

What do they have in common?? RMF
This is not a post about FOMO. Itโs a post about opportunity, and the seizing of said opportunity. Itโs a post about RMF.
Life, especially in the more privileged parts of the world where we donโt have to worry about the basic necessities, is abound with opportunities. Every day, every hour, every minute.
The challenge is knowing which to choose, and then more importantly, how to execute.
Some will pan out great, others wonโt; and if youโre wise, youโll take solace in the knowledge that those which did not, still offered lessons a-plenty.
This is also not a post about how I found out that โJeff Bezos bought Bitcoinโ or that heโs actually Satoshi, or that he even gives a shit right now.
Itโs a post about two potential letters your future self might send your current self, and a mental frameworkโโโpopularised by Jeff Bezosโโโwhich lays out how to deal with & take advantage of what is likely to be one of the greatest potential opportunities of this generation,
Bitcoin
Yes. Bitcoin.
Nowโโโwhilst you might say Iโm crazy, bias, or overly excited about this internet funny money stuff, give me a moment to lay out my case before you judge.
We look around and everything is running โonlineโ. The promise of the internet is everything they said it would be, + more; and itโs only going to get a whole lot more digital and โonlineโ in the near (and far) future.
Marc Andreessenโs words rung so true;
Software was, is and will continue to eat the world.
But it wasnโt always like this. There was a time when talk of this โinternetโ thing was for the nerds, the weirdoโs, hackers, speculators, etc.
The internet had its ups & downs. The Dot Com bubble was considered the greatest market โfailโ of all time, with all sorts of crazy, stupid, brilliant, too early, far-fetched ideas raising capital & ultimately blowing up.
Crazy ideas were everywhereโฆlike online book stores, pet shops & shoe shopsโโโmany of which failed. But - those who did succeed; changed the world. Irreversibly.
And itโs these outliers that Iโd like to discussโโโbecause they matter more than you can imagine.
These next 3 videos are a trip down memory lane.
They will humble you, and give you a glimpse of how far weโve come in less than 2 generations, and hopefully remind you that there is always something significant on the fringes, just around the corner.
Back then, you had to go to your local library, wait inline to get on a computer, spend 20min logging in & connecting, just so you could send an email..
Today, if your app doesnโt open fast enough, you want to slam it into the wall.
Post 2003. The bloodbath that was the โdot com bubbleโ was still fresh in everyoneโs minds, and this madman, Jeff Bezos, whose company lost over 90% of its value during the crash comes out to talk about how the internet is the network that will change the world.
Iโve shared this video around numerous timesโโโand will continue to do so, because you could literally replace the word โinternetโ with โBitcoinโ and it would sound as if it was recorded in late 2018 / 2019.
Barely 2yrs after Jeffโs seminal TED talk, 2 punk kids talk about some random โmatch makingโ websites theyโve built.
This is a few years after the crash, so the economic recovery is in full swing; but these concepts were considered fringe, strange and โfor the fewโ.
Nut jobs. All of them.
But guess whatโฆ.
โฆHad you invested in Facebook just 5yrs ago around the time of itโs IPO, youโd be up 1000%. Had you invested in FB at the time of the video above (not that you could, unless youโre Peter Thiel), youโd probably be up in >100,000%.
How about Amazon in 2003?
Your $1000 would be worth > $7.5m
And the internet?
If you could own a โchunkโ of it, what would that be worth?
How much productivity, innovation & sheer economic value do you think has been created since the broader public adoption of the internet?
I donโt even know if itโs quantifiable.
One example I use is the idea of having bought domain names in the early 1990โs and sitting on them as โdigital propertyโ. Mostย .com domains would be worth orders of magnitude more today, than they were 20โ30yrs ago.
And even soโโโthat would only represent a minuscule fraction of the real economic value of the internet.
Although you couldnโt really own any of the internet directly, you could get exposure to it via the Facebookโs and Amazonโs of the world, and the myriad other ways people have taken advantage of this new, digital, interconnected, networked world we live in.
So whatโs the point in all of this?
The internet was an outlier. It was an asymmetric bet that returned BIG TIME, coming from the fringes, against all odds.
Bitcoin is very similar, although this time; you can actually acquire your very own, self sovereign โchunkโ of the networkโโโand own it; directly.
Please note though: I am not making a comparison between Bitcoin & the internet in terms of their utility, function or technology. Theyโre very different in that sense. What I am drawing a connection to is the following:
a) Theyโre both communication networks.
b) Theyโre both once-in-a-generation fringe, outlier bets with incredible, asymmetric upside.
This is what counts, and this is why 10โ20yrs from now thereโs a high probability you will be writing one of two letters back to your younger self:
Asymmetry like this only comes around a one, two or maybe three times per a generationโโโalthough itโs likely that itโs been accelerating in the last 30โ40yrs due to tech.
In any case, Iโm personally 31, and was a little too young to be a part of the internet in the early days, and too pre-occupied to be a meaningful part of the more recent โmobile internetโ subset.
ButโฆMillennials, and those who are coming up now are prime to be leaders in this new, fringe field.
I know that if it all falls to pieces, it was just part of the process, and very much worth the attemptโโโbut if it succeeds and turns into a โbig dealโ, then itโs going to be [one of] the most asymmetrical bet of my lifetime.
The alternative, ie; having know about it and not got involved, is not a regret I wish to carry with me into my later years.
Which brings to me why I coined this blog; Bezos & Bitcoin.
When asked why he chose to leave his secure, high-paying job on Wall St to pursue some random โonline bookstoreโ on this weird thing called the internetโโโJeff Bezos refers to his RMF, or โregret minimization frameworkโ.
In Bezosโs own words:
I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldnโt regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried.
Or if you prefer a quick 3min clip:
Most regrets are a result of omission, ie; โnot being involvedโ, as opposed to commission, ie; having done something.
Sage words, from a man who came from nothing, changed the world & became the wealthiest individualโฆ in history.
Soโฆ..
Whilst Iโm well aware of the implicit bias, being the founder of a Bitcoin exchange, the reason we built Amber is because we believe everyone in the world should own some Bitcoin. Period.
And it doesnโt have to be much.
It doesnโt have to be your life savings. It shouldnโt be overly complex, and you should be able to leverage technology to automate the process.
By helping you dollar cost average into Bitcoin, with your spare change, the money you donโt notice could one day either:
For Christmas, I set my mum, younger sister and a few other relatives up on Amber + gave them each $500 worth of Bitcoin to get started, on the proviso they donโt touch it for the next 3yrs.
My sister, in particular was salty:
โWhy did you give me this? What the hell am I going to do with Bitcoin?โ
I replied:
โI wish I had a big brother who bought me some โuselessโ Amazon stock 14yrs ago and told me to just forget about it, or better yet put $50 into it every week ever sinceโ.
And this is the overarching message here people!
If youโre reading this, donโt make the mistake of dismissing Bitcoin as a passing fad, reserved for the weirdoโs on the fringeโโโfor that fringe may well become the centerpiece & leave you looking in from the outside.
The price of a small option now, expiring worthless in the future is far less than the cost of regret in the future for having not followed through and taken a small chance.
Buy some Bitcoin; wether with Amber or some other application out there.
Set it aside, donโt touch it (unless you need to), buy more when and as you can, automate that last part with a tool like Amber, and enjoy the ride.
The next 20yrs are going to be unlike anything weโve ever seen.
I hope you got some value out of this. Itโs a message myself & all the team @ Amber strongly believe in.
Wishing you all an amazing, prosperous new chapter ahead in 2019.
If you enjoyed this post, please show it some love, give it a clap (or a few) and pass it around to anyone you think should have a read.
Aleks
CEO & Co-Founder @ Amber Labs
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