Read Write Own: A New Era
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People always asked, like what problems to block change of? I think i've been pretty good at predicting what happens on the internet. I've been pretty bad at predicting exactly when this happens.

The prize, when your building an internet service is always the network, I felt like the world of you that I have that sees a very positive vision for how block chains and tokens and these other technologies can be used was not widely understood and not properly represented. What ends up mattering is the products. It's a worldview of the internet.

Hello everyone, welcome back to the E, T, E podcast. This is your host stuff, smith. And today we have a very special episode we will be hearing from Christianson.

And he just released his new book, read right on. Chris has been a participle, a crater of under a founder all within the internet era. And in his book, he break down the cycles of crypto specifically, and what's swine now? Plus, he addresses the important distinction between the computer and the cause.

I want to hold up any longer. Hope you enjoy IT this very important episode. De Christison and Robert and don't forget to check out crisis book read right on, which is a available now.

Welcome to web three with a six Z R show about building the next generation, the internet from the team at a six crypto. I'm so on your host. And this show is for anyone, whether artist, developer, company leader, entrepreneur, media or policymaker.

Today, we're excited to launch a limited series on the new book just out read, right on building the next internet by Christie s. An IT explores the power block chains to reshape the internet back into an open network for Fostering creativity and entrepreneurship, which affects us all. So the book also goes beyond cyp down block chains to cover intersection technologies such as A I social networks, marketplaces, virtual worlds and more.

This new series is produced and hosted by Robert hackt. Beginning with this episode with author Christians son and continuing with other guests on other topics, you can find the book at read right on dot com. And as a reminder, none of the following should be taken as investment, legal business or taxi by for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

I got an internet for its open, democratic that kind of anyone could go and build a website. I think that's a serious risk at this point. I think the only kind, credible way turn that I in the book, that's what looks about that is what kind of motivates me at this point.

Welcome to the web 3 with a sixteen ee cyp to podcast I am robbert hacket and editor here at a sixteen eclipsed to and i'm here with Chris dixon， founding partner of a sixteen cyp tou and auto of the new book read right on building the next era of the internet so I had the privilege of editing u chis throughout the book writing process um and i'm throw out to have the opportunity talk to you about what went on behind the scenes and to talk about the big scenes of the book uh the chAllenges that you experienced and also to branch out and talk about the industry at large as well as what we can expect from the gypo industry in the future.

Um yeah I see this book is a combination of the remain tire career um so you know having worth on the internet, I started my first internet company in two thousand and four of twenty years ago now and before that was that was an engine programmer and working on the internet zone some way involved not as turn deeply involved um and and really spent you I saw myself tried to be least sort of a student of the internet and understanding kind of how IT really works in the sense of not not just how the technology works but how IT works from a the perspective of economics and governance and sort of power and help of how you gain power on internet and how that powers used and specifically but that means on the internet is understanding networks by the way.

Um i'll just say I remember when you know came up with the time line originally you had a time line you an outline of when you wanted write this book and I didn't tell you this of the time, but I was super skeptical. I did not think that you are going to h hit the devines that you were studying for yourself IT was very aggressive um but you cleared your calendar and you pumped out a first draft in like a matter of a couple months which I was stunned by in which by .

the calender I agree with you that was my ive IT only worked because the one I had a lot of help from people like you and others on the team and then to win back and just spend a lot more time than I expected, honestly, and had this whole like a of get into IT.

But like basically got on the schedule of like that work getting up early, early for long periods of time and working in for for our chunks every morning and just a whole bunch of other other cans, things to get that done. This book is the best possible, I think, very close to a condensation of what we've learned over twenty years. So take all that twenty years and all that all that stuff.

And like all those meetings in the thousands of I came, got many thousands of meetings and other stuff. Of course, there's lots of other details and everything else. And and but I did actually cut out like to interpret an material and could write another book, people interested in another book. But, but, but, but, but really that the the key parts are distilled and then organized in a way that hopefully meant to maximize the ability to sort of transfer that learning to somebody else. And when he realized that you're like, jesus, how could I be spending my time as someone interested in the world do any Better way than benefiting from their knowledge for other people that sort of motivated me to? And I am sort of like, wow, this is just, I still think books, much as I interest in technology, everything else, my books are still, I maybe the greatest technology, the idea that you can.

coming from a to .

the fact that you can stare at square GLE on a page and have essentially a hyson nator experience. So the fact that you can do all that, that you can commune with people that have been dead for thousand years in a very intimate way and I get into their head and um I don't know. So it's interesting also, by the way, the decide know the books have been completely, almost completely unaffected by the internet, the book industry um really .

for worse yeah yeah I mean.

I would say also that it's a little list of I meis for the most part that's good. Like IT hasn't heard the way a lot of um a lot of other instants have and hasn't had to go and some kind of crazy uh machinations. Another thing you know um and for the most part is a pretty healthy business. Flip side of you actually look at the big sales figures, which I didn't look til I A it's shocking with small roles. I mean like the best selling the shots, we take out romance novels, like the best selling non friction ideas, which category I believe last year has sold by phone N A thousand copies, which is like a annic website or something in the user base.

You've already kind of answered one of my big questions. I think I wanted to back up here and ask, like why write a book at all? Like you you're a tech guy.

yeah. No, get quite now. And I got this question to one of my tech friend will write a book and trade public. I used to blog I log years, are many hundreds of blog posts and am a big fan of that format. So I think I do think books are special. And I was saying in a couple of ways um so even though what I just said， the of the best selling books in this style, maybe five hundred thousand copies, um I think they have an ability to to for the ideas to penetrate uh cultural and large and in a very powerful way that that is much harder for blogs and podcast to do um and so one way to think of a book is this really a sort of physical delivery mechanism for what really is a set of means that if successful, will generate the culture and think concepts like black wan like I think that's now or tipping point or something like these are now, I think kind of mainstream concepts that that um and I think that the number of people that know those concepts and think about them is far greater than the number people .

that actually .

read those books. And I think I think with a book there's a thing where I can be one percent reading all if it's successful, one percent read IT all the way through. You know five ten percent are making these numbers up. I I think the true data, five ten percent um maybe we the entry came around in the ninety percent or maybe ninety five, ninety eight percent who maybe understand the ideas of I didn't actually read the book maybe they bought IT, they felt compelled to or something but they didn't read IT and so books do have this ability to um for variety of reasons I think partly historical cultural no I don't know a bunch of reasons have this ability to penetrate more broadly number one so this sort of the breath, I would say and then there's depth which is you meet people who and I could say for myself like that that where a book is really know and if he saw spider verse to the new universe.

I love .

the first one I have yet the best super an event. I think these moments of people's lives that no matter how many times the multiverse for those, those were the most, yeah, they couldn't change. So like spider man getting bit by a spider, I think was a candia venture, whatever.

And so it's kind of this I think that then became like a me on tiktok. But like what we are kind advances, you know, things I can for. And the more diverse ever know, it's like then they wouldn't be you and that's part of your essential nature.

Um and so I think books have a way to create canada events in the sense of what you hear people say. And I had this experience where, like, this book really changed the way. Think about something. This book changed my career. This book changed my life even um you know and I for I I don't know it's not that you know it's weird because it's not like something we have happens to be written on the internet couldn't do that and and I have heard people like to blog, people like say like certain blog post.

Really important them um but but again, that goes to this kind of quality of I think I think it's something about the gravitates of a book, the length of a book, the fact that is sort of the right length to really kind of fully present a world view, right? You're like a blog post. You can present an idea.

I hope you can present a world view like this book is a world view like I am sure a lot of people disagree with IT, but it's it's a world view formed over twenty years. That's a self consistent i'm sure it's a self consistent world. You like it's a fully workout system.

It's a fully workout system is consistent with the facts in the world and everything else. And sort of think about IT, like it's a full kind of theory. I think it's a theory that eligible will find novel because it's a different way to look at things. Then I think that if you just sort of casual interact user and have ort of seen how the sausage is made behind the scenes. Um but so a book I think a book is special medical presented world view I think very hard.

And by the way, I I say this also like I think that there's a sort of meme out there in the tech world that would like why write a book when you can write a blog post? Why write a blog post when you can write a tweet? And I generally agree with that.

And i've been active twitter forever and blog for years and just generally felt like, why would I write a book about this topic when this case I really felt strongly that you cannot. This is a world of view, that the fundamental. And i've, because i've been out there for years trying to describe this world view on podcast, in a blog post, and explain why spending all of my time working on block chains and everything else.

And every time I do IT, I have this feeling. But OK, I managed to transmit this piece of information. But then there were all these questions about these other of things. And I finally realized the problem was that, um you know that that you couldn't you can you couldn't take a piece of IT without the kind of whole fun you just kind of needed the whole world view.

It's interesting here. You described IT as a world view because you know people might think about a book about crypto or blockchain as a text book is a business book. But really, this book is kind of philosophy book .

yeah I mean, when the world view, it's not a world view like to I live your life is a world view of the internet. It's a complete theory that's an a different kind of perspective than most people I think we have over like how of the of the internet, which I think is now become, which I arguing the book has become in some ways kind of this global mind, right?

Know if you sort of think of IT is a mind body dualism, like this is the digital mine, this is a global hide mind that we all kind of share and plug into. And the influence is the way we think about things and ideas and our politics and our economics um and so this is a distinct world view of the internet. I don't want overstated, is not a like for like philosopher is the world view of that. And I think that could .

only be so I think I .

could only have been presented in a book form as but I found a came with the real ation. I wanted to present that world view and and another specific things happening in the world. So for example, there's a big policy debate about enough should tokens be all molest, other kinds of things that I felt that he was important.

I obviously have strongly in this um and I felt like the world view that I have that this is a very positive vision for how block chains and tokens and these other technologies can be used. Um was not widely understood and not properly represented um in that discussion. And so I felt very strongly that I wanted to present that and I wanted to do IT through a channel that you know would would be accessible and potentially reach abroad to remain for money.

This is very much a book written for like someone suggested to me that you know, you should write for, quote, smart high school students. This is a book written for smart high school students. There's no i'm knowledge presupposed outside of have just of just a basic common knowledge and willingness to be curious and interested and dicers from first principles you .

will have to bring prior knowledge and .

pretty studiously avoid technical words. I have a few but I defind them um IT IT tries as much as possible that kind of presented in a narrative form IT goes through the history of the internet um and how these things developed and give a lot of examples you know the thirty six pages .

of any notes chri will say one of your super powers is kind of this ability to take a deep concept, some hard idea and to to stir IT into a catchy kind of sticky phrase you've got so many of these that you ve blogged about forever come for the tool stay for the network um the next big thing starts out looking like a toy can be evil you have all these catchy phrases and I wonder the how what is your process for coming up with these sorts of tag lines? How do you know when you have a winner?

Yeah no. So I think the tag, I think it's just the tag line is more like, I think what I do, what I try to do, I think what i'm good at is and this has just always been a nice scale and I there's many things that are not good add and just one thing I am good at a think which is um taking lots of information um and to trying to still IT into simple ideas um and for taking a lot of time like so what I would do often as I would get stuck and for in the book and I would spend literally like three hours sometimes exercising other things like how can I simplify simplify mpl fy like what are the core kind of basic principles here um and then the catchy phrases are just sort of end up being I come for the tool, stay for the network.

That idea that explain is, is that there's a the prize when you're building an internet service is always the network like the internet is part of these, the book, the internet and network of networks, just sort of this based layer physical sort of network from the internet. And we do on top of as we build networks and the original networks, White web and email and then there was splayed or on facebook and twitter and youtube usual networks and networks are what um create value business value profits um on the internet because networks are very defensible to have moved to put on buffett would say right which is once you build a largely and like on youtube is very hard from the video site no matter how much technology they have and they could have the most beautiful thing in the world and fastest everything else that doesn't matter because the the network, the audience is somewhere else. So I come for the tool, stay for the network, is I started to deserve, you know, a couple years ago um many years ago, I guess.

So every every entrepreneurs ding me where when you enter treneman, you try to create network is very hard to create a network is the network cut? The network effects cut both ways. So network effect is this idea that as a network grows, IT becomes more valuable.

But on the soap, let's take a dating. You're building a dating that works. You building something like tender. When you get to the point where there's tons and tons of people on there who one day each other, it's very then you have a very defensible business is very hard for to peep.

But when you start off and there's like three people on IT, no one wants to come there, right? And so is age old kind of dilema of entrepreneurs of like how how do you get over that so called bootstrapped face? Like my partner and chin are a book about IT. The cold start problem is like this of calls are a problem, boost a problem. Like people call different things like .

chicken in the egg.

yeah. The eg, get over that. And so know what I would more, more people. So so that's a network. And then there's also a sort of what I call tools, which are and I have a session, the book on this sort of multiplayer single player networks of multiplayer, meaning like they only really matter when there's many people using that tool.

Tools are generally single player, so like a word processor, spread sheet or something yeah you can share with somebody, but you can get a lot of value out of IT just using you by yourself. Um and so so the nice thing about tools then write is that they um is that they uh you don't have that network. The problem the case is the book is youtube.

Youtube did this strategy come for the tool, stay for the network, which is they started off two thousand five more than they were dating side. They pivoted to being a video site and they basically the pitch was um they didn't have a network, they have an audience. No one went to the youtube site so their pitch was hey and and in fact, what I was going on the time as everyone had their own websites, like I have my websites, he didn't work, have their own audience and they would want to a video there.

So when youtube is said, they said, hey, you can come to our site upon the video is all free. You will subsidize IT. And then you can take this little piece of a ge tem out and Better in your site.

And basically, they act as a tool. You didn't need a big audience and youtube to have that be valuable. And people started doing that, being very popular.

They had a very nice tool like IT was a very seamless and they paid for the band with subsidies are huge part of how these kind of the current networks were built. I talked about them a book. That's why they had all raised billions dollars as they were subsidizing all the early users. Um and so um so they built that up and then at some point they had you know millions of website using IT and they say, by the way, whenever you put that on your side, we will put on our side too because you make IT some more viewers and people like great and then at some point they had at this website with tons great videos and people were, hey, why am I going on the Christians and I just go youtube, right? And that's how youtube start.

Maybe i'm interpreting to uh, liberally, but I actually see this book as a tool like they come from the tool stay for the netware where this book is the tool, the network is sort of this computing movement that's going on. And uh, we're creating the people to that I to that soft.

I think I think that's that's one way to look at yeah I mean, the book is a stand alone thing that you can read and understand. And I think if somebody finds IT interesting, the the the next thing afterward that would be kind of join the elsewhere ds of community is are on these topics and that would be the next way to get .

involved in startups and in life. Timing is everything. Tell me about the timing of this book. Why why this book? Why right now?

Yeah um good question. So 在 宾 so you have been in this space for basically ten years。 I mean, I let our investment in coin base in two thousand and thirteen.

Now I wasn't exclusively. I was doing other things. I had some A I invest, no, uh, done some other kind of random things. So I was doing I was doing of frontier investing, which means out of just new kind of emerging areas um but then kind of I guess five five years ago. So um switched the full time on watching and crypto and so and through that time have has been all sorts of up and downs, so of many .

cysts things .

positive and negative um developments um yeah we had a pretty I would say the probably the roughly period was whatever like sort of F T, X and two the most recent downtown.

I think that was frustrating because .

there was a lot of really interesting stuff getting bill I talk about in the book. This distinction between the computer in the casino I. C, which is two cultures that have coalition block chains, and the computer is what I see myself as part of than the book is about, which is people trying to use these technologies for these productive and views cases and the the casino is people who take I see IT is they they call t aspects of the technology and use IT in ways that that are that are really focused on gambling and speculation um and to me, you know F T X was one example of that obviously they worth even more that they committed fraud and and IT wasn't simply just that they promoted kind of gambling.

They didn't more than that but there were a lot of others just trying to promote speculation and I still happens today um and I and I see that is that I see IT is a struggle between those two movements because the the casino stuff I think really hurts. I mean, one is I think he hurts consumers. People that you know obviously people like who had money, T X and things like that who lost money.

Um I think one of them I will talk about this later may be one of the really frustrating things that happened on the policy side. As I would argue, a lot of the actions of policymakers has actually encouraged the casino and discouraged the computer. And so it's really kind of helped the bad actors and hurt .

the good actors say about that.

So just a simple example. So like I talk about the book, there's got meme coins. So meme coins I like those coin and the basically tokens that are created that have explicitly no use case um and they are kind of to me the embodiment and not look, I not entry you know people maybe at some point, like technology trust develops unexpected ways and maybe those queen will develop in ways that are quite interesting um but this idea of generally just like a token which has does nothing has no purpose except to be traded in bed on I I am not to find that concept um the um one of the now one of the great ironies of the current policymaker approach is that mean coins are perfectly legal but if you take a mean coin and you decide to add utility to IT by working on IT, you then are at risk of tripping up security also right? And so so as long .

as it's completely worthless and yes doesn't there's no ban.

there's nothing speculation is not illegal. Creating tokens is not illegal. Creating tokens and then working on them um and trying to make them Better is what is at and you know and the new aunts lot of newnes there but that sort of the disputed territory .

that's of the backward.

I mean there's a reason behind IT which is the security y's laws are built to avoid this metric information. And so the new those coin is asem trc information.

something about this asset that is everyone .

knows it's just a totally meaningless useless going and just like you just batting on the number going up down. And so there's no way from everyone's this level playing and may be a playing fuel, but this the are words once you start having like a team behind something, building something than that team might have a matter information, which is why all of the you know the the guidance when the S C C, you know in the was two thousand nine, there was various guidance last time. They get guidance since they have not given guidance, only enforcement actions.

Um the guidance was you know you need to be sufficiently decentralized, meaning it's okay that people working on making something Better like for example of theory um people bunch team making a Better. But there's not one team doing IT. There's a whole bunch teams.

And so the information is division ally be centralized such that there is is still level playing field. So there are ways to build things um to have tokens where you build block chains in a way that is decentralized such that it's not a security. Is is that sort of a very complex new baLance thing? And it's very simple to go increase something that is unambiguously, uh, clear from that.

And so like I think will like if you go to like sort of a bunch of these other website to are really crypto companies like say, roman hood, they have they removed a lot of very useful blockchain tokens, but they support dogon, right? And that, and you'll see the way things are headed. Will Polly dog T F, at some point, right? Because this legal.

some big ideas books have this problem where they kind of just come across as a scattered black post. But h what's nice about this is that actually has .

a food li too good. Like, I feel like the best part in a lot of ways is the end of the book, which I struggled with, because the end of the book is really kind of pay off because born is like here's like the end. Last part there, seven sections that are like seven really interesting but I think are really interesting.

Um uh you know application areas for how you apply block chains to um to finance, to artificial intelligence, to games and kind of diverse to uh in media and storytelling in a bunch of weather areas. Um but and as I like you think about how you write this, do you want to have the juiciest parts of the beginning? But the reality is you really need the background to kind of have the payoff, because you have to do the work and you have to understand, like what are the alternative ways these things could be built.

And that sort of goes a little of the history, how we got there. And then I do a deep dive. People always asked, like what problems you block change self.

So I kind to do a deep dive and like why block chains are Better way to build networks um then these other methods and and then very specifically go through the benefits, the economic benefits, the governance benefits, the software development benefits. People use words like the centralization. I use the word that much, but I mean but it's about the centralization is affected by like talking to polite, for example.

One in particular I was talking to last year, uh, who said you? I believe one the other stuff you're saying, Chris, I don't think you can really have um bills software without A C E O. And I was a world and then I start going and talking about how ninety five to ninety percent of the software in the world opens our software, which has CEO linux is by far the most successful opening system.

And that was a really, I think, a really good conversation. And I think the person I was speaking too fun that I opening. I think it's surprising, for example, that most of the world doesn't know that, that almost software is built without a CEO that is sort of collaborating bottoms of way to do software. So stuff about that is an example.

I feel like the opens to our software move in, by the way, is such a perfect kind of a like precedent for .

what's happening in crypto. O right? Cyp o, an intellect al air to the open soft software are, I mean, oppos soft continue user is a sort of a fork parallel path.

Specifically, open source software is about keeping the software layer open. Block chains are about keeping the service layer open. And I go through this in the book, basically happen in in the last um to twenty years or so.

Right is much of the software business became commoditized to opens our software. So no longer became a good business, for example, to sell um web server software or Operating systems because that you could be great ones for free. And so a lot of these companies, including microsoft, now to the fashion of of the services companies um and the .

services invented the software business.

The services are software that's live and running and has storing information and sort of instantiated and active. Um and one of the one of the ways to you block change is essentially is it's taking a lot of the ideas or open source software and uh elevating to the layer of services. So a block chain is one way to think of this, an open source service.

And so um something like a theory um right the theory is this computer in the sky that anyone can access. Um nobody owns IT. Um it's running all the time and has its own internal economic model that keeps you running that keeps you know because to run soft you have the host software and paper band with and things. So you need an economic model to have self sustaining open services. And so the theory is this sort of you know self funding pay to user and developer paid exercise, then that money gets flowed back into the hosting cost and things like that.

It's very much like the main frame computing model sharing .

and the sen sores tt collate model gather with mainframes and created this new kind of open community. And main frame is one way to think of something like a theoria, and that let you then create services on top, which inherit those properties, right? You can create a game on top of thorium, which inherits its meaning.

All of those properties that just described to being open and community owned also applied of the thing created on top of a theory like the game um and that has all these downstream consequence of the book. What you read I read also read everything. I read fiction and fiction. I try to read almost anything that has like a four bob on good leads or read uh, a lot of his recommendations from friends always have a stack on box so i'm going to read um so it's all over some of its like gratification being a person has well so I tried to be broad and then sometimes I just got these in certain topics um but my mean my mean theory there is um is a it's in contrast to social media, the internet like sadly um I think a lot of social media has not.

I write about the book and Grace and today for whole bunch of reasons um but I think that there's a trap you can get into where you're just of checking twitter and other things um and I try very hard not to do that and to I sort of think of IT somebody to like people who who are into you know um die in different food programs sort of to me books of protein and social media is generally sugar right is I do IT sometimes it's a work thing IT is important to stay in touch with some thing is going on right? But it's I think it's very, very important to have my us around that. Um I think there's a thing that does your brain where you serve getting the cycles and you need to void that.

I found the fifty page rule on books is a great rule because it's pretty good able planner day, right? You know obviously one schedules are different and and demands on their life different. So I don't want to presume can do that, but like know for me as we make our priority. And then like some days that feels like a sort of a pain. But okay, but it's only fifty pages.

Then what often happens is I start and it's a good book and i'm like, okay um a real um I also have rule fifty pages by queensland, fifty pages after pages of before I quit the book um that's good and I and I do quit books um and I think it's important to quit books. Do I think one of the blockers you get into and that reading is is you is you you think of stuck on a booking on love and go through IT. So anyways.

um you also have a habit of reading very like out of sink, out of the way that the book is telling you .

to read IT yeah ah very specially not if i'm not a fiction and the you have to be really I think. In order sometimes the not fiction yeah I think again, like if so, if you not star with reading is just like one way, think of IT of model is the new star matter. The R K, P, I is how much time you spend reading books like that, what you turned out to as opposed to social media, T V whatever might be.

Um and if that we trying to optimize, you want to really avoid the blockers, right the blockers of things that like you get bored and you stop reading. And so you know, one way to do that is to just always make sure that what you're doing is interesting. And that means sort of this great book up of fifty pages, okay. And then it's OK to jump around like with an on fiction books, first table contents. You just and do you jump to a few sections um they look most interesting and I hopefully those are well written and you like them and then you're sort of oh oh maybe I should understand the stuff before maybe that's well write interesting too and you know and in the best case that we are on the path in whole book.

you mentioned Andrew chen before in his book the cold start problem. Now I know he's talked about how he like will lock his phone in A A crate and like a very cage, something that he does have access to IT so you can concentrate. Do you do anything like that to able to carve out that like fifty page period of year?

Oh, I definitely I mean, I don't do the thing we like her phone and think because I probably just go figure a way to get IT out. I think I do IT, but I do definitely put down the phone and like I think there's A I really think it's like this trainable brain response thing. This attention is being to the thing that people have now um it's like for me too, like I have the same feeling.

You put the phone down and have this urge. You look at your phone, but IT goes away. If push IT goes just like exercise, you first sit down.

I don't know you have this experience. You first stand exercise in the first ten minutes of the hardest because very lazy, i'm doing this right. But then once you into you're like IT often takes the life of its own. I think it's very somewhat with other kids who have its so so in many ways, the initial action is the most important thing.

And then IT becomes of a mental driven after but I kind of think of IT is like the most important um I I guess sort of think of your brain is an m right it's like a machine learning out them right. Um which you know we probably are what the most important thing you can do to to kind of feed that and improve IT is the import, right? Um and so you should be very delivered about the inputs.

It's very hard to you know to have bad inputs. And then you know people try all these things mediated. I do this. I'm going to do that. I'm on wine. But like the problem is you put on his bad input, like you just you can only do so much to the to the machine if you've got wrong input.

So like and I think I think to me, the inputs like intellectually, at least in my illness ual life, the inputs, the good inputs, are books and conversations with people. Like those are the two things where I learned the most. I get the most sort of direct primary information. Very big on primary resource is not secondary resources, is a very skeptical many secondary resources. Um I always like to go as much as I can to find the source and then get a lot of inputs on primary forces and make my own determination um I think that know that I mean nothing is true for everyone and most any kind of information in life. Al profession particularly investing like it's very important to so what I do like it's very important to develop a model of the world that is both true and hopefully differentiated because that's what you're doing. Investing is your you're you're basically um um taking that model and applying IT to you to financial investments, right um and trying to find things are under valued or or avoid things are overvalued um because somebody because the world model most people have is off and you is Better, right? And so if if you think about that, what you want to do, you need to would be very cognition of how you're training that world model and the the thing the easiest thing, the control of the inputs, right?

If we're talking about high quality inputs, do you have a favorite book, favorite author?

Um no, I can't grew up reading um I spent years and years both like as a kid and an college and after college reading go original computer books of programming and then got into actually for the artificial intel what was called out of the telling back then I was very different. Got got into a bunch of sort of Fostering books via like bangle dog hot said a month and sort of like a bridge bridge writers. It's pretty double soft starter.

I would probably say, is like the biggest intellect al influence on my .

credible book. And IT was a book, and I just opened up a world, world which was like to me was proper philosophy and physical mind. And five years reading that i've read, I have been years reading like popular.

I think I ve made all the popular science books I I really love like the Stephen Johnson books, no like they're a malkin glad wall books. And then I like all the sx popular musics books, all that kind of stuff. And then eventually um I think after my popular science face when I was Young became history.

So oh my the thing I always go back to the history. I read a lot a lot of history books and in all all areas. But I say my favorite error of history is probably the industrial Victorian era.

You know the uh I think a lot of ways you could argue that modern civilization was built between eighteen, seven and eight and new york else but also you know obviously electricity and airplanes and you know from and cars and just two of the home autumn world um I had this year I sort of these you know i've like a hundred to vie on mosques or something of these kinds of to bold entremets s who would build these big physical world projects and so that's always an air air at love um and i've I spend a lot of time reading, of course, computer history techsters. Um I really like the I think it's under I think an under appreciated area is sort of the origins of computing. Every article publishing the landing magazine in .

a couple of years ago on that .

how the computer so of this with a lot of computing came out of the the the true kind of origin of IT was unlucky was logic and philosophy. A lot of IT came from that that era when you had people like turning in closin and Johnson and um cargo and like all of these other kind of thinkers and IT was a very small group of people.

And what was really interesting to me was that um what they were doing, I started off that, I say with this quote from a computer scientist that was like if you'd surveyed the world in one thousand and and five and tried to find the most useless unpraised tic area in the world, that would be former logic, right but then he turned out later on to to to be a lot of the things ended up leading to um design of computers called channon has this amazing paper where um he was the first one to have the insight that you could basically do a mapping of um of all of formal a logic sort of bullying logic and have anything else on the circus and I wants you did that he at the inside that once you could map like and or and all these the things which of course what you know the most base level uh transistor circuits are um once you could do that, you could then do math and everything else and you knew that because people like bertin Russell, like Russell White had famously and the printer bean mathematica had written know a thousand pages of how to construct all mathematics based on simple um and or not sort bullying Operations. So they had built all this machinery for this very esoteric scientific purpose, tart physical ical purpose, but then close shann's inside was that you could take all that machinery and just kind of move IT over a decently onto electronic circuit ery and have computers anyways going on a rabid hole. But the point being that I just can do a lot of really interesting history throughout the whole period and really kind of going deep.

And and I really like primary sources. I I find that um like as an example, like people often talk about George because George I thought he's often almost always talked about a mathematician if you could read the book is not a mathematic book is a philosopher. Ook I read the book um it's called laws of thought because he's on style is extending airstrikes um because I know I was basically the prior kind of major thing in in philosophy. So I find I D think I just find this again and again. I like the primary services because I just think is very different.

I find find its a very different a view of history and and again, it's sort of like if the goal is both as a human and as a professional to build your world model, you know you should be constantly tly thinking about, you know how um um what those inputs are and by the way, why history I mean I think one of the history and is important， but too um when you when you're working in areas that are extremely complex system. So the internet is this, you know five billion people interacting in this very complex way and there's money flowing in culture and politics and power and its you know IT IT IT couldn't be more complex. Um you can sort of try to come up with little principles and things to try to predict what will happen.

Um and IT looks business as well too like business know a typical business is interacting in very complex world with policy and competitors and customers and changing trends and cultures and you there are of certain rules and everything else but I ve always found that that that the best guy is history, because history is a series of examples of people interacting in very complex adaptive systems and how that played out, right? And so they give you this very interesting and kind of rules of thun. So like I talk about history in the book, but it's really I not actually interesting history persae. I'm interest history and as much as that helps us, I mention the future and h step campo.

actually, he turned me onto this quote from me, al postman, i'm gna butcher, the exact wording of IT. But he basically said, like. History is the best way to learn any subject, any discipline. You.

something like you shouldn't teach history, but everything should be told a history. Something like that is like that, which is a great quote. And I think that I I agree with you. I think it's a sort of a shame too when it's not taught that way because these things do generally have this fantastic um you know a very interesting story very in the very human stories, right it's so like I always fined the humanity behind these these stories is interesting .

in all the struggles I want to ask about the human element um but h first I I also want to just post something counter to sort of this idea of the healthier days of all these technologists and pioneer's coming up with this incredible new technology we're living through a period like that right now. And I feel like a lot of people um they kind .

of look at the past with .

these and they don't see that there are weirdos like coming up with awesome stuff you know today.

Oh I think this is I mean like I think that we are probably entering.

and I think we are those of loving respect yeah.

I think I think this is one of the I think this maybe the most exciting period of technology. No, I in some ways you can argue the next twenty years as the comment of all of the developments in computer computers and computer science and everything else over the last you know eighty some years um and IT may all beginning between A I course I think book chins play a very important um the stuff up up self driving cars racal reality like all of this do you have made and then you still have you have all these new trends.

You have existing past trends that continue to play out the internet still early thirty years tube, what will probably be know one of the most important technologies you know you know in centuries right um and uh you know the mobile phones still playing out, like people still figuring how to use smart phones and and all the different applications and you know as fin tech and whatever all these different areas of database. So you have sort of all of these past movements that are still have a long way to go, and then you have these really powerful new things learning on top. Um and so I think we're potentially entering yeah and look within that.

There's I talk about the distinction. The book 开口 inside out there is outside in technology。 So inside out technologies or technology that kind of come from the cathedral, they come from stanford or microsoft or apple is the iphone.

It's you know, windows. I think A I is very much. And inside out technology is come from you know google and universities and places like open the eye, which were spent out of those know of income technology companies, universities.

And then this outside in technologies is now of the historical classic examples of things like linux and open source. The world bug web is outside in technology. Um so I think this all we're entry appeared as all of these very important things happening, all these prior things happening.

And then there's there's really as has happened historically, there's the kind of the inside kind of cathedral stuff happening that they gets a lot of attention. And I think we gets less attention, is less understood side of outside and stuff and all of the kind of weird french things, which is, by the way, where is most of my career and I think it's most interesting. I'm not saying other service valuable, just not what i'm personally can we work on?

Um so yes, I think there are a sort of wasna acts and um you know and and um linux tour walls and and timber leaves all over right now. I don't know you know they'll take a while before we we can tell the whole story and and understand what I what all means. But but I think this no, and they just just the scope and scale of the internet technology has increased one hundred four. Probably i'm about people working on of them, people, of course, using IT.

We're talking about these these people, these these genius who who really ranch the world into their orbit and changed the way that you know things work um you know with a book like this is a big ideas book and there is a tendency for big idea's books to maybe get too abstract so you mentioned the human element um how like reading history is so a pointless because you learn about these experiences of people who live these past lives, that the amazing things how do you how do you keep the human element in this book like people care about people are fundamentally so how do you how do you retain that to capture that sort of human interest engaging well.

I tried whenever like a lot of the structure of the book is kind of not i'd try to be overly rigid about this. But I do try very hard to um of alternate between kind of narrative telling stories that many of which I know from having been there you the time um to then sort of um in providing kind of more abstract um lessons from those stories, right. And so I tried very hard to baLance that and to really make that is related as possible.

Um but I like IT is IT is an idea as book and IT is fundament. It's not you know it's not narrow fiction or something like like is a sort of adventure story or something I mean I think but so IT is there are a lot of ideas in there but is also a lot of history, a lot of stories. Um no and a lot of specifics and i'll tell you one .

thing that did IT from me, you like you mention a few of your ah the start of that you founded and your experiences with them how that has kind of track the projection of the internet over time yeah I know I .

said I was the founder of two companies in the first one was two thousand four outside of security company um and the kind of there I mean really, really important thing to me was we were built on the open web and so we went in rated websites and tried to provide kind of security warnings for users if they were dealing with somebody who doing fishing a spiral. Um but but very importantly, we didn't have to ask permission to do that.

We could go and sort of the web as this open community on network and we could just build new pieces on top of IT. Um and that allowed us to exist, then allowed us to be part of the solution in the end to, you know I know the solve, but IT totally improved the security problems on the net like we were part of that solution. We are rented to being acquired mac phy and butter into their software.

Actually a very our software are what our software became is now very popular for them. Um but um so that was very much like in that kind of you know web two I was the web two era but that was pig backing off of this web two design these open systems like world by web um with my second start of IT was an A I company machine learning company called hunch that we started to have and was acquired by ebay in two thousand eleven. Um I think couple of things I think are obviously, I think we were right about the long term trend that I think we were too early. Um but our bigger issue was that we we kind of assume that the internet would stay open the way that had for my prior start up. And so we we had used all of this sort of data um that we crawled an analyze little bit like opening eye has you know now from twitter other .

places and this was fifteen years before after yeah I .

mean this as they say in tech, if you're early as the same as being wrong but i'm so now so i'm not IT was good that I was early but that was um but we were dependent on a lot of uh, other data forces and that was right around in all of the state force started really kind of pulling back. And so you know in the end, we ended up in the company, ebay, partly because ebay had their own data um and need to outside da.

you talk a lot and you're early blogging about this a platform risk basically before that became a real here .

I ve been blogging I was yeah I mean, I set myself in there once and like but had a long more examples in on my blog where I was sort of obsessed with these issues of like the internet becoming consolidate starting and that sort of blogging about the two .

thousand and nine and I have have been very consistent .

present yeah no I mean, it's funny like yes it's not there's no um I could I didn't I didn't could be appropriate for the reader but like there is a lot of the things on the book that I write had been writing litera thousand nine yeah and and I was like .

great some people they approach this topic and they see no h here's another tech investor. The thing that have with web .

two is going to with web why? Why do I even? Like, why do I work on the internet? Like, why is that? Like I picked the internet, my profession um yeah why I was very attracted to the ideas of the internet you know the nineties idea s of the internet of like that IT would be this open democratically own permissionless system um and that you would have all of these kinds of you you've open API and collaborate development and anyone in the world could put up a website and build something, you know, get distribution and get users and build a business support themselves to me that was also special at internet like and what made IT different than broadcast T, V, radio or other forms, newspapers or other forms of media IT was open IT was democratic.

IT was um and and I um started worrying about that when I started blogging like two thousand nine eh I think I got really bad. I go through this history in the book a little bit like two thousand and twelve or thirteen IT happened to come along right when what what I eventually now believe is the potential antidote IT, which is a new system to go on block chains which is what got me interesting that um I think a lot of people think it's like finance. I have I have very interesting finance personally.

Um it's not I do have a section on IT there. I think it's an import area for block chains, but it's one of many. And and and I want to say because i'm just not even .

on finance.

but an investor of the ea is financed some sense but but not what about treating and no like interest rates and all these the stuff C N B C like. Anyways, that's how I came to IT from that kind of perspectives um and that you know I think it's a very I think it's maybe look come in in the bad cases, maybe over the five I companies essentially control the internet. Um I think it's getting worse. You know like twitter now decrease your my told all the service to take your post view and link out they now move from this mode of optimizing you know how many people they have in the money to making sure you're just completely stay in their work garden.

I mean, it's so the attract extract cycle that you are out in the back, which I think I think that that one concept understanding that like seeing the code.

the matrix yeah to you referencing in this in this early the ball corner worth talking about the the logic of how this basically, I think, a very predictable kind of logic to how these these centralized network services like twitter and facebook, how they evolve these, they start off attracting meaningless to become join us will do all these wonderful things. And then over time, the logic switch out of the incentive switch and to go through is really like this is not like some cultural thing, like it's literally if you actually this analyze how network affects work at the inside of switch at some point, where is more attract important for them to extract money from the network, then IT is to attract compliments and network.

And IT happens over and over.

IT happens over and over repeatedly. Ycl people keep falling for unfortunately, it's going to happen now. Again, they are a new generation.

We will offer this again. We'll build on top of these other platforms and then sudden things will switch and they're learn the lesson hard way. I'm hoping the living lesson easy way, you can read a book, we learn the hard way.

Um but um but in is Better way I is about to get much worse A I will make you like I pro A I I think it's a great technology is very important. But IT is a al is generally a centralizing force. IT rewards companies with lots of uh and money and computer everything else and that will further favourite income as so I think it's a you know situation.

So I got in the internet for its open, democratic kind of anyone could go and build a website. I think that's a serious risk at this point. I think block change of the only kind of credible way to turn that I go through that detail the book that's what the books about um and and that that is what kind of motivates me at this point. There's another .

group uh that you know has a similar concern as you and they're interested in the centralization, but they are not on board with crypto or block chains.

Know this is the sort of the master on folks like .

the blue yeah vite he had a post vite creator of the theory um he had a post earlier this year can make safer punk again. And I wrote down a quote that he said he said there's a large ideological rift for significant parts of the non blockchain decentralizing community. Seize the crypt al world as a distraction and not as a control spirit and powerful ally. And that line really stuck out to me because it's true. And how do you how you bridge those two forces that should be allied there fighting against one another?

And yeah, now it's great question. I think it's unfortunate. I think they do like the broad chain people like me in the talc and the time protocol P I call and protocol networks in the book, the folks who was sort of pro s and a bunch of new things like um the the activity pub is a .

part of social interactive.

I love those things. In theory, i've been on the internet twenty five years and i've supported these protocols. The reality is the two protocol networks is seated in the history of internet S C P N H T P email on the web.

Both of them um were started in the thousand nine hundred eighties and grew um in the you know eighties and nineties um before they were actual kind of corporate network, as I call them competence centralized networks. Um there has been been the closest one since then that has comes to succeeding as our service and our test failed in the end. I mean, that still exist, but it's IT failed to you know it's it's a it's a tiny fraction of the user base of things like facebook and twitter.

The reality is we've now had twenty five issue years of a maybe more thirty years of protocol network is being developed. I go through in the book, there's lardy hundreds of them and none of them was succeeded. So at some point, after thirty years, a failure, I would submit you should consider maybe there is something wrong with the with the approach.

And I think the thing wrong with the approach is I think protocol networks are great from a societal benefit point of you, but they are not great from is features and funding. They have no way features. They're limited.

They ask you to do things like go get your own domain name, domain names like go pay dollar for the main name. That's not a mainstream consumer behavior, consumer mainstream. I'm a developer type.

I'm, you know, a internet person. I have a domain name. Ask someone in the street in new york. They have no idea why they would ever buy one. And then I want to buy one, and then I want to pay a dollars .

year for using things. I mean.

the things being is never they're it's never going to anything that require stuff like that never and then funding like look, google has I think it's up to if you can't contract, you think they have six hundred thousand employees like um no facebook, what a hundred two hundred and that like this vast company, they and they spend massive amounts of money on subsidizing these networks.

So like all of this free stuff, you do money a cost to host video of youtube thinks they subsidize IT in a way that a protocol network can never do, right a protocol like if you have a new video of protocol, the computer youtube you don't have, you would need, I don't know, probably ten billion to start um just to match the subsidies. Um you would need hundred million a year, absolute minimum to support a top flight department team. Look, it's been twenty five.

I am all for those. The this activity proves everything else in theory. In practice it's been twenty five years. We were trying this. I've been part of some of these and they haven't worked.

So like to me what a block chain is in many ways is a um uh uh super evolved form of these old protocol networks where they have, i'd like to say blockchain networks have the facile benefits of protocol networks. They get to P S M T P. But the competitive advantages of corner networks like facebook and twitter, they have a watching heaven inherent funding mechanism. I have a bunch of um software features that that let them y'll let them compete uh uh with some kind of modern user experiences of of the centralized systems. Um so there my my mind the further evolved to kind of more likely to be to to lead to real competence but share many of the same values as as other movements.

I wonder what it's going to take for people to see that that vision and to see you like the potential there. Uh you know freed Wilson who read and reviews your book, he had some very nice things to say about IT. He had a post recently where he said that he believes twenty twenty four there is going to be a ChatGPT moment, four cyp to that.

There's going to be this breakthrough moment for the technology that is like suddenly everybody's going to realize, wow, IT works. IT works really well. It's amazing. And IT is going to like flip a switch for people.

Do you like, is IT gonna take that? And by the way, do you think that that is going to happen in twenty twenty four? That's a pretty bold.

Yeah I don't know when will happen and I happen as soon. I think I think A I very much in case study and that one is to the first network aper was um mccollam an kits in one hundred forty three to literally eighty years before chat P T long long history. Tons of money went into eighty years. Um I I can tell you that like like I arted to mention earlier, company. Is there a lot of A I company started over many decades and I think a lot of you what are you didn't really work until twenty.

twenty three. Did you think very late at the time, by the way, in two thousand eight when you started IT?

Or did you think you question, you know, I mean, I thought and right timing, but I was I was early but they think people that know you know neural networks were not the most effective method to doesn't IT they literally I mean people thought they were cool in theory and the brain work that way um but um empirically I just didn't have the best results um now was insured about the network read as they happen to take advantage of the same hardware video games to G P S. And so one ended up the course is that you know companies like a video investing in G P S for the purpose of video games ended up having this sort of spill over a benefit to neural networks. And then I turned out, as neural network got to some level of scale, they promote very, very dramatically.

By the way, this is like the perfect and capsule tion of your idea of the big thing starts out looking.

And I took eighty years, and by the way, they were all I member when I might sort of, we called the machine learning, and I was a bad word. That's what happens in the sort of the free ChatGPT moment of technology you have all these debate, these kind of meaningless debate in my mind of terminology and encysted people say you call web three, you can call this. I just in the book, I just use descriptive words like locked chains.

And I tried to kind of side step the tribal bottle um in the end and I think that matters IT is what matters is products in in technology like you can have different names, you have different presentations over different ways of explaining IT what ends up mattering is the products, I think and so I think fed will son this exactly right? Like at some point, there will be a ChatGPT moment. There will be a break through.

I don't know what exactly i'll be. I've learned that I think i've been pretty good at predicting what happens on the internet. I've been pretty bad at predicting exactly when this happens. I tried to put pretty White bars around my time predictions these days, so I don't know everyone will happen.

But that's actually an interesting point because the timely of a book is so like it's so long, it's a slugging process comes out like. Finished writing IT months ago, but IT takes a while to actually get IT out in the world. You know how do you future proof you're writing when you're writing about something .

so fast moving like the tech yeah hard you know in the book I think specifically like look, I mean it's it's a baLanced because you don't want to go to obviously the more in some sense of more abstract you go, the more time profit is. But if you go to strack hard to read anyone to use examples like you want use particular like name, particular products, for example. I like I i've read a lot of business books.

I like, I remember rereading cross in the cosmetic, which is now twenty or thirty years old. He talks about palm pila really kind of hurt the book. Frankly.

That is like the examples look. So I old because inevitable to pop up, some will Better some good one go down. And so you'll just get some of that wrong and that will take the book more. And so you've got to be a little careful to avoid things that are kind of timely like that. But at same time, you need to give examples so you can just be too abstracts.

So that's one thing. I mean.

the air stuff in particular, like I thought that much. I think like I was talking like I talk about this idea like kind of needing a new covenant between creators yeah and um so there's been like a long time implicit convents or economic convention between, for example, websites that provide content and me and share that content. And so the carbonate is simple that you use some of the content if you send traffic back.

And it's possible the new A I systems will change the company ent, because they will be some travel back to give the answer. So what's the convening? Things like that.

So I guess I know that feels like it's like that was a timely thing that also, I think will last for some period of time. I mean, at some point I will work itself out, but um I think that one probably has a longer term kind of time horizon. You've got seven .

applications in the back of the book um for potential users of gypt o, demonstrating its potential and its utility. If you had to pick one, what's your what's your favorite ite of the bunch in there? Which one sticks out the most to you?

Well, there's a two dimensions on that question. There's kind of what we have the greatest impact on the world and then what cool. Because like, for example, the finance section, if you could figure out a way to dramatically improve and lower payments throughout the world and lower minits costs, that could have a massive economic impact yeah on lots and lots of people, right who paid percent now or whatever they paid to send money back home or something. So I things like that, I think yeah.

instantly live changing.

I think I think if you if we figure out the right way to hand of, let creators use N, F, T in a way to build direct relationship with their audience and sell them digital merchandise and think that could have a transformative effect on on how much money creators make on the internet.

Um so things like that, I think just from a kind of what coolness point of view, um I really love this idea of um uh what I call colliver ate story telling club ate story telling is basically the idea that um you get a unity people together, they collaborate vely develop kind of university of think of Harry potter or marvel movies or something but their own original universe and then they are rewarded for their contribution proportionate to how much they contribute through tokens um which day and then they then also can go out and and um you know uh continue to develop the world for the world, add new characters evAngelized the world, build all around IT and then that kind of community imagine and coming together, they have some to make money in various ways too by licensing out the I P. To make movies and cartoons. And some of that money falls back personally.

Why do you so different the typical media enterprise death c on just, yeah and and what .

great about this idea solves a number of problem. So like one is hollywood has a problem, which is like they just this problem, all these, all these supergravity vies. And if you ask some wise, because IT costs is so expensive to market new I P right um IT hundreds of hundreds millions dollars to create some new narrative universe. Um uh kay, on the flip side, you have all of these really active enthusiastic fan bases who want to be a bigger party who are up. They're saying, hey, I think star world should do this. I think marvel should do this um who wants to be part of who write a lot of IT and time very good fan fiction right so you had the very act of fan community but the fan community wants to be recipes but is only um uh but in a lot of ways feels laughed out and of course has no way to money doing this um and you know this sort of left on the sideline.

So what's cool about this idea? A S I kind of bring these two things together and you imagine and IT takes, look at harnesses, like you think about something like, I kind of talked little but dismissively about dogs going before and then is a mean for me, but is also some really positive in which I mention the book, which is that it's it's the power of this community are millions of people who are all feel the sense of being united around this around this um token um and who go out and advani zed and know bitcoin is the most extreme example of this you know it's a sort of probably disport many times and millions of people who are true he was spend all this time blogging and writing and tweet and going on T V. And doing everything else and so what if you took that energy and harness IT and put IT into this narrative university, have these people who are passionate about IT, who help you to forget, but then who also, and aliases IT.

and that solves that marketing problem. Perot.

but then IT also creates the mother uses in the world. L. A, they want to know people. I can be just the same way that we can pedia of democracy.

Ze um the the kind of the left brain, this democratized the right brain, right? Like the creative side, and you can imagine to apply to all sorts of the creative areas, right? So, you know, and if you take these folks who right now kind of left out of the internet economics, right, like there isn't really a model to be a writer on the internet outside of going in, you know tell a some other hub and you joining the traditional world media world um and so this provides kind of way for those folks to to you know pursue creative activities.

Um I think generally like we are, I write a lot about this in the book. I think we're in A A lot of I think I have done the word count, but I think probably creators and creativity or up at the top of the work count of the book. Um you know a lot of my feeling is that this should be a goal near of for creators.

Um you have five billion people who have smart phones and you can push a button and instantly uh reach those people um and people are as passionate and or more passive than ever is about music and stories and everything else um and the only reason that is not a gold period, I believe even I think I right argue this in detail the book is because these five or six giant and meet inserted themselves in betwen and that relationship between the creator and audience and took mostly economics um and if we can figure out a way to bypass those those five or six people companies, um we can transform the economics. So that's really in a lot of ways the theme, the things I write about right is like and that's one reason I like that idea. It's a really interesting, clever way that start to do that sort of and .

I would recommend the take rates chapter for anybody interest.

And the toll taken literally, is a word that means a percentage of money that flows the network taken by the and network Operator um and one of the remarkable things that facebook and twitter is that pulled off as this, we have hundred percent close to hundred percent take rate, which is unheard of any other area of the economy um and I think is really kind of destroy the economics, the internet for most people yeah.

what will make this book a success in your view?

Yeah I think the main thing i'd like to do is a couple things I think so one one I really want, i'm really hope you will be the book that people that work in this industry, a lot of people that work on blockchain and crypto u have told me that you they they can't explain. They they are excited about that.

They know why they're excited about IT, but they have trouble articulating that excitement to um for sharing that assignment with family and friends and respected employees. And I I I I wrote this book hoping to be in the book that this is the book get to those people to explain to them. So it's you know a concise and capsule tion of why i'm spending my life doing this, right? Anyone of us.

So I guess what step one, I I really hope it'll be that initial signs are positive. I've having, I don't know, fx third to forty folks in the industry read IT, and they seem very excited by and a lot of them were buying IT for their company now like our folio in other places. So and surely, but we hopefully that will be the case.

And then I think the next wrong around that would be, no, I sort of my mental model look for that for for unfortunately cyp to block chains have become some more politicize um and there is a set of people out there you know have decided that anything involving them is evil because of course on the other side is set of people who love them um and there's also this weird travellers m with encysted love on the certain block chains like people. But then I think eighty percent of the people of the world I I think don't have an opinion. And in fact, we've had surveys other things which demonstrate that like they're like, I ve heard about that, I don't really know, right? I would like to reach some set of those people and say, hey, this is really promising and here's why.

And maybe, you know, you should be open minded to what getting involved in some way, whether IT be as a developer or, you know, entrepreneurs, just simply as user or participant, these networks and like. So I hope that you know, my ideal ambitious goal would be for that kind of mean to spread. And for people that kind of understand what the kind of productive use cases of block chains are and not just the specular use cases and for that to become part of the broader cultural conversation. Yeah, I mean.

I say my favorite review that's coming so far has been from Kevin Kelly, the founder of wired. Yeah, he said, this book changed my mind. I know.

and I I know I known Kevin. I have, of course, been a huge fan of his own life and I mean, all of his career and read all the books. I had a privilege meeting a few times um and and I was always frustrating because he kind of cream with everything but didn't grew that yeah and so yes for him to say that I know he wasn't he wouldn't he had just said thank you for some work whatever won't he would politely not said that so for him to say that and let us put on the back of the book and everything. I really think .

that was great yeah um I think you get a corum of that of enough minds changed that really makes this book of success um if you had to read a second book.

what would you be about what I think the process was gonna find I was painful but fun but to be honest, like I I know I don't have any plans, but but I did like the process so if I had the right thing I would do again um I will say when I was writing this I was like on the negative side is so frustrating how um no one seems understand to write this book on the positive side like how often in your career would you ever have the opportunity where there is like a major tech trend? And the delta between how I see IT, I think is a correct with IT and the sort of the popular view of IT is so great, like it's such a White delta in some ways that was sort of the opportunity of a career to be able to try to close that gap, right? Like just doesn't happen like with the I I look people that I think it's great, but the rest of world thing is great.

It's not a some different a lot of details and things, but generally, it's not that it's not that much of the gap right here. The gap is so broad between the truth and the perception um and so that was just a very rare opportunity to try to be the one who closes up up and so would be hard to imagine that happening again OK. I hope this face of walls maybe and I could write the equal like no likes more stuff happens. I know that some other ideas on, I like software innovation, history of software and things, but I nothing, nothing.

So that leads me to my last question for you, which is, okay, pitch yourself fifteen years into the future. Yeah, we've had this computing cycle has gone along and you're thinking about a sequel to read right on, what is the word that capture that next internet year after right on? If you had to pick one .

word i've always thought of that is kind of a little bit of a this is synthetic synthesis, you know.

going to philosophy yeah.

I mean, it's a little bit like sort of because the radio was a protocol network, uh and IT to IT IT really shows the greatest ele benefits of that architecture and corporate or the next year kind of you know broader democratizing from democratic mission, democratic publishing and um and really extended the kind of ease of use and and features of the internet and authority or a kind of to me brings kind of combines the the only error, combines the best of the reason, right? And so if you believe that there is no fact.

the end of history .

is the end of history. But I mean, if you had to, I think the next VS vector would be sort of this very deep version. I do you think that will happen? I know it's A A size I show, but it's going to happen, which is people kind of living inside of these metaverse with four. It's a very dimensions version and everything else I don't know. The I stuff too is preaching like exactly is another as a kind of year of the internet like that too?

I don't know. Um Chris, thanks so much. Thank you sharing this conversation and everybody else. This book is on sale and you can buy IT up wherever you buy your books.