Sam Lessin on Crypto & Web3

Essays

From the Podcast

right and paper marks, you just like it takes longer, it takes years to even have exposure to it usually, and then it takes much longer to get good at it, right. And so I mean, it's slow, like, we've now sold at all stages in public markets, we've sold private positions, we've sold a lot of fucking crypto over the years, like we finally are starting to care about and get good at selling. But that that's a lagging thing. And you just fewer reps means it takes longer to figure out. And I think that's partially why the market's so broken, is because the market for buying

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 99

It really, I just don't think it historic. I just don't think historically has been that important. And so like no one's cared. And I think it's newly like becoming important, but like, it's just, it's just, there are things I had this in crypto too. I'm looking on a few projects with some friends. We're like, we, and we've talked about sound on Dave too, is just like there's stuff that are not really businesses. They're just missing tools. They're like the utils. Remember like windows, utils, little thing you click on and have like six utilities in it. They're like.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 99

You should, it's definitely online. That's the funny thing. The irony of a blockchain company taking down a video is particularly fucking funny. Cause the whole point is like.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 91

So like, what's the harm? like, you know, it's, it's um, I think the reaction was like, good Trump serious crypto, maybe some real good things happen. But this felt a little janky to me.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 89

And it's changing how the behavior of the industry because I can say firsthand that a lot of the products were involved in wanted to do things they're worried about and like, okay, this seems like a safe to do. So I think there is a real impact already in the crypto industry. And I think more clarity will come and it'll be actually good. I'm actually quite positive that the reserve stuff if you follow it on Twitter, all the serious people looked at the reserve stuff and like that this is a little wonky like this is not like the best right like people are not thrilled with the Trump coin as a meme coins like it's a bad look for the industry. This kind of Saturday.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 89

crypto policy on Trump. He's clearly leaned into having clarity, which means we can do a lot more than just crazy meme coins. No, I think David Sacks,

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 89

What is this? So there a things. First of all, the market is mostly, it kind of like chilled the fuck out and mostly returned to where it was. And in some ways you'd argue that if things were going off the rails, he's like, oh shit, things are going down in crypto and we're gonna announce tariffs and this is a risk on asset, we're gonna fucking cream cryptos. Like, let's just let them know that we're doing this. Like, let's stabilize it. It kind of works. Like they're mostly stabilized in a reasonable place. I actually am excited about a bunch of the crypto.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 89

Trump make poor was really happening. All these numbers were going down and people were feeling sad. And so I guess on Saturday morning or Sunday morning, they decided that'd a good time to announce a Trump make rich. And they were like, this go down too much. We say thing. And the thing they say, the funny part about the announcement, I just as someone who really believes in crypto, I'm actually very happy we have people who care about crypto doing this stuff. But like, the announcement was quite funny because he did not announce that Bitcoin and Ethereum would be in the reserve. He just named all the

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 89

Might I offer some pattern here? So here's what I'd say. This is the way I've been talking about people is the statement of January was Trump make rich and everyone likes Trump make rich. Trump make rich was good. the last, in the last, in the last month, there was this very surprising Trump make poor and no one likes Trump make poor. Trump make poor is not a thing people feel good about. And what was happening, especially in crypto was Trump make poor.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 89

It's actually a theme I'm exploring a lot of ways. It's certainly what we're doing with some of this crypto stuff to find the right people to build stuff with that are high integrity and get it and like have the right vibe. But it's also like, candidly, this whole thing I've been working on with Merit First and Standard Aptitude, right, which is a very serious, completely unrelated project. But like, you know, I've been incubating and like been working on a bunch and I think is in the process of becoming a quite real company. But this whole idea of being like, I don't want to just hire based on random credentials anymore. Like, I want to say, hey, internet.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 88

Well, it's also not even it's not even matter time. It's like, in some ways, they don't understand, think a lot of people understand that this is a lot more than a game. And these tools are long-term things that are very interesting to build with. And so it's like, to me, you know, one of the problems, used to be the problem of the world was finding people that were aligned with you. Like, you know, you're sitting like in a physical world, you're like, where can I find like 20 collaborators and friends? Now you have the opposite problem, which is like, especially in places like crypto, you do anything and like,

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 88

You know, I gotta say the meme coins that I have been, we've got so much, I actually, I'm putting together a very large presentation on meme coins right now, which I'm very excited about. Meme coins are fascinating. They are, where to begin? One, it's hilarious. There's been a relatively large crypto sell-off, as you might note. And interestingly, I was joking the other day that the meme coins that I've been,

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 88

Brit, do you understand how bad, listen, do you understand how bad the engineering of Twitter is? Twitter was at one point relying on a single Mac mini to stay on the internet. is no way, again, the same guy, you're seeing the guy who's responsible for Twitter you think is a good enough engineer to have built to come up with Bitcoin. No chance.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 87

Look, with respect, look, Jack Dorsey has had some real product breakthroughs. I respect Jack Dorsey as someone who thinks about product in interesting ways. Jack Dorsey does not have even close to the actual technical chops to have come up with Bitcoin. Just look, there's no chance.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 87

that that is highly controlled, right? Because that claim, if that claim isn't true and no one can trust the truth or dis truth of that specific type of claim, then like it's extremely hard to have a financial market around hard assets, right? And so that makes sense. And I think that will happen. there, but like, I just think you have to think about crypto has been pigeonholed as like, just that. And it's a much broader ecosystem, right? And I that's going to be the clarity that's come in that helps people. Secondly, I'd say is like, look, with the email thing with a lot of things,

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep #85 - Take 01_67a508fc24f2a63a2b06e1af

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