Business Iteration and Covid Vax Decisions

by Jaffer Ali (follow @Jaffer_Ali1)

 The following is a tweet thread sent 5/13/23

1/ Friends, it has been necessary to iterate our business several times over the years. We have seen so many changes in technology, buying behaviors (we used to send out paper catalogs!), selling on TV to selling on the Internet, etc.

2/ One problem entrepreneurs have (well, all businesses for that matter) is not keeping up with the changing landscape. And change happens faster and faster due to the *knowledge doubling curve* escalating. Think about what is the half life of “knowledge”.

3/ If you think what you know about business today will last very long, you are delusional. I am not talking about Truths, but things do not work the same way. If you are a taxi driver, it is silly not to contemplate the way your industry has changed with Lyft & Uber.

4/ With data and information flooding our ability to assimilate it, we need to make decisions WITHOUT waiting for the full “evidence” to materialize. This is a cousin of making decisions under conditions of uncertainty.

5/ If you think that all you need is more data, more information, more knowledge to achieve some form of certainty, do not go into business. Go on home and take the short cut because the world is too complex and unpredictable to become certain on what way you need to iterate,

6/ So really, the skill needed is to make decisions with LESS INFORMATION, not wait for more because there is never enough. You will be wrong often, so you need to learn how to clip your left tail risk. You need to survive your inevitable mistakes.

7/ The process of iterating our business and deciding NOT to get the Covid vax had similar impulses. What? It was not certainty or evidence that kept me away from the vax. It was data that I KNEW second hand was *cooked* PLUS the vax being experimental PLUS

8) a healthy skepticism of Big Pharma PLUS a distorted informational landscape. Others with other pieces of evidence chose to get vaccinated. Many of both sides became evangelists for their decision. IMO, evangelizing either position implied a level of certainty.

9) Whether business or your health, we filter massive amounts of information. Entrepreneurs with a bias to action, will not be paralyzed by that knowledge but act with little information and iterate their business model. Is acting with little evidence domain specific?

10) The answer is deeply psychological. FEAR determines action in each domain. In business, losing money creates fear. In health, dying or bad outcomes create fear.

11) In the end, we all need to face our lives with humility and understand uncertainty rules. When I get a chance, I will write an essay, “Uncertainty Rules”… humility is the #1 rule. And never use uncertainty to paralyze action in most domains.

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Jaffer Ali is the CEO of PulseTV and TrySERA

Exchange Economics

By: Jaffer Ali

What are the basics of Exchange Economics? How do they make money? This is a short guide. If you read this thread, you REALLY should consider getting your Bitcoin off exchanges. FYI 99% of other shitcoins will be going to zero on or off exchange, so do whatever you want w/ ’em 1/

Exchanges charge a % of the transaction buying or selling. B) Exchanges trade against clients. You put a buy limit order, they buy & sell to you and make the difference. You put a sell order at X, they make money the other way c) Exchanges lend out BTC, charge interest. 2/

They own their own BTC, but like FTX, many of them lend out YOUR BTC. They thus have no cost of goods and as long as there is no bank run, they can satisfy withdrawals…until they can’t. 3/

D) They let you keep your cash and BTC on the exchange for *free*…sure, why not because they can OUTRIGHT SELL YOUR ASSETS and keep the money (see FTX). I am not making this up. 4/

E) Even when exchanges sell your BTC for cash, you log into your account and it will show that you still own what you bought. And if you want to withdraw, they will just take it from a different account. as long as no bank run, you do not know if your BTC is REALLY there 5/

F) If they get too many withdrawal requests, the first go to practice is to SLOW WITHDRAWALS. They rest on customer service incompetence rather than fraud to slow withdrawals. But this is only stage 1 of withdrawal woes. 6/

G) When the withdrawal requests become too many, exchanges will HALT WITHDRAWALS (see Celsius, Voyager, FTX, Genesis, etc.) Why halt? They FRICKIN’ have sold it out the back door or pledged it as collateral and liquidated. They PLEDGED YOUR ASSETS for THEIR GAIN. 7/

H) Exchange Economics is very flawed as a business. But is ideal for fraud and accumulating assets. Beware of all FREE services. Exchanges are not banks, but run by traders who think they can outsmart the market. 8/

I)The “Not your keys, not your coins” mantra is catchy and while true, it takes a while to deconstruct how exchanges screw their clients. 9/

J) The only reason to have your BTC or assets on an exchange is if you are planning to trade short term. Buying BTC and leaving it on any exchange puts you at the mercy of Exchange Economics. End of thread.