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Culture

Day 997 and Brain Fog

I have felt a bit disappointed in my recent writing. I’ve not felt the urge to produce anything of much substance or synthesis in a week or two. The exercise of writing daily isn’t meant to produce anything but the consistent repetition of a habit of critical thinking about my daily experiences. I sometimes have […]

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Community Politics Preparedness

Day 939 and Culture Wins Not Culture Wars

You could be forgiven for losing faith in the American Dream. We’ve had a rough couple of years with bad vibes and culture wars. The Great Weirdening era was not easy. I’ve been encouraging people to consider preparedness in the face of unrelenting uncertainty for a decade now. It’s time for us to move on […]

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Community Startups

Day 854 and Silicon Diaspora

Silicon Valley is a place in Northern California. It’s also accurate to say that Silicon Valley is also a mindset that knows no geographic boundaries. If you will indulge me I’ve coined a term for this syncretic network state. I’m calling it the Silicon Diaspora. While my family is from Boulder Colorado and I was […]

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Finance Internet Culture Startups

Day 853 and Alignment on Our Consensus

Some narrative wars are being fought right right. Who owns the future and who gets to decide on what something is worth? That question is rippling through AI communities and crypto DAOs. And then the Federal Reserve raised another quarter point and Balaji explained probabilistic thinking and it went over everyone’s heads. And the beat […]

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Community Startups Travel

Day 849 and “Oh I Follow You!”

I’ve been in Austin for Coindesk’s Consensus crypto conference. I’m flying home to Montana today after five intense days of work. But if the on the ground reception is any indication, I nailed this year with my talks and vibes. I might actually be good at my job. Conferences can be tricky if you are […]

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Community Startups

Day 847 and Erasure

I hosted an interactive town hall for Consensus this afternoon. The topic was the path forward for building communities online, offline and IRL with cryptocurrency, decentralized autonomous organizations and maybe even network states. I’ve been working on this town hall for several months. I worked with Marc Hochstein to refine the thesis question, build the […]

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Startups

Day 846 and Serendipity

Last night I arrived in Austin for my favorite annual cryptocurrency event called Consensus. If you are participating please consider coming to my interactive town hall on Thursday at 1:30pm where we have an hour of panel & audience discourse on the future of trust & community. I am excited for this panel as I […]

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Finance Internet Culture Preparedness

Day 807 and Hyperinflation

Everyone calm the fuck down and stop panicking while we consider the most dreaded phrase in Silicon Valley: “Balaji was right”. Sometimes people use a method of persuading you from the extremes. Remember “he means it seriously but not literally?” It works, it nudges the new position into your frame of reference and anything else […]

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Finance Internet Culture

Day 654 and Inappropriate Language

As much as I love to joke about getting cancelled on Twitter, I’ve never actually worried about getting dinged. I resisted getting a Blue Check and otherwise pursuing the trappings of being a power user as I was confident that my real world connections would overcome any algorithmic nonsense. Digital power still resides on a […]

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 505 and Deadlines

I’m trying to stave off a cortisol spike that my body simply does not need. I’ve got a talk coming up for Consensus in June and I owe an editorial with my main thesis along with any visuals I may need for the talk due next week. I know the area I plan to speak […]