strong bias for makers. I heart art + tech. hayekian, capitalist. EIC a16zcrypto; Editor in Chief a16z + podcast showrunner 2014-2022; fmr WIRED, Xerox PARC

sone.eth | 917-area/9-zip code
Joined March 2008
Sonal Chokshi retweeted
The internet archive's Wayback Machine library is a planetary treasure. It preserves the archive of the web. Don't let publishers take it down. theatlantic.com/technology/2…
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
Replying to @smc90
Fair point on consortiums but C-SPAN is much more like the both/and you describe: Congress opened the doors (top-down), cable funded it via carriage fees, Brian Lamb ran it independently (bottom-up). Industry paid / didn’t steer. (CSPAN still can't even control its own cameras in the House and Senate chambers)
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BookTok is great for seeding/ asymmetric viral spread of a particular "hot" pick that everyone else then reads -- but is not at all good for discovery of new and interesting books (altho I do like inverse: when Amazon lists "best of booktok" next to books online, as signal)
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
Replying to @TheStalwart
if anyone needs a refresher... xitter.cf/a16zcrypto/status/2102…
Perps have become one of crypto’s most-traded products. @guywuolletjr and @jay_drainjr explain where they came from, how they work, and why more of the market is moving onchain.
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
MAYBE I WAS WRONG ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY I wrote about how I always used to make fun of the guys who said things like "Bitcoin is speculative, but the underlying blockchain technology is interesting." And now I think maybe they kinda had a point.
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
philanthropy sounds like writing a check from a high horse, public goods sounds like building a park we all actually want to hang out in
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
this is a really good point and a good demonstration of the power of the right frame & language
i like the branding of "public goods" over "philanthropy" (OH @nanransohoff @joininteract) -- been thinking about it, and here's why I like it:
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btw I was struck at a recent event discussing several (smart!) perspectives on philanthropy how very few people actually mentioned "incentives" -- incentive alignment, incentive mechanism design (a la the experts I've learned from like @skominers @Tim_Roughgarden etc.)
Replying to @smc90
"public goods" - inverts the frame of helpfulness/ altruism from inward-out to *outward-in* - motivates others to join the commons - prevents overlapping efforts, or provides umbrella for multiple efforts towards same mission - is a much better frame for incentive alignment!
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i like the branding of "public goods" over "philanthropy" (OH @nanransohoff @joininteract) -- been thinking about it, and here's why I like it:
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"public goods" - inverts the frame of helpfulness/ altruism from inward-out to *outward-in* - motivates others to join the commons - prevents overlapping efforts, or provides umbrella for multiple efforts towards same mission - is a much better frame for incentive alignment!
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I've been de Tocqueville pilled My thoughts on reading volume one of Democracy in America walkingtheworld.substack.com…
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
“Actually, in America, the reading of books is up. Sales of print books have increased nearly twenty-five per cent from a decade ago. The number of independent bookstores in the United States has climbed steeply since 2009, with a seventy-per-cent increase since 2020.” These nuggets & more in this delightful @NewYorker profile of James Daunt, founder of Daunt Books, CEO of Barnes & Noble, and Managing Director of Waterstones: newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…
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This trend of writing your own TV software is really cool. The software always sucks and is so unimaginative. Anyone can easily think of what they wish a TV could do, and now you can.
I used Opus 5.5 to completely change how our family uses our TV.
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
This is a must listen
AI is getting better at solving hard math problems, especially given recent drops. But what does that mean for the cryptography that protects everything from private messages to healthcare to banking and crypto wallets? Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, with @eddylazzarin, @SuccinctJT, @liz_harkavy, and @smc90, makes sense of the warnings sounded recently. They cover: - what’s fact vs. assumption - what’s new and what risks cryptographers have long prepared for - where quantum computing doesn't (and does) fit - opportunities for builders Highlights: 00:37 – What sparked the most recent debate about AI and cryptography 01:35 – Signal vs. noise: What the math does and doesn’t tell us 05:29 – Why cryptography depends on open problems 09:25 – Why the stakes go beyond blockchains 10:43 – How AI could strengthen confidence in cryptography 13:50 – Considerations for users and institutions 20:10 – Where AI and quantum threats overlap 22:32 – Building systems that can change cryptographic methods 23:59 – Hash-based versus lattice-based cryptography 33:07 – Opportunities for builders, and better security tools 38:14 – What comes next if there were a cryptographic break?
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
what is cryptographic agility and why does it matter?
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Sonal Chokshi retweeted
I'm fascinated by the rise of frictionmaxxing as a response to a frictionless life. We engineer away inconvenience, only to discover that some of the friction we removed was part of what made life feel alive in the first place
Someone could probably write a book (if they haven’t already) about the cycle of technology productizing the removal of friction in the name of convenience only for us to discover that the friction was a load-bearing part of the social compact.
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