February ‘24 recap
This month I switched over from using Google to Perplexity for search. I love it. You get the answer you need first, and you can easily go to the sources if you want to. Next time you’re thinking of searching something on Google, try out Perplexity. The ios app is really good too.
Articles:
Corporate Ozempic | Scott Galloway
I’m not sure I believe this entirely, and the metaphor is a bit forced, but it’s an interesting article about how AI is starting to affect (and take) jobs
Tech Layoffs Keep Coming. Why Is Head Count Barely Budging? | WSJ
Headlines of tech companies layoff off staff are all over. But when you zoom out over the last 3-5 years, big tech headcounts have still grown quite a bit.
I think some of these companies have laid off a lot of staff in the US while hiring cheaper staff outside of the US to save $$.
Podcasts:
Mark Suster and Samir Kaji on the 2024 Venture Market, IPOs, and Secondaries | This Week in Startups
In this podcast, Mark Suster gave great data saying that:
40% of the 1,400 private unicorns in the world were minted in 2021.
4 funds, Tiger, Softbank, and 2 others led rounds that created 60% of the unicorns minted in 2021
Danny Meyer, The Power of Hospitality | Invest like the best
After reading Unreasonable Hospitality and watching the Bear, I’ve gotten more interested in hospitality and fine dining. Danny Meyer is best known for founding Shake Shack, but he’s also the restauranteur who founded Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs, or ran, Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, and a bunch of other top restaurants.
Meyer tells a great story in this episode when talking about expanding Shake Shack into new cities. Meyer says what made them successful was following an 80/20 rule:
80% of the Shake Shack experience would be identical to a shake shack anywhere else in the world, while 20% would be specific and tailored to that specific city. This helped Shake Shack connect with the people in the new city.
The 20% could be anything from a new item on the menu to the decor in the restaurant. They even sent people to live in the city months before opening so they could understand what the locals wanted. This 80/20 of consistency/trying new things is probably applicable in a lot of places in business and life.
El Salvador Decimated Gangs. But at what cost? | The Daily
In 2021, El Salvador’s supreme court (with Bukele’s full support) changed their old laws, allowing for presidential candidates to run for re-election.
El Salvador’s current president, Nayib Bukele, is incredible popular for aggressively taking out gangs across the country, and turning El Salvador from one of the most dangerous countries in the world to one of the safest in Latin America, and safer than the US by some data.
I only hope that Bukele stays popular and is willing to give up power when the time comes and doesn’t become a dictator that refuses to leave office.
El Salvador became safer than the US in 2023
Books:
Read, write, own | Chris Dixon
My thoughts:
I got interested in blockchain in 2017. Ethereum was launched in 2015, and I fell in love with the utopian idea of what a versatile blockchain like Ethereum could bring. Looking back, I should have bought a lot more ETH at the time…
While I still think that blockchain is incredibly powerful, it seems like there are 2 camps of people: those who treat blockchain and crypto as a religion, and everyone else. The reality is that most people don’t really care, or aren’t affected, by all the downsides of corporate networks. I think this is partially because most people don’t understand the idea of digital ownership (see below), but mostly because it doesn’t really matter to them.
AI is hot, and Crypto and blockchain is no longer on everyone’s mind. That’s why I think it’s a good time to read this book. It’s straightforward, and you don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to get a lot out of it.
Who knows when Blockchain will have it’s ChatGPT moment, the moment when it goes mainstream and the masses can understand and actually use it. For AI, it took almost 80 years (Alan Turing talked about it publicly in 1947). Bitcoin’s whitepaper was published in 2008. Crypto and blockchain is still relatively new. I’m very interested, but far from obsessed, with how we’ll see blockchain continue to develop over the next 10-20 years
Main themes:
Evolution of the internet: The internet has evolved from the "read era" (1990-2005), where information was democratized, to the "read-write era" (2006-2020), where publishing became democratized, leading to the emerging "read-write-own era," enabling broader network stakeholder participation.
Networks:
Protocol networks (email, the web): are open and community driven. They really struggle to compete with better funded corporate networks because they have no good way of getting funding. Email and the web are the only relevant protocol networks today, and only were able to stay relevant because of when they were developed
Corporate networks (facebook, twitter, youtube, instagram, tik tok): Networks that companies, not communities, control. They follow the “attract, extract” model: starting “attracting” users and developers with friendly terms, and then as their network effects continue to grow and they get more powerful, “extracting” value out of the users. They have full control over all decision making. You don’t own your username, your followers aren’t transferable to other platforms, and whenever a corporate wants, they can turn off or limit your account at will. For any companies that build on top of these platforms, if they are really successful, corporate networks can close their API, and build the product themselves. The big ones are really well funded. Their businesses rely on creators, but creators typically get less than 1% of the revenue pie.
Blockchain networks: are what Dixon thinks are the best of both worlds and the future: Blockchain networks combine the advantages of protocol and corporate networks while avoiding their pitfalls, offering a decentralized yet efficient alternative for digital interaction and innovation. Since blockchain networks are governed by software, the rules of each network is unalterable, unless agreed upon by the majority of the network. Blockchain networks allow for real virtual ownership: your username is actually yours, not Instagram’s. And instead of getting less than 1% of the share of revenue created, blockchain software will make for a much more fair distribution. Some % will be part of the blockchain’s take rate to keep things up and running, but a large % of the profits will reach the creators. This, in theory, creates a positive network effect of creators being owners, and increasing incentive to keep building (content, new apps, etc) on top of that blockchain network.
The casino vs. the computer: I really like this concept, and agree that it’s the main problem with Blockchain and crypto today.
Casino: the $ aspect that the press focuses on. The price of the tokens associated with the blockchain networks. ETH, BTC, DOGE price.
Computer: the blockchain technology. Blockchain is a computer by the original definition of a computer: Blockchain’s store information and run rules encoded in software that can manipulate that information.
