Balaji Srinivasan is not someone who waits around for the future to happen. He was early on Covid. He was early on Bitcoin. And he even beat me to the punch on my next blog post.
In my previous post, I identified three trends that I think will stay with us going forward. Balaji’s recent article exemplifies all three.
Books are less important
1729 is a newsletter wrapped in an incentive—it pays you in cryptocurrency for engaging with the blog. While Balaji’s posts will ultimately form a book’s worth of content he’s calling The Network State, he’s releasing it in a highly innovative format of short bursts with embedded tasks to involve readers more deeply than is possible in traditional mediums. By offering BTC to reviewers of these book installments, he further broadens the reach of his ideas while condensing them into an even shorter, more digestible format.
Everyone is a publisher
Balaji sees potential for disruption everywhere. Old world institutions rely on entrenched hierarchies that promote leaders who are well-connected, but lacking in transformative talent. In the future, new institutions will be founded from scratch by scrappy upstarts in the mold of Alexander Hamilton. Without being forced to pass the traditional gatekeepers, ambitious founders will do more than ever before.
It is now possible to found a community, a company, or even a currency from your laptop. The next step is to make it possible to found new cities and new countries, rather than simply inherit them.
People have trust issues
While governments and media giants fumbled in the wake of the exponentially spreading virus early last year, tech founders responded with remarkable speed. It’s not clear that Americans necessarily trust tech, but the visible failings of legacy institutions leave a clear vacuum for new ventures to fill.
The bottom line? Founding a blog, an app, or a company has never been lower cost. Maybe you can be a founder too.
Thanks for sharing! I found the inheriting vs. founding distinction that Srinivasan explains in the article you reference very interesting.