22/05/2023, 16:20 Gmail - Business strategy, design, and decision making in web3

Olga Grinina <olga.i.grinina@gmail.com>

Business strategy, design, and decision making in web3

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web3 weekly from a16z crypto <a16zcrypto@substack.com> 21 May 2023 at 23:01

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Business strategy, design, and

decision making in web3
A16Z CRYPTO
MAY 21

🛠️ Deep dive: On new sources of competitive

advantage & moats in web3
Scott Duke Kominers et al

A deep dive and tour through key business concepts from theory to practice,
the latest episode of our podcast ‘web3 with a16z’ covers the tricky nuances
of business strategy in a new world of open source. The discussion — which
features a16z crypto research partner and Harvard Business School
professor Scott Kominers in conversation with editor in chief Sonal Chokshi
— covers foundational business frameworks yet also what changes in web3,
as well as guidance for builders.

For decades, Michael Porter’s Five Forces model on the competitive forces
that shape strategy helped companies understand the structure of their
industry to “stake out a position that is more profitable and less vulnerable to
attack” — but how do those assumptions change in web3? Where do so-
called vampire attacks come in? And what even IS competition in web3,
where so much is publicly available on blockchains?

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22/05/2023, 16:20 Gmail - Business strategy, design, and decision making in web3

The question throughout is basically how to compete when you're building in

public… So we also go into the new moats of “community cohesion” and
software “embeddedness” — and how network effects really work, beyond
common misconceptions. Finally: since web3 changes the game altogether,
what’s ahead for the evolution of business strategy overall?

listen to the discussion

share on Twitter | share on Farcaster

related:

Vampire attacks: A theory (and thread) on 'blood sucking' platform

competition by John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers (2023)
— on a16zcrypto.com

Can web3 bring back competition to digital platforms? by Christian

Catalini and Scott Duke Kominers (2022) — in Competition Policy
International

Why build in web3 by Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers (2022) — in
Harvard Business Review

▶️Builder resources: On protocol to product,

design, security, & decision making
Taking an idea, and turning it into a real product for people to use, is nothing
short of alchemy. So it’s not easy… but several expert speakers at this year’s
Crypto Startup School (our accelerator that connects builders with the
resources, expertise, and networks they need) distilled their hard-earned
experience, and journey through the idea maze, into guidance and
frameworks for founders.

We shared the first batch of talks in our last edition (be sure to subscribe to
our channel for the next releases), but subsequent batches cover the themes
of “from whitepaper to reality”; product and design; leading and decision-
making — as well as infrastructure, smart contracts, and security. Below are
a few recently released talks; check out the full playlist so far here:

On principles for growing a protocol + principles for building with Dan

Romero, co-founder & CEO of Farcaster

On principles for web3 product design with Ben Scharfstein, co-founder

& CEO of Stelo

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22/05/2023, 16:20 Gmail - Business strategy, design, and decision making in web3

On smart contract design patterns with Noah Citron, engineering partner

at a16z crypto

On how not to get hacked, attack types, and lessons learned in the wild
on crypto security with Riyaz Faizullabhoy & Nassim Eddequiouaq
(former a16z crypto, Facebook, Anchorage)

On the journey from coder to manager, making product bets, and more
with Brian Armstrong, co-founder & CEO of Coinbase (in conversation
with general partner Sriram Krishnan)

share tweets: here and here

🔋Op-ed: On a new mining tax for crypto

Joshua Gans

The White House recently proposed a new mining tax — a 30 percent tax to
be imposed on mining cryptocurrencies (proof-of-work, in particular) — but
the so-called DAME Tax seems unlikely to accomplish any of the goals that
the administration has laid out to justify it. While the intention is to reduce any
negative impact from cryptocurrency mining on local electricity prices and
global pollution, it is far from obvious — from an economics perspective —
that the other goals will follow. Or so argues Joshua Gans, professor and
economist at the Rotman School of Management, and author of the
forthcoming book on The Economics of Blockchain Consensus…

read more
share author’s tweet

see also:

The economics of cryptocurrency mining with Aviv Zohar of Hebrew

University — on a16zcrypto.com

Proof-of-Stake Blockchains: Designs, consensus, attacks with

Valeria Nikolaenko, Tim Roughgarden, and Sonal Chokshi — on web3
with a16z

What The Merge means with Ali Yahya — on a16zcrypto.com

register here

--Sonal Chokshi with Stephanie Zinn, Tim Sullivan, a16z crypto teams

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22/05/2023, 16:20 Gmail - Business strategy, design, and decision making in web3

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