Taivo Pungas - Taivo Pungas

Community first: thoughts from my first web3 conference

In the spirit of documenting my thought process instead of already-formed thoughts, here are my impressions from the recent DevConnect – a major week-long gathering of the web3 developer community in Amsterdam. Many web3 companies are default-global. Most don't mention where they are based, because it doesn't matter. The community is

notes

Fungibility

FungibilityA set of things is fungible if items are interchangeable: it doesn't matter which one of the set you own. Dollars are fungible, standard Snickers bars are fungible, the gas you put in your car is fungible. Most things are not fungible. Real estate is non-fungible: you can easily distinguish

notes

NFT

NFT (Non-Fungible° Token)OverviewAn NFT is a representation of ownership. Technically, on the Ethereum blockchain, an NFT is defined by the contract ID and the ID of the NFT within that contract. NFTs make digital goods scarce. Even though Information wants to be free -- meaning any information (a song,

video

Workshop: building NFT apps with NFTPort

This is a short workshop I gave at the Road to Web3 online hackathon: a brief demo of NFTPort's APIs to people who have a rough understanding of what NFTs are. If you are not one of those people, the original NFT standard spec (ERC-721) is a great first introduction.

notes

Optionality is useless without an end goal

Optionality° is useless without an end goalOptionality° is instrumentally valuable, but terminally useless. It only makes sense in service of a goal. A life that ends with all options open, is a life with zero options realised and all options wasted.

notes

Commitment reduces overhead

Commitment° reduces overheadIf you're keeping all options° open, you spend a lot of time picking between them on an ongoing basis. You're constantly re-evaluating: should I continue with the current one, or try to find another? Commitment° avoids that. For example, in a monogamous Marriage you commit yourself sexually and

notes

Exponential commitment

To make it easier to find the appropriate quitting time, use an exponentially increasing commitment schedule. First, work for period t. When that period is over, commit° to either quit, or to work for a period of 2t. Then, 4t, 8t, and so forth.

notes

Commitment is a choice

Commitment° is a choiceIf you don't think about it, you might think commitment is something external to you: that it sort of happens by itself (once you're in a relationship long enough, once you work somewhere long enough, etc). It is a choice (though you might not want to choose

notes

Commitment is valuable for your partner

Commitment° is valuable for your partnerA partner that can commit -- romantically, in business, or otherwise -- is much more valuable than one that cannot. There's even an adjective for a person who is unwilling to commit: flaky. A partner that can commit helps reduces Variance, i.e. make the

notes

Commitment is a prerequisite

Commitment° is a prerequisiteSometimes, advance commitment is necessary. If you want to bake a cake you need to purchase the ingredients before you start baking, which is a form of pre-commitment. In professional life, you often not only need to be committed, but have to show it as well. People

notes

Commitment feels good

Commitment° feels goodTo have committed° to an action, especially in service of others, can be meaningful personally.

notes

Optionality

OptionalityHolding an option means you can choose a course of action later. It's the opposite of Commitment°. Optionality is useless without an end goal°

notes

Commitment

CommitmentCommitting is wilfully constraining your future. The opposite of commitment is Optionality°. You either have to do X or you have the option to do X. (If you have to do not-X, that is also a commitment.) The "Maybe" button is much easier to click in response to a Facebook

Startup stock options: a beginner's guide

Rationally valuing equity for startup employees

Web3: what I'm doing next

As I wrote before, I ended my startup journey in November and started looking for a job. A lot has happened between then and now. I've spoken to tons of people, looked at a broad range of options, and decided to join one early-stage company. It felt weird to announce

Foundering founder: the story of my startup year

How I spent a year trying to start a startup -- and failed.

Product before problem

You might imagine all great startups started from a clear mission. Sometimes they were, but usually, that story is woven in hindsight to cover up the gnarly pivots of the early days. In PR-optimised founding stories, the narrative usually goes like this. Our visionary founders found an apparent $PROBLEM in

Diffuse mode: thinking by relaxing

I recently started drinking coffee again. Caffeine has always had the effect of narrowing my focus and reducing mind-wandering. The downside is, caffeine makes me less likely to get into diffuse mode, the other main mode of thinking. Focused mode means taking a direct, head-on approach to work: writing an

Tesla's data engine: the road to full self-driving

I've driven a Tesla only once but looking at Karpathy's recent presentation at the CVPR conference, soon no human will. I think Tesla's unique data engine is what will get them there. In their self-driving stack, Tesla has always been betting on cameras and radar. This contrasts with Waymo's bet

Becoming a definite optimist

Peter Thiel has a 2x2 matrix: indefinite vs. definite, and optimist vs. pessimist. I want to be a definite optimist: imagine a better future and work to build it. Recently, I've been more of an indefinite optimist. Hoping that startup inspiration hits, without a concrete plan to make that happen.

If you can measure it, you can improve it

Early this year, I noticed I'd put on some lockdown-weight. I wasn't super worried but wanted to get back to my typical, healthier weight level. My first intuition in this situation was, "let me go on a diet." Diets can work. But they are expensive: you spend willpower every day

video

Video: Invest in Estonia, 1993

This is a hidden gem: Estonia's pitch as a startup country, almost 30 years ago. As far as I know, it hasn't been on the Internet yet. This video (and an accompanying paper publication) was distributed in 1993 by the Estonian Privatisation Agency to invite foreign investors to Estonia. A

Integrate work and life

You could separate work from life. As in the phrase "work-life balance", work versus life. They can be separate buckets with separate goals, time slots, people, and emotions. Separation definitely makes sense. Work lets us pay for rent and groceries, but might not be fulfilling. Time with friends, hobbies, reading,

The negotiation technique that enables deep conversations

The single biggest thing that made me a better friend, partner, colleague, and mentor came from an unexpected place. Two years ago, I was working through a breakup and rethinking how I approach all relationships. At a conference in Berlin, I happened to participate in a Circling workshop. It's is

Stock options are hard

As an employee, startup stock options are hard. I'm feeling pretty confident by now, but only because I've seen my friends get burned and been burned myself. What's so hard? At one company, my option contract was to be signed "at a future date", not together with my employment contract.