mindsignals

My AI investment thesis is that every AI application startup is likely to be crushed by rapid expansion of the foundational model providers. App functionality will be added to the foundational models' offerings, because the big players aren't slow incumbents (it is wrong to apply the analogy of "fast startup, slow incumbent" here), they are just big. Far more so than with any other prior new technology, there is a massive and fast-moving wave that obsoletes every new app almost as fast as it can be invented. There is almost no time to build a company and scale it. There are two ways AI application startup founders can make money: - Make a flash-in-the-pan app that generates a ton of cash and bank the cash (my estimate is that you have about 12-18 months cashflow generation) - Make a good enough app that you get acquired by one of the big players for sufficient equity The situation is highly unstable - we don't know if it's going to crash or go to the moon but both scenarios make it very unlikely that any AI application startup will independently become a generational supercompany (baseline odds are low to begin with). The best odds are finding an application niche in a highly specialized field with extremely unique and specific data barriers, ideally ones relating to real atoms (hardware or world-related) data and not software/finance.

"Why do you still do it?" It's a good question. There are two main reasons: 1. I recognize that we are in a small window of opportunity, the likes of which we will likely never again see in our lifetimes, and this window will be closed soon (once this cycle ends). You can view the current crypto cycle akin to what the pre .com boom era was for the internet. That is to say while I think crypto is here to stay and there will be decades long bull cycles in the future, where we are now is at the tail end of the first secular bull cycle in Bitcoin's history. Like the .com boom, this is our generations chance to make obscene amounts of wealth in a relatively short period of time, and once it's over, I don't think it will come again. So with that being said, I view every hour spent grinding away now in this window of opportunity as 10 hours of work saved in my future. That is a trade off that I want to take advantage for as long as I can (until this cycle ends) and make the most of. 2. I like to teach, am passionate about crypto, and I don't have many friends irl that I can talk to about this stuff all day, so spending time here is like an outlet for me. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't passionate about this space so even after this bull cycle ends and when that window of opportunity closes- I may not spend as much time actively trading, but I'll certainly still be around.

Most people around you will never understand why you’re so obsessed with crypto until the results show. To outsiders, it just looks like an addiction, checking charts, grinding over projects nobody has heard of. Friends think you’re wasting time. Family tells you to relax, to stop overcomplicating life. What they don’t see are the sacrifices. All they see is someone who’s “too locked in,” and they don’t get it. That’s the hardest part of the journey... grinding in silence when nobody believes in what you’re doing. But then the results come. The patience pays off. And suddenly the same people who doubted are the ones asking how you did it. That’s the truth about this space. Nobody understands the obsession in the beginning. They only understand it once the results are undeniable.

Absolutely. "Dead" coins is a bit of a misnomer in the way it's used in this space. People think anything that hasn't pumped yet and is sitting at multi-month lows is "dead". People thought $SOL was "dead" at $3. If a coin has strong fundamentals, utility, solid tokenomics and is growing then it's not "dead' just because it hasn't pumped yet- it's an opportunity.