stacks are eating the world

business used to be easiest to comprehend via a) market-based logic of horizontal vs. vertical STRUCTURE, b) professionalization/specialization based FUNCTION c) core competencies based BEHAVIORS

this has pretty much collapsed in the last decade
Structure = sclerosis
Functional specialization = bureaucracy
competencies = inertial habits

"Stack" thinking instead lets technology structure (rather than market structure) drive business org logic
Companies seem to do well when they identify an entire stack of technologies they are good at (not just point bits) and organize to conform to its logic. There is a "full-stack" dimension of technical specialization that is the spine of the org
It feels buzzwordy, but it really is getting to be that way. AI stack, decarbonization stack, mobility stack, electrification stack... some end-to-end pathway of turning physics into economics via layers of tech artistically baked together like a cake
If you haven't seen enough examples to instinctively pattern-match what I'm talking about, think of a stack as somewhere between an industry sector like "aerospace" and a functional specialization like "marketing."
Is the drone industry part of aerospace? Yes and no... there's an aerospace renaissance on to be sure, and some of it overlaps with the old kind and with lots of FAA regulations and such, but really what we have is a "new aerospace stack"
covers the tech needed to build useful end-to-end capabilities for everything from delivery drones to surveillance to disaster relief search-and-rescue to even indoor toys/games/robotic assistance... yes, bits of it look like boeing, but lots of it do not...
Here there is a 1:1 correspondence. Old aerospace is retreating to high-end/high-cost "platform" organization. In other cases, it's entirely new. There's a "sidewalk stack" for example (scooters, bike rentals, hoverboards, delivery robots, inspection robots)
I'd probably call that the "smart sidewalk" stack or "low-power urban mobility stack" ... currently a half-baked cake of technologies that impact many current and potential markets and businesses/orgs

More from Venkatesh Rao

Both this thread and the outraged response threads are... something.


This is why I never wanted kids. Way too much responsibility for another human’s development. Depending on the child, this might either be the day they discovered who they were or the day that traumatized them into a lifelong fuckup. Either way I don’t want to direct the show.

As far as the can opener goes, it wouldn’t even occur to me to try and turn it into a teachable moment. That sounds vaguely quixotic. I’d just show them how immediately. I think my default is to try and instruct clearly but not demonstrate unless the person is truly disoriented.

I think there’s basically a right answer here: show the kid. If the kid has the aptitude they’ll enjoy the mechanism so much they’ll develop the figure-it-out skill with other devices. If not, it’s a training data point that will build remedial levels of intuition more slowly.

I think perseverance is both misframed and over-rated as a virtue. Misframed as in: everybody has potential for it in some areas and lacks it in others. Aptitude is those areas where perseverance comes easily to you. Meta-skill of knowing where/why you persist is more important.
I’m guessing these responses really reflect people’s weighted averages (age*current average effort fraction) though I kept it simple and asked for just averages.


I suspect a healthy weighted average should be ~ (age-20)/2. So a 30 year old should be at 5, a 40 year old at 10, a 50 year old at 15 etc.

Standard deviation should be ~average/3 maybe, so distribution spreads as you age and accumulate projects and get better at them.

Other things being equal, people get good at starting in their 20s, at follow through in 30s, at finishing in 40s.

No point learning food follow through until you’ve found a few good starts to bet on. No point getting good at finishing until a few projects have aged gracefully.

I’m in the 7+ range myself. Probably 8-9. Slightly less than healthy for my age.

I suspect most self-judgments on being good starters/follow-through-ers/finishers are really flawed because of the non-ergodicity of project management skill learning. You can’t learn good practices for the 3 phases in an arbitrary order. On,y one order actually works.

More from Crypto

I'm sure someone else has explained this, but it is just so cool and I want to explain how this works.


So Curve is awesome for swaps between similar assets, right? The fact that they trade very close to each other is a key part about how Curve works, using it's custom swap invariant function.

That's step 1

Step 2 is that Synthetix is awesome for creating "synthetic assets" (aka synths) which are assets that trade like other assets, that are backed by another, entirely different asset. Basically, a plastic banana that I can buy and sell like a real banana.

Synthetix has a feature that lets you swap between any two synths with zero slippage and a flat fee. That's because it is simply converting the sythentic asset into another synthetic asset, the backing for the synth doesn't change it just uses a different price oracle now.

This is important. Absolutely no slippage, at any size

Swap $1m sUSD for $1m sBTC? flat 0.3% fee

Swap $10m sUSD for $10m sBTC? flat 0.3% fee

swap $100m sUSD for $100m sBTC? Well, there isn't that many synths in Curve, yet but you get the point. The only limit is the pool depth

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शमशान में जब महर्षि दधीचि के मांसपिंड का दाह संस्कार हो रहा था तो उनकी पत्नी अपने पति का वियोग सहन नहीं कर पायी और पास में ही स्थित विशाल पीपल वृक्ष के कोटर में अपने तीन वर्ष के बालक को रख के स्वयं चिता पे बैठ कर सती हो गयी ।इस प्रकार ऋषी दधीचि और उनकी पत्नी की मुक्ति हो गयी।


परन्तु पीपल के कोटर में रखा बालक भूख प्यास से तड़पने लगा। जब कुछ नहीं मिला तो वो कोटर में पड़े पीपल के गोदों (फल) को खाकर बड़ा होने लगा। कालान्तर में पीपल के फलों और पत्तों को खाकर बालक का जीवन किसी प्रकार सुरक्षित रहा।

एक दिन देवर्षि नारद वहां से गुजर रहे थे ।नारद ने पीपल के कोटर में बालक को देख कर उसका परिचय मांगा -
नारद बोले - बालक तुम कौन हो?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चहता हूँ ।
नारद - तुम्हारे जनक कौन हैं?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चाहता हूँ ।

तब नारद ने आँखें बन्द कर ध्यान लगाया ।


तत्पश्चात आश्चर्यचकित हो कर बालक को बताया कि 'हे बालक! तुम महान दानी महर्षि दधीचि के पुत्र हो । तुम्हारे पिता की अस्थियों का वज्रास्त्र बनाकर ही देवताओं ने असुरों पर विजय पायी थी।तुम्हारे पिता की मृत्यु मात्र 31 वर्ष की वय में ही हो गयी थी'।

बालक - मेरे पिता की अकाल मृत्यु का क्या कारण था?
नारद - तुम्हारे पिता पर शनिदेव की महादशा थी।
बालक - मेरे उपर आयी विपत्ति का कारण क्या था?
नारद - शनिदेव की महादशा।
इतना बताकर देवर्षि नारद ने पीपल के पत्तों और गोदों को खाकर बड़े हुए उस बालक का नाम पिप्पलाद रखा और उसे दीक्षित किया।