What Venture Capitalists are Potentially Getting Wrong About Blockchain

What Venture Capitalists are Potentially Getting Wrong About Blockchain


Watch Richie's full presentation here


Whether you are a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, tech analyst or writer; to be effective at maneuvering into or around technology paradigms there is a perspective and discipline you must master. This perspective and discipline is history.

Mark Twain: "a favorite theory of mine [is] that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often."

Technology paradigms such as the printing press, electricity, the combustion engine, and the Internet tend to follow a pattern that repeats itself. Each paradigm is comprised of a few fundamental inventions (Peter Thiel refers to these as “zero to one” inventions) that are made popular by a single go-to-market company, and then are copied hundreds and sometimes thousands of times creating a bubble, and then eventually a bust.

For example, real-time text exchange (chat) was a zero to invention in the Internet paradigm made popular by AOL Chat, and then almost two thousand chat applications (many referred to as “AOL Chat killers”) were venture capital, angel, or institutional-funded globally. The chat boom created an outstanding bust. A second zero to one invention of the Internet was payments made popular by companies such as Authorize.net and eventually real time streaming media made popular by companies such as YouTube. Each zero to one created a specular boom and accompanying bust. Today, 80% of the software on our devices are a combination of real time text exchange, payments, and streaming media.

Electricity and the engine played out similarly. More than likely, blockchain will play out in the same pattern. To avoid being caught in the wrong part of a boom, or the belly of a bust, one most pay homage to history. This video encapsulates the ability to “read the blockchain paradigm” and hopefully avoid falling into the hype.


Author Bio

Richie Etwaru believes the most important ingredient for change is courage. Courage not mistaken with risk but consistent with the bravery required to embark upon something never attempted.

Richie has spanned unlikely disciplines and multiple continents over two decades. He has had the honor to operate in academia, entrepreneurship, government advisory, and Fortune 500 companies in financial services and healthcare. He’s been quoted in NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, Computer World, Forbes, VentureBeat, WIRED, and has appeared on dozens of television stations and media outlets globally.

As founder and CEO of Hu-manity.co, Etwaru is known for pursuing the 31st Human Right “everyone has the right to legal ownership of their inherent human data as property.” He is driven to reshape the world by creating a new data economy, where inherent human data is legally human property.

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