Let me be blunt. Those who are afraid of AI feel deep down that they are impostors & have no edge. If you have a 1) clear mind, 2) a deep, not just cosmetic, undertanding of your specialty, 3) and/or are original enough to reinvent yourself when needed, AI will be your friend.
one of the most refreshing things on the planet is talking to someone who just *gets it*.
like you don’t need a preamble, & you don’t need to articulate the shape of the thought before you can share it cuz they just meet you where you already are. as if they skimmed your mind & married to the culture before you say a single word.
these people are rare, & conversations with them are incredible because you skip the surface layer entirely & land in the depth almost immediately. they’re the best ppl to riff with, ideate with, & think forward with.. the bandwidth is wide & already open.
this is true for any type of relationship.
I'm glad NK was deprived of ~$70m they stole from honest users.
But I'm also glad we can finally stop pretending L2s inherit L1 security model.
L2 ETH != L1 ETH. L2s are not an appropriate store of value for entities seeking permissionless self-sovereign "hard money"; that distinction belongs to L1 & Bitcoin.
L2s are walled-garden permissioned accounts with crypto rails, where 12 people can rugpull your funds removing your ability to transact at any time.
If you think L2s will never rugpull you because you aren't a "bad person", you simply haven't lived long enough to see how quickly the definition of "bad person" can change.
Are they still useful? Of course, just like bank accounts and many TradFi systems are useful. But they aren't decentralized & they don't inherit Ethereum's security model.
Let's stop pretending otherwise.
Gian is an honest man and a pillar of the ct community
I personally confirmed that he wasn’t hacked, I can say with 100% certainty that it’s him sending all of this
The situation is dire and he’s not liquid
If you want to help he’s one of the few that deserve it and I’ll put my own reputation on the line if that make you more comfortable
Suits have invaded DeFi, and they have pretty much won
Tech matters 10x less than TradFi connections nowadays. Stablecoins are centralized to the tits. Vaults are secured by “trust us”.
You can still build cypherpunk things but good luck getting funded!
How do we solve this?
the 9-9-6 local maxima trap
you can optimize for looking busy, hitting metrics, being “productive” – but you might be climbing the wrong hill entirely.
real breakthroughs happen in the spaces between. when you’re walking and your mind wanders. when you sit with a problem long enough that the obvious solutions dissolve and something deeper emerges. when you have the luxury of thinking “what if we’re approaching this completely wrong?”
my process is simple: i’ll open a Notion doc on my phone and just walk. sometimes for hours. the walking rhythm unlocks something – maybe it’s the bilateral movement, maybe it’s getting away from screens, but ideas start connecting in ways they never do at a desk. i’ll quickly jot stuff down as interesting thoughts pass.
then i come back and just sit with the problem. draw some pictures, build it out a bit. no rushing to conclusions. no pressure to ship something by end of day. just... what is this, really? what can it connect to or evolve into? what would this look like if it were in its most beautiful configuration?
once i see it clearly, execution becomes effortless. the focused bursts where you’re completely in flow – that’s when the real work happens. but you can’t force your way there. you have to earn it with the slow, patient thinking first.
the irony is that this “inefficient” approach ships better stuff faster than grinding 12-hour days. but it requires believing that thinking time isn’t wasted time. that walking isn’t procrastination. that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to not do.
many teams don’t get this. they need to see keyboards clicking and meetings happening. but the best work – the stuff that actually moves the needle – happens in the flow moments when no one’s watching.
Do your job with passion. Find what you love and what you're willing to sacrifice most of your free time for. Do it in a broad space - learn, teach, act.
"Joy makes the longest journey too short"