Brad Burnham

Burnham majored in political science at Wesleyan University.⁠[1]

In 1979, Burnham began working in information technology at AT&T, holding a variety of sales, marketing and business development roles.⁠[1][2]

In 1989, Burnham spun Echo Logic out of Bell Laboratories as a company.⁠[1]

In 1993, Burnham joined AT&T Ventures, AT&T’s venture capital group, where he later became a partner. He recalled that when he first got into venture capital in the early 1990s, about half of the deals he brought to the partnership were dismissed with the line “what the heck do they do if Microsoft decides to enter this business.”⁠[1][2][3]

Burnham recalled that he met the entrepreneur Dave Morgan in an elevator in Dallas in 1995; Morgan went on to found the ad serving platform Real Media. In April 2001, Morgan approached Burnham, who supported the development of TACODA, built on the idea of addressing advertising to people instead of pages, and became its co-founder; TACODA’s business took off after it used its own software to introduce a behaviorally targeted advertising network in November 2004.⁠[4][4][4][4][1][4]

In 2003, Burnham and Fred Wilson founded Union Square Ventures (USV). He wrote that both had invested in TACODA as individuals before USV was formed, and that working together on TACODA convinced them to form USV. In 2004, the two wrote to the Limited Partners of their inaugural fund that they would invest in early-stage companies that exploit the now ubiquitous Internet infrastructure and add value to broadly available core technologies.⁠[1][4][4][5][5]

USV redesigned its website and launched a blog. Burnham wrote that the market was changing so fast that the investment thesis on the earlier site already seemed dated and would be dated again six months after any update, so the firm decided to publish its conversation with the market directly as a blog.⁠[6][6][6]

Burnham wrote that the net neutrality debate was really about whether the local loop is a natural monopoly, whether it will always be so, and, if it is, whether it should be regulated to ensure the public good.⁠[7]

AOL/Time Warner agreed to buy the USV portfolio company TACODA. Burnham wrote that the relationship with TACODA predated USV and that the company embodied all the key elements of USV’s investment strategy.⁠[4][4]

Burnham responded to Nathan Myhrvold, who held up his company Intellectual Ventures as a model, saying both wanted to promote useful innovation but that Myhrvold saw the patent system as the answer while he saw it as the problem: patent abuse meant entrepreneurs launching new web services needed permission from patent holders yet could not know whom to ask.⁠[8][8][8]

USV, together with fifty-three venture capitalists from forty firms, sent a letter to senators and a number of members of Congress opposing the PROTECT IP Act (S. 968). Burnham wrote that the bill was ripe for abuse, would increase the risk of investing in startups and reduce capital available to young companies, while making little dent in piracy.⁠[9][9][9][9]

USV invested in DuckDuckGo, the search engine founded by Gabriel WeinbergGabriel WeinbergGabriel Weinberg is an American entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of the internet privacy company DuckDuckGo. He launched the DuckDuckGo search engine in Pennsylvania in 2008, positioned it from 2010 on as a search engine that does not track users’ search histories, and has since spoken out publicly over the long term on issues such as privacy legislation and competition in the search market; he also co-authored the startup marketing book Traction and the mental models book Super Thinking.Open the full entry. Burnham wrote that the decision drew on the decline of Microsoft’s dominance in the 1990s: rather than competing head-on, the way to compete was to change the basis of competition; Weinberg had built and sold companies before and had bootstrapped DuckDuckGo into a viable search engine without outside capital.⁠[3][3][3][3]

Burnham testified as a managing partner of USV at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on net neutrality. He said two characteristics of the Internet, separating applications from infrastructure and making every application immediately available to every consumer, meant innovators no longer needed permission from a boss, a network operator or an investor; if access providers could charge applications for faster delivery, startups would need to raise money up front to buy access to the fast lane. Calling himself a capitalist who believes in markets, he said he was not suggesting the Internet be regulated, but that access networks not be allowed to exploit their bottleneck position to distort the market for applications.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

Robert McDowell, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who testified at the same hearing, took a different view, arguing that the Internet’s success came from the government largely keeping its hands off, calling it “the greatest deregulatory success story of all time,” and opposing regulating the Net like an old phone monopoly.⁠[2][2][2]

The USV 2016 fund’s key man provision was changed from the founders Fred Wilson and Burnham to Albert WengerAlbert WengerAlbert Wenger is a New York venture capitalist and writer, a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), former president of the bookmarking site del.icio.us, and author of The World After Capital, which discusses the scarcity of attention and basic income; he also co-founded community projects in Hudson, New York, including a basic income pilot. Since October 2026 he has moved to continuing support of USV and is no longer listed on its core investment team.Open the full entry and Andy WeissmanAndy WeissmanAndy Weissman is a New York venture capitalist who has been a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV) since 2011 and earlier co-founded the technology company and investment platform betaworks; when USV announced its new funds in October 2026, he moved to continuing support of the firm and its portfolio companies and is no longer listed on the core investment team.Open the full entry. John ButtrickJohn ButtrickJohn Buttrick is a New York venture capitalist who has been a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV) since 2010 and has invested in a number of fintech companies; earlier he was a mergers and acquisitions partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, and he chairs the board of the environmental group Environmental Advocates of New York. Since October 2026 he has moved to continuing support of USV and is no longer listed on its core investment team.Open the full entry wrote that the previous summer Wilson, Burnham and he had each concluded it was time to cut back a bit, but that the three remained active in all of the fund’s investment decisions; rumors that Wilson or Burnham were retiring were unfounded.⁠[10][10][10][10][10]

Burnham led a post co-signed with Fred Wilson, Andy Weissman, John Buttrick and Albert Wenger on the USV website, stating that this was the first presidential election during USV’s existence in which the firm endorsed a candidate, Hillary Clinton, and that of the two major party candidates only she had the temperament and experience to lead at home and represent the country abroad.⁠[11][11][11]

USV made its first investment in a public company, a substantial investment in Tucows, which had been publicly traded for over 15 years. Burnham wrote that the permissionless innovation enabled by the open Internet was threatened by consolidation at both the application and access layers, and that Tucows was using profits from its wholesale domain name business to build open fiber networks in places such as Charlottesville, Virginia, offering unfiltered and unthrottled access.⁠[12][12][12][12]

USV announced $900 million in new funds and a team reorganization: the core investment team consists of new members together with Fred Wilson, Rebecca KadenRebecca KadenRebecca Kaden is an American venture capitalist and a managing partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV). She joined the firm in 2017 and since 2026 has been one of its four active general partners.Open the full entry, Nick GrossmanNick GrossmanNick Grossman is an American venture capitalist and a general partner at the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), focusing on technologies such as crypto networks and AI agents that could reshape large markets. He began his career in urban planning and open-source civic technology and joined USV in 2012.Open the full entry and Nikhil Raman, while Burnham, Andy Weissman, Albert Wenger and John Buttrick continue supporting USV and its portfolio companies.⁠[5][5]

X: Public account: https://x.com/BradUSV (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

Union Square Ventures: Official website: https://www.usv.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]