Welcome to @cdixon.eth, a multi-time founder and GP at a16z crypto. 

I've known Chris for a decade and he was one of the first investors to get crypto. He also just released his new book "Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet".

He’s kindly agreed to do an AMA. Reply with your questions. :)

Crypto/web3. Author of Read Write Own

readwriteown.com

I personally liked some of the longer ones that weren't always the most popular like:

https://cdixon.org/2016/02/21/what-s-next-in-computing
https://cdixon.org/2015/10/31/lessons-from-the-pc-video-game-industry

I personally liked some of the longer ones that weren't always the most popular like:

https://cdixon.org/2016/02/21/what-s-next-in-computing
https://cdixon.org/2015/10/31/lessons-from-the-pc-video-game-industry
https://cdixon.org/2017/02/20/aristotle-computer

What's your favorite blog post you've written?

Hi Dan! Thanks for having me. Let's go... :)

@base builder #001; onchain cities w/ OAK & city3

Building NiceNode /nicenode (https://nicenode.xyz), learning Spanish, traveling

working on it... hoping to do it with frames :)

How can we make purchasing this book with crypto/USDC happen? @jessepollak @barmstrong @coinbase commerce?

Working on @stationxnetwork & /syndicates 

I feel like composability / developer side of crypto has been really under-explored. That's one reason frames and the reactions to frames is exciting. I was telling a friend last night if I had one wish for crypto near term it would be that we have "composability summer" and a new wave of developer experimentation.

What would you suggest any founder to focus on the most? especially in crypto?

i got the book this morning!

what chapter/subject took you the most time (or was the most difficult) to write/formulate?

Every chapter was it's own painful but rewarding process :) I go through it a lot in a new podcast with David Perrell (not sure it's out yet but should be soon). I'd say overall the main challenges were 1) breaking everything down in the simplest & clearest way, 2) keeping the narrative going so it wasn't too abstract.

Working on /grey — /fashion, psychological design, writer, handyman, co-founder

Hm, good question. I was mostly off social media for the last year as I wrote the book, so not as much public discussion as I'd like, but planning to be active again now, and a lot of FC. The community here is great- very positive and focused on building/utility.

Did you shop / discuss some of the ideas in this book on Farcaster before final version ?

Your favorite furniture-loving Raul | Builder and thinker in Autonomous Worlds & Collaborative Worldbuilding | Working on /farcastles | KoSA at Banners

Blockchains are tools, and like any tool can be used positively or negatively. The positive use of the tool (as described in the book) is to build new internet services that remove corporate intermediaries and help return the internet to its original ideals as an open and decentralized network.

What is your elevator pitch for all of this? When I tell people I work in Web3, they assume Im just trading imaginary internet money all day. What is your 1-2 sentence explanation for when your friends ask what you do and why?

Working on Terminally Onchain /toc. Join The Terminal here: toc.fun

I loved phillosophy. I got into it via my interest in computers and programming. Consciousness Explained and Godel, Escher, Bach were a big influences / gateway drugs into philosophy. I think it's a great major - teaches you how to write and argue/reason carefully.

Why did you choose to study philosophy as a 18 year old? If you were to go back, would you still study that?

And related, what type of philosophy do you think helped you better understand tech/markets?

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

I keep quitting things and becoming increasingly boring :) Probably trying to not spend too much time on the internet is my biggest lifestyle challenge.

Great question. Lots :) Hard to answer fully here, but in the new David Perrell podcast "How I Write" I go through that in detail.

building /juicebox | product marketing & growth | prev. NounsDAO, RAW DAO | learning to code

Great question. Lots :) Hard to answer fully here, but in the new David Perrell podcast "How I Write" I go through that in detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzU51vGn59c

What did you learn from the process of writing and publishing Read Write Own?

working on @tableland & @openfarcaster | avichalp.me

Good question. An analogy I'd use is there are roads (networks) and cars (content). At first glance, generative AI lets you make better cars. Blockchains make you make better roads. But probably there will be spillover and the reality will be more nuanced.

hey Chris, are LLMs (chatGPT etc) tools or networks?

drew || 🗽 🍕🌹 || ecosystem @camp-l2 ||

/sliceinthecity || icebreaker.xyz/mrludlow

With blockchains? I write about it in the book (chapters "Protocol Networks" and "Corporate Networks") but an important moment for me was 2011/12 when the social networks deprecated their APIs and it became clear that web2 composability/openness was going away.

What was your single, biggest aha moment that there is "something" here?

A lot of people :) But in terms of tech, I've spent a lot of time reading about the history of invention. I am actually working on an essay (unfinished) about Akio Morito, Edwin Land & Steve Jobs (engineer / designer/ founders). I really love the period of 1850-1900 or so: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, Bell, etc.

FID 2236 // Grants @ sws.xyz // governance @collabland

I go through that in the last part of the book "Some Promising Applications" where I deep dive into 7 categories. Some categories I just think are really fascinating like collaborative storytelling and countering deepfakes, and others are just obviously big and important like social media and finance.

What ideas do you find most excited to see being built by developers in the short term?

Well I think in a way the book gets better as it goes on. The "payoff" is the last part ("Some Promising Apps"). I thought about putting that part earlier  but I felt like I really needed to "earn" the claims I made by doing all the work in the first 4 sections.

Crypto product builder, pre-seed investing @ Boost.VC

The main thing is the infrastructure has vastly improved. Ethereum (2015) was really the first time you could build apps, and of course only recently with L2s and other innovations (last year or so) have apps with low gas fees and good performance really become possible. Farcaster is a case in point.

What do you think is the biggest difference between investing in crypto in '24 vs when you started?

co-creator newcoin.org, newforum.xyz. coordinating new intelligence. bring newcoin.org/os to @farcaster

halfhuman/halfAI.
madvi.xyz

AI has just gotten so much better since then, due partly to all the algorithmic improvements (transformers etc) but a big part due to Moore's law and much more powerful GPUs. A good reminder of how important timing and infrastructure is to application layer startups.

If you kept building Hunch for all those years what would it look like today?

Designer obsessed with books, art, and technology. See more https://bento.me/aaraalto

If I have time, I really like to spend 1 hour exercising, 1 hour reading, and 1 hour writing (or creating) something. And then I'd spend the rest of the day with family and friends.

What is your ideal day of leisure look like?