CrowdfundingClay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies — at least, according to Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia for which he serves as an advisor. Shirky is also the author of Here Comes Everybody (2008) and Cognitive Surplus (2010), two books examining the results, ramifications and potential of aggregated individual action.
Crowdsourcing.org recently spoke with web guru Clay Shirky about the JOBS Act, which President Obama signed into law on April 5. In the transcript — available after the jump — Shirky explains why he “would love to be able to offer essentially wholehearted support of the crowdfunding law,” but has several reservations about the regulatory relief embedded in the bill. (Spoiler: A lot comes down to the SEC’s interpretation of the law, which is ostensibly scheduled to conclude in the first few days of 2013.) Shirky also discusses Kickstarter’s present dominance in the crowdfunding space, the vagaries of pre-JOBS Act law in relation to crowdfunding, and the effect of the JOBS Act on the current startup ecosystem and traditional venture capital.
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