9: Jacob Horne - Markets for What Matters

Jacob Horne (Website, Zora, X, Farcaster), is co-founder and CEO of Zora, a platform that allows the tokenization of media.Jacob started his career at Coinbase where he was a product lead and helped create USDC. Five years ago, he left to wade deeper into the waters of internet and crypto-native coordination and creativity and co-founded Zora.His central interest is how people coordinate together using the internet—the includes currencies, markets, ownership, art, speculation, and memes. We discuss how memes and symbols enable coordination, "The Meme and the Memo," words, money, and laws, Zora's premise built on Stewart Brand's "information wants to be free but it also wants to be expensive," a case for markets around attention, the new version of Zora and "a coin for every piece of content," speculation vs. gambling, token-powered brands, Ethereum and Solana, Coinbase and USDC, and a wide-ranging personal section that showcases why Jacob is so generative.The parting prompt I hope this conversation leaves all of us with is this: while information is ~free today (and also abundant, infinite), it is also quite expensive to consume in terms of time. We ought to think carefully about what content we spend our precious time consuming and rewarding. That you would spend some of yours listening to Dialectic is as always a privilege and I hope you find it worthwhile.Timestamps (3:03): Obsession with Memes: How do you get people to organize? (8:46): The Meme and the Memo via Balaji Srinivasan (11:32): Three Fundamental Questions: Words, Money, Laws (12:39): The Midwit Meme and other Favorites (15:55): What makes media and information valuable? (19:26): Zora, Tokenized Media, and Information wants to be Free and Expensive (22:53): Provenance (28:30): Why Do We Want Markets for Attention?Deeper Crypto Section (37:08): A coin for every piece of content: prediction markets on attention (42:49): Investing in People or “Creator” / “Social”Tokens (44:14): Not fighting internet gravity: NFTs, “utillity,” 1 of 1s, and skeumorphic ideas along the way (47:52): Speaking to potential concerns and incentivizing more durable and useful information (52:23): Speculation vs. Gambling: positive sum vs. zero-sum (56:00): AI: Market Data as an input for for Models (58:56): Speculating on how a future of AI and attention markets will be good for creatives (1:04:50): Small market cap content can still be meaningful (1:08:11): Crypto-optimism and regulation (1:13:52): Saint Fame, Nouns, and Ideas for Future Token-Coordinated Orgs (1:22:32): Reflecting on “Hyperstructures” (1:28:55): Jacob's shift toward market-oriented thinking for solving coordination problems (1:30:40): Ethereum, Solana, and Blockchain CompetitionCoinbase (1:36:23): The Coinbase Internship that Never Ended (1:40:49): Starting USDC (1:49:14): Bloomberg Terminal's DesignGeneral Jacob (1:50:09): Bezos and adoption of technology (1:52:47): Tokenized Identity (1:55:41): Matt Dryhurst and Holly Herndon and Bridging Art and Technology (1:58:43): What idea has the world not come around on yet? (2:00:12): What are the aesthetics of Jacob's AI model? (2:04:20): The FAFO Zone and Local Maximums (2:11:03): The alternate reality where Jacob didn't discovery Bitcoin (2:14:54): Cultural and Artistic Inspirations (2:17:55): Patronus Problems (2:20:44): Australians and Americans (2:23:42): Jacob's Favorite Ideas (2:28:27): Lessons for Jacob's kids about creativityLinks: "Meme Structure" Midwit Meme What is Cryptomedia? Jacob's Mints on Zora Mintellectual Property Onchain Predictions AI+ Saint Fame Nouns Hyperstructures Stewart Brand Pace Layers Tokenized Identity Tweet Herndon Dryhurst Jacob's Horse image meme "The FAFO Zone" Patronus Problems Earth is becoming sentient — Steph Ango Steve Jobs on agencyDialectic is available on all platforms.Join the ⁠telegram channel⁠Follow ⁠on Twitter⁠Follow on InstagramSubscribe on YouTube

14: Alex Zhang - Curating Cultural Playgrounds

Alex Zhang (https://www.alexzhang.world/) is a cultural curator, community builder, and creative director. Currently, he's Chief Creative Officer of Powder Mountain (https://powdermountain.com/), a where he's working with Reed Hastings to create a globally unique ski experience that combines art, architecture, and lots of fresh tracks. Alex loves people and curating spaces and experiences for them: whether that means parties, music festivals, or mountain towns. He joined Summit Series out of school, throwing large scale events around the world and working on Powder Mountain, a Utah mountain resort the ownership group had acquired. He then joined one of the first social DAOs, Friends with Benefits (FWB) as Mayor/CEO, after being tapped by its founder Trevor McFredries to scale the tokenized social club beyond a Discord Server. He launched FWB Fest, an annual in-person music festival and crypto conference with past performers including James Blake, Charli XCX, and Caroline Polachek. Most recently, he joined Reed Hastings to return to Powder Mountain after [the Netflix co-founder acquired a controlling stake in the resort. Alex leads brand, art, architecture, and marketing. Blending culture, commerce, and "cool" is anything but a science, but Alex has made a career of it. I've known him for a decade and it's been a thrill to watch him continue to find strange intersections, blending worlds like music and tech, crypto and culture, and skiing and art. We talk about this, how to create spaces and events, living in the mountains, large scale art experiences, Christopher Alexander and Jane Jacobs, challenges in creating new cities, learning from Reed Hastings, and a life of deepening one's taste. I hope you enjoy and are inspired to life a more connected, playful, and present life. --- This episode is brought to you by Hampton, a private, highly vetted membership for founders. Hampton makes entrepreneurship less lonely by matching you with a core group of likeminded founders along with community, events, retreats, and more. Visit to learn more and apply: http://joinhampton.com --- Timestamps: - (0:05): Hampton: Dialectic's First Partner - (4:09): Commerce & Culture, Patronage, and Constraints - (12:17): Curating People, Spaces, and Art: "Host Energy" - (19:44): How to Throw a Party or Start a Scene - (27:05): Unlikely Intersections and Authentic Marketing - (35:36): Returning to Powder and Building a Unique Mountain Resort - (42:31): Utah and Mountain Living - (47:27): Randomness & Emergence: Christopher Alexander, Jane Jacobs, and Cities - (52:24): Creating a Digital Feeling of Place - (55:15): Network States and New Cities - (1:00:42): "Community" - (1:08:27): Organic Leadership Opportunities, Partnership, and Trust - (1:15:12): Focused Leadership and The Power of Memetic Language - (1:20:02): Learning from Reed Hastings as a Leader - (1:29:09): Getting into Rooms and Finding Serendipity - (1:32:58): Playfulness and Elon - (1:36:25): Intuition and Career Decisions - (1:39:10): Curating Music and a Life Goal of Refining Taste - (1:42:56): Music's Role in Creating Great Spaces - (1:44:08): Photography - (1:46:02): Beginning, Learning to Ski and Scuba - (1:48:10): Improving Los Angeles and What Makes it Special Links - Powder Mountain: https://powdermountain.com/ - Friends With Benefits: https://www.fwb.help/ - Summit Series: https://summit.co/ - How Music Works by David Byrne: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13235689-how-music-works - Studio 54 (2018): https://letterboxd.com/film/studio-54/ - Storm King Art Center: https://stormking.org/ - Naoshima Island: https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/220/ - Marfa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa,\_Texas - "The world is a museum of passion projects": https://x.com/collision/status/1529452415346302976 - Roden Crater: https://rodencrater.com/ - Christopher Alexander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher\_Alexander - Jane Jacobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane\_Jacobs - The Network State: https://thenetworkstate.com/ - Edge City: https://www.edgecity.live/ - Edge Esmeralda: https://www.edgeesmeralda.com/ - WSA, a Manhattan Office Tower, Becomes an Unlikely ‘It’ Building: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/style/wsa-building.html - Remedy Place: https://www.remedyplace.com/ - WAREHOUSE: https://warehousemotorclub.com/ - Was That a James Turrell I Just Skied By?: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/16/arts/design/reed-hastings-art-park.html) Dialectic with Jackson Dahl is available on all podcast platforms. Join the ⁠telegram channel for Dialectic⁠: https://t.me/dialecticpod Twitter / X⁠: https://x.com/dialecticpod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dialecticpod/ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/40Po3pM Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4hpS4U7

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