About four months ago, I had only the faintest idea of what crypto currencies were. Their rise piqued interest, but fell short of triggering much action. That article on how blockchain technology is going to change everything? It got thrown into the bottomless pit of my reading list alongside articles about quantum computing, AI, nuclear fusion, and anything else that promised to turn the world upside down. But when a Substack piece seemingly offered insight into the mind of Jeff Bezos, it was hard to save for later and ignore. Titled Crypto Bezos - What Would Bezos Build If He Were Starting Out Today?, Packy McCormick’s argument managed to singlehandedly converted me from a crypto skeptic to a full-fledged crypto evangelist. The notion that we were on the precipice of a new frontier in technology didn’t seem so far fetched—I could see how a 30 year old Bezos would harness the power of crypto today just as he used the internet decades ago to build the next Amazon.

Web3: Not a Fax Machine

By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s

- Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman in 1998

As absurd as it sounds today, the internet had its share of detractors in its early days. From Paul Krugman to mainstream TV journalists, plenty of folks saw the internet as a passing fad and entrepreneurs like Bezos who built their businesses on it were seen as computer nerds well outside the mainstream. The interview below explains so much of the general attitude towards the internet from back then .

I understand now that nay-sayers vehemently opposing initial iterations of any new technology have been as predictable as the disruptive nature of these technologies. Whether it be railroads or the internet, every new technology has faced its share of pushback. Crypto is no different. In its current iteration, crypto and blockchain technology is where the internet was at the time of this interview. Can you imagine a journalist having the same pompous attitude if he knew how internet giants like Google and Facebook would do shape the world in the coming decades?

Web3 is the all-encompassing term for the blockchain-powered evolution of the internet—an internet that allows you consume, create, and own your own content. That last part is what sets web3 apart from its predecessors. In its previous iterations, ownership of digital assets on the internet wasn’t really a sure thing. A middle man in the form of Facebook, League of Legends, or Google always existed from whom you essentially borrowed your digital assets, whether it be a username or an armor plate for your gaming character. Blockchain technology solves this problem by using a distributed, immutable, ledger that acts as a single source of truth to track ownership. Coming from a non-technical background, I spent the past few months better understanding the fundamentals of blockchain technology and what it means for web3. You can check out my ‘Fundamentals’ Notion page here to access the resources I’ve compiled.

A friend at Harvard Business School told me about how the prolific investor, Bill Ackman, recently spoke to their investing club. When asked which industry he would enter if he graduated from HBS today (private equity, investment banking, or venture capital), he replied with “none of those.” He said he would go into decentralized finance and crypto. By not going into De-Fi, he believed you’d be making a conscious decision to not participate in the next internet. This is the best way to understand this moment in time. Imagine if you could travel back in time to 1999 when Jeff Bezos was still driving a Honda, knowing with absolute certainty the kind of effect that modern internet would have on our lives. What kind of career decisions would make then?

Discovering one simple fact

“Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact…everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it.”

- Steve Jobs

For all my life, I have been a passive consumer of technology—I hadn’t really considered the possibility that I could play a role in shaping its future. In other words, I had resigned to letting folks in Palo Alto and Menlo Park write the algorithms and design the products that play an outsized role in how I live my life. Web3, given its sheer infancy, offers the chance for people like you and me to write a line in the next chapter of the internet, potentially shaping a more equitable, fair, and fulfilling economy. The promises of decentralization are grand, and they’ll be realized by people no smarter than you and me.

Getting started with NFTs, DeFi protocols, and DAOs, however, can often seem daunting and unnecessarily complex. It’s good indication that we are in the early stages of web3—a time where only the most technologically adept or the most enthusiastic can figure out how things work. For everyone else, there is another simple fact to bear in mind: usability and user experience crowns winners. It was the continual improvement of websites and expanding scope of what they offered in the 2000s that led to its increased adoption worldwide. Same will be true for crypto. Jason Marder, a former designer at Stripe, alluded to this simple fact in his article: The spread of ideas depends on their ability to be understood. The adoption of technology depends on how easy it is to use. How well the intended user can use the product to make their lives a little better is a great barometer for predicting the future prospects of the product.

Good Design for Real Problems

In college, my friend roped me in to start a design studio. Given our lack of formal education in design, we were forced to surround ourselves with folks who knew much more about design thinking that either of us did. Through the process of building the studio, leading workshops, and hanging out with smart people, I learned to see the world in a fundamentally different way. Design flaws in everyday things became glaringly obvious. Whether it was organizing physical spaces, ordering coffee, or sending money—nothing was good enough. There was always a way to improve an experience. This is true in web3 more than anywhere else today.

When I set up my crypto wallet, bought NFTs, figured out an ENS domain name, and started playing around, it was hard to overlook a glaring reality in this web3 ecosystem: the user experience was horrendous. Things were just harder than they needed to be. Li Jiang, a core team member of Harmony protocol (a Layer 2 blockchain), aired similar concerns over user experience in web3: “when you use a web browser, do you stop and think about which internet you’re using?” The experience is seamless, as it should be for crypto. Everyday people don’t care to know the difference between Ethereum, Solana, or any of the Layer 1 or Layer 2 blockchains. And they should not be expected to. Companies that can figure out how to leverage the core value propositions of crypto and blockchain, design beautiful experiences around it, and make it insanely easy to use will be ones to trigger mass adoption. Gas fees, seed phrases, chain interoperability—hopefully these user experience pitfalls will be seen as growing pains in hindsight.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of what web3 can do for us. Just as capital markets produced unfathomable amounts of wealth for millions over the past century, DeFi will do for a billion others in the next century. Just as social media allowed content creation to become a mainstream profession, NFTs will empower the next generation of artists to directly connect with their fans and patrons. Underlying all of this will be easy, intuitive design that combines the fundamental innovations/ value propositions of blockchain technology with an interface that simply works.

I’m more excited about the future than ever before.