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The potential of NFTs: announcing NFTPort's $26M Series A

The potential of NFTs: announcing NFTPort's $26M Series A

Today, we announce a $26M fundraise with NFTPort. You may be surprised. This wouldn't make much sense if NFTs were only about buying and selling images of apes. Art and profile pictures may fetch high prices when sold as NFTs, but it feels like those things lack some tangible "real

GPT and Me

DALL-E 2 and Imagen are the hot new models everyone is sharing: the eye candy is undeniable. But since the original release of the GPT-3 large language model, OpenAI has quietly released the GPT API and playground for anyone to try. Here's a collection of my experiments with the most

20.1% yearly inflation in Estonia

20.1% yearly inflation in Estonia

What did Estonians start paying more for in April 2022?

HBS vs BAYC

At a New Year's Eve house party a few years ago, I met someone who had graduated from Harvard Business School. Among other topics, I brought up something I couldn't figure out: why would someone pay $200,000 [https://www.hbs.edu/mba/Pages/cost-of-attendance-class-of-2023.aspx] for something you could

Community first: thoughts from my first web3 conference

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 [https://devconnect.org/] – 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.

Fungibility

Fungibility A 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

NFT

NFT (Non-Fungible° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__fungibility] Token) Overview An 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

Workshop: building NFT apps with NFTPort

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 [https://nftport.xyz/]'s APIs to people who have a rough understanding of what NFT [https://www.taivo.ai/notes/__nft/]s are. If you are not one of those people,

Optionality is useless without an end goal

Optionality° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__optionality] is useless without an end goal Optionality° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__optionality] 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

Commitment reduces overhead

Commitment° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] reduces overhead If you're keeping all options° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__optionality] 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° [https://taivo.

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° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] to either quit, or to work for a period of 2t. Then, 4t, 8t, and so forth.

Commitment is a choice

Commitment° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] is a choice If 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

Commitment is valuable for your partner

Commitment° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] is valuable for your partner A 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

Commitment is a prerequisite

Commitment° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] is a prerequisite Sometimes, 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

Commitment feels good

Commitment° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] feels good To have committed° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment] to an action, especially in service of others, can be meaningful personally.

Optionality

Optionality Holding an option means you can choose a course of action later. It's the opposite of Commitment° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__commitment]. Optionality is useless without an end goal° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__optionality-is-useless-without-an-end-goal]

Commitment

Commitment Committing is wilfully constraining your future. The opposite of commitment is Optionality° [https://taivo.ai/notes/__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

Startup stock options: a beginner's guide

Startup stock options: a beginner's guide

Rationally valuing equity for startup employees

Web3: what I'm doing next

Web3: what I'm doing next

As I wrote before, I ended my startup journey [https://www.taivo.ai/startup-year] 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.

Foundering founder: the story of my startup year

Foundering founder: the story of my startup year

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

Product before problem

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

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 [https://fs.blog/2019/10/focused-diffuse-thinking/], the other main mode of thinking. Focused mode means taking a direct,

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

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

I've driven a Tesla only once but looking at Karpathy's recent presentation [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDTZQdo6H8] 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

Becoming a definite optimist

Becoming a definite optimist

Peter Thiel has [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18050143-zero-to-one] 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

If you can measure it, you can improve it

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