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LIB #4: Infinite Games, Tyranny in the Metaverse...

Welcome to Edition #4 of Living in Beta!

It’s been a crazy week in the markets but there’s an article in this newsletter (the first one) that resonated with where we are and the mindset we should strive to have, regardless of numbers going up or down.

I hope you find #1 (and the rest of the pieces featured) helpful in crazy times.

Playing Infinite Games, Having Infinite Regret

There will always be a project, a coin, an NFT (even a Tulip!) that will get 1000x returns. When we hear about this, many of us will react in a “why couldn’t that happen to me?!” kind of way (I had the PERFECT meme I came across on Twitter but didn’t save it at the time 🥲).

The fact these projects DO exist is a good thing.

There’s a huge amount of luck, skill, hustle, and a whole lot else that goes into investing in the right thing. All we can do is make educated guesses and improve our decision-making process. Control what’s in your ability to control. A couple of key quotes:

“The goal is to be better today than you were yesterday, and to be better tomorrow still. It is utterly useless to compare yourself to anyone other than your previous self. It is utterly useless to dwell on things outside of your control. It is very hard not to, but it is useless.”

“Another comma, another zero, they do not grant fulfillment or true happiness. Family, friends, health, reputation. Living a good and virtuous life, being a good person, doing good things. Leaving the world a better place than you found it. This, to me, is what true wealth means.”

I’d encourage you to read the full article: Letter 24: Infinite Regret

Dictators in the Metaverse?!

Web3 promises a world where users can easily move their accounts (assets, history, data) between platforms. It promises a world where accounts aren’t tied to platforms at all.

In a world where users can interchange between platforms, tyrannies can’t behave in a way that’s worked in the past (whether that be referring to civilisations or Web2 monopolies (e.g. Facebook, Google, Microsoft etc, I’ll let you decide).

It would be presumptuous of me to assume a dictatorship can’t happen in Web3 just because of a different economic system. Companies (and people) will find a way. We saw this with the Apple App Store, that, while the app store makes it easy for users to maintain their privacy and accounts with multiple apps, as well as keeping app developers honest by enforcing rules, protecting user data it also turns the app store itself into a "tyrannical United Nations," governed by a powerful corporation that can now bully all individual "countries.”

While I could see this happen through different L1 or L2 blockchains, the article shares why Web3 (and its dominating forces) can be different.

Read the full article here: Stalin in the Metaverse

Favourite Tweets of the Week:

Practical thread using direct sales to do non-scalable things to make growth happen.

TLDR:

  • Choose a niche

  • Create a list

  • Ask about frustrations / pain points

  • Get on a call

  • Remove the biggest objection

  • Do anything to get the customer

  • Create an echo chamber

  • Ask for referrals

  • Be human

The TLDR doesn’t do it justice; just check out the thread!

It’s exciting to hear about legacy institutions bringing in new forms of technologies to engage different audiences. This example from The British Museum (on my home patch!) especially stood out.

An important principle on having a framework to size the bets and decisions you make.

That’s all for this week!

Fahim