What Matters Today
Where the smartest and most talented people are focused right now
A long time ago I realized that the ultimate advantage for startups was to be building something that “mattered.”
If starting a successful startup is like beating the ultimate boss in a video game, then building something that “matters” is like having the ultimate cheat code.
As an illustration, just look at two of the more important essays in crypto: “Why Decentralization Matters” and “Why Bitcoin Matters” by my old colleagues at a16z. So much of the energy that both helped crypto get started and keeps it alive during frigid winters that would starve many nascent industries is the sense that crypto really matters. It matters more than just as a way to get rich and retire early. It matters in the big picture.
It is part of my thesis around product-zeitgeist fit. When you’re building something that matters to smart, talented people, you have a ton of unfair advantages from users willing to look past janky products, to talented people really wanting to work with you, to media and investors showering you with (yet-to-be-earned) attention.
But what matters is neither consistent nor constant. In fact, it’s constantly changing. It’s very, well, zeitgeisty. What mattered to me as a 24-year-old is a bit different from what matters to me today. To say nothing of what matters to a different 24-year-old today. By definition, not everyone agrees on what matters and sometimes people even disagree with themselves on it.
Whether your framework for innovation is Product Zeitgeist Fit, Finding Good Quests or Aliens, Jedis and Cults, figuring out what matters to you and others is both really important and constantly evolving.
When I first published this idea in 2019 I pointed to three industries — crypto, ISAs, and clean meat — that had benefited from riding the zeitgeist. And I pointed out a few more consumer ideas on the precipice of mattering: privacy-oriented products, subscription products substituting for ad-based ones, and better social networks. These tend to move in fits and starts, but I would argue that all three connected on some level and have produced interesting projects/companies in their wake.
But four years later, I come back to the question of what matters to the most talented people on the planet? How has that zeitgeist shifted and where are the tailwinds today?
Things feel both the same and different. Lots of things that mattered 4 years old still feel important today (i.e., decentralization), but we have emergent ideas too.
So what matters today? This is my very unscientific sense of where talented people are focused right now.
Honorable Mention: AI
Obviously, this matters a lot, but I don’t want to spend much time on it here. It’s a wild new technology that is catnip for creative entrepreneurs who can imagine the multitude of important, previously unsolvable problems they can now take on. But it’s still early and somewhat unclear if there is a connective tissue driving it forward. Is it more of a singular movement, or is it more of a base technology shift (like cloud computing) that enables new, previously blocked movements to form? I don’t know. More likely the latter (with a sprinkle of political hysteria on top). Either way, it will be a critically important shift and it would be malpractice not to flag it; but, I will let the hot-take thought leaders weigh in on AI right now since I don’t have any idea where it takes us, who it matters to yet or why.
1) Pseudonymity
In 2023, pseudonymity really matters. Pseudonymity is freedom. Pseudonymity is creativity. Pseudonymity is innovation. Pseudonymity is progress.
Given how dysfunctional/politicized most things on the internet end up these days, pseudonymity is a lifeline for people trying new, interesting, and/or seemingly unpopular things.
Pseudonymity lets you choose your you.
Honestly, is there anything that matters more?
I was recently discussing starting a new company with a friend. I said that if I did it, I would probably be a pseudonymous founder. It’s the only way to try something new and risky without putting your personal and professional future in the crosshairs of those who cheer for failure. Given that most startups fail - some in humiliating and embarrassing ways — that seems like quite the risk we’re asking founders to take.
In an era before the wayback machine and the “forever internet”, people could try new things, experiment with different ideas, and if it didn’t work out they could try something else. That’s simply not true today. Many want to judge people by their worst moments. They want to banish people who challenge conventional wisdom (even if they’re actually right). They want to pillory those that try but fail. Pseudonymity solves that. That’s why I see so many important people working on pseudonymity.
2) Fun Doomerism
The boomers might have all the money, climate change might be boiling the planet, and maybe we’re not all going to make it, but, hey, at least we can have a party.
The idea that we all need a little bit more fun (especially with all the pessimism in the world today) is one that has mattered for a while and it seems to be picking up steam.
In 2019 I posited that improving social networks felt like a honey pot for talented people looking for important problems. One pandemic later, the pull feels even stronger.
While there was a burst of activity in social in 2020, most of it ended up being overly oriented to COVID times and slowly died off as things returned to normal. But with social networks increasingly becoming media-oriented, many people still working/studying from home, and the world teetering on recession, the problem feels even more important than it did in 2019.
The world is pretty serious right now, but there is hope. Maybe it’s gallows humor, but a kind of “fun doomerism” has emerged as an intriguing force.
People need something fun and light these days. Better yet, they need something fun with friends. This feels important to people right now.
3) Fuck FAANG
It has been interesting to watch people's glee at Bing/ChatGPT encroaching on Google’s search monopoly. Normally I would just chalk it up to people cheering for the underdog, but, in this case, the underdog is a $1.8T company that started in 1975 and was the target of one of the most famous antitrust cases in history.
This isn’t cheering for the little guy or even a random permutation of techlash. And while it shares a thread with decentralization and web3, it’s more specific: it’s a desire to take down a few specific companies that have dominated consumer tech for the last 10-15 years.
Maybe it’s boredom. Maybe it’s frustration. Maybe people just want to see some institutions burn.
I think the ultimate driver is that these companies appear to have forgotten about their user. In some cases, they’ve become twisted around short-sighted financial metrics and shareholders. In other cases, the companies have become shells that just serve the shifting desires and political priorities of their owners and employees. Others seem to change at the whim of regulators. In all instances though, I sense that customers think they have fallen to the bottom of the pecking order. And they’re (rightly) pissed off about it.
To be honest I don’t know exactly what drives it. Whatever it is there is a definite sense that the technology world needs some change at the top. People seem motivated to make that happen.
4) Help People Make Money
In 2011 I helped a friend get his first job. He was very smart but had never worked for a real company before and his interviewing style was a little too casual. I spent a few hours coaching him on some standard interview questions. He nailed the interview, got the job, and has been crushing it ever since. He paid off his student debt, bought a house, and is leading a wonderful life. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a higher impact from a few hours of my time. He is forever grateful and I feel so lucky that I was able to help him. It is the most concrete example I’ve ever felt of why helping people make money matters.
There is a lot of bravado in Silicon Valley about changing the world, but sometimes the most impactful thing you can do is change one person’s economic outlook. It might seem boring at a macro level, but helping people make money seems to always matter at a personal level.
Now I can’t help but see talented founders and teams motivated by this same idea.
And in economic downturns, it always seems to rise in importance.
From creator platforms like Substack helping writers make money doing what they love, to vertical jobs platforms like Incredible Health helping nurses find new opportunities, helping people become more financially stable might not be sexy, but it matters a lot these days.
5) The Individual Economy
Brands used to matter. Brands represented quality and reliability so consumers became loyal to them. But brands got lazy. They stopped delivering on their value proposition. People still want quality but now they look for individuals, not brands. It’s Mr. Beast, not McDonalds.
And while the creator economy got a ton of press, this is doubly true in services and non-creative categories. People want a great stylist, not a great salon. They want a great lawyer, not a great law firm. They want a great writer, not a great publisher. They want a great carpenter, real estate agent, or gardener, not a great ‘agency’.
As the value of these service brands has declined, many of the best providers have chosen to go independent. More work flexibility might be the carrot, but a better economic value proposition is the real draw. And many talented people are trying to make that transition smoother by building out the tools and technology to make it easier. This trend also gets a huge bump from AI as better tools lead to more efficiency, which means that industries that previously couldn’t leverage the solopreneur model now can.
It is helping people break free of a system that has largely outlived its relevance. It is “arm the rebels,” writ large. And it seems to matter to a lot of talented people right now.
6) Decentralization (Still) Matters
The past couple of years have brought implosions galore in crypto. Thousands of people who thought they might make a quick buck have fled for the exits. The mercenary employees and VCs lured by hyped-up token prices and immediate liquidity have ‘pivoted to AI’. The regulators have started to thrash. Nevertheless, the number of people to whom decentralization matters is much higher today than it was in 2019.
Maybe it’s the fact that FTX blew up but Uniswap didn’t. Maybe it’s that Silicon Valley Bank blew up but bitcoin didn’t. Maybe they just can’t unsee what they’ve realized about how centralized institutions operate.
Whatever it is, decentralization and user-owned networks still matter to a lot of the most talented founders I meet.
If you’re a founder working on an idea that really matters to the world please find me online.
Authenticity matters. Opportunities in the physical world matter.
Really nice article 👍 thanks