This is, I think, at the root of why I like reading private notes so much. There are so few places where we get to be close to other people and see the messy humanity they carry behind the identities they have polished for society life. There are so few places where we can apprentice ourselves to the unspeakable labors of thinking and feeling that... See more
Tech is still heavily dominated by startups, and will probably continue to be for a very long time. But as tech matures as an industry, and there are more extreme wealth outcomes, there is now (as one might expect) an increased interest in solving ambitious problems with philanthropic capital.
Founders are constantly asked to envision the path to a world where they’re massively successful. I propose, then, a revision of Kant’s imperative for technologists: do not work on something if you yourself do not want to live in the world where you are massively successful.3 With this reframe, we turn the question of unicorn status on its head,... See more
Blockchain data is open and free: Financial applications built on blockchains all have a shared backend which is open for anyone to monitor. If someone takes out a loan on the blockchain, anyone can verify that the loan happened, at least in theory. The data is not trivial to get, but it is available.
For fans, the possibility of profit amplifies their incentive to support a creator. Interestingly, it also introduces an entirely new segment into the creator’s orbit that had never existed before in web2: speculators. Importantly, all of these users—by virtue of becoming owners of an asset that is aligned with the creator’s success—have an... See more