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On to the monthly update,
Maximum Cope
Building a life for yourself is a real investment, and not one that’s uniquely insulated from markets or current events. If America loses power relative to India and China, the value of an American education will go down, and any mythos around the “college dropout” will seem quaint and sad.
In the coming years, many will try to soothe you (or themselves) with something to the effect of now is the time to build!. It may well be, but I would advise against “building” unless you are sure that you can push history at least a little bit in a good direction.
Ozymandias is not lame because for trying to be great, but for having been a tyrant. Try to be great!
Do the world’s smartest, most industrious people still want to become founders? If not, what else are they doing?
As for the first question, the answer is an unequivocal “no”.
If you are already in an environment where you are highly valued and riding a trend line of personal growth, the decision to become a founder is probably not worth it. The economics of founding have turned it from the next great American myth to a resume builder, which is reflected in the risk profiles of those drawn to founding companies. Specifically, founders are more risk-averse and economical. Bummer.
If you are a creative with ambitions in design or a will to reach people, you probably shouldn’t be starting a company either. The wealth of new creation tools, and the ability to exponentially grow audiences, makes the decision to operate as a free agent much more attractive. I would point to 𝒍𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒍 𝒓𝒆𝒚 。・:*:・゚✧ as a good example of this, you can become massively influential in your free time just by having one good idea every day.
The upshot of this is that although the social pedigree of founders may be somewhat limited, and other options may be edging it out, those who do build companies are having a much better time. Guidance is more readily available than ever, as are peers working on the same problems.
The dark horse is small business ownership.
In the US, there are 40000 one-person companies making more than 1 million dollars a year in revenue. This means that about .01% of people in the US are millionaire small business owners.
In the future, the PhDs from non-ivy schools may just end up making custom smartphones for their metropolitan area. The new creator economy.
So, what are the smartest, most industrious people doing right now?
Most of them are riding decade-long learning curves to become experts in an important field. One wonders if there’s not a crisis lurking in so many smart people working to become indefensibly valuable instead of becoming experts in historically underappreciated niches.
My first hackathon
I built a demo for halla, a web3 social media platform. The app is a twitter clone that gives you the option to form factions and censor tweets through smart contracts. Therefore, you could use internal governance to create a group branding and identity.
I gave a super excitable demo because I’d been stewing over this idea for months, and a hot VC/Judge basically replied “wow that’s pretty controversiallllll” in a flippant tone.
They ended up choosing Crypto Wordle to win the $5k, but I was kinda asking for it. It was painful and taxing. I would do again with an aligned team.
Stuff I tried/did
Wrote a couple of blog posts, one on 3 habits for sustainable eating and another on the relationship between Evan Spiegel and Mark Zuckerberg
Data and Computer Communications - A textbook I raided from RPI back in the day, read 7/15 chapters. I wanted to learn what the internet (up to IP) was made of, and it turns out it’s nodes managing packets which contain signals. A strong introduction, but written for a technical audience from the early 90s, so many parts were useless.
Mitsui - This book descends into geopolitics and palace intrigue after a while, but the early parts are instructive for building long-lasting institutions. Mitsui is a business empire older than the United States, with fingers in literally everything. Its decentralized structure, focus on the basics, and large coffer should be learned from. In the end I read about 100 pages and skimmed some of the rest. Will give some later chapters a try, then return it.
Francis Chichester (Anita Leslie) - One of the greatest explorers to ever live, not well known enough.
Wolf Guy - Heavy funk soundtrack and beautiful actors in violent martial arts noire, a cult classic. If that sounds like your thing, it will deliver.
The Oyler House Richard Neutras Desert Retreat - Don’t watch this boring-ass movie.
Helvetica - Typography, Graphic Design and Global Visual Culture
Super Mario 3d World - banger
Super Mario NDS - banger
Spider Man Web of Shadows - metroidvania spiderman, ambitious but bad
Assassin’s creed rogue
Mislaid (Nell Zink) - started, banger
Super extra grande (Yoss) - started, fun
Don’t Look Up
Noma-my perfect storm
Kumare
Across the Plateau - Chinese seniors bike across china
Kate plays Christine - genius, disturbing
What We Do in the Shadows
Hooligan Sparrow
Cumboto
Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa lahiri)
Bleed (switch)
Yale philosophy - lectures 1 and 2 + mit bio lectures 1 + 2
I also missed a bunch of cardio workouts. Sad!
The pivot
I have come to disagree with the claim that there is some massive influx of talent into Ethereum. I think the environment more closely reflects the tendency of smart teenagers to flock to tech trends, and the greater internationalization of this tendency.
I have also come to believe that Ethereum as a platform is defined entirely by its reputation, and not by any lasting vision or technological primitive. It’s digital law, and probably will be forever.
So, I’m pivoting. I found a couple of things that I really want to build towards, one broadly within web3, and one in the physical world.
Everything feels like a good homework assignment. I’m gonna set aside many more days to relax and walk around, or just play video games.
In other news…
I got the first (free) subscribers to my Substack! It’s not much yet, but growth has been faster than I expected.
I don’t really send subscriber notifications when I publish, but if you get value from anything I write, please consider a free subscription. It grows my ego, unless you don’t want that, in which case your support is humbling.