A Summary of Balaji Srinivasan’s Thoughts on the Future

I heard Balaji Srinivasan on Tim Ferriss’s podcast the other day talking about the future and I thought his insights were so interesting they were worth capturing.

Balaji is an angel investor and entrepreneur, and was formerly the CTO of Coinbase and a general partner at Andreesen Horowitz. I’m absolutely following Balaji’s work going forward.

Here are some of the main ideas I extracted from that nearly 4-hour conversation.

Balaji’s website.

People will want to consolidate near other people like themWe see this already where people ignore their neighbors but have close relationships with people thousands of miles away who share their ideologiesSome majors will become more like CEO’s of a city; the late leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, is a great exampleNapster and Kazaa got sued, but Bittorrent and Pirate Bay are still doing fine Ideologies:Conservative: Stay at home, not as ambitiousProgressive: Ambitious, but believes the game is zero-sumLibertarian: Live and Let LifeCryptarian: Win and Help Win: Progressive but not zero-sumGet your coins out of ExchangesLife in 2000 was basically the same as 1980, but things have changed drastically in the last 20 yearsCentral Concepts (Twitter Bio)Immutable moneyInfinite frontierEternal life1729.com: make Bitcoin by learning tasksPositive vision about transhumanismSpace is good, life extension is goodTraditional healthcare is “moving gravy around the plate”Reversing aging fixes most health issuesThe East Coast Power StructureHarvardOld mediaThat structure is fighting back against decentralization because it’s a threat to themHe’s bearish on the US and the West because they’re so established that tech is a disruptor, and Crypto represents their true and early pursuit of freedomChina is the opposite becasue the tech has lifted themZoltan Istvan for transhumanismDave Sinclair for age controlEstonia, Israel, SingaporeGoogle News put all newspapers in competition with each other, which killed off all but the top fewBig Theme: Tech increases varianceWoke capital (US), Communist capital (China), Cryptocapital (Freedom)COVID was a major military defeat for the USChina can build buildings and bridges and such, and it’s hard for us to do those things in months or yearsThe only stuff that survived COVID were built like 20 years agoLeigitimacy vs. CompetenceOld model is pedigree/legitimacyFounding vs. Inheriting: so the East Coast is inheriting and the’re struggling. And now it’s the time for the Founders.The Fossbery Flop of conscent is a problem because you’ll see constantly flipping back and forth between, say, AOC and TrumpThe future of politics could be declaring yourself a leader in an area, and you start delivering actual results, and then using Ethereum you can vote and instantly get far more than a Fossberry Flop

Anyway, some really interesting stuff.

I’m especially intrigued by the stuff around different ways of organizing society. Woke Capital. Communist Capital. And Free Capital. And the idea that people will increasingly move to cities and regions that are set up with the flavor they enjoy.

Perhaps the migration from California to Austin is an instance of that. Kind of like previous examples of Californians moving to Oregon to be more Oregon-like.

If you’re into this stuff, you should follow I heard Balaji, which is pronouned BALL-igy, by the way.