Jordan Wolfe

it's time to build the going direct economy. more soon.

technology is collapsing the cost of independence. effective storytelling + making people care will be critical for anyone looking to earn that independence. had @jayacunzo on the pod at Going Direct. one of most fun + valuable conversations to date. full pod up later this week

Unfortunately, I completely agree that the United States of America is rapidly descending into all-out conflict between left and right. The Luigi left, Kirk killers, anti-Tesla terrorists, and Altman attackers are already in shoot-on-sight mode against conservatives, libertarians, and technologists. The right isn’t there yet; they’re called reactionaries because they only react, so they’re always one cycle behind. Thus, the left has already started shooting while the right is still “only” mirroring the lawfare of last decade’s left. But anyone can see how incandescently angry the American right is getting, so one can expect them to mirror leftist tactics eventually, just as J6 followed BLM. A problem then arises. You see, when communists and nationalists duke it out, technologists tend to be hated by both sides…and tend to leave. That’s what happened in Europe. In the early 1900s, Europe was the undisputed center of science. But then the far left rose to power in Russia, and in response arose a far right in Germany, and then those two psychotic factions blew each other up and took much of Europe with them. The result was that scientists with options left. Shown below is the graph of Nobel prizes. Science used to be centered in Europe when America was still a relative backwater…renowned for cranking out widgets but not much else. Then, as Europe tore itself apart, the smart scientists (and capitalists) simply left for America. Many had no choice; you just couldn’t be a Russian capitalist in the Soviet Union or a Jewish scientist in Nazi Germany, no matter how many years your family might have been in the country. Passionate protestations of ideological loyalty and everlasting patriotism didn’t matter. At best the enemy classes and races were unbanked and denaturalized; at worst they were simply killed. And arguably, all of that — the communism, the nationalism, the wars — all of that arose from the disruption wrought by the Industrial Revolution. We might anticipate similar levels of disruption from the Information Revolution. If so, if America is torn between Democrats and Republicans, or Wokes and MAGAs, or whatever factions succeed them, it’s just not going to be a good place for technological progress. Instead, progress will decentralize to other locations around the world, as it did before.

im coming to the conclusion that way more companies than we think are essentially banks.

i was surprised to learn about all the middlemen in the online ad industry. talked shop with @simonowens on all things media and where the business of content is heading. full pod up later this week at Going Direct

@deedydas The part on mid to late middle managers. Where do they go?

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation). Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI. As a result, 1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb. Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more. 2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future). Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire" 3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed. Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies. 4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either. No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money." I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here. Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success". Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

@Julien4Future Unpack this a bit

One of the biggest opportunities in commerce right now is making logistics feel like software

image source: made in 15 seconds with ChatGPT.

automation + software + cheap modular hardware are shrinking the minimum efficient scale of production. i want to see us use this for more decentralization.

blueprint for the going direct economy: local production + direct distribution + independent business ownership pay attention to what @orenfalkowitz and @Area2Farms are building for America.

food is the most important thing to fix in America. not really sure why more people do not see that.

full conversation now up at going direct.

5. 99%+ of all media will become synthetic.

Me: “Most underrated social platform” @bmorrissey : LinkedIn. A bit deplorable and full of desperation, but stil everyone is on it. Me: 🤔 It was fun having him on the Going Direct pod to talk about the decentralization of media. a few insights he dropped below:

on why independent media won from @bmorrissey: "People w/ real industry experience have “three levels deeper” empathy and context than traditional reporters. direct expertise and media skill rarely live in the same person." full conversation up later this week

going direct conversation here - goingdirect.substack.com/p/60-aleks-gam…

5. Cuby’a micro-factories are located within ~100 miles of homebuilding sites to reduce logistics complexity and cost.

some interesting insights from my conversation w/ @AGampel1 on why we have expensive, crappy housing in the US and what he's doing about it. full pod down below.