outlast.me

by Ali Yahya

crypto

12 Questions

What are the most important open questions in crypto? What questions will have the greatest bearing on the eventual shape of the crypto landscape and on the outcomes for the best companies in it?

2 min read
machine-learning

Robot Hiveminds & Network Effects

While I was at Google X, I worked on an effort to build a robot hivemind––a network of robots with collective intelligence. Our work was part of a broader strategy to gain a data advantage. Here’s what I learned about “data network effects”.

7 min read
crypto

Selfish Mining in Five Tweets

One of the most challenging aspects of building cryptonetworks is getting the incentives right. Selfish mining is a subtle attack that breaks intended incentive structures and creates centralizing forces. Here’s a five tweet explanation.

2 min read
crypto

Tackle The Monkey First

Tackle the monkey first: de-risk the riskiest parts of your endeavor. Front-load the work that will lead to the greatest rate of learning about whether what you’re trying to build is even possible.

2 min read
walros

walrOS: A Life Operating System

Four years ago on new years eve, I set out to build for myself a robust habit of habit engineering. Looking back, doing this has been very transformative for me.

3 min read
crypto

The Four Horsemen of Centralization

Decentralization is the degree to which power and control over a network is distributed across a large, representative base of independent human actors. There are broadly four kinds of power that it can refer to.

6 min read
crypto

Crypto, The Future of Trust

Talk by Ali Yahya at the a16z summit. Crypto is a technology with the potential to catalyze trust and therefore cooperation at unprecedented scale. It'll help bring about a shift away from Institutional trust and onto trust that is programmable.

1 min read
a16z crypto

DFINITY

Today, it is our pleasure to announce that a16z crypto is making a significant investment in the DFINITY network. We are excited to see an organization of this caliber steward an open and permissionless platform for decentralized computation.

12 min read
crypto

Two Forces: How Crypto Wins

The fundamental advantage of decentralized networks is that they intimately entwine two of the most powerful forces in human history.

1 min read
crypto

Cryptonetworks as Cities

A crypto network is more like a city than it is like a firm, or an individual. Like a city, a crypto network is a community of loosely affiliated individuals who agree about: the location of their work and residence (city); the protocol that they use and run (crypto network).

1 min read