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the vc strategy of cutting losses and doubling down on winners doesn't feel intuitive b/c you're getting a terrible deal relative to seed-stage cost basis. (e.g. buying btc at $1000 feels bad when you also bought a bit at 0.1 cents)

however in gardening this is similar to growing a bunch of seedlings and only selecting the best ones to move into their own pots. these 'winners' then get more water/care/etc... while the losers go to the mulch pile.

the metaphor breaks down a bit since companies don't die when you neglect watering them because they have multiple capital sources including their own cashflow.

but herein lies a key to intuitively gauge entry and exit points. when everyone is over-watering a tree, your additional gallon isn't adding any value. a good 'entry' point is to be watering only when it isn't over-subscribed.

for a large company you are one of a million ppl adding water. for a smaller company you are one of a few thousand. for a start-up you may be the lone believer. your absence might be death.

'value' investing then intuitively is being part of a smaller group of believers. if the pie is Faith then each person gets more percentage of pie. but the matching of pie to Real Stuff is tenuous.

as a founder or seed-stage investor you get quite a big of pie, but the distance to reality is quite large. buying sth like tsla is small pie for big cost but the reality is quite real & tangible (and severely overpriced)

a company like a plant can grow explosively/exponentially but at the end of the day is a living organism with inflows and outflows. it needs money, labor, etc... it can't infinitely grow b/c eventually the internal concerns Cancer it to death.

intuitively this is just saying that skyscrapers are hard to build b/c gravity. companies with hyper-growth often are 'light' and parasitic, like airbnb or uber who don't own property/cars. they are more like monetizable protocols of coordination

they grow explosively but only because they can utilize the existing landscape. that means the explosion is horizontal not vertical. it doesn't build a new skyscraper. explosive skyscrapers like tsla/space-x are quite amazing to watch.

thiel's zero to one to reminds me of a factorio game... you explode horizontally to monopolize the resources, then dedicate all of it to launching a rocket. the DESIRE for the rocket/mars-rover is the capstone that coordinates the entire System

however... when btc 'goes to the moon' is that a real rocket launch or is it a bubble? similar to mar's perseverance, the final result is mostly artistic value in the preset with potential scientific value in the future.

uber/airbnb have demonstrated their value, even if it turns out it may be much lower than their prices at their height of social hotness. what is bitcoin's?

IMO bitcoin has theoretically infinite value because it is about signaling. this signaling is 'worthless' from a practical standpoint but is priceless from a coordination/symbolic/faith standpoint. the king is just a hooman yes, but kill the king, and REAL anarchy happens.

the issue w/ signaling is that just like fashion, it is capricious and easily supplanted. attention is THE most scarce thing in the world. it cannot be easily commoditized.

(or can it? it seems pretty easy to throw money at individuals in china and india and get all sorts of attention. buy followers. buy reviews. buy opinions. etc...)

bitcoin then is not about hooman attention but about a subset of hooman attention. it's an attention coordination mechanism for those who believe in bitcoin. (who themselves believe that they are "The Attention of the FREE and the SOVEREIGN")

note the similarity to the USD here. as the land of the Free Sovereigns, their token of faith has unusual weight in the lands of the oppressed.

(there's a correlation between Power and Freedom that would explain why these Freedom Coins are important but there may be a spiritual aspect as well. the desire for "Freedom" seems to be the apex of hooman desires, underpinning all religious/spiritual/secular endeavors)

this type of freedom is the leadership of hands-on-the-steering-wheel. we pay attention to who is driving as they weave hoomanity through the hostile landscape of reality.

if everyone holding bitcoin is like elon musk and everyone holding gold just wants to bury it and homestead with their one wife and two hundred children who will the people look to for leadership?

it is a choice between following that which promises the future and that which promises wealth. behavior like tsla price explosion is an attempt at merging these two paths to alleviate the paradoxical anxiety. (e.g. choosing between starving artist or soulless trader)