The Obvious Collection

We do various things.

Going Beyond

Obvious has a goal to build systems that help people work together to make the world a better place. There are many different kinds of systems. The assumption has been that we focus exclusively on software—specifically, Internet software, more specifically, consumer web applications. This makes a lot of sense because it’s where we come from, it’s where we're strong, it’s what we gravitate towards, and it’s usually the most effective way to reach millions of people and provoke positive, global change. The web is still our primary area of focus. However, in addition to the project our team is focused on, Obvious helps others with whom we are philosophically aligned. We contribute resources to a small portfolio of companies that share similarly ambitious goals to make the world a better pl…

Biz Stone9.0

Lifting Up

Technology alone does not bring about meaningful change—people do. Technology can help. Making change happen is not about following gurus, it’s about paying attention, and it’s about mindfulness. You don't need software to be more mindful, but it can help. Lift is a mobile application that helps anyone achieve any goal. The unlimited potential of humanity to improve on both an individual level and a global level, drove our decision to contribute resources to Lift. The team behind Lift is not just a group of tech savvy entrepreneurs. They are respected engineers and designers with strong management skills, incredible recruiting capability, and friends everywhere. Lift founders Tony and Jon have a powerful yet simple and positively charged mission—to help people help themselves. These ar…

Biz Stone8.9

Neighboring Issues

We need only glance at the headlines from Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to understand that people are passionate about connecting over issues. We all have issues, big and small. Toppling oppressive regimes and protesting corruption are appropriately top of mind. But what about everything else that surrounds us and shapes our daily lives? How should we go about uniting at a more modest level to improve our schools, our streets, our local shops—our communities? Technology can help humanity work together to make our world a better place. Obvious operates under the assumption that this is a fundamental truth. Neighborland has the potential to connect residents virtually. A connected citizenry is amazingly powerful, as recent events have proven. When neighbors can collectively discuss is…

Biz Stone8.6

Being Obvious

Great ideas are Obvious in retrospect. The Obvious Corporation is more of a philosophy than a company or product. We focus our long term view on ideas and technology that can be generally described as “world positive.” When opportunities resonate with our worldview, we do what makes sense to help them succeed. So far, a small portfolio of companies across a variety of disciplines and a vision for how publishing could be improved have grabbed our attention. From a practical standpoint, Obvious is a small company in downtown San Francisco, CA. Most of the folks working in this office are focused on a product called Medium. However, we have dedicated resources—not just in the form of capital but also in the form of “roll up our sleeves and help out” to a group of philosophically aligned pe…

Biz Stone8.3

Building Medium

What does a publishing system designed for today’s content, information, and communication landscape look like? Thirteen years ago we helped democratize publishing with a web-native approach called blogging. That was a long time ago and everything is different now—social networks, mobile devices, you name it. We felt compelled to build a content network for the technology age we’re living in now, and we have a vision for what publishing should be. Putting ideas on the Internet is great, it makes them available to more people. However, printing words on a screen like we do on paper doesn’t take advantage of the fact that we’re all networked and using powerful computers. There is so much room for improvement and innovation in the publishing space right now because it’s operating on outdat…

Biz Stone7.9

Branching Out

Information democratization is a wonderful thing—we’ve always believed that the open exchange of information makes the world a better place. Over the past decade, the web has become home to self expression for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Thanks to simple services like blogging, social networking, and Twitter, everyone has a voice. However, it’s important to note that we are just at the beginning of what’s possible and there’s lots of room for innovation. Many of us know the internet as a seemingly limitless source of information, but information is not knowledge. We’d like to see the web evolve to a point where we get smarter when we spend time engaging. My colleagues and I had the good fortune to meet three talented young men dedicated precisely to this issue. Josh,…

Biz Stone7.4