Becoming a genius, robots in preschools and DAOs against hedge funds

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Here we go with the Top 5 things that happened last week.

1/ I've been talking DAOs non-stop for the last three newsletters. And for a good reason because DAOs are the future of work.

Last week a DAO decided to buy a copy of the American Constitution. They managed to raise $47M in a week. They lost the auction to the founder and CEO of Citadel - one of the biggest hedge funds on the planet. But what does this mean?

DAOs can mobilize people (and money) extremely fast - faster than we have ever seen. The reason is simple:

Everyone is equal in the DAO

Larger companies feel threatened as they cannot retain talented people and are left with those who "play it safe". Every single VC (that worth its salt) has switched to funding "Web3" companies.

The DAOs pay better, are more fun to work with and provide more value than "web 2.0" companies. But of course there are downsides (which we'll talk about next week).

2/ Last week we had a CityDAO Los Angeles meetup. And it was epic. There I learnt about Mars College, a Burning-Man-For-Hackers playground.

What happens there is that for three months, people that are creators, tinkers, thinkers, hackers and want to stretch their mind beyond the social norms, build a city, create study groups and do deep work. In the end of the "college", the city is torn down (like in Burning Man).

I plan to rent a van and visit my friends in February, so if you want to come along just send me an email.

3/ Last week I took a break from reviewing pitch decks and I started doing small videos answering questions that came from you. That's what I did again this week (I promise, next week I'll go back to reviewing your pitch decks).

This time, I rant about NDAs and why you might seem as "not knowing what you are doing" if you ask one from investors. Take a look (it's a 2-minute epic video with Los Angeles as the background).

Oh and if you haven't subscribed to the channel, DO IT NOW.

Click here to see the epic video

4/ South Korea is experimenting with small robots in pre-schools. Yes, you are in the Kindergarten and you are given a small robot in order to familiarize yourself with the future technology.

I won't start saying "when I was in the Kindergarten I used to run all day and play with my friends" because I am not stupid. Offering more knowledge and deeper understanding gives you an advantage. Like teaching your kids chess. Or a musical instrument.

The world is not more complex than the past. It is just moves faster.

5/ I heard many times that I am a talented Entrepreneur, engineer or singer (ok, I've never heard the singer part). And whenever I say that "it is mostly hard work", I get the eyeroll. Here is an interesting story that proves that you are what you dedicate time on.

Some time ago, a psychologist decided to see if you are born a (chess) genius or you can become one. And he did what every normal person does: he put an ad to find a women to bear a child for him.

And as all love stories go, he found one. And they had three girls.

He decided to teach all girls how to play chess. Oh an important part of the story: himself was not a chess prodigy/genius/grandmaster.

Long story short the three girls, without having in their "DNA" the genius chromosome, they became chess prodigies and two of them are the first and second best chess players in the world.

But he had a trick to do that. A very simple trick. Deep, non-stop hard work.

Next time you find excuses, remember that is all you.

Read the story here

-- Jon V (as in Victory)

- Wed 24 November 2021