Founders

🌶️ Hot take
 
There seems to be a sentiment sometimes that founders shouldn't ever criticize other founders. 

There are cases where I think this is very wrong. Eg, we should particularly criticize those who are trying to bring something into the world that is harmful or zero sum. Nip that shit in the bud.

I disagree but have an alternative proposal.

First, there is already an abundance of hate from outside tech. Elon gets attacked for launching rockets. You will too.

However, I get the rationale within crypto. Still, what we want is more like star ratings and reviews of projects. Namely, decentralized regulation.

Launching /bracket this March Madness 🏀 | Hosting /gray + /book-clubs + /dont-do-this | Ex-BCG, ex-PHD | Poli Sci & Econ at Duke & UNC

If you make a bad criticism, what is your penalty? Yet that is actually very common. In fact, the normie’s off the cuff reaction to new things is extremely hostile.

And that’s why VC is hard: good new things aren’t obvious.

Still, see below for what I *think* we want:
https://warpcast.com/balajis.eth/0x51995a06

Once you start seeing both criticism and regulation as special cases of binary classifiers, much becomes clear.

First, you can have both false positives AND false negatives.

Second, without any constraint on negativity towards new things, it becomes the default.

Once you start seeing both criticism and regulation as special cases of binary classifiers, much becomes clear.

First, you can have both false positives AND false negatives.

Second, without any constraint on negativity towards new things, it becomes the default.

https://warpcast.com/balajis.eth/0x94c25770

The hate from outside tech is often unlettered. Criticism from inside is more likely to be cogent.

If the tech community cannot self reflect and critique, it reeks ideological to a fault. Low T. A culture of virtue signaling to tech is maladaptive. Cringe.

Ratings and reviews
We call it crowdsourced reputation on Datastake
Used by banks to run a KYC check on companies

Critiques are great (many founders don’t see much upside in publicly sharing  though).

Agree that Black & white thinking isn’t helpful usually. (In crypto there are many grifters that need to be called out anyways)

What would be ideal is experts calling on experts for contextual reviews. Blind star ratings or bunching together of founders both lead to biased takes and mobs forming.