Alex Wittenberg

[W]e are not addicted to any of our machines. Those are just contraptions made up of silicon chips, plastic, metal, glass. None of those, even when combined into complex and sometimes beautiful devices, are things that human beings can become addicted to […] there is a relationship between distraction and addiction, but we are not addicted to... See more

SaaS wisdom teaches us narrow lessons: start by conquering a narrow market and expand from there, add at least as much in ARR as you burn each year, and build your product either horizontally or vertically.

Datasets aren’t simply raw materials to feed algorithms, but are political interventions. As such, much of the discussion around 'bias' in AI systems misses the mark: there is no 'neutral,' 'natural,' or 'apolitical' vantage point that training data can be built upon. There is no easy technical 'fix' by shifting demographics, deleting offensive... See more

My theory about these things is to make a language which panders not to the computers but to the humans, and try to make a language where the language is, as much as possible, able to take what the humans think of and convert it into some form that the computers can understand. 

In Illich’s view, modern institutions—including, for example, education, transportation, and medicine—had the (possibly unintended) consequence of deskilling the person and generating dependence on professionalized services. “Deskilling” is my word. Illich talked about a loss of competence and autonomy (always, though, in the service of mutual... See more

Currently, even some of the largest protocols are unable to generate enough revenue to cover operational expenses (audits, salaries/payments to contributors, marketing, etc.). Yearn, for instance, operates at a loss even after accounting for non-operating income from yield farming. As such, retaining protocol revenue alone is likely to be... See more

A huge production incident happened?How was this possible in the first place?Where was the focus of the engineering team?Was there a process in place to avoid it?Should there be one?The person breaking production isn't at fault here. 

While a DAO may be able to generate 10-30% returns by investing its assets in financial assets, a well-managed DAO can generate far higher returns by investing in things that allow it to control its own destiny — investing in people (contributors), marketing, growth initiatives, and acquisitions. In our view, the returns from making the DAOs... See more

What type of skillsets/roles are required?