What Happens When You’re the Investment

 it’s easier than ever to make content when that content is participatory/responsive to other content and built on top of it, whether through subtweets, TikTok responses, hard-forks, or composable smart contracts. In short, the shifts we’ve seen play out over the past decade in the creator economy are now transpiring in tech. Just as the rise ... See more

Starting a social token can be an excellent way to raise financing. It can also turn followers into investors and align a group around a common cause.

The recent history of the Internet, however, warns that we shouldn’t necessarily expect the endearingly homegrown nature of these 1,000 True Fans communities to persist. When viable new economic niches emerge online, venture-backed businesses, looking to extract their cut, are typically not far behind. Services such as Patreon and Kickstarter are j... See more

Ownership, via employee stock option plans, has been a powerful tool for incentivizing talented people to dedicate their skills to building startups in Silicon Valley. While this model has been extremely successful, it hasn’t been accessible to all, constrained by geography and legacy financial infrastructure, among other factors. One result is tha... See more