Joey DeBruin

The downside of lead generation businesses is that they can be a race to the bottom if they're in a crowded and competitive market. The barriers to entry are essentially aggregating supply (i.e. buyers of leads or businesses willing to pay for new customers) so there is little in the way of defensibility. The other downside is that they are very... See more

An Idea Machine is a self-sustaining organism that contains all the parts needed to turn ideas into outcomes:- It starts with a distinct ideology, which becomes a memetic engine that drives the formation of a community- The community’s members start generating ideas amongst themselvesEventually, they form an agenda, which articulates how the... See more

The reality is that there have been successful ARPA programs all over the spectrum. JCR Licklider “just” spelled out an extraordinary vision, found people who were aligned with it, and gave them resources. Only a few years later, Lawrence Roberts ran the ARPAnet program almost like a CEO: giving different people and groups parts of a broader... See more

Effective altruism’s strength lies in its infrastructure, which we can use to better understand how other idea machines work, what their impact will be, and what’s needed to make them more effective.

The divide between those who do and don’t own capital is an important driver of widening wealth inequality [50]. Forms of accessible co-ownership could be an antidote to chronic wage stagnation and anxieties about job-replacing automation.

Great ideas tend to come from a single mind and leadership is a requirement for effective human collaboration. Hierarchies are well-optimised to enable strong leaders to achieve strong outcomes. DAOs do not get around this fact. Hierarchies work because they enable leaders to synthesise the contributions of a group.