Web5 and A.I 🤖

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These are the crazy things I learned last week.

1/ A Google engineer was convinced that an A.I. became sentient. And he got suspended for it.

But I have a controversial opinion. I believe that we shouldn't discuss whether the A.I. was sentient but how many of us are not some kind of an A.I.

So let's do a small experiment.

In this link, you can find a small story. This story is a part of an interactive book I've been writing. 📖

Read it, comment below if you have figured out what that story meant, and I'll tell you next week in my newsletter if you are an A.I. or not.

2/ Jack decided to work on "web5" (huge eye-roll), where he will try to make Bitcoin a platform as epic as Ethereum.

Why can he not just use Ethereum? No idea. Bitcoin maximalists are idiots (as all maximalists).

Ethereum was created because the (super toxic) community of Bitcoin rejected the idea of smart contracts. What happened next was a huge ecosystem (NFTs, DeFi, etc.) was built on Ethereum, and thousands of developers started building cool stuff and a brand new economy.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin went from storage of value and digital gold (that goes up and down 40%) to transaction layer (that is super slow and expensive) to consuming the power of a small country to send $5 to someone. Even the majority of hedge funds convert Bitcoin to Wrapped Bitcoin in order to use the Ethereum blockchain and decentralize finance.

So, should you be preparing for Web5?

Unless you are delusional and want to spend time on something that will probably die in a couple of years, sure, go for it.

3/ Let's talk about MVPs. (In a Startup context, not in Basketball 😅)

"A Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle."

In industries such as software, the MVP can help the product team receive user feedback as quickly as possible to iterate and improve the product.

The following image demonstrates what an MVP is and what is not.

So, if you want to build a car, start building something with the same core features (has motion, wheels, carries people, etc.) and iteratively improve it instead of just starting making a part of your end-goal product.

Notice that it's perfectly fine to get rid entirely of your MVP after you've validated your idea and start building your product from scratch later in the process.

Here is an excellent video from YCombinator on How to Plan an MVP.

4/ Lacoste (yes, the clothing company 🐊) is entering the web3 space with an NFT project and a DAO.

If you are a member of their DAO, you "will be part of the creative process of the Lacoste Underwater products and partnerships", as they say on their Twitter.

It seems that every single company has started entering the Web3 space, and some of them are really pushing the envelope.

At least the ones that are not running full-fledged scams.

5/ Media often talk about how The Simpsons (the popular T.V. show) have "predicted the future" multiple times. But in this newsletter, we are Family Guy fans!

In Season 14, Episode 11: The Peanut Butter Kid, the Griffin family was struggling financially, so Peter, out of nowhere, came up with "Bitcoin"!

This episode was originally aired on January 10, 2016, when the price of bitcoin was around $450. If the family had listened to him, they could have become Crypto Millionaires. 💰💰💰

See you next week. 🚀

-- Jon V (as in Victory)

- Thu 16 June 2022