--dangerously-exploring-my-creative-impulses
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1/ I love to connect people when it's a mutually beneficial intro, but I always request that the asker send me a "Clean Email" so that I can clear the intro with the prospective connection.
What is a Clean Email ™
🧵👇
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1/ I was thinking about some of the things I've changed my mind about in the past 10 years.
Here's a list:
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1/ As a founder you should spend all of your time on the unique things you can do which no other human on the planet can do.
Corollary: You should spend almost no time doing stuff which is already well understood by someone else.
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not too distant future: an AI runs all possible button movement experiments between 1-5px in all directions and deploys each to statistically significant live user bases while controlling for all potential demographic biases in the population being studied. it presents the findings to the management team and asks permission to fully deploy the appropriate version per population
then the management team checks a box to automatically approve full deploys in the future
then the management team defends their own existence purely through increasingly escalating political games
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Also, I don't think we know enough about long-term outcomes outside of mortality yet. Severe or permanent damage to the lungs, for example?
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1/ As a young engineer coming to silicon valley 18 years ago I misunderstood the leverage of organization building.
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China takes #Covid checkpoints extremely seriously.
Watch what happens when the motorist tries to evade the inquiry!
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open source is the only thing better than capitalism for the efficient allocation of resources
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1/ A lot of smart people get excited about ETH because of all the great developer talent around the project. "Follow the developers" is an oft-cited reason to be optimistic for the future of Ethereum.
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Why are IDEs mostly run on local machines?
Seems like there would be lots of advantages to being able to run a full professional dev environment as a remote desktop in a cloud environment.
Big implications for collaboration, security, remote teams, etc.
Who’s working on this?
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We’re shutting down Highlighter, Inc.
[I'm publicly sharing this note which I shared with our investors, friends, and supporters last week]
I’m writing to let you know that we’re shutting down Highlighter, Inc.
I’ll cover:
1. A brief history of our work on the company
2. What’s next for the world
3. What’s next for me
===
1. A brief history of our work on the company:
We started Curious Labs (Highlighter) in Mar 2018 to explore new consumer social software concepts. By 2019 we had narrowed in on the concept of building tools and communities to help people gather around the most interesting ideas from books, i.e. the Highlights.
Unfortunately, we were never able to instigate substantial traction in this format. I think if we were to do it all over we would pick a single book to focus on each week or two and create a corpus/community of the kind of content we are actually reading instead of starting as a broad platform for anyone reading and to contribute anything. A lot of friends and investors had given us advice to focus like this early on (memorable to me were Paul Davison and Naval Ravikant’s advice on this topic, thanks, guys!). But I don’t think I internalized how to productize that properly at the time. i.e. instead of building a network, start by building the most important channel of the potential future network.
Highlighting is ultimately about taking long-form content and capturing and sharing the most interesting bits. When we didn’t get it working for books, we had hoped we could achieve this in other media formats to make consumption more information dense. We built highlighting tools for podcasts, the web, and video, but were unable to get substantial traction in any of those formats either.
By late 2022 we had run out of the initial capital raised. I personally contributed $100k+ of additional capital to continue running experiments while laying off half the small team.
Here we are 6 years after beginning, with no remaining capital in the company, no obvious traction, and no specific direction we’re excited to pursue. As such we’ve decided to dissolve the company.
===
2. What’s next for the world
I think the concept of highlighting probably becomes even more important now with the explosion of content generated by LLMs/AI. We’re going to witness the quantity of information on the web increase by several orders of magnitude. We’ll probably see a decrease in the average quality of public information on the web. But I suspect highlighting fits into other ideas around content generation and curation rather than as a standalone service. I’m not sure exactly what that looks like.
I’m excited about how LLMs/AI will transform 2 key areas: 1) storytelling and 2) software development. I’ve been spending a lot of time with several entrepreneurs working on these 2 problems.
===
3. What’s next for me:
I’ve structured my work-life to give me the freedom to explore the areas I’m most interested in. It’s a non-standard approach, but it gives me the best shot to listen carefully to changes in the world that pique my curiosity and to seek truth. I am planning to split my time going forward primarily between these two endeavors:
1) I believe that bitcoin is the neutral, internet-native monetary protocol. This creates a profound shift in how everything in media, communications, and information will work. I’m going to continue investing in and experimenting with how digital scarcity and global payments can be used to build a better internet.
2) The most important problem all startups face today is how to discover and hire the best, early engineering team members. Jen Yip has built the premiere community and platform for solving this problem through “Founders You Should Know”. I have been writing on the platform and helping with curation and investment decisions, while also serving as the emcee for the IRL showcase. Let me know if you’re in SF and interested in seeing the show. It’s really fun and inspiring!
===
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts and feedback on what I wrote here. Also, as you run across opportunities that you think might fit my interests, please don’t hesitate to forward them along!
Thanks,
DK
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What are the best examples of paid, online membership communities?
1) @theinformation by @Jessicalessin
2) @farnamstreet by @shaneparrish
3) @stratechery by @benthompson
What else is good?
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1/ I like looking back to the early writing of some now-famous bloggers. These aren't meant to poke fun at authors' dated thoughts, but, rather, to show that these now-big-voices have grown out of humble beginnings:
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If you want to get good at "sales" (and basically *every human interaction* is some form of sales):
1) Get out of your own head!
2) Communicate/message in a way that articulates what is interesting/relevant/helpful to the receiver of the message.
(cc @avichal)
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"Just share what you know."
This is the advice @shl gave on his open Gumroad board meeting just now.
People new to Twitter ask me "how to Twitter" and I think this is the single best piece of advice. Simple, but not easy.
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I've got a WhatsApp group where we're discussing remote/distributed team issues. If you're currently building with a remote/distributed team and want to share/learn DM me for a link to the group.
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If you're ever hosting a webinar and you want more people to attend, I suggest you don't call it a webinar.
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1/ I think @square is pretty unique in that it straddles the world of existing financial services while holding a deep understanding of the role Bitcoin can play in the future of money.
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we'll also be renaming the following
New Mexico -> New America
Mexican-American War -> American-American War (sounds so civil, no?)
Cinco de Mayo -> Pluto is a Planet
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1/ My guess at who will dominate the "last mile" to our homes in 10 years:
1) Waymo
2) Amazon/Whole Foods
3) Uber
4) A new restaurants-as-a-platform (RAAP) company (it's a tricky "idea-maze" to navigate properly, but I think this is the emerging one to watch./)
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6/ The interface by which people access a technology is still where all of the value accrues. What interfaces will we use?
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Thoughts to a very early founder via email today:
If you don't have conviction don't do it. DON'T let someone talk you into it.
If you do have conviction, maybe do it. DO let someone talk you out of it.
With thanks to @eladgil for suggesting the email should be a tweet. 🙌
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1/ A thread on “Fireside: my startup that will now not launch”.
TLDR: We spent the past 6 months building a tool to help people create live call-in shows together (a.k.a. “talk-radio”). It was called Fireside. Based on the “go live together” Periscope launch this past week...
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In silicon valley we love finding those under-developed, yet ambitious outsiders.
So I open up my first connection from @LambdaSchool and the resume says the following: "PROFESSIONAL POKER PLAYER...over $3 million in live tournament earnings"
🤯
cc @Austen
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6/ But I think the reality is that, while doing great work is hard, there is another very challenging and critical skill at play: attracting, filtering, and convincing great people to come together to work on a shared mission.
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whenever someone advocates for "responsible" use of technology they are trying to control you
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1/ A lot of smart people help us think about the market size of the non-sovereign monetary store of value use of #bitcoin. Often it is related to "digital gold" (@wences, @jlppfeffer) with est of $8T market cap or "the offshore banking system" (@AriDavidPaul) with est of $20-30T
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2/
1. Forwardable subject (i.e. not "Great to hang, DK!")
2. Focused, customized blurb explaining the purpose of this potential intro -- no mention of other topics/ideas we may have discussed
3. No strange formatting
4. Has a single email signature from the asker
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In my DMs today I learned (credible source) that @producthunt played a big role in Notion getting early traction (which came with their "2.0" launch).
@rrhoover - do you have a list of the products which attribute a large part of their initial success to PH?
As a "startup-historian", I'd love to hear more about the @NotionHQ early traction story. Was there a breakout use-case that really helped people figure out the magic? Was there a community of early adopters who were using it together for a shared purpose?
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WebRTC is the next platform shift everyone has been waiting for.
cc @eladgil
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Start with a handful of people you know personally who really love the service and who get lots of organic value from it.
It's the only way to build something durable in consumer.
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1/ Decentralized Social Media just had its "Netscape Moment"
1990s - DNS, IP, TCP and HTTP -> Netscape
2020s - Nostr -> Damus
curiousdk.com/p/decentralize…
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1/ Recently, @jamescham and I were talking about a very successful founder. James exclaimed to me "how is he so darn smart?".
While the founder has raw mental horsepower, the magic of a super-success is in the compounding effects of access to everyone else's "best 10 minutes".
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5/ I remember hearing Johnathan Rosenberg (VP at Google at the time) saying that "hiring great people is more important than your actual job". This always rubbed me the wrong way, because, in a sense it sounded like a multi-level-marketing scam.
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Silicon Valley: Remote work is the future! 🚀
Open Source: Welcome to our past 30 years! 🤷♂️
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1/ One of the reasons Silicon Valley has a tough time with Bitcoin is that we are accustomed to seeing technology with multiple winners at every layer.
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I think I'm understanding @jimmysong's work better now than I did before. This may be among the highest leverage activities for accelerating Bitcoin's success. Thank you, sir! 🙇♂️
One option is self-study. @jimmysong course and (draft) book are open source. github.com/jimmysong/pb-exer… github.com/jimmysong/program…
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1/ Contrarian blockchain hypothesis: the best projects of the future will look like the best seed companies of today in many ways.
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Congrats to @pdavison and @rohanseth for inventing something fresh and exciting!
They’ve experimented for years to bring something magical to the world.
And best of all it couldn’t happen to nicer people!
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1/ 2023 Elad Gil predictions video
Sat down with @eladgil in Dec 2022 to hear his 2023 predictions. Video and thread 👇
piped.video/nglHX4B33_o
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7/ I used to think silicon valley had a near-monopoly on the best technical talent. Now I think exceptional talent lives all over the world and can't always move here (for a variety of reasons). (👋 @toptal, @trygigster)
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Couple smart, young entrepreneurs I know building an at-home digital fitness product. 65% m/m revenue growth this year and shelter in place has been a huge boon. Wanting to connect with seed/angels to put together $1m. Who's interested in this kind of thing?
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1/ Some of the riskiest places for #coronavirus transmission are the places which 100's of people touch each day.
I put together a collection of visuals to help you proactively think about if/how you will interact with these surfaces.
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1/ Bitcoin development suffers from the "free-rider problem".
A bunch of people got really upset with @naval for pointing this out recently. I think he's articulating a reasonable characterization of a problem we collectively face in accelerating future Bitcoin development.
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If you're new to consumer investing here are some tips:
My Background:
1) I've founded/sold a zero-to-one consumer startup that reached 45 million users,
2) I've built multiple multi-million user consumer apps from zero,
3) I've invested in dozens of consumer companies from the seed stage and have multiple $1B+ consumer companies among my portfolio
The Tips:
1) Novel Behaviors -- the only thing that matters is a novel, useful experience - anything that has the possibility of working on a large scale should feel super risky and awkward because it clashes with everyone's assumptions about how the world works
2) Ignore Technology - v1 should not rely upon your own technology breakthroughs... e.g. use 3rd party APIs/off-the-shelf AI to start (e.g. "just a GPT wrapper") -- don't innovate on technology at all to start. if you're successful at creating a novel behavior with someone else's technology you can build your own technology later
3) Ignore Startup Influencers - ignore all the people who talk about growth hacking and optimizing virality - if that's your focus you'll end up failing in predictable ways (by failing I mean you could build a bottle rocket and get picked up for a job working on a successful platform, but you'll never build something durable/sustainable if you focus on this stuff)
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Why don't I hear more people exploring San Diego as an option when talking about leaving SF and the rise of remote work?
Seems to be all about LA, Seattle, Denver, and Austin.
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Also, Bitcoin is an excellent starting point for learning about Austrian economic theories! (cc @real_vijay)
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I would be absolutely delighted if we look stupid 3 months from now for having bought too many canned goods.
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similar in governments and corporations. managers love empire building. impact is optional.
the empire builder’s key skill is selling their empire’s value to the deciders
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3/ Part of what Google taught me was the leverage of systematized focus on "building a machine" that can attract, retain, and help coordinate the work of hundreds or thousands of people to build things together.
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5/ I'm not claiming to predict exactly how Bitcoin fits into our lives 10 years from now, but "digital gold" and "offshore banking system" are merely starting points for the analogies of what Bitcoin can replace and that are understandable given where the technology is today.
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7/ If those people come together with a shared mission they will figure out great ways to contribute. In fact, if you filter properly, great people don't need a lot of "management" and "structure".
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1/ I'm building a tool to make reading long-form books more collaborative. I'd love to hear more about your current habits.
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1/ A lot of people hypothesize about ways to "build a better YC" (accelerators, incubators, etc.).
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When I say "the blockchain" I mean a specific one: "the Bitcoin blockchain".
i.e. the one with the most hashpower/security, longest history of immutability, most decentralization, etc.
Some mistake this language to mean "enterprise software" or a token thing. 🤦♂️
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I've been reading this over the past few weeks and I can genuinely say it has some of the most non-obvious, tactically useful content I've ever seen in a business-focused book. Congrats to @eladgil and @stripe press for publishing this builder's guide to growing great startups! nitter.app/eladgil/status/1019254…
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Loved this episode of Venture Stories.
I'm not sure if it was the articulate thinking from @rabois or the fact that @eriktorenberg has really perfected his "FM radio voice". 😅
Either way, give it a listen:
itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/…
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1/ We're proud to do a small part to encourage people to stay inside and self-quarantine.
Self-Quarantine Book Club is a community on Slack where book lovers around the world come together to discuss what they’re reading.
As of today we're opening it up for more people to join.
1/ In an effort to create more human connection in these challenging times we built the Self-Quarantine Book Club:
selfquarantinebookclub.com
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The best job opportunities are often not posted online -- you have to know someone involved to even know about the existence of such opportunities.
Has anyone built a private networking tool for helping companies/candidates meet like this?
cc @julianweisser
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1/ Censorship Resistant Non-Sovereign Monetary Store Of Value is a simple Bitcoin utility which doesn't require that I find the other participants to transact with to get utility (though I must believe they exist). It's functionally similar to a single-player mode for Bitcoin.
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I've been thinking I should make a spreadsheet listing my top 20 or so friends and just randomly call them from time-to-time.
haven't done this yet, but might be part of a new-year-new-me kinda thing
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6/ I used to think that remote teams were used by entrepreneurs who were unskilled at recruiting local teams (or too cheap!). Now I have more direct experience working with remote teams and have found it game-changing in the "hypothesis testing stage" of building.
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Topical thesis in venture is for suckers. Outlier returns come from what's next. An open mind and a generalist outlook is the only approach that makes sense.
Though "thesis" sells well to LPs.
Inspired by a quote from @tgm. Discussed behind closed doors with many.
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It's crazy that more founders don't subscribe to the @rabois philosophy here.
Lean Startup is a dumb & bankrupt philosophy for mediocre people w mediocre vision & ambition...job of a founder is to paint a picture of a better world & then deliver that. It’s not to study the world, ask people what they want in a better world & then create that - @rabois 🙃
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People who are good at building “audience” often think they’re good at building “community”, but these are very different practices.
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“Clubhouse is working because it’s halfway between a podcast and a party, and people love both of those things.” @nbaschez
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5/ Cryptocurrency money is likely to be the first ever actual "winner take all" market we see in technology. A single winner at this layer. Lots of value built around it. Lots of opportunity at other layers. But at the money protocol layer, just one.
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We all have our vices:
For some it's alcohol.
For others it's biting their nails.
For me it's buying too many web domains.
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We're building "Highlighter - Book Clubs" for people who want to join an open book club for literally any book.
Sign-up here to participate in the beta: highlighter.app/signup
I can see some of my twitter time getting substituted by @dksf’s new app Highlighter. The units of organization are both people & books. There’s a decent amount of dunking too. Get in early to become a bookfluencer. V 10.0 would hopefully have deep links to actual book chapters!
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Final preparations before our town hall tomorrow with @eladgil to discuss High Growth Handbook (via Zoom).
DM me if you still need to RSVP.
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5/ Instead Linux enabled Google/Facebook to exist. People who are users of Google/Facebook never consider themselves Linux users. But if Google/Facebook had to run Microsoft IIS they would have never been able to build services which scale to serve billions of users.
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The best way to search for Tweets is to use Google, not Twitter to execute the search. Here's how:
Google with this syntax: "site:x.com [query]"
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1/ I agree with @Alex_Danco that angel investing can be motivated by both 1) financial returns as well as 2) social status. I have been active for a decade and been the fortunate recipient of some of each of these.
However, I think he misses the most important one for me...
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