Mind Crunches #17: Summer Wisdom Paraphernalia
Alternatively: Your annual, non-traditional list of beach reads!
Some personal news first before the traditional list of Mind Crunches!
šAfter spending almost 2 years going down the crypto rabbit hole, I decided that I want to further pursue, explore and shape the emerging Web3 ecosystem. Being very lucky to work for a company that is always at the forefront of innovation, I recently joined the brand-new Web3 Strategy & Busines Development team and I couldnāt be more excited with the opportunity to build from scratch the commercial strategy of Microsoft. On a personal level, I am genuinely fascinated by the potential that Web3 can unlock (fundamentally on coordination, governance and innovation level). Web3 enterprise is often overlooked because the consumer space is, by design, "cooler" but I believe that a healthy ecosystem can empower the whole Web3 industry to scale and reach mass adoption. Build mode: ON
š I am very happy to be featured in Future, the Andreessen Horowitz business publication. After spending many years in #enterprise, one of the things I am absolutely convinced about is that there are very few executives and as a result even fewer companies that really understand the value that the GTM and Sales Enablement functions bring. Companies are usually confused on how to even start building these muscles, what skills to look for in the talent market, and where to place them in their organizational structure. My article provides a framework on how Sales Enablement can elevate GTM and act as the glue connecting all parts of a commercial engine.
š”MIND CRUNCHES
Great thread on how we can learn to learn from the excellent Cedric Chin. Lifehack: the premium subscription in CommonCog is a bargain.
Patrick Collison on how government bureaucracies slow us down from having pan-Covid vaccines. I had written about this type of āO-Ring problemsā in Mind Crunches #8.
Balajis published (for free) his new book āThe Network Stateā. I havenāt finished reading it but I already have some serious problems with his main thesis of ideologically narrow communities. Glen Weyl, myself and Audrey Tang have sent him an open invitation for a podcast debate! Side note: I find the concept of a ābookappā really exciting.
Governance will be the foundational layer of Web3. My developing thesis is that we are slowly moving towards a state of radical transparency and accountability which I find to be a net positive advancement. A few months ago, I had written about the future Governance as a Service model. Since then, Metagov published a portal of all available āDAO constitutionsā, a16z wrote about Lightspeed Democracy and the Harvard Law School journal published a report on how Corporate Governance law can modernize to serve DAOs!
Interesting critique of Harariās work. I donāt necessarily agree with the term āpopulistā but I personally find Harari to be a gifted storyteller that ābends scienceā to fit his narrative rather than the other way around. Erik Hoel believes most popular science books suck. FWIW, the best anti-Harari book is āThe Dawn of Everythingā.
āItās very unlikely that our species, on a civilizational timescale, will regret going into space.ā The excellent Eli Dourado on why itās important to continue pushing for space exploration.
The Greek innovation flywheel has started rotating! Lifehack: If you want to keep track of what is happening in the Greek startup ecosystem, I highly recommend you following GR Startup Pirate.
Sundar Pichai is a Progress YIMBY!
Coinbase has a new organizational structure and decision-making process. I love parts of it (like for example the death of slide decks) but I am still skeptical on ideas like āAPIs instead of meetingsā. Very interesting and brave nonetheless!
Oakland tries quadratic funding through Gitcoin! My thesis: we currently witness a governance innovation relay race in which ātraditionalā but open-minded bureaucracies pass the baton to decentralized experiments. So far, Oakland, Wyoming and Nashville are winning the race.
Super excited to be part of Farcaster, the new cool kid in the block of decentralized social networks. They just announced a $30M investment from a16z. Having used the app for a few days now, I can say that it has great UX, a lot of stickiness and an amazing founder! Bet: We will definitely be talking about Farcaster a lot in the near future!
Scientific research is deeply broken. Citations is a big part of the problem. I will soon publish a post about DeSci. Till then, take a look at Molecule. Hands down one of the most interesting decentralized experiments out there!
āIn the Obama White House, everybody made fun of Joe Biden. Biden shows up at the meetings, the National Security Council, and he says these ridiculous things like the Afghan army is a fraud. The people who made fun of him then are now staffing the Biden administration. Thatās true!ā. Edward Luttwak on a geopolitics freestyle interview. Extremely insightful and very entertaining. Highly recommended!
āIt seems the single greatest thing a new science organization could do, even if itās at the expense of ALL other things, is facilitate the creation and early development of new branches of science. These branches, when they are discovered, tend to experience periods of explosive growth, have a high likelihood of spawning other new branches, and these new branches are also likely to do the same. Without these new branches, good ideas WILL get harder to find.ā - In which fields are ideas easier to find?
Jennifer Doudna on the future of biology. Excellent interview.
āStudies show that artistic abilities may improve when language-related brain areas are damaged or temporarily knocked out.ā Interesting thesis: our language abilities reduced our visual processing.
Still the most comprehensive pro-crypto post out there.
Ben Thompson deep diving on the small letters of Appleās App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and their grand effect on the future of digital advertising.
Habemus the first interoperability standards for an open Metaverse.
A thread about the geopolitical importance of undersea cables.
Ed Yong on the last polar bears on Earth.
āPredicting the cellular activities of proteins from their primary amino acid sequences is a highly desirable capability that could greatly enhance our functional understanding of the proteomeā. In other words, CELL-E is much more impactful than DALL-E.
Mobile phones join the Web3 revolution via Solana. Exciting!
New EU crypto regulation. For what itās worth, MiCA sounds better than GDPR!
Super spot on post about the DAO movement! tl;dr: itās all about coordination and accountability.
Science funding needs radical reform.
š©Favorite New Blog: Hands & Cities
šRecommended Podcasts: Marc Andreessen at the Joe Rogan experience. Not a big Rogan fan myself but this was a really good conversation.
šŗRecommended TV Show: For All Mankind. A TV show creatively experimenting with the -really interesting- concept of alternate history in which US and Russia are still in Cold War and fiercely competing in space. Itās a fun show but more importantly itās a show that promotes an optimistic view of a future driven by science and technology. Bonus: James Pethokoukis has explained why itās important to have more optimistic sci-fi shows.
šBooks I am reading:
The Moral Consequences of Moral Growth - Benjamin Friedman
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software - Nadia Eghbal
Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success - Ran Abramitzky
The Dream Machine - Mitchell Waldrop
Pieces of the Action - Vannevar Bush
š”Quote of the month: āAlthough each individual separately will be a worse judge than the experts, the whole of them assembled together will be better or at least as good judges.ā Aristotle, Book III of Politics
š·Photo of the month: Alberto Giacometti - Falling Man (celebrating Giacomettiās showcase at Seattle Art Museum, the first everĀ in the Pacific Northwest)