I came across two really cool posts from USV today.

The first, Fred Wilson talked about his long relationship with Return Path and it’s founder Matt Blumberg. Very heartfelt and a really great story.

The second is an interesting project started by USV today called Free Learning.

Free learning is free-form and self-directed (much like Free Climbing or Free Diving). In free learning, learners ask questions, they want to know things. They use their innate curiosity to drive the learning.

How does one free learn? The first step is to be passionate, the next step is to ask a question, and then the last step is to find a community where finding the answer is encouraged. This passion and community-driven learning is already happening in music and sports – we join bands and teams that encourage us to learn more, and it is our own passion that drives us to get better – imagine if the same could happen in other subjects too.