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The boundary between Web1 and Web2 was so subtle and incremental most people outside of tech didn’t even notice when it was crossed: when IE7 supported XmlHttpRequest in 2008, paving the way for rich UIs, JavaScript supremacy starting with jQuery, and what was then called Ajax.
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I’d jumped onboard just a year earlier, dumping printer research at Xerox to starting the Web2 research at the Webster lab in 2007. HTML5 was a utopian dream, Ajax was a poorly supported design pattern, jQuery was brand new, Rails was viewed with suspicion, Java ruled the lab.
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Again really lucky timing. I hired a student of the creator of jQuery from RIT (dumb luck) and a hardcore Rails guy (a couple of others at the lab dabbled in rails but for fun; serious work was in Java) and between them they really took my half-ass product ideas to the next level
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Compared to that — really a sustaining evolutionary level-up in hindsight — Web2 to Web3 seems like a brute revolutionary disruption accompanied by massive mutual cultural hostility. Everything sacred in Web2 is profane in Web3 and vice versa. Web 1 to Web2 was barely a ripple.
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In hindsight, the 2 products I led (RIP both) were both too early. One would be great for the metaverse today (html5 visual trail maps), the other would fit Web3 perfectly (recursive multilevel services auctions). If I were younger I’d take another run at both.
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Relative to “mainstreaming moment,” I was 1-3 years late to Web1 (joined a startup in August 2000 but was helping them pre-funding since 1998), 1 year early to Web2, and now like 5 hours early to Web3.
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I’m kinda freaked out by how uncannily close to the mainstreaming of Web3 I randomly decided to jump aboard. Late October I jump in, November a bunch of interesting things like ENS and ConstitutionDAO happen, December it’s on South Park, and all over mainstream media.
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Being in the right place at the right time is a skill you can cultivate. People focus too much on the place part. Almost everything depends on the time part. You need to enter at the right time for *your* skills and interests, not a generic right time. Right place is optional.
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I’m pretty good at spotting the right time but never have the hustle to break into the heart of the action. I usually pick a secondary place, not the epicenter: Austin in 2000, Rochester in 2008, now LA. Plus I lack epicenter grade skills. More a second-order energy.
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