Get ready to be blown away by the insights and frameworks Josh Rosenthal uses for building companies, investing, and understanding the full potential of crypto.
His interviews on Bankless have created a storm of theories on how crypto plays out, based on the historical context of the Renaissance and the American Revolution. He takes that further in this interview with a presentation that reframes how we talk to others about crypto, by helping them see the value before they know what it is.
This episode though goes far beyond this.
From a Fulbright historian to multiple startups with very successful exits, Josh, and his partners have built a framework for success in tech.
Fulbright research & medieval manuscripts
Built complex systems & started a company with his wife & sold multiple startups with successful exits
Bankless Episodes:
https://www.bankless.com/-the-crypto-renaissance-josh-rosenthal
https://www.bankless.com/126-the-crypto-revolution-josh-rosenthal
As investors - how to help the little guy succeed
How to start a new firm based on a new model
Stumbled on crypto. Went all in.
Crypto as an unlock for founders.
Began to see the parallels between crypto and the Renaissance
Renaissance
How changing the nature of communications & value recreated the world.
Sees it as a prediction for crypto
How authority tries to tamp it down
Renaissance was decentralized and distributed
Could understand imagery
Beginning of memes
Authorities had to fight or join
Regulatory threats make him want to double down on crypto.
How he layers in the arguments for crypto to entrepreneurs and others by showing how crypto unlocks new possibilities.
Presentation.
His philosophy on investing and an entrepreneur's focus on exits
Positions entrepreneurs to be in control & have an advantage
Always disintermediating someone else
Simulating the differences between the old world and then in the new world decentralized innovation world
How to keep control
Understand rules of the game.
Make intentional decision.
Axiom: Trick people into doing the right thing and build a better world
Try to figure out a way to make not doing something an actual thing
Use market forces to make things flow.
How to forget the sales and marketing and move around the motes built
How can you step outside the frame and beat the boss and turn their source of power into a liability
Why things are incentivized wrong for the founder and how they can flip it.
Understanding the different models of Web2 in crypto versus web3 in crypto
How he graphically demonstrates it with widgets
Decentralized innovation
Bottom up
Capital to cooperate
Owning the rails
Explains the value and benefits
Always accessible
Smart contracts
peer to peer
Data owned by each user
Determining factors of user-owned business models
Thought exercise
Users share ownership as an incentive
Ads drive costs and never stop
Imagine can do everything through code
Users own like they might own Facebook
Funding the new way
LLC was revolutionary - Decentralization with fractional ownership
From Mainframe to LAMP
Cheaper and faster
New way to finance yourself
We are all medieval peasants
Books he recommends
Paul Arden - Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite
John Micklethwait - The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea
James Dale Davidson - The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash
Videos
Easy To Learn Hard To Master: The Fate of Atari
How they invest in crypto
How anybody can be a venture investor in crypto without getting in early
This is not financial advice. Nothing said on the show should be considered financial advice. This is just the opinions of Brad Nickel and our guests. None of us are financial advisors. Trading, participating, yield farming, liquidity pools, and all of DeFi and crypto is high risk and dangerous. If you decide to participate, do your own research. Never count on the research of others. We don't know what we are talking about and you can lose all your money. Never invest more than you can afford to lose, because you probably will lose it all.
