yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Innovation Requires Decentralization and a Frontier


3m read
·Nov 3, 2024

Innovation requires a couple of things. One of the things that it seems to require is decentralization. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Athenian city-states, the Italian city-states, or even the United States, when it was more free-form and involved less federal government control, were hotbeds of innovation. Because you had lots and lots of competition, people could switch from one state to another if their ideas weren't welcome, and there was a robust competition of ideas.

The real diversity that matters is diversity of ideas, not just diversity of skin color. You also need a frontier; you need something new to explore, either an intellectual frontier or a physical frontier. We've occupied California. If anything, now California is the institution, the establishment—no longer the front of the wild west. Maybe we need one in space. Maybe we need intellectual ones like we have in cryptocurrencies.

It's the nature of wild west's that they're always filled with scammers, they're always filled with crimes, they're always filled with very strange and odd things because they tend to attract a weird crowd. But at the same time, it is where a lot of the innovation is going on. I see a lot of lamenting from old school scientists and entrepreneurs, "Where are the new entrepreneurs?"

Welcome! I think Paul Graham tweeted this the other day. He's the Y Combinator founder, a brilliant guy. He said something along the lines of: Steve Jobs today wouldn't be able to get a job or wouldn't be able to survive at a Silicon Valley company; he'd be canceled by his own team. But Steve Jobs today would be in crypto. He'd be in crypto with all the scammers, all the criminals, and all the weirdos. But at least there he'd have a space to be weird; he'd have a place to be different. He'd have a place to try new things without having to constantly answer to someone.

There's a pendulum between centralization and decentralization. For example, if you look at the crypto world, centralized finance ends up very ossified. You have the government and the regulators telling you exactly what you can and can't do. You get regulatory capture, and next thing you know, Wall Street is sucking 20% of the profits out of the economy, and crypto can replace that. So, you get decentralization pressure where people can do it in a free-form programmatic way, but then you end up with a lot more scams, fraud, and losses.

In old times, you worried about brigands and robbers in the forest, so you appeal to the king. While the king builds a nice keep, the king mints the money. But next thing you know, the king is debasing the currency, and the king is throwing people in jail. Then some people run off into the forest; they become brigands again because they want their freedom. But now, of course, they're subject to attacks and harassment from their peers.

So, there's a natural pendulum swing that goes on in history between centralization and decentralization. I think the arc of technology actually swung us towards centralization in the last decade. I'm a big fan of Amazon, but it's a very centralized entity. There's a decentralization arc that is taking place even in that industry, with things like Shopify coming up, enabling small stores to compete.

Or even local delivery services like DoorDash. They're centralized services, but they're allowing a decentralized army of restaurants and local shops to compete against centralized services. So, we're going to see this arc going back and forth.

More Articles

View All
Understanding equivalent ratios
We’re told that Burger Barn makes dipping sauce by mixing two spoonfuls of honey with one half spoonful of mustard. Sandwich Town makes dipping sauce by mixing four spoonfuls of honey with one spoonful of mustard. Which dipping sauce has a stronger mustar…
Are These the Oldest Fossils Ever Found? | National Geographic
Through laser imaging of the samples, we were able to identify the microfossils as the oldest known microfossils on Earth. The microfossils we discovered are about 300 million years older than the previously thought oldest microfossils. So, they are withi…
AI is terrifying, but not for the reasons you think!
The robots are going to take over. That’s the fear, isn’t it? With the evolution of artificial intelligence moving at an almost incomprehensibly fast pace, it’s easy to understand why we get preoccupied with this idea. Everywhere we turn, there are headli…
Watch Artisans Craft a Beautiful Indian Bedspread | Short Film Showcase
To me, by John is the Serling eye of Isaiah; someone who understands the nuances because he has a knowledge of the process of creation. By John, of this Rezaï is the originality of his design, which actually has been designed to evoke a memory of fields o…
We’re All Equal in Our Infinite Ignorance
Induction also says that prediction is the main reason for the existence of science, but it’s not; it’s explanation. You want an explanation of what’s going on, even if you can’t necessarily predict with any certainty what’s going to happen next. In fact,…
THE FED JUST FLIPPED THE MARKET | Urgent Changes Explained
What’s up, Graham? It’s guys here! So, you know the saying that riches are made in recessions? Well, even though housing data fell to its lowest level ever, tech layoffs are getting more and more common, and the price for oil keeps going higher. Brand ne…