrastructure.

Broader Investment Portfolio

Through Union Square Ventures, Burnham participated in investments across a range of technology sectors. USV's portfolio has included companies in social media, financial technology, education technology, healthcare, and blockchain, among other areas. The firm's investment approach under Burnham and Wilson was characterized by a willingness to invest early in companies that were building on emerging technological paradigms, often before those paradigms had achieved mainstream adoption.

USV's thesis evolved over time, with Burnham and Wilson periodically updating and refining the firm's stated investment focus to reflect changes in the technology landscape. The firm's early investments focused on web-based networks and communities, while later phases incorporated investments in blockchain-based projects, decentralized applications, and companies working at the intersection of technology and public policy.

Recognition

Burnham's work at Union Square Ventures and his contributions to the intellectual discourse around technology investment, platform economics, and decentralization have earned him recognition within the venture capital and technology communities. USV's track record of successful investments, combined with the firm's distinctive thesis-driven approach, positioned the firm as one of the most closely watched venture capital firms in the industry.

Burnham's writings and public appearances on topics such as skinny platforms, data ownership, and decentralized technology have been featured in a variety of technology and business publications. His interview with Shareable on the concept of skinny platforms was cited as an articulation of an alternative vision for how technology platforms could be structured. His views on data ownership were profiled in The Block, reflecting the growing interest in his perspective within the cryptocurrency and blockchain communities.

The firm's blog, where Burnham and other USV partners published their investment theses, analyses, and announcements, became a widely read resource within the technology and venture capital communities. Posts authored or co-authored by Burnham, including the announcements of investments in Protocol Labs and OB1, contributed to public understanding of USV's investment strategy and Burnham's views on the future of the internet.

Legacy

Brad Burnham's influence on the venture capital industry and the broader technology ecosystem extends beyond the specific investments made by Union Square Ventures. His articulation of the "skinny platform" concept offered a framework for thinking about how technology infrastructure could be designed to distribute value more equitably among participants, rather than concentrating it in the hands of a few platform operators. This framework influenced subsequent debates about platform regulation, antitrust policy, and the design of decentralized systems.

Through his advocacy for data ownership and decentralized technology, Burnham contributed to a growing movement within the technology industry to reconsider the prevailing models of data collection and monetization. His argument that individuals should have meaningful control over the data they generate anticipated many of the regulatory and societal debates that intensified in the late 2010s and early 2020s, as concerns about data privacy, platform power, and digital rights became increasingly prominent in public discourse.

USV's investment in blockchain-based projects and decentralized protocols, guided in part by Burnham's vision, positioned the firm at the forefront of a significant shift in how technology investors thought about the relationship between protocols and applications. Burnham's view that value would increasingly accrue to the protocol layer — rather than to the application layer built on top of open protocols — represented a meaningful departure from earlier investment frameworks and influenced how other investors and entrepreneurs approached the design and funding of decentralized systems.

Burnham's career also demonstrated the value of a thesis-driven approach to venture capital, in which a clearly articulated investment philosophy serves as a guide for capital allocation and a means of attracting entrepreneurs whose visions align with the firm's priorities. This approach, while not unique to USV, was executed with particular clarity and consistency under Burnham and Wilson's leadership, and it became a model studied and emulated by other venture capital firms seeking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market.