so welcome on on another episode of
democracy innovators podcast and our guests of
today's date better bottom
as a like update thank you for
having the alex it's great to be
here and the i mean your project
is quite interesting i mean you're quite
young
i dunno how old are you know
is ima i'm twenty two now but
i think i was i was seventeen
when i got into our river originally
yeah
is wonderful and would you like to
tell us something about the the projects
are working on i've seen also community
lobster our the computer sure so maybe
just to start with like a a
story in terms of how i how
i got into this stuff
i i've been interested in crypto for
a little while now since twenty seventeen
in two thousand and nineteen i i
stumbled across our we is completely by
chance and i use the brave browser
and i don't know you know if
if many people use that but it
gives you the ability to see these
ads in
change for for crypto and one of
the ads was talking about permanent data
storage and and so i ended up
clicking on it and that led me
to are we even in twenty nineteen
at the time i didn't have a
use case for it but i kind
of realized like out of all of
the things you could do with blockchain
technology store data permanently was a pretty
interesting one and and so i kind
of set it aside and and came
back to it when the pandemic started
and twenty twenty and i was in
school at the time but my see
rule was canceled because the the school
itself wasn't sure how to my migrate
to the online learning environment so i
was basically stuck in my basements my
basement for six months with nothing to
do except build stuff and i just
started building developer tools on our reef
and i've been in are we even
in now
now a oh ever since our revisit
a permanent data storage network designed to
enable you to pay a one time
fee to store a piece of data
for at least two hundred years and
and the idea is creating a single
source of truth where people can upload
data and rely on it being available
and for fidelity and over
that period of time it at minimum
so our team now at community labs
that's my company is a software development
company and venture studio building out and
bootstrapping different types of use cases in
applications on top of our reef and
and you know we we sort of
see our job is similar to like
explorers and new territory
three permanent data storage introduces a bunch
of new primitives and and enables you
to do a lot of things that
you weren't really able to do with
other blockchain or web to technologies before
so we're building companies around those use
cases and helping them to spin out
operate on their own and and that
sort of what we do we're sort
of like a a lot
miniature version of consensus like consensus on
ethereum but for the army because system
and then aoe more recently is a
decentralized super computer built on top of
our reef and and it's really exciting
for us because now we can build
on top of permit data storage and
decentralized compete
in the same stack without having to
rely on some blockchain for compute and
our refer for data storage
it's very interesting the thurman into that
the third concept the and i wonder
like a which kind of technology is
used to achieve is a
two hundred years of safety yeah as
a super interesting technology and the way
it works is essentially will you pay
a one time fee and the fee
the size of that fee is in
proportion to the size of the data
that your upload
being at the time and that fee
goes and into an endowment that is
then head out to to nodes overtime
for being able to prove that they're
storing your data and and the reason
it works is because if you look
at like a historical graph of what
the cost was to store
a piece of data over the last
fifty years on average and the costs
to actually saw a piece of data
has decreased around thirty percent year over
a year and and you know the
idea behind our we've is essentially a
bet on our rivers a bet that
the storage for or or the the
costs
to actually store data will continue to
decrease and and a lot of people
are comfortable making that bad because it
has for the last fifty years pretty
pretty much and and also as our
lives become more digital and more online
more people are using the internet and
there are more incentives
for companies to actually make it cheaper
to store larger amounts of data and
so that's sort of very high level
but that sort of how are reworks
and and why it's able to do
that two hundred year guarantee
okay this is very interesting because i
do
you know like a is three m
is made the with the the primary
sources that humans and
like humans do things right things and
people of our time single cut the
source of that were written in the
past
and the now we are seeing like
a sort of the
change like at are a lot of
sources are digital life
and the i saw some yes i
ago
i thought also in relation to janeiro
i that the eventually like someone could
the actually like with some users scraped
with some
a agent modify a lot of things
and the modify them forever like theoretically
like someone could the i dunno i
dunno remove like the word that the
metal from all books from all the
you may just and then for the
people of the future that fingal not
the exist
of course it is his arm
it is just an example
but that's why i think the this
project is interesting and the
i wanted to ask you like a
also there is another and like our
archive dot org that is a completely
different project but in some way they
share some similarity i think
yeah there
and so archive dot org is is
super interesting and i think that's the
team behind the wayback machine machine isn't
is that true
i think yes but i'm not completely
sure you
i think so and the the court
so you're right in that the similarities
are both are trying to make sure
that data that is on the internet
is is around overall very long period
of time and the core difference however
is our we've acts as a decentralized
network where
your data is stored in you know
hundreds of places around the world and
hundreds of people are essentially competing to
to make sure that is the case
and whereas with archive dot org and
the wayback machine you're essentially tray you
have to place trust on the team
behind archive dot org
and to make sure that the data
isn't loss that also makes i guess
the the other problem is that archive
dot org has is carrying a lot
of the costs to actually store that
data and maintain it over these years
and what happens if archive dot org
runs out of money and and has
to shut down and the data from
bubbly you know their the risk would
be that the data might not be
archived and or archive dot org could
could alter or manipulate the data that
their story and i don't think they're
doing that to be clear but the
whole point is that with are we
have you don't have to worry about
that you don't have to be concerned
of someone changing the data
because if they are they're are not
able to earn a payment for being
able to prove that their their story
yeah thank you exactly i totally agree
about desert centralization in archive dot target
and the i also don't think that
the they are what he finding anything
but the potentiality are still is there
and the
so you're tall as a when you
had the this idea that you are
browsing an internet and you saw another
type
and the
and i wouldn't was wondering how you
how you develop dead yet like leica
he said that you start developing some
tools and the like how did it
happen you met someone that i dunno
it's fire you the through the your
prisoner
so the first the first thing i
built on our reverse sort of a
sort of a funny story and
both of the to first projects that
i had they they were both influenced
by people and changing data or taking
it down and and it was knee
wanting to make sure that that wasn't
possible so and one of the first
projects was called nest dot land and
and
the idea behind it was there was
this new javascript runtime called dina that
that had shortly before then been released
and dino is sort of like know
js if you if you've heard of
that and and it was created by
ryan doll who also created note
and and so ryan had this you
know pretty big following people really admired
his work with no jas cause it's
kind of everywhere now and and dino
was you know supposed to be like
the the better version of note of
to fix all the mistakes that he
made building know js and i'm a
nerd and so i kinda got into
it i became pretty interested in dino
in the idea behind it and but
after i got into the the ecosystem
what i pretty quickly found out was
that people were sharing code one difference
between know js and and dino is
that for know there's this thing called
a package
manager where you reach out to a
package manager and say give me this
package and the package manager returns it
and that that dependency that code that
your now importing into your project is
essentially downloaded to your local file system
whereas with dino it's it's much simpler
if you want to include code uk
can just paste and a u r
l you can say import from and
then this web you earl
and that was really cool that like
it saved a lot of time off
people building in the ecosystem in it
made it easier for people to actually
share code around and cause you didn't
have to you know share this other
file that would tell you this package
manager everything had to download before you
could actually run it you could just
click run and it will
just run and dino and one of
the problems with that however was the
code that people were sharing that they
were sharing that code on links that
would be changed or they would break
and so what that introduced was the
ability for your code if you are
importing a bunch
each of links from the web your
code might randomly break because one of
those links breaks and there's nothing that
you can really do about that except
find another week that actually works or
download the dependency in the same way
that no dead and it was actually
a huge problem people were sharing the
this co
code on get hub links and so
you know it wasn't version control which
means people could update it or change
it or delete it and it can
break your code or even worse if
someone had like a malicious intent they
could change the code so that it
injects something into your code maliciously and
you know
changes your kobe's masses something up introduces
a virus and and so we needed
a place that you could actually go
to store code that developers could share
code on that you could rely on
the data not ever being able to
change or not ever going down and
and so for me
me when i came across dino and
i found this problem i was looking
i was thinking about you know are
we even and how permanent data storage
as a thing now and this technology
could solve it so spent a weekend
hacking with a few friends on discord
and had some late nights just building
out a solution that essentially just built
a website that you could upload your
code
through and then it would give you
a link that you could then used
import that code into your code base
and and it would never change your
go down and and not projects that
sort of how i started building on
are we have initially it kind of
repurposed are we have as a a
content delivery network for developers in their
code
and unintentionally at grew from you know
like a small we can project like
a vibrant open source community full of
developers and engineers that were a hundred
times smarter than me
so i was able to to learn
a lot through that process and also
meet a lot of the people that
are actually on our team now building
out things and community laps
okay that isn't that is interesting that
the and like yeah we can project
i think it was the unexpected and
to become such a big project for
sure
yeah it was not at all
yeah yeah sometimes the maybe you you
or someone else can edit the goal
of creating something big then that doesn't
happen so
i think at this as an exemple
to i mean always be open and
and try and try a on your
feelings and and thumping will happen and
the
it also made me laugh when you
say i like working with some friends
on discord like i can imagine other
people that you have found its were
passionate about different topics about the same
stuff and a and also this is
my experience like in real life sometimes
it's quite hard to find someone that
is interest the day in the these
things
while aligned line there are a lot
of people that yeah actually will not
sleep
the tarp ready to stay there and
could
yeah and then
oh sorry no yeah i was wondering
like yeah your experience the with the
different to online communities
because i think it's important i mean
if you are alone you can be
sulking but if you're alone the and
you can find out of people
then you can be the incredible projects
yeah do you know that that sort
of is a winding path for me
i didn't really have a process or
a goal to meet people and on
discord in in fact when i first
downloaded discord and twenty seventeen or two
the eighteen i was actually quite skeptical
and because i thought it was for
gamers and and i i i was
a gamer but i didn't necessarily want
to talk to other gamers about games
i wanted to build stuff and i
think that you know over the years
when i found is that
that they're they're really to two truths
that i had to come to terms
with when i was thinking about discordant
and getting involved in the communities there
and the first truth is that a
lot of people seem to think that
many of the best engineers live in
you know big tech companies or or
fang
and are in silicon valley in are
you know hacking on stuff and but
but really actually if you know where
to look some of the most talented
engineers in the world are fourteen year
olds on discord writing code on rebel
and with a chromebook
hum the amount of talent that is
on discord is actually is unbelievable and
and it's incredible because these people are
really talented it's also incredible because they
are really friendly people and all they
want to do is build stuff they're
not profit driven many of them and
and
they're just looking for friends to now
i i was nowhere near the the
the skill level that a lot of
these people were that i was working
with and but the way i i
earn actually met them and this is
sort of the second truth i guess
i came to was on
you you have to you have to
come in with something right you can't
come into a community and expect it
to give to you are you have
to provide at something and and maybe
something will come to you in return
although you shouldn't come into it expecting
that so what i would do is
i would join these communities of people
that were building discord bots
the time and i would come in
i was i was an engineer but
i i was still pretty new to
it at that time this was like
ten years ago
and and
less than ten years ago it was
probably six or seven years ago and
i was essentially coming in and offering
to do graphic design because all of
the engineers were so talented and incredible
what they did no one wanted to
like make it look good you know
they just wanted to make it powerful
and so i came in and i
said i'll just do graphics
for free and so i learned graphic
design i was using like gimp and
escape at the time i got affinity
after that this was like before figma
really took off and and i was
i was just making logos for people
are not sending that that ended up
being how i met the people that
i was working with on that project
by
but discord is is crazy linkedin is
not the place if you want to
find incredible talent
i i would say discord is yeah
okay this is super interesting
i think that a lot of people
struggled in the i mean people that
the would like to work on a
project people that the
yeah i like funding a new project
i mean the struggle because the sometimes
they want to do everything by themself
well as you said there are a
lot of talented people that may be
will like to contribute on some good
project
and the and yeah totally agree that
the like on telegram also like but
also discourage you can find that very
talented people and a very interesting projects
and
another things that the
i mean during the previous interviews i
mean the project where a smaller polite
a lot of people
i complained that find the finding fundings
is quite hard
sure
what was your experience like
yeah i
so so when you when you described
that i'm assuming you're referring to like
the the past to fundraising and getting
capital to to fund a project that
you're working on or or am i
misunderstanding
yeah yeah yeah like because otherwise you
will have to develop everything by yourself
and
yes and i missed not doable if
you don't have a community of people
that once just want to contribute on
a software
sure
yeah i mean you know i think
this is one of those things that
it it it shifts and changes with
time right now
the markets are are are not the
most green i guess that's one way
to put an end because of that
and that is sort of out a
trickle down effect of turning off the
risk tolerance of capital alligators and investors
and and i think it's harder now
than it was a couple of years
ago when i was getting off
the ground to to race to be
frank and with that said though i
think you know my my journey into
it wasn't exactly intentional either and my
my stories kind of strange cause i
i really it looking back on it
i stumbled into most of the things
that brought me where i am today
i i did
didn't come into it with a goal
wasn't looking to do and intentionally and
but but for fundraising and i continued
building for a few months after launching
that that developer tool that i was
talking about earlier and i went on
to continue building other products in our
reef because our we've had a need
and and no one else was was
building solutions to these problems that we
were having and because they are a
ton of opportunities elsewhere and so we
wanted to just doubled down on our
even build solutions ourself and one of
those products that we built was actually
the first decentralized exchange
on on a permanent data layer and
it was called vert and we we
launched it in i want to say
june of twenty twenty june or july
twenty twenty and and
you know looking back on that the
process there for actually getting capital was
essentially building a product that was useful
to people and the investors actually became
users because they wanted to exchange things
and so
we ended up meeting investors because they
were using the platform itself because this
was the first time they actually could
exchange value in an ecosystem like are
with
the other point i guess is i
at this time i also met the
the founder of our we his name
is sam and samp panel saw what
we were doing he realized that you
know there were like ten people working
for fun and on this stuff on
a full time basis just cause they
enjoyed it
ah and he kind of took us
under his wing and he wanted to
help us figure out how to make
it more sustainable so that i would
be able to continue building and and
at this point i was in high
school but but the goal was to
not have to go to college so
he was like look you should you
should meet a couple of people that
i know you should have
a conversation with them
and and you know i kinda got
on the phone and i i treated
it like shark tank i thought that
all of these investor meetings where where
where like shark tank warrior you know
using your manners saying yes ma'am no
ma'am yes sir no sir i'm from
the south so like you know these
things are more common and and you
you were treated
like shark tank and you give a
pitch and then the sharks would be
sharks and they tried you know get
your numbers down and and what i
found was actually the the exact opposite
and i got on the phone and
with some of these people and there
were like do not one of them
in particular was don't don't ever don't
call me so
sir you know man that's weird like
we this is a deal like this
a partnership between two people you're giving
us something we're not just doing you
a favorite here you're giving us tokens
you're giving us equity and and so
i i learned that these things are
not like shark tank pretty quickly and
but i really did just
kind of stumble into it and once
we got our first investor to commit
and to say that they were interested
then you know it branch from there
that he introduced me to to to
people that became very close advisers to
the company and that then also invested
in than those people introduced me to
to people and had just started with
one that started with with
sam and and kind of branched out
from there so i would say for
people that are looking to to raise
you know
number one it's important to excuse me
to be able to ship quickly if
you're able to build quickly are able
to learn quickly figure out a product
that works you know we already had
a product we weren't going to people
in pitching them on the idea of
a product we had something that was
already live that worked
that helped us i think looking back
on it the other thing that helped
us was just being honest about the
situation we weren't sure you know we
didn't know what the plan was to
scale that to a billion dollars and
we were just taking each day as
it came building what customers had asked
for and trying to do it quickly
and it turns out you know
no investors at the pre sea level
they they don't necessarily want to see
this master plan that they want to
see honesty and transparency and they want
to see people that are doing thanks
for the right reasons
and and you know i'm very thankful
to the people that that took a
chance on us in the early days
and but i think that for me
the process was you know what was
different because i i really wasn't doing
it intentionally it was sort of accidental
and i'm trying to think if there
any other
points that i would make in relation
to helping of
yeah i really like these a how
everything opinion as seems spontaneous way and
then
some funders
are also worried that their with the
the venture capitalists i mean they will
deleuze the control of their project so
sometimes it's also like something that the
can stop them
yeah
i mean i think and that definitely
not definitely can happen if you if
you sell too much and the the
game i guess is figuring out how
much you need to sell and to
be able to sustain yourself in to
get to that next milestone into accomplish
the goal and
if you can't sell if you can't
get by without selling too much then
yeah i mean you don't want to
lose control that's for sure so i
think that's a fair concern
and thank you for your experience and
the
i didn't really ask anything about you
and they would like to
i mean you you told has as
and like you got the idea but
like if you'll like to say something
more about you like you said the
i'm an arab emirates an of the
but the
yeah like what you like what are
your of this where did you grow
up for like sure
i i don't have great answers to
to the hobbies question i think you
know my my obvious my my job
i really i really enjoy what i
do and so i spend a lot
of time doing it as a as
a result i i grew up in
in virginia in the u s and
the the
the south of virginia was a near
the closest city was was called rono
and it was yeah pretty small town
very small town environment i don't know
if anyone's ever seen the show friday
night lights on netflix but the way
that show is portrayed in
texas was a very similar lifestyle to
to how i kind of grew up
in in virginia at the time and
there were a ton of people that
were interested in what i was interested
in growing up and so that was
another reason why i went to discord
and tried to meet people that air
because you know it my school wasn't
really
the when i was getting into it
at least they they weren't teaching how
to code or they weren't teaching you
how to build stuff and they were
teaching us a lot of other things
that were useful in retrospect but but
coating wasn't one of them and so
i think you know for me
coding was like writing code was a
hobby
and i was fortunate to find a
way to turn it into a job
for myself by starting things and by
building stuff and but i don't know
i mean i think in terms of
other hobbies i i recently started trying
to get good at tennis and i
really enjoy playing tennis but tennis is
hard because
the courts are very crowded there are
a lot of people that that liked
her to play tennis pickleball and and
it takes to you you need to
people and i have a weird schedule
so i can't just text someone at
ten p m at night and say
hey do you want to go play
tennis right now when i finish my
work and so that's been
challenge i also enjoy skiing but that's
again there are some constraints there i
live in texas now and there aren't
exactly mountains nearby to ski it's a
bit warm here yeah
sorry i looked to the table to
omit the
i was thinking that the i mean
you you have a some experiencing the
web tree and the how will do
like is there like any kind of
problem that you then defined in the
web tree space generic problem like i
dunno fragmentation
whatever like her
yeah i mean so i would say
they're sort of and
there's maybe two two buckets of of
one could say problems and other could
say opportunities and one of the one
of the buckets is like opportunities that
exist within web three to to build
new thanks to build new products on
top of the technology i spend most
of my time thinking about that in
the context of of our read
a oh and but the other the
other i guess bucket of of problems
slash opportunities as you know the the
structure and that the nature and the
the way that people actually go about
doing work in the first place in
this industry and you know i think
that
tokens are a really incredible invention and
the idea of making it easy to
to create these these reward vehicles that
can be used to incentivize other people
to do things with minimal management is
is brilliant it makes a lot of
sense in it's it's proving itself out
with bitcoin at the beginning and
but the other slippery slope that you
run into his people conflating the equity
of accompany with the business model of
accompany and then applying that idea to
a token itself and the problem there
when when you don't have a separation
of those two things that not all
the time
time but the risk is people turn
the business model into selling the token
the business model becomes convincing other people
to buy the thing and in some
cases that might make sense with things
like nf teas or mean coins and
i don't own meme coins personally but
i guess i can see the appeal
of at for some
whereas for for others then you have
dislike you know that this risky territory
where people are marketing themselves as building
really meaningful technology and but the technology
isn't actually the product the proud the
product is the token people just want
you to to by the token and
say you're buying it because of the
techno
biology even though the technology may not
even exist or it may not work
and there are a lot of projects
that have made it of are remarkably
far in this industry and that are
that are sort of exercising that are
practicing it and it's hard it's hard
for me to see as someone who
cares about technology and
and likes to build stuff and and
likes to see a token as as
sort of a tool to build mechanisms
and it's hard to see the industry
be so captivated by people that are
not always being honest about what the
token represents and and i think that
there's risk to that that that you
know
people have have unfortunately had to deal
with the consequences of in the past
i don't think that those risks necessarily
make this entire industry invalid or it
doesn't make it worth it to come
into the space and build stuff and
but you know with i guess with
like the with great power comes great
reason
sensibility and we're seeing that play out
for sure
yeah i've seen also i think i
understand what he referred to like that
many projects are like yeah they just
want to sell the tokens and a
described the project and the per product
is so big but nothing has made
the and the the threat to raise
money and
yes sometimes they seems like a little
be like skin
yeah
some of them
and i i was when elect their
the future of the web tree i
mean them
ahem there is there this idea about
the building a decentralized things
the decentralized application and so on
and i wonder like a how do
you see it like and
i dunno like quoted her is your
idea
yeah it's a big question and
you know i i think that
there there are few a few possible
scenarios that that we see play out
over the next ten to twenty years
and i think one of them at
the the chance of it happening is
is pretty pretty significant now
crypto and and web three as as
payment rails for the next version of
the web i think is sort of
a narrative that that makes a lot
of sense and it's funny it's taken
stable coins close to ten years to
to become cool
but there's some truth behind the idea
of making stable coin payments sort of
a reality and and and ubiquitous across
the world because it's just so much
more efficient than the existing systems that
exist and so you know i i
think like crypto as
as rails for the next version of
finance makes sense i do think that
will happen over the next ten years
i think it's already in motion and
and it's sort of too big to
to be killed at this point and
what's more interesting go for for me
at least is beyond finance what are
the
areas in crypto that that will take
off and will remain and that that
aren't necessarily directly related to to finance
and i think our we've has an
interesting position in that and because you
know one one way to think about
how to how to predict the future
is and to
trying to to figure out what will
change about the world and ten years
and but a lot of people discount
the idea and this is sort of
amazon strategy they forget to think about
what won't change and there are some
of the things that we exhibit or
or or there are several things in
the world that we value that i
really think will not
not change over the next ten years
regardless of everything else that does
one of those things is valuing a
source of truth for data as the
world becomes more online and becomes more
digital globalization continues to evolve in the
digital landscape
the importance of having a source of
truth will not change in time i
think that'll always be a need regardless
of how much ai is doing things
for humans regardless of what humans are
doing in general we need a source
of truth and so
excuse me from the second
her sorry i think that you know
i think that are we've makes a
lot of sense as that source of
truth and and the next version of
the web will also need that type
of technology to exist both as and
accountability mechanism but also philosophically
in this kind of tying it back
to history and you know giving ourselves
the ability to to inform decisions for
people generations down the line so that
they can potentially avoid the same mistakes
that we made and in our generation
and and books books or or one
source for
that but books can be can be
burned you know we saw this with
with germany people were manipulated by hitler
and do to you know his ability
to to basically a race knowledge and
prevent people from understanding the consequences of
what he was doing and and army
makes it possible to avoid that so
i
i think in ten to fifteen years
and crypto will be the way to
transmit value and i think our we've
specifically will be the way for knowledge
to be shared any knowledge that has
any amount of value and and and
value in persisting will be
the way that that should remain in
and should be share
i think he also about and
i mean web tree of of course
money
and finance can be done us in
a the centralized way with the web
tree and i think he was about
governance that is something very important that
in there web three space that is
also quite political as a space i
mean except for the scams and
the project that are not really projects
but aren't that good product the good
products of the not alike
and they creating i will say they
can sort of new kind of infrastructure
do
and for many things like some a
technological infrastructure but also in some way
or political
yeah and the
like a relation they i mean i
think you have explorer built as i
said the explored the web tree alike
in relation to governance
what are your thoughts like if you
have seen him some dollars in some
organization yeah
yeah i mean i think so so
governance is one of the ones that
i think is a bit harder for
me to to think about what the
future of it could be ten years
from now and
you know i i think
so so one of the things that
really captivated me when i was getting
into crypto in twenty seventeen was was
the idea of being able to create
supposedly perfect governance structures powered by imperfect
people
and and you know there there's something
to that right the idea behind crypto
it it makes a lot of sense
in theory dow make sense as well
because it creates a structure to incentivize
people to do things
in practice i think it has some
bugs that we still have to work
out i don't know how many dallas
have actually been successful at you know
surviving without any form of centralized governance
and and the core reason for that
seems to be tragedy of the comments
where people on paper
her have this universal incentive to contribute
value to the dow and everyone else
benefits from doing so but in practice
no one contribute to the doubt because
everyone assumes that everyone else's contributing to
the doubt
and so nothing happens without someone standing
up and actually coordinating people and holding
them accountable and getting them to do
things and i think that that is
one of the big that sort of
the achilles heel from from the dallas
that i've witnessed that's like the the
thing that prevents them from actually working
in sustaining themselves with to
time and this also comes from my
own experience trying to launch a doubt
we tried to decentralized virgo in the
development of vertigo and and we tried
to launch a down realize the exact
same thing in the process of of
doing so i think there is a
lot of promise behind the idea in
the theory of a doubt if we
can perfect
the model and figure out how we
can actually avoid the pitfall of tragedy
of the commons in the process of
creating a down while simultaneously avoiding centralization
and but it's not perfect it's not
perfect yet and i think that there
are many doubts that market themselves as
decentralized that i i
i really don't know if they actually
are a you if you can go
into it and look look at what's
actually happening and how things are actually
being organized and one of the products
that were building inside of community labs
is actually aimed at creating a a
solution a potential solution to this problem
because ironic
the the one of them more decentralized
things and is is bitcoin itself it's
the first saw to she doesn't exist
any more it's sort of headless in
that sense and but one of the
problems that exists along with that as
the the concept of okay well how
is bitcoins code base actually governed if
you look at get hub there is
a specific number of
maintainers that are at their own discretion
allowed to make changes to get hubs
code base or the code-based that people
recognize is like the official bitcoin code
base and and that's crazy to think
about you know bitcoins been around for
all these years satoshi doesn't exist any
more and yet there's like five people
that are deciding whether or not that
coins kobe should change and it's crazy
you know that's like the most decentralized
thing that exists right now
but that seems to be a problem
some one of the solution that will
and building is essentially creating a model
where you can store your code on
our we've and create incentives for people
to fork those code basis if they
believe changes should be made and then
creating essentially like a fork resolution system
and that and
neighbours us to algorithmically figure out which
version of the code base should be
considered the main version defined by what
everyone else is using at the time
a pet this is so interesting because
of yeah i also have seen this
kind of sorts of centralization in the
they called the and the in in
the people that can decide the if
they called the can change or not
the end of thinking that the
the desert possibility of forking and eventually
how did you say like a to
to merger but like you know like
resolving the forks figuring out there should
be resolving the fork i am thinking
about the some a civic participation software
or like
and softer that are created the to
mediate between the different position so like
a conflict resolution basically an ai agents
that has they're all of a mediator
and as he these two finger associated
like i dunno i for
orca your code the
because i have a different idea from
you and then that if we want
to again to merged decode the i
mean i think we also have to
talk and to understand like different though
possible positions and the and i'm quite
were excited of
by all this possibility and that's crazy
year i guess like the the the
thesis
oh i'm sorry what were you saying
none not go go please the the
thesis of of that products specifically as
that maybe maybe the best governance is
creating a function for anyone to do
anything and and creating rules for the
best version to win rather than enabling
a council
our committee to sit down and decide
what the best version is setting the
rules of the game out and letting
people play it to figure out what
you know what version is is the
winner
i don't know if i would say
maybe the best governance is no governance
in this case but but that is
sort of the idea to solve the
problem maybe the problem with the dow
is to focus on empowering individuals to
act on their own volition rather than
empowering the group to act together and
but yes sorry i i interrupt
did what were you saying
no not am
i was deciding something but then the
i i mean i was talking about
ai agents and as so that the
you are working on some similar like
a the decentralized agents right to
yeah so one of the products that
were working on this is more in
like the the r and d phase
right now is an aoe as a
supercomputer it gives us the ability to
do some things that are pretty different
from other ecosystems and crypto a one
of the features is called cron and
it essentially
enables we they're they're like smart contracts
but we call them processes on aoe
that enables processes to wake up and
go to sleep without any human interaction
and and i think that's super interesting
for one the other the other core
mechanic that were playing with inside of
a oh that's pretty unique is the
i
idea of and trusted execution environments these
and that essentially creates an environment where
you could store private data or be
running private computation that aren't accessible to
the world while still being able to
prove that they're happening and and and
validate that they're correct
i sort of similar to like the
idea behind zero knowledge proofs and but
the interesting thing is when you combine
those two primitives you can essentially create
these cross chain agents that have the
ability to operate from inside of a
oh and but can make transactions on
other blogs
chains and and act on other blockchains
because these processes are the smart contracts
are actually holding keys to to make
transactions themselves independently controlled by am so
we're really excited about that because i
think there are a lot of interesting
use cases that that opens up for
defy for building bro
ridges exchanges cross chain infrastructure and you
know increasing compose ability between a oh
and and the rest of the ecosystems
and and also i guess kind of
positioning a is a coprocessor you could
see a world where if people are
trying to build really intelligent and trading
algorithms an ether
graham it would actually make more sense
to to put the logic in something
like a oh and have it execute
on ethereum if that's what you care
about and and the reason for that
is because computation is so much cheaper
on a on a o then theory
you can actually run large language models
inside of a oh as well i
just crave
easy like that would be very expensive
to run on ethereum if you could
build it or really any other ecosystem
and you know we've been doing it
for the last six months inside of
a oh so you know a was
a coprocessor i think is an interesting
narrative and we believe the long game
is for aoe to to be you
know everything and you don't really know
i think like ethereum to be honest
and but for now i think positioning
it as or is very interesting for
the crusher in egypt suitcase yeah of
the serve her like them may be
stupid question like i was wondering like
and and the i agent that is
decentralized does it mean lake
and that it cannot be stopped the
like in away if it is like
as as mark contract if the savior
and of locked-in yeah it's a good
question there are definitely some i guess
like a i safety implications that the
after be considered and
so so i guess technically you know
there there is a threat there and
but you could convince nodes on the
network to not run a process if
it were malicious for one and you
could essentially convince them to blacklist that
and not run the compute and contribute
to it and for to these things
they
they they they still costs money there's
still a cost that is incurred and
if your funding this agent and the
computation behind it but you run out
of money to be able to continue
funding it and no one will run
the computation because they won't have the
incentive to so i think there are
definitely some more that's a rabbit hole
we could we could go down there
that cause i i don't want to
we don't want to create like the
ultron of this world and like habit
live on a o ah but but
it is an interesting an interesting angle
for sure
and the about the projects you're working
on is there anything game i all
any problem that you are struggling with
i dunno i've read something you
that you cannot find a solution may
be you cannot even find the right
person that can find the solution
new
you know we're we're really fortunate to
have a great team in a great
group of people that that love more
than anything finding solutions to theoretically unsolvable
problems
and so i think that i don't
see many problems as as unsolvable may
be one of the one of the
more interesting ones that's perhaps philosophical as
opposed to technical is
the question of does the best technology
always win
that's been something that we've considered and
back and forth a lot over the
last few months as we've discovered what
aoe can actually do it's is becoming
increasingly evident that aoe is objectively the
best technology it is the most efficient
and it enables you to do things
that no one else can
compete with and but if you look
back in history does the best technology
always win and that's a that's an
interesting one and in it sort of
comes the reason i think about it
is because i you know a oh
as as a technology has as many
strengths but one of the things that
we're still trying to do is figure
out how to talk
about it
because it is so different than everything
else we haven't quite figured out the
way to pitch it to the world
and away this you know that the
world really understands the the implications and
the value of it and and so
we have to ask ourselves you know
does the best technology always win and
and personally i i regardless
of of the answer i'd be curious
to hear yours
i think that we should plan for
the best technology not winning so that
we can make it when
even if it weren't the best but
it is an interesting philosophical debate that
we've gone back and forth on quite
a bit recently yeah what do you
think
yeah good question
ah actually
actually the know i mean if we
save best acknowledge it means that the
actually there is one the acknowledges that
is better than the other and
les cap
i am making us stupid example i
like i think this and decentralized such
a networks or so the one that
are not running on web three like
and a on the and other kind
of such a network in a way
they
they will be better and that centralized
such a network but i see very
associated with a cultural problem so i
mean must of the people don't know
the existence of decentralize as such a
network and the
and also when they discovered them if
they register then there alone because all
their friend our own
probably mythos platforms or or eggs
and the
and i think must have the time
these a culture of problem that that
as you said that you you don't
know how to describe your platform like
two people
and the
i think this is the may be
something death in the next years with
and i mean read now still there
is some digital divide between the pupil
that the knows a lot that that
to do not sleep always stays there
coding and the and people that that
i also have friends that told me
like oh yeah i never tried such
a pity or
or or another llm
and the in a way i think
that is also find that we leave
in i mean you don't have to
use the i like must have the
i mean from the beginning of the
were until now no one ever used
they argued before
the
but yet wearing a situation in a
and in a time where if you
done know some technology that there is
this thing like they say if you
if you're not interested in politics the
politics will be interested in you and
i think the same about technology
and i think i dunno maybe ten
years we will see like and new
generation like also now people are according
like i mean
inside schools
i see some difference relation to different
countries so like and not europe there
i think the
technological smarter
and the
yeah the best technology always win
i ever say but this is something
said the eminent not native relations ship
with may be with their what we
are talking about but they will say
that must have the time in history
the most deadly technology when and this
is something said hm
so like a
and i'll a lot of time we
developed technology thinking that the okay now
we will be free from we don't
have to work anymore in the in
the field of
but then what happened is that the
humans were always working some time also
e na
more non human way like instead of
working the field the and
at in in an open space they
started working in a
in in in a company
but what he wanted to say yeah
i forgot sauce
that's okay no worries at all it's
a it's a tough one i think
you can sort of point two cases
where sometimes the best technology did when
and and and and other times it
didn't and i guess that's why the
question is is so difficult sort of
you know why is that why is
that discrepancy apparent throughout time
and to your point
i think that power is certainly a
driver for things to win what what
empowers people and another driver i think
his experience what what provides people the
best experience and something i i was
having this debate recently with with an
old friend and
he brought up the case of of
qwerty as a keyboard layout it didn't
win it it it didn't win because
it was the most efficient it actually
wasn't compared to the existing way out
that was before that i can't remember
how to pronounce it but it started
with a d and i think it
was like the the warwick or something
and or do brac but qwerty one
because it prevented typewriters from their keys
jamming it was better at preventing keys
from jamming then it was at being
efficient and the pain of that increased
key jamie
ing was greater than the pain of
being may be slightly faster at typing
what you trying to think of in
general and so because of that forty
one on the typewriter and and now
it's one on keyboards everywhere even though
the the key jamming problem doesn't exist
any more i think that goes to
say like the best experience or
the the the that solution that offers
the least amount of friction probably has
the greatest shot at winning and but
maybe the thing that takes it home
as the network effect after you know
everyone uses qwerty no one has a
reason to move away from it because
now the friction of moving away from
it would be so significant
you know so who knows
yeah absolutely when people see an advantage
for them they they want to use
the platform i mean the want to
use the product to i mean that
solution only things i would say
is that santa sometimes i mean a
in our society
the our suffice the is quite complex
so as an example i it can
be that the solution that is actually
effective for me because i dunno i
everytime i go to war i mean
to my office usually take when our
if i use a certain solution i
take care to and twenty minutes less
yes
the it it could be
that the solution is not really a
area solution because it can be like
the resolution can be like taken off
his nearest my house or like change
my house like the places my house
yeah
so does it says something that came
into my mind right now as interesting
for sure
yeah we live in a very complex
society and the and about the network
effect is actually something that i love
because the many times the and also
your experience like a
of the spontaneous process that the
that your experience that with the project
you're working on
and the
i wonder like out
going back to people that the would
like to start something that have a
project or may be that would like
to contribute in some way because we
said like that the people can just
go on the skirt and find a
community or maybe and telegram or also
raided the
i think or yeah or eventually linkedin
i
but the as you said the if
you go
issue approach her community it's better if
you have something to give before having
before asking something
and the
i think these a for that is
quite the
understandable
sometimes is not easy
for most of the people and be
because it can be hard to approach
her community it's can be hard to
like a lot of people think okay
i've this the also my the i
want to take it i don't want
to share it because of the white
people gonna are going to steal it
i
and this is something i
yeah really fascinated by the national catholic
but by you by the fact that
that the i dunno we're chatting now
and may be some someone else will
hear what we are seeing it may
be getting spot maybe he would contact
as i dunno i asking say sulking
and the for
sure anything this is part of like
and
i
knowing that we do not know
i
that is a
i mean you are saying something and
your question about technology if the best
technology when was a philosophical question and
i also think that the
i mean philosophy
sometimes if it is seen
as the something that should the just
be
and books you know something boring that
to study but they think it relief
affect a lot what we are doing
or seen reality like in the real
world and then
yeah i could talk forever about the
thoracic so interrupting replaced
no no i yeah i mean i
think and may the last thing that
i'll say on it as
i i have another good friend who
kind of he he's not as much
of an engineer's i am he's he's
more of a youtuber actually and i
was talking to him a couple of
years ago and he was explaining to
me you know i found i i
kind of found other people that were
like minded by going into discord and
by you know offering to
do things he found people by publishing
youtube videos and the the videos that
resonated with people similar to what you're
describing with with those who might resonate
with this podcast and the that there's
a term that he kind of created
for that i think about a lot
the term is called energetic echolocation
and and the idea is essentially if
you're putting things out there it could
be anything it could be a video
it could be continent could be product
could be you know code and or
a logo you're you're essentially putting something
out there and that will automatically attract
or or attract the types of people
that would resonate with it
and it's really cool you know like
people don't see the world that way
it seems no one really thinks about
a world in terms of i can
find anyone i want as long as
i know what to put out into
the world and and i think youtube
as a good example of this because
anyone can build a following on youtube
if they're just knowing what to put
out
out and and in most cases they're
just putting out things that they like
themselves and naturally people like them also
like that content and kind of gravitate
towards them i think about it a
lot energetic echolocation and because for us
building accompany building products the whole game
is
creating a business around solving problems for
other people and but how does one
go about finding the people that you're
solving a problem for and and and
is his name's max max his ideas
stop trying to start putting stuff out
and and for the people that do
resonate with it start their start small
start having conversations with people grass roots
build it up organically and and overtime
if you actually are solving a problem
that you know energetic echolocation enables you
to find other people that that
resonate with that
yeah it's it's also
in a were related to have it
there are different kind of concept related
to fowler
and the one of them is like
people that have the same intention so
that would like to create the same
thing
and the and yet
at as you said a few produce
something if you purchase a content then
you also truck that the people and
you create the center of power and
you can actually change reality
i i i saw that the like
issue some more time otherwise i ii
more minutes i have a few more
minutes i will have to jump soon
unfortunately i have but maybe one more
question or or one more topic if
you want to chat
eyes
the don't worry don't worry it's a
it was very interesting just the if
you have a message a for the
people for the community like
buffing the web tree both in their
in their civic tech space that are
working on these a mediation agents i
that to organize the
yeah i mean so i i've i've
been a founder now for for five
years and and it's been a it's
been an interesting journey i wouldn't trade
it for anything i'm very grateful but
if i had to if i had
to describe what i think was
most important for me across the five
years of of that journey so far
i would say coming into what i'm
doing or or or surrounding myself with
people and or immersing myself in work
for the right reasons probably matter more
than anything else
and the the reason is because if
you're not doing it for the right
reasons when things get hard you will
lose the reason to keep doing it
and and for me i i i
really love are we have i care
a lot about permanent data storage and
i know that it's a very boring
thing to think about and but i
it's really powerful you know it's like
this stuff could really impact meaningfully the
the lives of our generations beyond us
and and i i find it hard
every time i wake up regardless of
how hard things are day to day
i still can't think of anything that
i think we'd be better used to
spend my time trying to build our
on top of than than our reef
because of that that impact or that
potential for impact i guess
i think for people that are looking
to get started if if you're if
you're building things you know putting things
out into the world i think that's
the best shot at getting funding that's
the best shot at finding people that
are like you not being afraid to
socialize your ideas for fear of somewhat
stealing them if you're afraid of someone's
stealing them than may
the you should just build it or
you should figure out how to build
it and
i guess a few years ago it
was more important to learn how to
code then it is now but now
you really don't have an excuse if
you have a few spare minutes at
the end of every day log into
cursor and and have a i build
it for you you know
yeah i agree it's incredible what i
can do now and then cure lot
to
was very interesting thank you yeah this
is a great conversation i really appreciated
alex thanks a lot can select the