thebalance: manifest the future
October 26th, 2020 (vol55)
Exciting news to share this week! My first ever *official* crypto podcast interview was released today on the About Crypto show.
>>> Pod Link: “Democratizing Capital with Brian Mahoney CSO of Alkemi”
Side note: I was moving out of NYC the day of (Aug 31) when I did the video (not published yet) interview so the first minute or two I am out of breath from moving around furniture. I’m also sitting on a box for the interview. WFH 2020 😂.
Its only 10 minutes long. Low commitment! :) I touch on my background, share more on what we are building at our company, and get into the weeds on the where the future of capital markets is headed. Hope you enjoy! And thanks for the support.
✋ One more thing ✋
>>> For those interested in getting more involved with #thebalance (beyond the weekly digests), I am excited to announce that I will be launching a community group in the coming month whereby connections will be facilitated, knowledge will be shared, and meetups will be had…. hit reply and respond with a ‘✋’ if you are interested!
Why? Well because, in the spirit of bursting echo chambers, we have a diverse set of readers from all over the world and I think its time we get to know one another a little more intimately. More to come….
❤️ Likes, shares, and ‘my contacts’ adds are appreciated! It helps others discover what they have been missing out on while ensuring gmail doesn’t junk this thing either :)
⬇️ #thinkingthings, #followerthings, and #otherthings ⬇️
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🤔🤔 #thinkingthings
🟥 >>>> Old vs. New Things
In the spirit of my industry (crypto) and more broadly what’s happening in the COVID accelerated world, I thought the below post by Chris Dixon was appropriate context for one way to think about all the change that is happening right under our noses these days. COVID induced, we have catapulted to the future. 5+ years of change in ~10 months. A world that is inherently digital and borderless, as we love to talk about around here.
I like Chris’ post because he boils down his thinking into a pattern recognition driven framework that is easily digestible: using historical examples to comment on current trends and point out new technological developments that are “investable opportunities.” I like that the author isn’t trying to predict the way thing are going to evolve either because - lets be honest - nobody knows, but people can certainly spot/bet on trends. Rather he piques the reader’s interest just enough to signal that these are areas to think about for entrepreneurial opportunities going forward.
Its funny because that’s a core focus area for me with this newsletter.. piquing interest on innovation, sure, but more so (hopefully) exciting people about the future that they are in the driver’s seat to manifest! If we aren’t optimistic about the future, with the goal of leaving the universe in a better place once we leave, then what are we really doing here??
New technologies enable activities that fall into one of two categories: 1) doing things you could already do but can now do better because they are faster, cheaper, easier, higher quality, etc. 2) doing brand new things that you simply couldn’t do before. Early in the development of new technologies, the first category tends to get more attention, but it’s the second that ends up having more impact on the world.
Doing old things better tends to get more attention early on because it’s easier to imagine what to build. Early films were shot like plays — they were effectively plays with a better distribution model — until filmmakers realized that movies had their own visual grammar. The early electrical grid delivered light better than gas and candles. It took decades before we got an electricity “app store” — a rich ecosystem of appliances that connected to the grid. The early web was mostly digital adaptations of pre-internet things like letter writing and mail-order commerce. It wasn’t until the 2000s that entrepreneurs started exploring “internet native” ideas like social networking, crowdfunding, cryptocurrency, crowdsourced knowledge bases, and so on.
The most common mistake people make when evaluating new technologies is to focus too much on the “doing old things better” category. For example, when evaluating the potential of blockchains, people sometimes focus on things like cheaper and faster global payments, which are important and necessary but only the beginning. What’s even more exciting are the new things you simply couldn’t create before, like internet services that are owned and operated by their users instead of by companies. Another example is business productivity apps architected as web services. Early products like Salesforce were easier to access and cheaper to maintain than their on-premise counterparts. Modern productivity apps like Google Docs, Figma, and Slack focus on things you simply couldn’t do before, like real-time collaboration and deep integrations with other apps.
Entrepreneurs who create products in the “brand new things” category usually spend many years deeply immersed in the underlying technology before they have their key insights. The products they create often start out looking toy-like, strange, unserious, expensive, and sometimes even dangerous. Over time, the products steadily improve and the world gradually embraces them.
It can take decades for this process to play out. It’s clear that we are early in the development of emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies, machine learning, and virtual reality. It is also possible we are still early in the development of more established technologies like mobile devices, cloud hosting, social networks, and perhaps even the internet itself.
🟥 >>>> COVID-induced change: urban mobility
Highlighting a topic that, in my opinion, isn’t in the public discussion enough. Sure its a topic that is referenced quite a bit in the media (look no further than “NYC is dead”), but from what I see (and I digest a lot of content, ha!) I don’t see enough out there about how we should be rethinking/rebuilding our cities… This is something that’ now being forced on us whether we like or not. People will come back to cities (in a different way) once this pandemic passes because community is paramount to the human experience. We can’t live our lives online allll the time.
So why aren’t we using this time to reimagine and reinvigorate our existing cities?? Or spin up new experimental IOT connected cities elsewhere?? Now is the time to experiment. Now is the time to rethink the way people gather in person… because ‘virtually forever' is simply unsustainable - at least until Elon’s Neural Lace becomes a thing 😂.
“Even with the movement away from city centers that is now observed and attributed to the pandemic, and the recently adopted work from home practices, metropolitan areas will remain a pole of attraction because of everything they offer.”
The below post from Synapse Partners lays out the case for what the future of mobility (and our cities) might look like….
Cities, and more broadly metropolitan areas, are the laboratories where many next-generation mobility concepts and technologies are being tested, and where the transformation of transportation will first become evident.
Metropolitan areas are key to the success of new mobility. They are the centers where people choose to coexist in close proximity to take advantage of the services and other benefits, such as culture and entertainment, that this coexistence enables. Because of the advantages metropolitan areas offer, their population is anticipated to rise dramatically. Urban populations surpassed rural populations just before 2010.
Since that time, urban populations have continued to grow at the expense of rural populations. According to the United Nations Population Division, by 2050 the urban population will represent almost 70% of the earth’s total population. By then we will have at least 40 megacities and several hundred cities whose population will be at least 1 million people.
Most cities are unprepared to address the transportation problems they will face as a result of growing urbanization. In a recent report, McKinsey identifies the characteristics of 50 “superstar” cities. These cities account for 8% of the global population and 21% of the global GDP; 45% of them are homes to corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. Even the cities in this set already face growing urban transportation problems because they have underinvested in their transportation infrastructures. Megacities such as New York, São Paulo, Mexico City, and Mumbai find themselves in this predicament today.
Most cities around the world, including many U.S. cities like New York, are quickly realizing the multi-billion-dollar price tag required just to upgrade their transportation and communication infrastructures to the levels required by next-generation mobility. In the analysis Amazon conducted while trying to determine where to place the company’s second headquarters, transportation infrastructure quality was one of the selection criteria. Few are the cities that today make transportation a top priority and are investing heavily in intelligent transportation.
A city’s characteristics impact its population’s transportation preferences. Cities, and by extension metropolitan areas, develop and grow either vertically or horizontally. It may develop this way by choice, as is the case with many new cities being built in Asia, or by necessity, because of land constraints.
Cities like Lusail in Qatar or King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia are vertical by design. Cities like Manhattan, San Francisco, Berlin, Singapore, and Hong Kong have developed vertically because of land constraints. Vertical cities are characterized by high population densities, require smaller transportation infrastructures to accommodate their populations, and a higher percent of their populations, particularly in cities with younger demographics, tends to embrace walking and micromobility.
A horizontal city develops and expands outward. It is characterized by lower population density, and often lacks a master development plan. Horizontal cities tend to evolve in response to developers, rather than urban planners. Metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Paris, Tokyo and Bangkok are horizontal. As a consequence of this evolution, their traffic patterns develop differently. Transportation planning becomes harder and more expensive. We find that horizontal city populations tend to prefer privately owned vehicles and public transportation modalities for their mobility.
How could cities transform? Using business and technology innovation as the two dimensions along which to consider transforming, we see three potential outcomes (and dozens of potential others across this two-dimensional space)
As a result of transforming primarily along the technology dimension, a city becomes a smart infrastructure provider. Today close to 100 cities globally are determining the role that privately-owned vehicles and autonomous vehicles will play in their areas and how those will impact their transportation infrastructures.
As a result of transforming primarily along the business dimension, because their transportation infrastructures are already advanced and plans for additional investments in place, a city becomes a transportation coordinator enabling it to improve the utilization and monetization of its transportation infrastructure. Cities such as Berlin and Shanghai are good examples.
As a result of simultaneously transforming along both dimensions, a city becomes a transportation orchestrator and is able to optimize the operation of all mobility resources. This is the approach taken by Singapore.
🟥 >>>> Unclear Intent
Actions speak louder than words, as my girlfriend always reminds me :)
As you can tell, I have been thinking a lot about the future these days (especially with the upcoming election here in the US) and I thought the below short form post published by Gary Basin was a great way to wrap up this week.
Where can you show more intent in your life? What’s important to you? How can you manifest the future that you want to live in with your actions today? What’s your net present value of the future? 2020 is a year of change. Adjust accordingly.
You can tell a lot about someone through their intent. How do they spend their time? What do they talk about? What path are they on? Strong intent can carve a tunnel from the present moment to a better future.
This isn’t restricted to humans. Every type of organization behaves with intent, including entire nations. A change in the intent of a nation indicates a change in the priorities of its people. Can you spot a change in the intent around us?
America seems to be striving towards something different than it did 50+ years ago. The pace of physical improvement has slowed to a trickle. Some groups speak of equalization replacing advancement. Other groups see reaching outer space as a panacea. Sometimes it feels like we’re out of new ideas. I wonder where we’re headed.
📲🧑🏽🤝🧑🏻 #followerthings
📚⏯️🎤 #otherthings
Last week to check out the playlist if you haven’t had a chance to yet!
I’ve continued to add to it over the month. We have 8 hours of, 100+ songs queued up for your listening pleasure. Podcast and product reccos coming up next week :)
FALL FLOW 10/20. Vibe: chill flow (duh), with some of my timeless favorites sprinkled in. It only felt right to name it ‘fall flow’ given this being the year of ebbs and flows… 2020 has been a balancing act for many of us no doubt.
Give it a listen 👂, fade out, and find yo’ flow.
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Stay safe out there. Peace and love to all y’all.
Curiously,
-Block
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About me:
My friends call me Block. I am the CSO & Cofounder at Alkemi.Network, a company focused on bridging digital finance for institutions. This newsletter is my passion project.
I am endlessly curious and blissfully dissatisfied. I love new ideas, obsessed with all things technology, and am always seeking to broaden my perspective while striving for balance, of course.
I am a futurist, investor, entrepreneur, builder, advisor, life long learner, hockey player, traveler, podcast addict, hip-hop head, e-newsletter junkie, event planner, and comedic-short producer. Follow me on Twitter here and Instagram here.
“Find a question that makes the world interesting.” - Paul Graham