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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
Aaron Wright (00:15)
How's the coding going, Chris?
Chris (00:18)
man, it's going, it's going. I'm in the, hopefully I'm in a homestretch here, because I can't possibly imagine keeping up this pace without losing my shit, so. That's
Aaron Wright (00:30)
What you think,
do you think it just like being tied behind the computer? Like it's just the back and forth, like the grind of it, or what's the exhausting pieces of it, or just the challenges of a big project?
Chris (00:42)
Yeah, I would go with the, I'd bid off not more than I can chew, but like basically to eat all of this. I have, is the table 24 seven. And so I'm just, you know, I'm in like the endurance race part of it where it's beyond tedious. You can kind of see an end in sight. You know, you just got to keep doing it because else it doesn't get done. like, you know, it's springtime. It's nice out. I'm a.
Aaron Wright (00:52)
Yeah.
Chris (01:11)
I've been doing this for like months on months on months. so, yeah, it's it's piling up. You know, I'd like to have a soft launch version of this shipped. I'd like to, you know, get some user feedback over the summer and iterate and understand and, you know, live again a little bit. mean,
Aaron Wright (01:15)
you're ready to touch grass.
Chris (01:31)
it's a very unk thing to say. I could, I mean, I've been, I've been putting in like 70 hour weeks for God knows how long, October.
you know, and so just catches up to you.
Aaron Wright (01:42)
It's the challenge of a big project, right? It's like writing a book or, you know, ⁓ making a movie. feel like coding is starting to feel a little bit more like Hollywood in certain ways. Like they're bigger productions, lots of grind, lots of edge cases, the polish. I mean, this is why I've always been optimistic that we'll, we'll still have lots of jobs for people to do. It's still hard to kind of manage these projects. They know probably get a lot bigger. Like you, you probably could never, never build something so vast. Like what, at least what I've seen of it.
Chris (02:07)
Yeah.
Aaron Wright (02:11)
Chris, right? Like even a couple quarters ago, right? But now you're able to do that. But it still doesn't get rid of the project management pieces of it all.
Chris (02:18)
Yes.
The other part is I have certain standards. I showed some of it off to you guys, Derek, a few other people, and I was just like, fucking console's whack. There's not enough level of polish on my UI. I completely redid my console since you saw it last Friday. That's how sick I am.
Aaron Wright (02:44)
It's great. I mean, that's what you should be doing. You know, it's like, I do think it's like that last 10 % takes forever, but there's a lot of details there. I think that's what, why I always kind of push back on this like vibe coding concept, like concept, you know, it's great. We're using AI to code, but like building a product is different
know, just slinging together like a, like a quick app that runs on your computer or on something like for
Chris (03:09)
Yeah, complete and total grind. I've completely pulled my console out and rebuilt a whole new front-end UI since like you guys saw it last week. That's like...
just where it's at right now.
Aaron Wright (03:22)
but doesn't, mean, Chris, I feel you, like the weight of managing these things is just, it's a lot. know, this is why I
that there'll still be work on the other end of this, but it does feel like we're kind of in the era of a grind, whether it's like an AI, whether it's in crypto, feels like it's in a grind period. It just feels like everything's just grinding at this point. Do you guys feel that?
Chris (03:45)
Well, I gotta be able to afford
like $34 drinks in the city.
Aaron Wright (03:50)
Yeah, maybe that's it too. But pre-Derek, do you guys feel that too? Just the grind?
Derek Edws (03:56)
There's some I mean, it's there's definitely the grind there's like ⁓
Chris (04:00)
You look grinded when we saw you last week, Derek. I mean, you're a new parent and also you get, you get some tasks here, but.
Derek Edws (04:03)
I am.
Pri (04:05)
Yeah, you have
a lot going on right now.
Derek Edws (04:07)
I do have a lot going on. will say the grind... mean, there is like an energy right now that I haven't felt in a while. It does kind of feel like 2021, 2022 energy. just like, there was new shit, new primitives. People were just like experimenting. Numbers were going up. Like, mean, dude, AI stocks look like shitters right now. These things... Intel moved to what? 30 % overnight. The whole kind of like bottleneck AI trade is going...
Pri (04:15)
Cut.
Derek Edws (04:32)
bananas. And I just think people are just, you know, people like new paradigm. And listen, I'm not saying like we're, we're, we're inflating a bubble here.
there's definitely an energy that I haven't felt in a while. And I think that is leading to some of the grind, just like people feel like they need to be doing things and you'd be building things, they need to be shipping things, they need to be collaborating and you know, whatever, running RL on the new open source model and
trying to make something interesting.
I'm interested in it. I'm just watching it all kind of play out and participating where I can. And
seeing... You know is fun is like I am seeing a lot of creativity again. I loved what you showed... You and Preet showed me on the Aidan side when I was there. It's like, okay, this is a really cool consumer product. And I've got people pitching me...
robotics AI startups almost every day at this point. It does feel like
something happening here. And I'm here for it after a couple years of just people feeling down and out a bit.
Aaron Wright (05:27)
an error.
I think it's like.
Pri (05:36)
It's also called
it because it's like user generated too.
kind of reminds me of crypto in that way. We've drawn a lot of parallels, but it's all like user generated content in a way that's like an entirely different breed of UGC.
Aaron Wright (05:49)
do you mean, Pro?
Pri (05:50)
Like meaning like people are just like building things, sharing it.
not like influencers who are just like shilling their whatever.
they're shilling a product, like a consumer product. Maybe they're shilling. Yeah. Like, I just feel like people are like shilling what they're building, which is it's not consumptive.
Derek Edws (05:58)
Good point. It does feel like everyone's in it together. it doesn't... ⁓ Yeah, it's less like a top heavy.
Yeah, exactly. It's less top heavy where you're there's like only a handful of people in the arena and you're kind of watching them and speculating on them and maybe using those products. It actually feels like more of a free for all, which is like everyone's just in there doing stuff in the arena. the stadium is now in the arena.
Chris (06:26)
Yeah, that is definitely refreshing,
crypto, like, especially on the culture side, just being stuck in like this Zora Farcaster based like, parasocial relationship and you know,
don't know, it definitely got stale for a bit. And I think really it boiled down to either like, you want to break out of that you got real into AI and whatever your crazy pet project was.
Or maybe you launched a VCTV media company. I don't know.
Aaron Wright (06:59)
I think there's just been a second vibe shift. know, like I think after the election or around like a guess a year before, a year and a half before people were calling out the vibe shift. feel like the second one's happening now.
Chris (07:10)
The vibe shift of like the failure of American dynamism, fear of the permanent underclass, realizing like you are on your own and you better get your ass in gear. Is that the vibe shift?
Aaron Wright (07:22)
I don't think it's a failure of American dynamism. think that just like starting, just think, I dunno, like it just feels like things are moving at a quicker pace, right? And
before maybe it took
five to 10 years to kind of feel these shifts. They're happening just in quicker and quicker clips.
and you know, things that people could kind of hang their hat on or rally behind, they just like dissipating faster. And then things are kind of reforming into something new, like a bit, a bit faster.
it does feel like a free for all, mean, I think maybe we've been a culture to that, just being around digital assets for awhile, but it just does feel like things, concepts, ideas. really is like, what's the last meme of the last week that matters the most more than anything else. Like everything just feels like it's on tighter cycles.
I think that is why maybe that's because there's all these folks that are being more creative. Like you were saying, Derek or, and Pre.
Pri (08:13)
The internet is kind of transitioning from something more consumptive to slightly more productive, which is a nice feeling. Cause I feel like we haven't had that. I mean, even honestly, the productive internet though, like this is like us talking in our ivory tower, like 99.99 % of the internet is still consumptive, but it is nice to see that people are producing slightly more than probably
Aaron Wright (08:21)
A productive internet? Yeah.
Pri (08:38)
prior era of the social media era.
Aaron Wright (08:40)
a ton more. Right. It feels that way. People are like, I'm to go spend my time and, and figure out a new drug therapeutic. It's like, Whoa, like that's super cool. Or Hey, like what Derek was saying, Hey, you know, I can actually start to manufacture stuff. Like, let me see if I can build some robots. It feels like that like tinker economy that we talked about at the end of last year is starting to, to kind of emerge.
Derek Edws (09:05)
Which how cool is that by the way? Like
feel like you get kind of only a couple of times in your life to live through something like this, which is a true,
a true shift in the winds where it's just like, okay, something is very different now. And we have to rethink and reorganize how we participate in that thing. And
yeah, I feel like this is.
God, mean, I mean, it's just like it. It feels like we've got all of these raw ingredients and we're kind of like, we're not really sure where the choke points are yet. We're not really sure where the opportunities are yet. But people are kind of like enamored with the idea of just like having these these this new putty to play with and and it just is it's cool. I will say like the maybe the heart. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Aaron Wright (09:48)
This synthetic life form, Derek. I don't even know
if it's a putty.
Derek Edws (09:52)
Yeah, no, true,
don't even know if like,
think also what another kind of fun thing about it is like, I'm now regularly taking calls with people who are just building stuff. And I think we both know, like, okay, this is probably not a fit for what I do professionally. But like, man, it's just fucking cool. Let's schedule another call. I just kind of to learn what you're doing. And like, this is like a fun way to approach the tech stack. And I don't know, I can't
I don't know. can't remember a time outside of like 2021 where like people were messing around with protocols at NFTs where I was like getting nerd sniped all the time by things that were adjacent ⁓ to kind of like where I think the world new value was going to accrue. And I think that's a really, that's like a really cool place to be right now.
Aaron Wright (10:34)
Yeah, good point.
Yeah, super good point.
like you can get nerd sniped in a million different directions. It's great. It's like everybody's, you know, curious itch. can just scratch, right? And you can get an answer quick enough that you can these fly wheels of innovation and discovery. But point about like how cool is that that people are doing this? Like to me, that is the like dynamic aspects of, of at least, at least the States, right? Like, and, hopefully that's spreading to other other parts of the planet as well.
I think the one area I haven't seen yet is I would like another wave of crypto ideation and ideas. I feel like we're ready for it.
Chris (11:16)
I think crypto's got to rest its, lick its wounds a little bit before maybe it joins in the fun. know, like there's still a little too much to burn
burn off there. You know, like we did last Friday's episode and Derek was like, oh, I don't know, maybe something bad will happen. I don't really want to predict anything. And then, you know, over the weekend we get another heat. Yeah.
Aaron Wright (11:35)
Kept out, yeah.
Chris (11:38)
You know, and so there's
my, my like little jab at American dynamism was more capital a capital D American dynamism of like a 16 Z branding and you know, like that whole USB C thing that like Naval threw out there is
you know,
the Valley class reeks right now.
Aaron Wright (11:55)
that didn't hit you well, Chris. I kind of thought that was a, a nice product. I don't think it was,
oversold. Even to me, I didn't realize that there was a bunch of other vehicles that were trying to do the same thing.
Pri (12:00)
It was-
Aaron Wright (12:05)
but I thought, I think it's pretty good. know, the more people can get exposure to this economy,
that is changing, like Derek said, like the better, I know that the people were quibbling about the fees and all that, but I think cause they didn't charge carry, was actually.
About as good as if, if you were participating as a, like in a fund, thought it was pretty cool.
Chris (12:26)
I think it's got a little too much private equity. We win even when we lose written all over it. There's three levels of fees on there.
You know, not all of these are going to IPO and get their exit, right? There's going to be some percentage of these portfolios that don't leave. so
You know, I'm also going to assume like they're not buying secondaries on the open market that they're doing private deals against their own positions or their friends positions and really just offering like exit institutional exit liquidity by dumping on retail. That would be my, ⁓
I don't know, dark hearted take.
Aaron Wright (12:57)
You were scarred, Chris.
You were scarred.
Chris (13:01)
I just live in the world as it is, Aaron.
Aaron Wright (13:03)
Yeah, I mean, it's probably true. I wonder if there's any disclosure on
If this becomes like a big category, maybe that's what happens next. You get a little bit more disclosure around all that deal making behind the scenes.
Pri (13:08)
You know what I saw someone
You know what I saw someone describe it and the more I thought about it, I was like, wow, that's so accurate. that just like we were talking about like cryptos downstream of culture and everything. Doesn't, isn't this downstream kind of a DAT? Like I like was like, holy shit, this is literally a DAT but for AI stocks.
Aaron Wright (13:33)
Um, a little bit. mean, I think the first one actually started in 2014. So it may have predated the debts. I mean, there's one from ARC. There's a couple other companies and projects that did it. So I think it's, to me, it's all downstream of like the dot com crash where, you know, back then companies would go public at what folks would consider today, like a series B. And now it's, you know, much, much further out and it just creates
Pri (13:45)
Yeah.
Aaron Wright (14:00)
issue with related to liquidity.
which LPs and investors are always interested in mitigating. And two,
creates all these private market
there can be issues with. It's hard to know whether or not that's accurate, as opposed to the market marking them daily.
Chris (14:17)
I'd say a lot of this is downstream of pension plans topping out and private equity and having to flip to each other. you
I think you look at that, you look at that, you look at this ⁓ new, you know, USBC type structuring, all of it basically says, well, we can't get anything else from institutional money. We can't get anything else from family offices. I guess now we can go after doctors and dentists.
I mean, look, I've seen like the freaking Databricks series K shop to me in secondaries a million times. You know, like a lot of these portfolio things are floating around all over the place if you have, you know, family office level access into deals. And so like
I would just look at this with a wary eye because, you know, to me, like, this is just, well, we got to...
We get it out of this somehow and they just keep wanting the aperture of who they're trying to dump.
Especially, you know my feelings about that group of people and just how cynically I view them. So we'll leave it there.
Aaron Wright (15:24)
That's fair.
Well, it'll be interesting to see kind of how it develops. wonder if it becomes like a big asset class over time. It does feel like, I
don't know, maybe this is the legal nerd sniping in me. I always like when people are kind of pushing the envelope there and trying to open it up to more people. hopefully the folks are not, engaged in any, any bad activity, and not claiming that they are. assuming that that's not the case, I think in general, that's a pretty good thing.
What'd you guys think of this, soldier who got dinged for insider trading on a prediction market? Did you guys see that?
Derek Edws (15:59)
I thought the quote from Trump right after that was very telling. I can't remember exactly his framing but...
Aaron Wright (16:04)
He's like,
everything's a casino now. I was like, I think I've heard pre say that before.
Derek Edws (16:10)
It's pretty crazy. mean,
it's just the it's just like the realities of our world.
Pri (16:12)
You're doing the crunch, guys.
Aaron Wright (16:15)
It was some soldier who made money on
Derek Edws (16:19)
He was
involved in the Maduro capture and he beforehand front ran, front ran kind of like will Maduro be captured and made something like 400 or 500 K on on the prediction market. And then Trump's response to that was like, yeah, it's kind of like everything is a casino now. Gambling everywhere. And I don't think he's wrong. I think he knows he's not wrong. And.
Aaron Wright (16:21)
Yeah.
Pri (16:38)
crazy.
Derek Edws (16:46)
Yeah, it's just that the new world we're living in.
Pri (16:49)
I know.
Chris (16:50)
There's
a lot of different ways you can look at this, you know, from a basic issue of fairness. Nancy Pelosi can go 500 for 500 in her stock picks, but this guy can't. You know, there's some blatant hypocrisy there, but at the same time, this is...
Derek Edws (17:00)
Yeah, lost that.
Aaron Wright (17:06)
Hey, Ro Khanna is
the top dog now, Chris. Give him his credit.
Chris (17:09)
My bad, B. I'm washed.
at the same time, this guy is insider trading on classified information and is part of an elite unit, right? And you just can't really have that sort of thing going on. ⁓ But my third point more is the greater outrage should be reserved for our distributed weather reporting systems and the blatant manipulation of ⁓ Parisian weather with a hot air.
Aaron Wright (17:32)
That was a wild story.
Chris (17:36)
Was it literally like a hairdryer? What would have happened on that one?
Aaron Wright (17:38)
I thought that that's what I read,
but I didn't dig in too deep on that, but that was a super interesting, fascinating edge case. Like what? Like, man, people really dig in on these things. I mean, that just, yeah, but that's like fraud, you know? Like that's fraudulent. So I'm assuming that that's not going to be considered a bub board.
Chris (17:49)
Guy wanted to pay off his car loan. Just had to despite the weather.
Aaron Wright (18:01)
I think I find that prediction markets have tricky because on the one hand, like the idea is like that type of information should surface up quicker through markets. And at the same time, like it's what you said, Chris, I feel like, well, somebody in that position shouldn't be able to do that. But I don't know where the lines are there. And I think that's the hardest and some of the hardest questions I have around prediction markets is just what does that look like? I think the second one I have is just like, where's that line going to be between gambling, which which states and countries should be able to control if they want to put
you know, some controls on that and valid, quote unquote valid prediction market activity. I just, don't know where those lines should or will be drawn, but I feel like that conversation and negotiation is probably gonna happen pretty soon.
Pri (18:45)
It is a good question. Like everything is a casino, like they're like, can't that change immediately with a different administration? Like if you look at most like 20 year old men or not most, I don't know what the actual stats are. I don't want to like say what percentage, but they're all like heavily addicted to sports gambling. They're starting to do rehab centers for sports gambling. I don't know if we've like fully assessed this idea that everything is.
I guess, know, I think it's directionally there, but like, where is that going to land? Cause if a new administration comes, can they just clamp down and like change the, the rules around it? Or are we like, has it over 10 window just like shifted completely into gambling culture? Like that's the one I'm figuring out. Like, is this like a Trump like downstream effect slash even, I mean, it was pre-Trump, but is this just like a new tech crypto Trump down effect? Or is this like actually going to last? ⁓
Aaron Wright (19:27)
I think.
No, I think
this is a multi-decade story, right? Starting with like the DraftKings and the daily fantasy sports category. At least, yeah. And like, I think they started that crypto had elements of it, now prediction markets do too. So I don't think it's unique to any one of those individually, nor do, you know, with prediction markets, nor do I even know if they like are the degree to which they're actively encouraging it. I just don't know enough about their businesses, but you know, I just think.
Pri (19:46)
Yeah, that was like what 10 minutes ago?
Aaron Wright (20:08)
It's just a fact that things are getting ⁓ more and more casino-like. And I don't know if a new administration can do that, or at least in the states, Congress has to step in and just tighten up the rules there, which I imagine that they kind of will. They're all choices at some level. Whether there's enough political will to change that, who knows? But I hope that they do.
Chris (20:30)
I think it will be a rolling window of, look, the financialization of everything is in a decades rollout right now. We could probably go back and say Clinton and Blair was the start of this in the mid 90s. And so what do we get 10, 15 years later? We got hairdressers owning multiple houses with no money down mortgages.
Pri (20:56)
Yeah.
Chris (20:57)
And we don't have that anymore. And so I would, I would predict we're in the middle of peak gambling on stupid shit, right? Like, can that continue to crest up a few more years? Yes. ⁓ you know, is like your average punter smart enough to realize that, you know what? I've I lose 10 grand a year that I don't have.
on sports bets and maybe I should stop betting on sports eventually, I think they do and so you know, like I haven't placed a wager on ⁓ a game and maybe 12 years and like I I was never a big sports better, but you know, like NFL playoffs come around I throw a couple hundred on games and I would like I would just always lose and the certain point I was just like dude just you suck at this stop doing it
Aaron Wright (21:47)
I think it's a move.
Pri (21:49)
It kind of runs the crypto retail, they kind of washed out eventually.
and you're like, okay, I'm going to stop playing.
Aaron Wright (21:56)
Yeah, completely. I hope that we start to see a shift from like negative sum to zero sum games to positive sum games. And I feel like that's the issue with a lot of the sports betting and possibly even like the prediction markets. It was definitely an issue with meme coins. think it's a reasonable critique of AI that people feel like it's at best a zero sum game and at worst they're like on the bad end of a deal. things just need to be positive sum. And maybe we're starting to see the green shoots like what Derek said before.
positive some games are when people are creative and make new things and make life and everything better for other people.
Chris (22:31)
Yeah, we're also like entering into this weird phase where both, know, theoretically, ⁓ cost of making everything is going to get a lot cheaper and higher quality with AI and automation. And we're also like tipping peak demographic costs in certain areas. Like if you look at education and how many kids we got to start sending in through schools, like we hit peak already.
And so we're going to have like a lesser and lesser burden in that area. so, you know, maybe we are ripe for like a, you know, as we start getting contractions in certain areas, as well as like things, everything just gets cheaper and higher quality, maybe we can get, get past this, I don't know, rat race.
Aaron Wright (23:20)
Yeah, that'd be great. Maybe then we don't have to have folks on the New York Times ⁓ advocating to like rob people as like their new. What what do you think of that? I'm curious.
Pri (23:27)
Yeah, that's been weird.
I haven't
really read it. just read like snippets of people talking about it on Twitter. And I'm like, it's like basically like okaying petty crime. Like I don't, as a way to like stick it to the man as an, as like a, it's like a way of activism and protest. I'm just like, what are we doing here? I'm like, so like where.
Aaron Wright (23:56)
That felt like
a jump the shark type moment to me.
Pri (23:58)
I'm like, what
are you talking about? Like, I don't know. But I don't think...
Chris (24:02)
Yeah, sometimes
maybe the times tries to be edgy and wins. mean, Pri, have you done any investigation of this cougar trend we brought up last week? But sometimes it loses. Like this one. Maybe they should.
Pri (24:12)
No, I didn't. Yeah.
Aaron Wright (24:14)
You
So that's
the winning trend, the Cougar one, Chris.
Chris (24:21)
Yeah, look, I'm against ⁓ petty crime in the city for the simple reason I want to walk into a fucking Walgreens and buy toothpaste without it like locked behind plastic casing.
Aaron Wright (24:31)
It's like nuts. I know completely nuts that we have to do that.
Chris (24:32)
I'm a simple man.
I literally like I'll go and buy my shampoo like for a $2 market from a bodega because I refuse to like the indignity of having to push a button to like, you know, buy it by a toothbrush.
Pri (24:49)
it's funny, I like literally used to buy stuff on Amazon. And now I'm just like, yeah, I'm just gonna like, or I used to buy a go just, you know, pop into ZVS and pick stuff up. And I'm just like, I'm gonna go to, you know, I don't want to wait like two seconds even to have someone open up a deodorant shelf for me. Like, this is ridiculous. I'd rather just press button. They like added even more friction in when there's like an entirely frictionless alternative. It's like, dude, I don't know.
Aaron Wright (25:15)
kind of feels
like the paywalling of traditional legacy media to me in some way.
Pri (25:20)
Yeah, it's kind of...
Chris (25:22)
Yeah, like
how the hell is the BBC behind a paywall now? Like how have you failed so badly that like your state media has to go behind a paywall?
Pri (25:26)
It is.
Aaron Wright (25:26)
I mean, I think it's the times.
That's a good point. I even think about that. But I think it's because the time, the times, have a big enough reach that they were able to do those conversions and then everybody else followed suit. But I feel like their collective weight has just gone down because of that, unfortunately.
Chris (25:36)
You know?
Well, that and missing the mark on when petty theft is cool.
Pri (25:53)
Yeah, that was...
Chris (25:53)
Ugh, anyway,
we started so optimistic and now we're in the airing of grievances here. Derek, you've been so quiet because we're just like New York Doomers here. Bring some West Coast sunshine.
Pri (25:57)
Hello.
Derek Edws (26:02)
I'm reflecting on my own ⁓ misfortunes trying to buy and shampoo while I was in New York a few weeks ago. So it totally hits hard. didn't have the benefit of calling Amazon trip was a short one. ⁓ I still don't really understand what's going on, like why I had to call an attendant to buy something that cost three dollars.
Chris (26:23)
We've been this way since COVID and like, don't know, like apparently you live in like a utopia where you can just walk into Ralph's and, know.
Derek Edws (26:25)
Okay.
I mean, we've
always had like gated glass or like the you have to call the internet to unlock things for like electronics or high end liquor. But for toothpaste, I'm just like, what is happening here? it feels like the line should be drawn somewhere. And it's usually in my head, stuff that costs $3.
Chris (26:52)
Well, you're insane if you think toothpaste only costs $3. Nothing in New York costs less than $7.
Derek Edws (26:55)
That's true. Yeah.
There you go. Yeah.
Chris (27:02)
Like I bought a root
beer the other day, like to go with my pizza was 250 in a bodega. Just like apparently a can of Coke is 250 now.
Derek Edws (27:10)
I will say I really like New York. It's really grown on I kind of think I got pills on this last trip out there. Yeah. The energy was, I mean, like, you definitely feel it when you're there. It's there's always something going on. I'm so, I'm like very productive, but also so unproductive. I think I may have told this to Chris, but like, I pack my meetings so tight when I'm out I was there for, I don't know, a couple of weeks and...
Aaron Wright (27:17)
Interesting. What did it? The energy?
Derek Edws (27:37)
think I had 40 or 45 meetings and I was just like running around the city and, um, and I felt so like there was always someone to meet with or something to do or someone to pitch or pitch you or, uh, an event that's happening. like three events happening every night. and so like from, one perspective, I'm like, man, this is like the best networking city on planet earth. On the other hand, I'm just like, I'm not getting any actual work done while I'm here. And so I'm like, I'm kind of torn.
on how productive I would be if I was out there in New York because I do a lot of you know, quiet work kind of like be effective. at the same time, it's like, man, yeah, the energy is like crazy. And
really liked, you know, going and seeing kind of some of the adjacent areas around New York and everything just there was like you could find differentiation in every neighborhood or borough and I don't know, there's just like something really, yeah, interesting to me about New York at this point in my life that maybe wasn't there 10, 20 years ago. So.
Aaron Wright (28:37)
I think that makes sense. mean, I would assume you probably wouldn't have as jam packed meetings, Derek, if you came here. You could meter them out a little bit and you can find sanctuary in the city.
Derek Edws (28:44)
It's tough up there, it's true. Yeah.
Chris (28:50)
There was this like all these places called the outer boroughs where you can just build in a natural buffer. you know, I, kind of have a little litmus test of like, is it worth going into the city for now? Look, I'm washed and I'm old and I'm an antisocial. ⁓ and so that creates all sorts of things, like yes, you, you will be able to manage it. Derek, you're a smart guy. You've, know how to achieve some form of a work life balance. New York's always here for you.
But here, I'll put this back to you, because when I used to live out in LA, I would say, look, if you're born in LA, it's your fault. Is it still that way, or is LA not as interesting?
Derek Edws (29:17)
There you go.
It's true.
No,
I think that's true. I think that's true. I think maybe the thing I'm touching on is like that you still have to work for it in LA. Like you're going to be driving 15 to 20 minutes in any direction just to like sometimes do interesting things. Whereas with New York, I feel like I can just walk over somewhere and within like 10, 15 minute distance and I'm getting some exercise. I'm outdoors. There's energy around me. And like, you know, there's a bunch of people that I want to see in
close proximity or something to do in close proximity. And so I don't know, maybe it's just like the downtime is different where it's like, even when you're in motion, it feels like you're being social. can't quite put my finger on it, but like LA's.
Chris (30:09)
Some of this is a downtown thing. Like what
you're describing, like I, you know, I used to live in Alphabet City and yeah, like you just be like, I'm going to walk 15 minutes in one direction. And then, you know.
Derek Edws (30:20)
it's true. mean, like when we met up, Chris, we took that walk right after you were just like naming, oh, that's where, you know, I used to grab beers or that's my favorite Mexican restaurant or, know, we were just passing Chris F. Landmark after Chris F. Landmark. And it was like, yeah. And we, I don't know, we didn't even walk for that long, but anyway, I just, there's something about how densely packed everything is that's like very different than LA.
Chris (30:46)
Well, I'm rooting for the Derek New York experience.
Derek Edws (30:52)
We'll see.
At a minimum, I think just getting out there a little bit more frequently. Spend a little bit more time there throughout the year. listen, I'm still an LA kid. This is where my, it's my first love. So I don't know if I could ever completely uproot myself out here, but.
Aaron Wright (31:08)
Is ETH the New York and Bitcoin is your LA? Is that what I'm hearing, Derek? You want the more dynamic, utility-based version ⁓ of your life?
Derek Edws (31:15)
Thank you.
God, Lee, someone hasn't read up on the Lightning Network. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I think that's a decent comp. I think that's a decent comp. Is that true? Do you guys, does that vibrationally match for you guys?
Aaron Wright (31:37)
know, Ethan captured, mean, Bitcoin definitely had it at first, but like, there is like that kind of like punk edge to New York. And I think London, maybe a handful of other cities, like I think there's an element of that in Hong Kong. ⁓ I never been to Tokyo, but I could see it there. just feel like that. That has like some ETH coded stuff for me. Just like a little bit more of stuff at the edges, like.
letting it grow and kind of develop. And everything's always in motion, right? It's not about like just huddling your your bags. don't think Bitcoin started there. But, know, that's kind of where it is today.
Derek Edws (32:12)
Yeah, it's.
Chris (32:13)
If you
had to ask me what the spiritual geography of Bitcoin is today, I would say it's like Miami, Bali, DC. If you had to ask me like ETH, yeah, it's in New York and I guess San Francisco at this point. And Europe.
Derek Edws (32:34)
I don't know why I can't get this like Texas vibe out of my head around how I think about Bitcoin right now.
Aaron Wright (32:40)
Yeah, I was going to say Bitcoin feels a lot like Texas. It's big. Yeah, it's omnipresent.
Derek Edws (32:44)
It's just like, don't bother me, I'm hobbling. You know, I'm
bearing my coins underground. You know.
Aaron Wright (32:52)
You
Chris (32:54)
It's like, sure,
I could have an integrated electricity grid, but I prefer to run my own private market and not allow everyone else in.
Derek Edws (33:01)
Exactly. Yeah.
Aaron Wright (33:02)
Exactly. It's also like big and like there's like a quiet power to it at the same time. Right. Like I think a lot of Texas powers a little bit. ⁓ It's a less in your face.
Derek Edws (33:14)
I bet more.
Chris (33:14)
Are you saying
the Bush family should have held Bitcoin?
Aaron Wright (33:17)
Who knows, maybe they do. How do we know? We wouldn't know.
Derek Edws (33:21)
I feel like if you were going to say per capita, number of people that are into crypto in different geographies that are burying their private keys underground, feel like Texas. Texas would be the winner, dude. I feel like that's got to be up there. I bet most people are like, they don't trust banks. They've got a lot of ground.
Aaron Wright (33:43)
Well, they got a lot of ground to bury it in too.
Derek Edws (33:47)
They'd rather dig a hole in their backyard or in some 10-acre plot out in the middle of nowhere, fence it off. I don't know. For whatever reason, when I think of Bitcoin now in 2026, I just think of Texas.
Aaron Wright (34:02)
I mean, I think Texas has a pretty bright future because I mean, talking to all those robotics startups, a lot of them are rooting down in Austin. So, I mean, I think a lot of that activity is going to be there. ⁓ And I think there's a bunch of space stuff that's going to be there. So if you look at some of the next two big growth cycles, and even if you fold crypto into that as like a, a third one, mean, Texas has pretty strong footprints in all three. Like I don't hear much about the New York space industry, right? Or, or
Derek Edws (34:26)
Have you?
Aaron Wright (34:30)
You know, I know that there is some stuff in California, but I feel like the folks understandably worried about, issues or all these other issues just kind of ran that out of town.
Derek Edws (34:41)
Mmm.
Chris (34:41)
Man, now I want Kathy Hochul to put a spaceport up outside Niagara.
Aaron Wright (34:45)
in Buffalo, New York.
I mean, that'd be sick. Check out the
views as we head into outer space. Yeah, like, yeah, that'd be great.
Derek Edws (34:55)
Have you guys, speaking of kind of like off market locations where like tech stuff is happening, have you guys followed at all of this stuff happening in El Segundo in Los Angeles around hard pack?
Aaron Wright (35:04)
Yeah. So, cause especially around
Aiden, we've been looking at a lot, ⁓ a lot more hardware, hardware adjacent companies. So, Daniel Keller, who helps out there, he took a full trip about two quarters ago to that Derek. mean, that that's real. Like El Segundo keeps on pushing. Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty interesting story, but I mean, there's a lot of activity there. I don't understand why, why is that such a big area? Like, is, did they just always.
Derek Edws (35:20)
It's real. Yeah.
It's a Chris. Yeah. yeah,
Chris (35:31)
x
Derek Edws (35:33)
Chris, I will notice, but like right by LAX. Um, and it's where a lot of the defense contractors have set up shops. you've got like this insane engineer network that just has spun into kind of a lot of the defense firms out there. And in Dural, um, Palmer lucky ended up incorporating, there, after he left meta, this was like 2018, 2019.
SpaceX was there for a bit. I think Tesla had something out there. And so what ended up happening was like you had this proximity to the Bay like fundraising. You had all of like these sharp engineers who were working on deep tech and hard tech and wanted to do something different. And you had kind of like this cultural moment that was happening around like SpaceX and Enduro and a lot of like these younger, cool founders who were changing the world.
That's just for whatever reason. like also just a ton of it's, mean, it's right on the water. It's very beautiful, but like a ton of warehouses. It's just like very industrial. And so it was just like the perfect ingredient mix for just like this Renaissance around hard tech to happen in like this random location. I also got to know and a guy Jacob deep in Barack, I think is his name. He ended up starting a heart tech residency there like a year or two ago, along with kind of a
an accelerator fund called Disciples and kind of trying to formalize some of what was going on. And it's just led to kind of like this huge, huge energy shift in the area where just like really young founders sub 25 want to work on big life changing problems at a time where like software is being commoditized is just like the pendulum swinging. so yeah, I'm personally planning to spend a little bit more time out there just trying to get a little bit more familiar with the scene. It's a little adjacent to what I do, but
It's cool. And like, I think you just kind of have to follow your nose when stuff like this is happening, like organic stuff is happening like this. so, El Segundo is definitely one of the shortlist of places to watch right now for folks.
Aaron Wright (37:29)
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, Derek. I mean, did you guys see just talking about commoditization of software that demo or the model, I don't even know if it was an LM, was just generating the entire UX on the fly? that hit your radar?
Derek Edws (37:42)
dude, I'm
so pilled on this idea that just like the- Yeah, it's Flippage.
Aaron Wright (37:46)
Yeah,
I think they were calling it flip, yeah, flip page.
Derek Edws (37:52)
This idea, we're entering a world where the demand for on, call it something like on-demand inference is literally about to kind of like a million X. I just think we haven't even scratched the surface where we have literal, what were before kind of pre-created, predefined now being kind of like...
Aaron Wright (38:04)
Yes.
Derek Edws (38:14)
not deterministically generated anymore, but being kind of like tailored to your needs because it's running inference against the model in real time. just don't think we've fully captured how, how crazy things you're going to get. And this was a really cool example of that, which is just like, no longer using the building blocks of the web to kind of like build out these, these web apps, but actually running inference against the model in real time and allowing people to explore whatever they want, ⁓ on demand is just like,
Yeah, it's a perfect use case of like this deconstruction of the application into something that looks way more. don't know what the right word is, but like way more novel and interesting and tailored.
Aaron Wright (38:54)
I thought, you know, the interesting thing about the flip thing was it kind of showed an endpoint. we were talking about it a little bit internally. one of the engineers on my team, ⁓ asked like, do, do I think that this is going to be kind of the end point at some point? I'm like, yes, but I don't know what the timeline is, but if, if somebody asked me.
Oh, it's like 2035. What does software look like? It feels like it's going to look like something like Flip. I think there's like a really interesting adjacent category called adaptive design that some people are getting pretty geeked on. The core idea is like you can begin to collect and store somewhere like a user's preference and then whatever page they go to, kind of customizes it in ways that they like. That's super interesting to me. I think it has a really big long-term implication for stuff like e-commerce, stuff like ad tech.
And I think it also maybe could provide the level of customization that platforms want to provide, like big social media platforms or think of some other platform environment before they get kind of broken apart into what I imagine looks like cable, you know, cable news stations, which I feel like is coming to. I don't know if you guys have looked into any of that, but it's pretty cool stuff.
Chris (40:05)
I got distracted by the announcement that Thrive has bought the San Francisco Giants. ⁓
Aaron Wright (40:11)
Wait, Thrive Cap- Thrive Capital?
Chris (40:15)
I'm reading this like Joshua Kushner post announcing Thrive Eternal, a permanent capital holding company that will be concentrated in the small number of assets to be owned and steward over many decades. Four more, five more paragraphs. And our first partnership is the San Francisco Giants.
Anyway, adaptive design.
Derek Edws (40:40)
Is this going to be the most impossible conversation to stitch together? We're like weaving in and out of so many different ideas. I'm not even sure what to do with this.
Adaptive design is super cool. yeah, I think it's definitely where I think I do think this idea of like non deterministic visual design is where things are headed broadly and understanding that that's the constraint operator on. We're going to see a lot of different approaches to this idea. And yeah, I think there's there's been enough.
exploration here over the last couple of months to know that I think we're all excited about where this is headed. think it's only going to get weirder and more cool as people figure out what the limits are and kind of surpass them.
Aaron Wright (41:25)
Yeah, I think that's right.
What do you guys think happens with all these security hacks to DeFi? And does all that speculative finally root back into our art? I just was kind of thinking about that. Also, you know, it kind of hit me this morning that like board apes are five years old and I was tracing it back to like, let's say these store of value assets are a little bit like Bitcoin. So it's like in 2014 Bitcoin.
which I think is kind of an interesting way to think about NFTs.
Chris (41:54)
So first of all, think all these hacks result in North Korea having an aircraft carrier. Not apes going up, but apes are going up. Apparently they swap CEOs out and it has been five years. I don't know. I'm, I'm just in such a different space right now. Like I've kind of been cleaning some of my timeline up lately and
Like just a lot of the feeling of like, there's just this class of artists who are continually posting work I've been seeing for years and years and years to the point where Twitter is starting to feel like a church basement art fair. And so on a lot of levels, I'm just waiting for, you know, a new wave of creators or a new breakout moment and movement. so I'm having a hard time appreciating. ⁓
the classic NFTs you know and love just because I'm just not in that frame of mind right now. So maybe Derek can cherish these objects for you.
Derek Edws (42:55)
Yeah, I'll give you guys my bookcase, but real quickly for you, Chris, are you actively selling off any of your collection right now?
Aaron Wright (42:55)
I still cherish these objects. I think they're great.
Chris (43:05)
No, because I did that way, way back. You know, I was always sort of very disciplined. part of that was, you know, I bought and flipped a lot my way into building a collection. And so I was always very conscious to like anything that no longer spoke to me. I was selling into liquidity. And so at this point, what I have, I mean, I can't imagine I've sold an NFT and like
18 to months. ⁓ I think it's more like it's in stasis. I like what I have. I might be in a different frame of mind right now, but one day I'll return to them. But it's just, I just don't think about these things, you know, as the brass tacks of it right now.
Derek Edws (43:52)
That's totally fair. so not selling and not thinking about what you have is a decision. And I guess I'm so curious to know like, what do you still have that you're like, I like this and I want to keep holding it. I think, you know, because it's a marker of my experience with this stuff, or it's because I think it'll be valuable. Like is there, what's left in your collection that you're not actively selling and not thinking about that you continue to not sell?
Chris (44:18)
Yeah, I mean, so there's just a lot of like the blue chips, You know, I've got punks, I've got a glyph, you know, I've got squiggles, like, you know, I've got some early X copy editions, like the basics, you know, the nuts and bolts of a good collection, hold a pretty well established, range of those items.
I'm pretty well covered there just as your starter pack of what a serious NFT collector holds and I'll continue to hold those. I think the stuff that I still consider to be the most interesting to me and it was probably the stuff I or gravitating towards a little later on in that journey would be...
you know, more systems based or, ⁓ you know, really like digital runtime native type of stuff. so like you're Andreas Geissen, you're Kim the Harman Van Dorpel stuff, the Eric DeJuly pieces. Like I think that like later stage NFT collecting is really the stuff that I, I am most attracted to still everything else.
You know me like I thrive on novelty I get bored very very easily and like I can just absorb and process things very very quickly and therefore like a lot of stuff just tends to have less of a shelf life with me than other people but like those things that you know we're building upon systems or exploring you know novel physics or
rendering or like just spoke of larger things, know, 113 work of terraforms, like all of that stuff, I think still holds a special place in my, my heart, whereas, you know, generative formalism is come and gone with me and maybe when I'm in like a 70 year old man, I'll, really like the look, look and feel of it is like classic digital art. How's that for you?
Derek Edws (46:18)
⁓
I love that answer. think spiritually, I feel like we're kind of aligned on a lot of stuff. And I think we both come from the same school of network design and system design and how we think about collecting and appreciating the stuff. think, maybe my only other thought that I would add is I think we're seeing is kind of like this consolidation happening into things that people really love. For you and me, it looks different than for some other people. But I will say like that's very clearly what's happening through the behaviors.
what is still being purchased and what's not being sold and what people are still tightly, know, narratively excited about. I will say I too am waiting for a moment where it feels like the most interesting stuff in the creative art space is actually not happening with digital artists right now. It's happening with people who are building products. And I'm waiting personally to see some of that energy shift back into kind of the...
into these creative one would stand behind as kind of like a part of their creative practice or artwork. And it's been a little slow there. So I guess my one note for artists is like, hey, you've just been airdropped this amazing gift, which is like a new tools for your toolkit. And would be really cool to start seeing people take that assignment. Like the beginning of this call was about us seeing kind of the
the energy around how the crowd is now inside of the arena and participating in a way that doesn't feel top heavy. I'd love to see that same energy enter the creative output space. And I would say that it's been a little slower than I would have liked. So it's maybe the one thing I'd flag. I do think it happens. And I do think that will bring energy back into the digital art and creative practice space. It just hasn't really happened yet, at least as far as I've seen.
Chris (48:04)
Yeah, and that's a great point. just speaking from my own personal experience, when I'm building, I have to be very opinionated and snobbish to do what I do. Like it's literally a personality shift within me. And that tends to color like my lens of everything. But like I look at objects as being so primitive. And this was a complaint I was having towards the end of my
my NFT collecting that like we are about to phase shift into, know, constellations of objects, hyper objects, like system art. so like, you know, I really am being like, overly dismissive and snobbish when I, when I say like, I look at a lot of stuff on the timeline and
To me, it's the equivalent of a church fair basement show nowadays because like that's just my relationship to standalone objects relative to like the horizon opening up right now. like you, you could put the best art in the world. And if it looks like a poster just on a screen, like I'm just not receptive to it right now because that's not the horizon. That's not the Vanguard. That's what's not what's next. so
I too, I think, am looking towards what comes next.
Aaron Wright (49:20)
Yeah, I I think something will come next and I am debating in my mind whether or not the fragility of DeFi, which I do think in the long run eventually gets kind of hardened. Like whether this is a, window where the actual non-fungible aspects of NFTs, just people begin to appreciate that a little bit more. Like they, they do have like some advantages when it comes to security. It doesn't mean that they can't get taken. It's just much harder to move them around. which is
one of the necessary things that these hacking groups look for. And so I do wonder if people start viewing them increasingly as like stores of value, ⁓ which are maybe where they or markets where they want to play again. mean, we know that like the Pokemon and other markets are are blowing up. We know that people are happy to to dance around all the sports, betting, gambling, all that stuff. So I do think that there's enough.
kind of quote unquote liquidity in the system. I wonder if it roots back into NFTs.
Chris (50:20)
By that logic, Aaron, you should be bullish on historic castles. They're very non-potable. Or transferable.
Aaron Wright (50:26)
I mean,
sure. Yeah. I mean, in real estate is what people play around with sometimes there too, like as they look to diversify. But I don't know. I just feel like, you know, the crypto is like an asset class. It's probably not going to root back down to like two assets, two or three. I mean, it looks like the network effect consolidation around Bitcoin and ETH is kind of in, we're past the fifth inning there. Like maybe
There's another network that kind of hangs around the edges, I have serious reservations about that. ⁓ It does look like, you know, DeFi is going to need to continue to mature for a bit more before it gets like it's time in the sun. So if we are moving into a new cycle and who knows if we are, we know that crypto is going to pull something from its previous toolbox and pull it forward. And I don't think that's going to be meme coins again. I just, I feel like that burned so many people.
I mean, probably set back the space at least a year, if not longer.
Chris (51:28)
Yeah, I mean, besides the crime in the grift, Like crypto is great strength is serving as a coordination tool for networks, both for economic, social signaling and governance. And in a way, if you're really looking for like the, the rosy path forward, right? Like what we saw was maybe the, the mechanisms of crypto outstripped the capabilities of the networks that was designed to coordinate around.
And that's why you ended up with the product market failure, right? That we had was just like, we had all this like robust economic ⁓ development for networks that quite frankly weren't deserving of them. And so that, you know, these things don't always ⁓ evolve at the same speeds or arrive at the same degrees of sophistication at the same time. And so
You know what we really could be seeing right now that with AIs time in the sun is that it's the network's turn and the utility that you can achieve in network space that's going to make the great leap forward and then that once that is ready, Like crypto can come back around and actually serve useful purposes. I mean, at the end of the day, the failure of crypto was that it failed to serve useful purposes in creating value.
Aaron Wright (52:49)
you
Chris (52:53)
And you could say that's not necessarily the failure of crypto itself, right? Like crypto shouldn't be tasked with having to do that job. Its job is to actually serve as a coordination tool.
Aaron Wright (52:53)
Yeah.
And I think that there was enough early indications that it did serve that utility. Stuff like Squiggles and Orblox being a great example. I think people kind of got swept up in the speculative nature of the assets. And if you look at what is preserving and continuing to move forward, and frankly, probably will also continue to get support from legal and regulatory regimes, it is like the...
the less speculative parts of the market, like stable coins and even like agentic payments, right? Like that's very, very strong utility based use cases, right? So maybe that is like what the next wave looks like where it is around the pockets of utility that we saw in 2021. And I think if you think about it from that lens, then two kind of categories do jump out, which would be NFT and.
the much maligned GameFi, right? Because that was also pretty heavily utility based, right? It was like transporting assets, you know, ⁓ making these games and their economies more liquid. Like those are real problems for people and things that could get solved.
Chris (54:18)
Yeah, as you're saying that, also kind of wondered, you know, did we actually hit peak gaming already? And maybe that won't be as important. A thing going forward, you know, I just look at like how badly like AAA games stalled out and the fact that like I own a PS5 and all the top titles and PS5 are ports of games I already beat on PS4. So why aren't that I own a PS5?
But like, you know, think about the fact that as everything has become a casino and is like a real life has become gamified. And, you know, as our, you know, we were talking about things like flip page adaptive, adaptive design, right? Like those are things that like used to only really exist in video game world. I wonder even if gaming, you know, has hit a peak and ⁓ is bled enough into the world itself that the idea of a standalone crypto game
you know, it just maybe isn't necessary period.
Aaron Wright (55:18)
think it's going to be one of these things where they're just going to be considered games. And then one of the features is the fact that the assets are portable and the conduit to doing that is maybe a blockchain based system or something that's pinned ultimately back down into a blockchain. ⁓ I feel like that feels like the better approach. I'm sure every industry, gaming has its hits and it captures the collective attention and there's probably moments when it doesn't.
mean, that's like the Hollywood aspect of it, but it feels like they're not going away as a category. And I do think these economies inside these games do grow pretty large and they just are kind of their own islands. So linking them together eventually seems to make a lot of sense to me. And now that they all almost universally have some sort of like native currency or multiple currencies or scarce objects, that feels like such a predominant part of game design. I just don't see how at some point
The two worlds don't kind of collide.
Chris (56:19)
Yeah, I mean, I could like just get even bigger than that and say, look, entertainment also gotten into like full blown world building, you know, in terms of like the depth of its lore. mean, even commercials have their own like cinematic commercial universes. Why doesn't all of this just collapse into hyper reality and, know, just truly like immersive? I in a game? Am I in the story? Am I doing a virtual job? I don't know. It's all one giant thing now.
I mean, that could be just the state of play in 2040. we could, you and I could be arguing ⁓ very heavily and fiercely over like a virtual election in a virtual world, you know, 10, 15 years from now with the same level of passion that people bring to ⁓ American political life these days.
Aaron Wright (57:11)
Yeah. And I think, you know, like people still will want to scape ism, especially if, if it is like a grind or, you know, if the gains here aren't like widely distributed. I don't know. I feel like, I feel like those two categories pretty, pretty maligned in the last cycle, but I do think maybe people are overly bearish on those. like I'm beginning to gain more conviction that maybe that's what the next cycle looks like.
Chris (57:36)
All we gotta do is keep hurling ourselves around the sun, waking up each day, and sooner or later we'll know what the next cycle brings.
Aaron Wright (57:44)
Yeah, completely. Well, maybe ⁓ we call it there.
Chris (57:48)
our spiritual geography of the podcast. Let's say hello, goodbye.
Aaron Wright (57:48)
All right, our intro is.
Let's do it.
All right. So welcome to Net Society, guys. had Aaron, Chris, Derek and Pri all things internet, crypto, technology, culture, everything in between. a quick reminder, nothing we say on the podcast is financial advice and nothing should be construed as affiliated with our employers. Awesome.