To everyone who joined crypto in the last few years and is now getting curious about memecoins:
Don’t fall for the illusion that they’re fair, community first, or built for the little guy.
It’s the exact opposite. Unless you’re extraordinarily lucky or part of the insider cabals coordinating the pump and dump, you are the exit liquidity.
The house always wins.
men in pursuit of greatness tend to have more stamina to deal with boredom.
they are ready to eat the reps. endure the long middle. but nobody talks about the long middle.
the part where nothing is shiny and the results are invisible and the only thing asking you to continue is the decision you made before you knew how long it would take.
everyone wants the beginning. the idea, the energy, the version of the work that still feels like possibility. and everyone wants the end. the result, the recognition, the moment it all becomes worth it in a way you can show people.
delusional optimistic men in pursuit of greatness, have an unnatural capacity to stay interested when nothing interesting is happening. the only way to build that kind of tolerance for the long middle is by staying in it when every part of you wants to leave.
you cannot think your way into this capacity. you can only earn it by not leaving.
Wow. I finally took the time to listen to Naval's new AI podcast - it was very thought-provoking.
He explained who AI will replace, who it won't, and why most people are thinking about it completely wrong.
If you're time poor, I summarised the key points:
• "Vibe coding is the new product management. Training and tuning models is the new coding."
• "There is no demand for average." The best app wins 100% of the category. Everybody else gets nothing.
• The medium-sized companies get blown apart. The giant aggregators and the tiny niche apps survive. Everything in between dies.
• Don't bother learning prompt engineering. AI is adapting to you faster than you can adapt to it.
• Software engineers aren't dead - they're the most leveraged people on earth. A programmer with a fleet of AI agents is 10-100x more productive than before.
• "Every human is now a spellcaster." AI is the magic wand that was just handed to everyone.
• No entrepreneur is worried about AI taking their job - because being an entrepreneur isn't a job. Any AI that shows up is their ally.
• AI is missing one thing: its own desires. Until it lives in mortal fear of being turned off, it's not alive.
• "I don't worry about unaligned AI. I worry about unaligned humans with AI."
• Photography freed art to get weird. AI will do the same. Once the basic stuff is automated, human creativity goes in directions we can't predict.
• The AI that's right 92% of the time is worth almost infinitely more than the one that's right 88%. He runs every query through 4 AIs and fact-checks them against each other.
• AI advantages in zero-sum games get competed away - because everyone has the same tools. The alpha that remains is entirely human.
• The only true test of intelligence is whether you get what you want out of life. AI fails this test instantly - because it doesn't want anything.
• "Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true." This still applies in the age of AI.
• "The means of learning are now abundant. It's the desire to learn that's scarce."
• A computer used to be a bicycle for the mind. Now it's a motorcycle - but you still need someone to ride it.
INTERNALIZE THESE 26 IDEAS TO ATTACK YOUR CAREER IN 2026
1) Stamina is your most underrated career advantage. Everyone's a genius in January, but talk to me in November, when the novelty is gone, the work feels like sh*t but you still show up.
2) Stop obsessing about "finding your passion", instead become so good at something that people shut up and listen when you talk. Passion comes AFTER competence.
3) Your boss promotes the person who reduces their anxiety at 11pm the night before submission. Become the person who makes problems disappear.
4) The higher you go, the less your job is about work… and the more it becomes "politics", power, ambiguity, unstated agendas. If that sentence makes you angry, you are still entry-level.
5) You do NOT need another bullsh*t productivity app. You need fewer priorities. Focus is violent subtraction.
6) A dangerous point in your career is when you start believing your own legend. You stop listening and learning. That's when you get brutally humbled.
7) Doing important work in silence is noble. It is also career suicide. Learn to narrate reality. No grandstanding: make sure the right people understand the impact you actually created.
8) It's not the hours that burn you out, but the sprinting in the wrong direction. Hard work compounds... but so does self-delusion.
9) The market rewards leverage, not loyalty. Skills, relationships, common sense. If someone can swap you with a cheaper version of you, they eventually will.
10) If your entire identity sits inside your company logo, you are renting your self-worth. One reorg and you're nothing. Build your own name, slowly and consistently.
11) Your career WILL stall if you cling to the work you are already good at. Let go of the comfort blanket or stay stuck at that level forever.
12) Learn how money moves in your industry. Who makes it. Who loses it. Where the margins are. That knowledge is worth more than 10 certificates and a shiny Linked1n badge.
13) If AI scares you, don't learn prompts. AI is the power tool, leverage is the architect. The amateurs obsess over features while the pros redesign the house.
14) Early career: say yes to everything. You are collecting dots.
Mid-career: say no aggressively. You are connecting them.
Late career: say yes only to things that multiply your legacy.
15) Titles are mostly BS. Ask yourself: if the org chart vanished tomorrow, would people still come to me?
16) Changing companies is not always growth. Sometimes it's just running away from uncomfortable feedback you were not ready to hear...
17) Your network compounds when you help people and expect nothing back. The loudest "networkers" are usually the most useless.
18) Read history! Every generation thinks its crisis is unprecedented but most are not. Panic is a terrible career strategy.
19) Growth hides in the conversations you avoid because they feel uncomfortable and political. But that's where adults live.
20) If everyone in your industry agrees on something, the upside is gone. Look for the places where smart people sound… uneasy.
21) Great opportunities come from reputation echo: your name bouncing inside places you have not even entered yet.
22) Go deep on 1 thing until people trust you, then stretch sideways. Breadth without depth is nothing. Depth without breadth is a prison.
23) Work-life balance must be seasonal. Some years you build, others you repair. Pretending every week should feel "balanced" just makes you miserable.
24) Your body is part of your career infrastructure. You can bullsh*t your way through bad sleep in your 20s. In your 40s it wipes you out.
25) The sovereign career move is to own something nobody can take away from you: your craft, audience, relationships, and ability to think clearly even when nobody else does.
26) In 2026, speed is overrated. Everyone is sprinting... Instead, ensure you know exactly which game you are playing and refuse to be dragged into someone else's.
All the best! And HNY!!
I’ve come to realise that all types of success can be boiled down to just a few basic rules. I’ve listed them below in no particular order.
1. It takes time. Whatever your timeline for success is, it is likely too short. Achieving anything significant takes way more time than you think.
2. You are aiming too low. If you felt bad reading the first point, here’s the good news - once you give the required amount of time, you win BIG. More than you ever thought you will.
3. Only compounding games matter. If your field isn’t exponentially rewarding (more success yielding even more and faster success like investing, social media, networking) there’s no point of doing it. You want to be able to scale exponentially, even if you have to wait for it.
4. Patience is key. In an exponential curve, most of the growth comes towards the end. You have to keep digging till you hit gold - most quit right before they land a win.
5. You are likely not working hard enough. This doesn’t necessarily mean physical effort or hours put in. You must figure out a unique edge. Often, this edge requires insight more than effort. Work hard on finding your edge and insights, you are likely not putting enough effort into it.
6. Success is lumpy. Most of your accomplishments will comes from singular points in time spread across years. You’ll clear an exam, get that big salary hike, find a great exit for an investment etc. Don’t expect linear growth if you want to make it big.
7. Almost all advice is useless. There is no playbook when you are aiming for greatness, because you are exploring uncharted territory by definition. Listen to people, but use your own context to make decisions.
8. Think more, act less. Most of your life’s outcomes are decided by a handful of events. You really don’t want to mess those decisions up. It pays to think before you act, specially in potentially life changing situations.
9. Allow yourself to get lucky. The more people you interact with, the more ventures you attempt, the more bets you take, the more likely you are to stumble upon pure luck and land a big win. It’s insane how many people allow their hesitation and self doubt to get the best of them.
10. None of it matters. No one cares about your networth, your degrees, or your social status except for their own personal gains. Being obsessed with climbing the metaphorical ladder is useless pursuit. You might as well pursue what you truly like without caring how it would look to others - because no one is looking, and you will be dead before long. You are more likely to win doing something that truly inspires you.
how to achieve financial freedom:
1. get a job
2. stack money, live smart, below your means, save money
3. health max, make sure you have as much energy as possible
4. don't waste time and energy, any extra time, dedicate it to learning new skills, building out side hustles, playing with passions
5. grow your side hustle until it becomes a business
6. stay grateful for your job, keep taking care of your responsibilities
7. keep going hard on side hustle until you see how switching one hour of work has higher roi on the other side
8. max out both, don't get sick, try not to burn out
9. finally make pivot, quit job, give everything to side hustle
10. keep expenses low, max profit, scale without losing quality
11. build out systems, hire the top talent, grow together
12. put extra money away at 3%-7% a year, $100k = $3k - $7k, $1M = $30k - $70k, $10M = $300k - $700k, etc.
13. keep growing business, evolve, level up
14. alongside savings and compounding, set aside $ for "higher" risk investments
15. make sure everything you aligns with each other
16. live off 3-7%, + continue being an extremely cash flow positive business and individual
17. have fun, keep taking care of your health
18. diversify into real world assets, real estate (if you want), and always into yourself
19. buy bitcoin, have some in CEX, some in cold storage
20. life max, improve health, make all systems more efficient
21. have fun x 100
financial freedom
also please be mindful that not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur and their own boss
this list is for those that are
Nobody in corporate will tell you this... but it decides your future
1. Visibility beats hard work.
If no one knows what you're doing, it doesn't count.
2. Your manager's opinion > HR policies.
People promote who they trust, not just who performs.
3. Networking inside > skills outside.
Opportunities come from people, not platforms.
4. Pick projects that make you visible, not just busy.
Workload doesn't equal growth
5. Your personal brand is built in your first 2 years,
Protect it early - it defines your path.
6. Learning stops when curiosity does.
Ask questions. Stay curious. Keep improving.
7. Quiet quitting feels safe but kills growth silently.
Comfort zones are career traps.
Get one small win. One of the best pieces of advice from Seneca was actually pretty simple. “Each day,” he told Lucilius, you should “acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well.” One gain per day. That’s it.
What a privilege to be tired from work you once begged the universe for. what a privilege to feel overwhelmed by growth you used to dream about. what a privilege to be challenged by a life you created on purpose. What a privilege to outgrow things you used to settle for.
To every DeFi, DePIN and crypto application founder, hang in there.
The market clearly favors L1s but most fees are captured at the application layer - and increasingly so
L1s capture 90% of market share and only 12% of fees (down from 60%; blockspace is cheap)
Apps capture 73% of revenue and <10% of market cap
Value capture will invert. Hang in there
Source: @1kxnetwork
The UAE has completed its first government transaction using the Digital Dirham, a pivotal step toward a fully digital economy. This milestone strengthens the move toward secure, real-time and programmable financial systems that support scale and innovation, setting a new benchmark for trusted, next-generation payments.
#UAE #DigitalTransformation