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Here is today’s roadmap
Podcast: Marc Andreesen on web3
Tweet: SBTs vs VCs? Why can’t we all be friends?
P.S. If you are new here, take a look through this web3 starter guide to get caught up to speed :)
Podcast
Marc is the founder of Netscape and Andreesen Horrowitz (A16Z). Netscape was the first web browser and kicked off the “web1” movement. If you want to nerd out on the history of the internet and Netspace, check out this podcast.
Marc and his buddy Ben later started A16Z. Outside of their influence on the broader internet industry, they are the largest web3 VC firm with >$7B raised from LPs over the past few years. Notable investments include Coinbase, Alchemy, Uniswap, Dapper Labs, and Opensea.
Everyone in web3 knows their influence on the space. The usual lead on these topics for the firm is Chris Dixon. Marc has not spoken too much publically about web3. Since he’s their founder, you would assume he supports the space, but up until this podcast (and article), I did not know how involved he was.
Is he letting Chris and the team do all of the work? Does Marc influence the idealogy of their practice? Here were a few key learnings from the podcast:
Web3 as the new Internet: This phrase gets overused. People (myself included) point to usage metrics and say “hey look, web3 has the same amount of users as the internet did in ‘95; we are so early! 🚀 ”. Marc agrees with this narrative. He made a point to say this is different than any other technological wave he has seen since web1 (e.g. cloud computing, mobile, AI, etc). Yes, he does have an incentive to express this viewpoint given his firm’s involvement in web3. I was still intrigued by the statement.
Problems are meant to be solved: Critics have a large list of problems with web3. It’s too slow. Not everything should be public. We have the infrastructure to do this in web2. Onboarding is too hard. There are too many scams. There are many others. Marc said this is great for the people entering the space. They now have a long list of problems to start working on. Especially for technically minded people, having a list of prioritized problems makes it easier to execute. The design space is still large for people to explore and then focus on what gives them energy, curiosity and has market demand.
NFTs lead to more creation: There is a new way to monetize creative output. This will lead to more creative output. I can resonate. I feel like I am getting closer to monetizing my content even through simple experiments with NFTs. Many creators and artists struggle to make money today. NFTs have created a new model to earn and it will allow more people the freedom to create. Not everyone will be able to leave their 9-5 jobs but the number of people being able to choose that path will increase. The creation of web2 platforms has allowed people to be creators, artists, etc. This is the next step in that journey. Who doesn’t want more creative output?
Tweet
Last week I spoke to Glen Weyl on Soulbound Tokens (SBTs). He wrote a paper on the topic with Puja Ohlhaver and Vitalik Buterin. You can see the interview I did with him here. Here’s a quick overview as a reminder:
What are SBTs? They are a non-transferable NFT (i.e. you can’t resell it on Opensea)
Why are they valuable? Because they are non-transferable, you can use them for parts of people’s identities that should not be traded (e.g. employment and education verification)
What problems do they solve? Users can validate their experiences, get jobs with web3 companies, and share their credentials wherever they want. Customers who want to verify that their employees or students went to their institution have a better way to do so. Think of it as a digital degree.
Their paper has gotten a lot of attention on Crypto Twitter. Most have been of curiosity and interest. Others have been challenging their perspective on SBTs. One of the bigger issues raised is the following: Why would you use SBTs instead of other forms of issuing credentials that already exist and work well today?
There are non-web3 ways to solve this problem. One way to do this is through Verifiable Credentials (VCs). Putting the specific technology aside, it made me think of the following:
Web3 does not have a lot of new ideas. The deeper you get, you realize it's mostly old ideas that needed attention and a refresh. Concepts like wallets, decentralization, open source, credentials, and others have been worked on for decades. The cultural and societal movement of the industry has brought these technologies back to the forefront.
VCs and SBTs are good examples of that. VCs have been worked on for half a decade. SBTs are a new concept that has come up in the past year. Both are solving somewhat similar problems for slightly different users. Both could potentially work together.
Web3 and web2 people will debate the different standards to see which one is better. I think this is the wrong way to think about it. The right way to look at it is to see how they can work together. Determine which users and customers want access to what and build that for them. If they want both, guess what, they should have both!
I think this is how the broader space will mature. There won’t be a “web2 vs web3”. There will be interoperability between the two. Ideas, products, and people will intertwine. In the next 5-10 years you may not even know where the line is. It’s already becoming harder to tell.