Monday Letter – March 2, 2025

We’ve done some pretty big things. We work with an average market cap token of $5B+ and strictly limit ourselves to the best of the best.

I like big numbers, big clients, big launches—and with big opportunities come big downsides. But the big wins usually outweigh the losses by a massive magnitude.

Industries will reward you for years for your greatest achievements, yet often forget your biggest failures soon after.

If 99% of ideas fail, and your ideas fail—welcome to the club. But achieving what the top 1% achieve is not only rare; it’s extremely rewarding, often leading to prolonged prosperity.

I firmly believe that most people don’t accomplish large, grandiose, and ambitious goals—not because they can’t, but because they lack the psychological capacity to think big.

The challenge isn’t just in thinking big itself. It’s the societal norms that make it feel like swimming against the current.

Any problem you’ve ever had, when viewed in hindsight, usually seems small or irrelevant.

That same principle applies today. You might think you’re tackling a huge task, setting out on an ambitious business venture, or pushing beyond your limits. But when you zoom out, you’re likely working on something with little societal impact—and therefore, limited reward.

The mindset Web3 founders adopt can be the most potent yet reciprocal force in running a company. Here’s why:

When you aim high and think big, the inherent downside is significantly outweighed by the upside.

This creates a social floor—your company will be attributed good merit simply for attempting to achieve an ambitious goal.

For example, compare a company building a Web3 game to a company pursuing AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The scale of these goals is vastly different.

Achieving just 10% of a Web3 game’s goal could mean bankruptcy.

Achieving 10% of an AGI goal could mean billions in profit.

Founders should aim to operate in a niche where even minor market disruption is rewarded, minimizing the downside of starting a new company.

The bigger the problem, the bigger the reward if you solve it.

I always tell founders: You’re not solving something painful enough.

Not all problems are created equal. Some are discretionary. Sure, it’d be nice if Keurig automatically added Splenda to my coffee, but doing it manually doesn’t kill me every morning.

The most valuable businesses solve one of two things:

For example, after the Gnosis hack, a decentralized frontend UI ensuring the absolute safety of asset custody would be invaluable—especially in light of the Bybit hack.

Every founder I know with a billion-dollar token wakes up every morning because of the sheer consequences (positive consequences) they’ll face if they succeed.

A vision that fuels unwavering passion increases productivity within a company by at least 10–20%. That’s the low end—it can easily be more.

Now, consider a 10% productivity increase across 100 people.

When compounded, that difference in output can be measured in multiple standard deviations—enough to make or break an entire industry.

When humanity has faced its greatest challenges, we’ve united to form unstoppable concentrations of power.

When Thanos came to Earth, we literally assembled the Avengers. The same applies to starting a company.

High-IQ individuals must recruit other high-IQ individuals, hard workers, and smart capital to achieve their goals.

While capital formation is a necessity, it also creates an unparalleled work culture, ambition, and an aura of resilience around the core team.

There’s a reason why all multi-billion-dollar companies are highly sought after—even at reduced salaries. A culture of winners is the most potent business formula of all time.

Novelty always wins. The most valuable companies, service providers, and influencers have one thing in common:

Uniqueness.

They create products that feel like they were designed for multiple target audiences—while still giving the illusion that each audience was the primary focus.

Hyper-niche products are easy to copy. They’re just slight iterations of what already exists.

But something truly unique—like the iPhone—can be everything to everyone.

To some, it’s a messenger. To others, it’s a camera. For some, it’s a gaming console, and for others, a news hub.

Novelty always wins.