Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)

Because 9 out 10 Startups fail, early startup investing is not investing, it’s philanthropy with a potential upside. So I’ve created a new game of Venture call VentureStaking where multiple people come together to form a grant for a founder (no debt / no equity) to spend a year researching a problem (ie Thiel Fellowship) and then if that founder discovers something interesting, the grantors can invest up to 10x their grant amount in equity. So, for example, a $100,000 grant creates a potential $1MM equity round to keep the momentum going. Thus, a VentureStaker can give $10 grants to 100 Founders to discover the 3-4 that come up with a great opportunity and invest 10x in those rounds. The SEC has been vetting this system for 8 months and cannot conclude it’s a security which means that we can operate VentureStaking without expensive legal compliance. SEC rules are only triggered at the first equity round and RegCF can allow multiple retail investors in as one line item on the cap table. So now, it’s a game of Discovery to start and smarter investing later. To learn more, go to Doriot dot com.

Reading and blogging. I'm early career and trying to transition into a performance engineering-esque role. So, I'm spending a lot more time writing to learn, particularly about OS under-the-hood stuff and observability best practices.

Do you have a web site? I'd like to check it out.

I'm building an identity verification platform for age verification. I set it up as a nonprofit because I think this is a public good that should be provided by governments. It's mostly a proof of concept right now. My long term goal is to get state DMVs using it (or something like it).

https://cardlessid.org

[dead]

[dead]