Category: Startups

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Aesthetics Community Internet Culture Startups

Day 1066 and Behind The Scenes of Thousand Scenes Flourishing

We are living in an era of competing totalizing narratives. We assign Jungian archetypes and monomyths to complicated people and complex situations with many variables.

We ship relationships and stan fandoms even as the meme message is that we should be shipping code and forming bonds with other people with agency.

Remember that hyperstition is about bringing a reality into being. We have agency to impact the world we live in. We have more control than ever and anyone can get leverage.

I’m so inspired to see how many communities are facing an uncertain future head on. Sure we’ve had schisms and it’s easy to judge someone else’s sincere revivalism with crass cynicism.

I prefer an optimism about what we can all accomplish when we compete to serve a need better than anyone else. I like specialization as the more knowledgeable that is dispersed widely beyond a priest cast the better we seem to do as a species. A whole world of people is calling to you to own more of the future personally.

You may wonder what you can contribute. And sure some actors are massively more agentic. I never thought I’d be in that rare class and yet I can contribute meaningful to dozens of aligned projects. It’s important to avoid dickriding. Don’t make up stories about your betters. Or at least try not to believe them.

You can be personally better yourself. You can accelerate. Now is the time to arm yourself with leverage as the world shifts. Be wary of messiahs and mercenaries but also know action is expensive.

Strong organizations have healthy value memetics. “Just Do It” frames a broader truth that humans take in a context of millions of other agents. Action is disproportionally powerful when people just play their role.

I fight nihilism. I’m not eager for the end of humanity or our civilizations. I want our flourishing. But neither am I attached to a static vision of my humanity or yours. In the image of God gives quite a bit of latitude for our species’ evolution.

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Internet Culture Startups

Day 1062 and Just Go

I’m writing this as I wait to board an airplane from Bozeman to San Francisco International. In the spirit of taking more actions I am applying more acceleration to my own daily life. If you’d like to discuss e/acc #FreedomToCompute I’ll be around in the city and you can expect to see me at some events.

It feels unusual just hopping on an airplane. It was a behavior that I took for granted in pre-pandemic life. The golden age for the early adopter consumer internet and the low interest rate phenomenon of the post Global Financial Crisis meant I could hop a flight from NYC to SFO and arrange an Airbnb or HotelTonight while in the security line.

It’s a little more challenging now if you don’t come out of the last cycle with a few wins. And judging by the fullness of the flight and its demographics others are seeing San Francisco as the center of a lot of activity in making sure they win the future.

Leaning into the future coming fast is a consensus view. Everyone is contesting space and the virtual world of the global internet is a powerful constituency. It’s just important to remember that even as we’ve mediated a lot with these tools sometimes you have to validate in person. Humans are just wired that way.

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Internet Culture Politics Startups

Day 1058 and Battle Plans

The sense of anger, frustration and disappointment in Silicon Valley startup circles over the current regulatory mess around artificial intelligence and compute limits is intense. #FreedomToCompute is resonating.

As with any new technology there are invested interests, naysayers, panicking and paranoia. Which would be enough to make us remember past battles over encryption and privacy. This time we’ve got the cherry on top of existential risk.

While I agree that artificial intelligence is a technology that will have many risks, I tend to think of them as of the more quotidian types like algorithmic bias. We cannot allow incumbent powers to centralize a new technology that can and should benefit us all.

Math and computing power are as essential as speech. In today’s world, they ARE speech. We may speak in natural language, but the way we extend ourselves, build things, and grow as a species is through our tools. Computation is a tool.

We oppose all attempts to restrict computational power and envision a world where we all have the right to build whatever we can dream.

#FreedomtoCompute Julie Fredrickson

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Startups

Day 1055 and Shipping

All of startup world has spent the last few days wrapped up in the drama of OpenAI and why the board fired Sam Altman.

A theory I’d like to float (seriously but not literally) is that we are in the middle of a massive scissor statement war between “acceleration” and “deceleration” and we’ve assigned Jungian archetype champions & simple “just so” stories to the players.

There is very little nuance when you seek to find meaning in a situation by narrative alone. Recall that divide and conquer is an effective control technique and Silicon Valley is finding it must choose sides. Perhaps this is by design.

Everyone is overthinking this whole OpenAI debacle. The real explanation has been staring is the face for weeks.

Be concerned, be very very concerned.

Bojan Tunguz
I expect AI to be capable of superhuman persuasion well before it is superhuman at general intelligence, which may lead to some very strange outcomes

I think the “super” human part is how super stupid we are as a species when it comes to smoothing narratives and hero worship. We are easily persuaded by stories we recognize. This meme summed it up nicely.

Memes are just 21st century Jungian archetypes.

If you had an artificial intelligence trained on every single biography, history & public relations campaign in written history (let’s entertain the notion Altman did) wouldn’t this hijacking of narratives & assigning of fables be what it would do?

The vibes of Silicon Valley were checked. To make a joke about all the fan fiction we’ve collectively co-written on social media, we shipped the marriage of e/acc and Sam Altman. We shipped Altman and Brockman as loyal cofounder technology brothers in arms fighting for acceleration.

We told stories and made heroes and villains of the two narratives. Even though many of the factions in e/acc absolutely had criticized the regulatory capture approach of OpenAI. But once it was a choice between acceleration and deceleration sides were chosen.

When it was presented as a binary choice most chose a side on this easily. Acceleration is better on average than deceleration. I believe that too.

I have a lot of caveats and nuance in that choice, as I bet most people who work in artificial intelligence and Silicon Valley probably do. Yes change is hard and no change is without risk. Time marches on.

If it’s one or the other, sometimes people get irreparably split off entirely by the scissor. Be skeptical of this. Don’t separate yourself from people you know to be of good faith and conscience.

The only way we achieve anything is by doing the other kind of shipping. Ship your code, ship your product, make things and get feedback from people. Hero worship and archetypal battles don’t matter as much as taking action in your own life. Build things for yourself and for other people. That’s a human goal.

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Media Startups

Day 1051 and Wild Speculation

My timeline got absolutely imploded by the news that Sam Altman has been fired by the board of OpenAI. I’ve got so many priors and biases and you probably can guess at some of them. Others I hope I’ve played a little closer to the chest. I do not know what happened.

Everyone in Silicon Valley is going Matthew McConaughey paranoid smoking conspiracies

I do think we’d know more about what the fuck was going if we had the kind of reporting that was a little more shoot from the hip and a little less tsk tsk regime. I’ve never missed Valleywag more.

I do think it’s been an impossibly weird week and everyone is as reactive as it is possible to be. Silicon Valley has always had factions and drama and the Federal government breathing down its neck. So this feels like a little bit of the same cycle of power and drama that we’ve always had. No one is ever an angel and the devils are often unexpected. It’s best not to make a martyr out of mercenaries. Just don’t be too sure you know what army you’ve been drafted into.

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Startups

Day 1047 and Risking Resets

Apparently the last year has been an “annus horribilus” for startups. Kate Clarke writes in The Information.

If 2022 was a year of shock and denial for tech founders and investors as stocks collapsed, 2023 was a year of acceptance of their harsh new reality.

Kate Clarke “Startups’ Annus Horribilis—and What Comes Next”

Maybe I never got over my skis, but I don’t feel like I went through shock or denial as capital markets tightened. I remember a world before interest rates were low. I remember bad times. I have memories of bankruptcies and struggles to raise capital.

I was a teenager watching my father when tech crashed the first time. I was living in San Francisco working for a venture backed company that had acquired my startup when Sequoia said RIP good times and the global financial crisis unfolded.

Maybe the elder millennial timing of my life wasn’t as shitty as we thought. The constant crises were the norm. Unlike Gen Xers I never had a fear of selling out. I was much more interested in finding a way to survive. And I was disappointed to learn that the institutions didn’t really offer that anymore.

When I had good luck I didn’t think my accomplishments were my own. I mostly thought of them as accidents of survival. Praying for exits was less of a joke and more of a bitter reality. And when they did come it was a surprise.

I have made my peace with the risk of resetting the chess board. My optimism has always been tempered by expectations of crisis and chaos. I might even believe it’s for the best.

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Biohacking Startups

Day 1039 and Can’t Wait for Monday

Maybe this is my second wind finally kicking in but I cannot wait to start my week tomorrow.

I am pleased that this is how I feel at 5pm Mountain Time. I woke up at 3am thanks to my comical jet lag from having been on GMT +8 for several weeks. I don’t recommend flying a transcontinental flight the day before daylight savings incidentally. I proceeded to feel like absolute shit all day.

But as the Sunday scaries kick in for the rest of the timeline, I am absolutely pumped for my work week. My workload is just super exciting.

The Network State conference left me pumped. The mutuals I spent time with in Amsterdam for other engagements also got me pumped. A founder I’ve been working with for almost a year is hitting his first visible traction moment and I am pumped to strategize with him. Another builder friend is interested in pursuing some funding and asked me to weigh in. The communications work I do for founders has led me to a particularly interesting challenge I want to help them solve.

I am just overall really excited for my work. I can only hope my body is up for it. I will have to carefully manage rest and recovery as this workload is worth the annoyance of treating my body with utmost care.

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Internet Culture Startups

Day 1036 and The Right Direction

I’ve been in Europe for the last month. My itinerary included Tallinn, Helsinki and Amsterdam. It was a personal trip with work overlayed on top as the digital nomad as become a regular part of my life.

I have said it before but I don’t take as much pleasure as you might imagine from these trips. Much of the reason I spend so much time outside of America is simply that the State department won’t let in the kind of rare weirdo digital grey tribe talent from the portions of the world the United States has labeled as “bad passports.”

I’ve written about it extensively if you are interested. We’ve reached a crisis point in the dysfunction of our immigration and travel visa system in America and it weighed heavily on me and mine. It’s the most concrete evidence I have that America simply isn’t serious about being competitive in the global economy.

As I head back home to the states, I want to be sure I’m heading in the right direction with my priorities. I’ve been committed to crypto for close to a decade now. I’ve added in more focus as it’s become clearer we can’t rely on fiat and the dollar system. I’ve become part of the artificial intelligence explosion over the last two years. Now that the Network State concept is more formalized and we have rallying movements like e/acc, I feel as if some optimism is cautiously warranted. All it will take is twenty or thirty years of work and surviving the geopolitical tumult. No big deal right?

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Startups Travel

Day 1024 and Rate of Change

I had to slow down for two weeks to balance out my work, my circumstances, world events and my emotions. I always find myself disappointed at slowing down. There is a certain mood taking a hold in my circles. A certain “extropian enthusiasm” has taken root.

And I find myself looking to go faster. I see the need for momentum. I struggle to stumble at the pace I keep now. My heart variability chart, which shows a kind of adaptability stress, is jerky with dips and rises. But I am also certain I’m managing better.

Have you ever felt like it was easier to lean into more? That sometimes things feel smoother when they are faster. Control remains an illusion so why not let it go.

I am thinking of going to Amsterdam for the Network State conference at the end of the month. The flight from Tallinn isn’t too bad and I’m a believer in the need to build systems. I owe much to supranational connections of shared values. And I’d like to us to pursue financial and contractual systems that connect us globally. The state should not be a limiting factor for progress.

And so I am thinking of my own rate of change. What can I sustain in my own daily life and circumstances and how does it stack against the increased rate of change of a future that is arriving fast? I like to think I’ll meet the moment but I’m certain I’ll be humbled by its arrival.

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Startups

Day 1006 and Startup Towns

I was born in the startup Fertile Crescent of Silicon Valley. But I grew up outside of one of the many ecosystem towns. Boulder Colorado always took pride in not only its technical roots in aerospace and defense, but in its new software startups as well.

I admire people that build out a startup ecosystem. Understanding that a certain environment of agency breeds good outcomes. Maybe it’s a kind of boom town mentality in the good years. But in any year it’s good to be on the team that believes in the future. It feels as if people are pulling in the same direction.

I get the sense that Tallinn as a city and Estonia in general as a country believe in a better future. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy seeing a city with a lot of construction. Offices also appear to be full but there is also housing in the city core. Everyone seems to have kids. I’ve never seen more first graders in a city.

The gentleman I met today said that in the future every country will be competing for every global citizen. I think that insight is at the heart of believing in a better future. You have to believe that if you are talented that countries will rightly compete to have you as its citizen. The frontier of the future will be found in finding the optimistic folks who believe that their efforts will make their chosen place better.