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Introducing A16Z Crypto

a16zcrypto.com

31–40 of 312 posts

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#31

Or crypto is just another hype that will burst like the dot com bubble. However, I have to say, compared with the companies of the dot com bubble the blockchain space has very little to offer. The other day I saw an ad for an IoT ML ICO.

The dot com bubble was completely justified in retrospect imo. A lot of stupid money was lost but the opportunity was clearly and obviously there. If you think blockchain has as much potential as the dot com bubble you should put a lot of money into it.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#32

I totally agree with A16Z here. Blockchain skepticism is not hard to find on HN and beyond. First, the ecosystem is vast and evolving quickly. If you've "tuned out" by dismissing blockchain, then don't be surprised when your industry gets disrupted in 5-10 years. I think we'll begin to see business logic open-sourced on the blockchain. For example, existing SaaS model incentivizes closed-source, centrally managed rep…

> A CRM built in this way might enable multiple "thin clients" to build and an ecosystem to develop around it.

Let's parse this.

CRM = customer relationship management, usually in the context of sales. The sales relationship is often hard won and closely guarded, because it makes people money.

You're proposing putting information about this relationship on a public blockchain (because a "private blockchain" here is just an internal database), so not only is this highly guarded customer data now public, but it's also open to other relationship management platforms to manipulate?

What am I missing? Because this seems like a spectacularly bad idea for anyone who has actually done any sales.

I think you owe it to yourself as a blockchain "believer" to play your own devil's advocate and try to first figure out conventional solutions to the problems you believe that the blockchain solves.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#33

Or crypto is just another hype that will burst like the dot com bubble. However, I have to say, compared with the companies of the dot com bubble the blockchain space has very little to offer. The other day I saw an ad for an IoT ML ICO.

The dot com bubble was completely justified in retrospect imo. A lot of stupid money was lost but the opportunity was clearly and obviously there. If you think blockchain has as much potential as the dot com bubble you should put a lot of money into it.

That's an interesting take. I like it.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#34

I totally agree with A16Z here. Blockchain skepticism is not hard to find on HN and beyond. First, the ecosystem is vast and evolving quickly. If you've "tuned out" by dismissing blockchain, then don't be surprised when your industry gets disrupted in 5-10 years. I think we'll begin to see business logic open-sourced on the blockchain. For example, existing SaaS model incentivizes closed-source, centrally managed rep…

> a CRM-focused blockchain might place the business logic for managing customer relations and sales on-chain and enable competing clients to build on the protocol Why.. would you need to put those on a blockchain across a bunch of disparate consumers? In theory isn't my business logic fairly, you know, secret sauce? Blockchain is vaguely "A spreadsheet everyone gets a copy of." There are some cases where that can be…

Traditionally, yes. But in the same way that Windows OS logic is Microsoft's secret sauce and yet thriving companies build products and services around Linux...so too will business-logic be open sourced and compete directly with existing SaaS players.

Just because you use blockchain to power the engine and business logic of your application, does not mean you also have to use it to store data. Data can be stored anywhere else (IPFS, Sia, or even personal PostgreSQL instance). Blockchains also need not be public. They can be private sidechains that occasionally interact with the main chain.

Why would you? Because it allows communities of smaller open-source contributors to effectively compete with big, established players. Also, through crypto, you could incentivize domain experts to contribute to the business logic rules.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#35

I totally agree with A16Z here. Blockchain skepticism is not hard to find on HN and beyond. First, the ecosystem is vast and evolving quickly. If you've "tuned out" by dismissing blockchain, then don't be surprised when your industry gets disrupted in 5-10 years. I think we'll begin to see business logic open-sourced on the blockchain. For example, existing SaaS model incentivizes closed-source, centrally managed rep…

It has already been 10 years. Bitcoin was released the same year as Android. Which one has had more impact?

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#36

Or crypto is just another hype that will burst like the dot com bubble. However, I have to say, compared with the companies of the dot com bubble the blockchain space has very little to offer. The other day I saw an ad for an IoT ML ICO.

Or did it already burst like that? Bitcoin was at ~$20k, now it's ~$6k.

The dot com bubble didn't have a contraction like that before it popped. That was the pop.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#37

I totally agree with A16Z here. Blockchain skepticism is not hard to find on HN and beyond. First, the ecosystem is vast and evolving quickly. If you've "tuned out" by dismissing blockchain, then don't be surprised when your industry gets disrupted in 5-10 years. I think we'll begin to see business logic open-sourced on the blockchain. For example, existing SaaS model incentivizes closed-source, centrally managed rep…

I've got this smart friend (hi Shaun!) who over malted beverages made the statement that Blockchain could replace the Big 5 accounting firms, because everyone's books would be out in the open at any time, and gee wiz wouldn't that be a great thing. I see a parallel between what he was saying and what you've written about how great it would be if we had all this open business logic from which we could all benefit.

Except that's not how the world works at all. Having those contacts in one's own Rolodex is exactly how many top salespeople get hired; they have a direct disincentive in sharing. Same for business logic and processes. Accounting? Companies _do not_ want to make it obvious how hard they have to work to make the books look good those last few days of the quarter in order to appease the street, thus there is zero incentive to sharing that data.

I like your ideas. There are a lot of nifty ideas floating around in Blockchain world. But so many go against market incentives, making them non-starters. Likewise, so many of these big ideas are better accomplished technically using other technology than Blockchain. The point of trust pops up a lot but... we have a legal system for that, and the track record of security issues does not give me hope that Blockchain is really the answer.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#38
“This can lead people to dismiss them, in the same way people dismissed early smartphones because they traded off computing power and screen size for portability and new sensors.”

Right ...

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#39

> This trust emerges from the mathematical and game-theoretic properties of the system, without depending on the trustworthiness of individual network participants. I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of game theory as the base of trust. Mathematics as used in cryptography is a pretty solid base, but game theory feels like something entirely different. How do I know that there isn't a participant in the game that is…

Do you think that the “smash the board” case isn’t considered? Not that any given game theoretic analysis isn’t flawed, but the “madman attack” is one of the main scenarios that’s been considered in blockchain from the original bitcoin paper onwards.

Re: Introducing A16Z Crypto

#40

I totally agree with A16Z here. Blockchain skepticism is not hard to find on HN and beyond. First, the ecosystem is vast and evolving quickly. If you've "tuned out" by dismissing blockchain, then don't be surprised when your industry gets disrupted in 5-10 years. I think we'll begin to see business logic open-sourced on the blockchain. For example, existing SaaS model incentivizes closed-source, centrally managed rep…

Most of the people on hacker news, myself included, aren’t skeptical of the technologicy of block chain. I grant Block Chain’s central technical premise, no other medium/platform/whatever can create decentralized trust wherein all you have to trust is the network. Where I think most of the criticism comes from is that many of us don’t see why this decentralization is actually all that valuable. Currency seems like the most likely candidate, but even it has proven finicky. What efficiencies are gained from decentralized trust. I’m skeptical that decentralized trust creates that much of an improvement.

Case-in-point: Block chain for supply chain problems was touted and hyped a few years ago, only to fall flat on its face. Why? For most companies decentralized trust in their supply chain didn’t provide that much of a benefit. I know a bit about supply chains, and from what I have heard from most supply chain experts (yes I know a fair number of supply chain experts) centrally managed trust works fine for them.

That’s the extrapolated crux of the issue. I am open to being proven wrong, but so far no one has ever been able to calmly explain to me what fields would see a 10x improvement from decentralized trust.

We’ve been dealing with centrally authenticated trust and decentralized unauthenticated trust for 100k+ years as a species. Block chain promises decentralized authenticated trust and it delivers, but why should I care? Is it actually going to be beneficial. No one can argue that the jury is still out.

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