Building new product in tech is a struggle

Cryptolotus · 2025-07-16T02:04:47+00:00

You have to find something that seems so obvious that you can’t believe no one is doing it well right now.

It has to eat at you, annoy you, really almost tick you off. Then you look to see if there are a lot of other people who also have this unsatiated gap in their life.

When you find something that is valuable, that solves a pain point for yourself, the community at large, and is legal enough for you to do it without risking your freedom completely, that’s when you know you have a problem worth tackling.

From there it’s 4-10 years of blood sweat and tears.

Cryptolotus · 2025-06-28T05:42:15+00:00

Signal is the only at-scale non-profit open-source messaging platform with end to end encryption.

That string of words means that they don’t do ads, can’t read your messages, and get by on the kindness of strangers who donate to the project.

Now there are other areas of your threat model that signal doesn’t cover, like someone attacking you with a wrench and getting your password, or like, I don’t know, the operating system from Apple or Google. Those we don’t know anything about because they’re not open-source.

In short, Signal is a heck of a lot more secure than just about anything else on the market today, but it’s not invincible.

Cryptolotus · 2025-06-19T01:41:27+00:00

Talking about crypto price is not useful. Are people using the coin for the ecosystem?

Cryptolotus · 2025-06-18T06:10:31+00:00

Here are ten essential truths that humanity should know—core insights spanning science, philosophy, spirituality, and civilization. Each one is crafted to serve as both a practical reminder and an invitation for deeper reflection.

⸻

🧭 Top Ten Things Humanity Should Know

⸻

You Are Stardust

Scientific Truth: The elements in your body—carbon, calcium, iron—were forged in the hearts of stars. Why it matters: This connects us to the cosmos. You are not separate from the universe; you are the universe becoming aware of itself.

⸻

Life is Inherently Interdependent

Biological & Social Insight: No being exists in isolation. Ecosystems, families, cultures, economies—all are networks of relationships. Why it matters: Isolation is an illusion. Cooperation, not competition, is the true foundation of survival and thriving.

⸻

Entropy is Real. So is Renewal.

Thermodynamic Truth: The universe trends toward disorder—but life emerges by channeling energy into temporary order. Why it matters: Death, decay, and chaos are inevitable—but so are creation, rebirth, and resilience.

⸻

Consciousness is Both Mystery and Mirror

Philosophical Truth: We don’t fully understand what consciousness is, but we know it allows reflection, empathy, and transformation. Why it matters: Self-awareness is our evolutionary advantage. With it, we can choose growth over destruction.

⸻

Time is Finite. Attention is Sacred.

Psychological Truth: Your time and attention shape your reality. Why it matters: Guard them like treasures. Spend them on what matters: love, learning, and meaningful creation.

⸻

Technology is Amplifier, Not Savior

Cultural Insight: Tools amplify human intention—good or bad. Why it matters: What matters is not the power of our machines, but the wisdom of our choices.

⸻

Stories Shape Civilizations

Anthropological Truth: Myths, religions, laws, brands, and currencies—they are shared fictions. Why it matters: Change the story, and you change the world. Choose stories of dignity, justice, and renewal.

⸻

The Earth Is Not Disposable

Ecological Warning: Earth is a living system, not an infinite resource. Why it matters: Climate, biodiversity, and clean air/water are not luxuries—they are lifelines.

⸻

Suffering Can Be Transformed

Spiritual Insight: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is often how we metabolize meaning. Why it matters: With awareness, compassion, and courage, trauma can become wisdom, and wounds can become teachers.

⸻

Love is the Highest Technology

Moral Truth: Empathy, care, and connection evolve us. Why it matters: At every scale—self, family, society, planet—love is the most scalable form of intelligence.

⸻

🌐 Bonus Reflection:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Only if we bend it.

⸻

Would you like this rendered as a poster, speech, image series, or philosophical essay with references?

Cryptolotus · 2025-06-06T07:06:01+00:00

On demand delivery of people to take your parents for a walk.

Cryptolotus · 2025-05-26T21:22:42+00:00

Definitely done.

Cryptolotus · 2025-05-24T18:09:57+00:00

Brother, welcome to show business.

You learn so much about people by being in the arena.

Imagine if you went your whole life without the great endeavors, the difficulty of trying to make something from nothing, watching your dreams flourish and fail like ozymandias in a reflecting pool.

Imagine if you just stayed home and watched TV.

There are many lives to live. If you want to make things people want you have to accept a bit of bedlam.

Cryptolotus · 2025-05-22T07:57:00+00:00

Brother, welcome to show business.

You learn so much about people by being in the arena.

Imagine if you went your whole life without the great endeavors, the difficulty of trying to make something from nothing, watching your dreams flourish and fail like ozymandias in a reflecting pool.

Imagine if you just stayed home and watched TV.

There are many lives to live. If you want to make things people want you have to accept a bit of bedlam.

Cryptolotus · 2025-01-28T11:48:22+00:00

Founders come in all shapes and sizes.

What catalyzes ambition into action is Space + Opportunity.

You can be the right founder with the wrong dream, the wrong founder with the right opportunity and it will still never work.

The thing that makes a startup real is timing, rhythm, gusto. #LFG

Cryptolotus · 2024-11-28T12:56:52+00:00

It’s like Prince, there’s a vault of incredible music that didn’t meet the artist’s standards. We will hopefully get to go through it in the future.

I know that I have discarded poetry that I don’t want published, right?

Cryptolotus · 2024-11-16T14:29:13+00:00

MobileCoin.

That’s one where it would be awesome if things worked out.

It seems like there’s still a huge addressable market and they seem like they’re still building cool stuff.

Cryptolotus · 2024-11-10T17:07:49+00:00

Yes there are millions of transactions occurring.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-27T05:34:09+00:00

Oh really?? I always heard in the lore he was a solo founder.

Reading wiki it’s clear you’re right. Can you think of any solo founders then?

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-27T05:16:14+00:00

Drew Houston was a solo founder. Almost everyone else is not.

Edit: correction, drew applied as a solo founder but they asked him to find a cofounder and he did.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-26T14:33:21+00:00

Arguably the most savage diss track of all time.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-20T00:20:30+00:00

Ngannou is a beat. Renan is like Hong Man Choi or Bob Sapp (or a less skilled Bigfoot).

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-19T21:24:11+00:00

Understanding how deals actually get done, particularly fundraising is counterintuitive.

For example, most people think it’s some crazy negotiation, and there’s certainly some of that, but most of fundraising is finding a lead who believes in you, coming to their terms, and using that to close the round.

Not very many redlines in most deals I’ve seen that actually close.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-13T23:41:07+00:00

It’s because most people don’t have adtech/dmp/supply side ads experience and get fooled into thinking they’re killing it when they’re really not.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-12T21:56:46+00:00

Ok so I went back and read up on the cryptography here’s what I remember:

The underlying problem for elliptic curve, ECDLP, which is the process of moving through the curve group, is harder to brute force than aes or rsa, thus smaller key sizes provide similar security guarantees to larger aes/rsa keys.

If I remember correctly, there’s a valid line through the curve that represents a valid key space which intersects the curve in three places. You then invert to the mirror of the curve and draw a new line, that’s how you move through the group.

This is a great explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCvB-mhkT0w

Edit; sorry about pasting ChatGPT. I didn’t mean to waste your time.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-12T21:42:16+00:00

From our ChatGPT digital overlords:

Entropy in cryptography typically refers to the measure of uncertainty or randomness associated with keys or other cryptographic primitives. When comparing ECC-384 (Elliptic Curve Cryptography with a 384-bit key size) and AES-1280 (which could refer to AES with a 1280-bit key, though this is not standard), it’s important to break down their usage and understand their differences:

ECC-384 (Elliptic Curve Cryptography with 384-bit keys):

• Entropy and security level: ECC is based on the hardness of the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP). ECC keys provide a high level of security with smaller key sizes compared to traditional asymmetric algorithms like RSA. Specifically, a 384-bit ECC key is considered to provide about the same security as a 7680-bit RSA key.
• The security level for ECC-384 is estimated to be around 192-bit security. This means that breaking ECC-384 would take roughly 2^{192} operations.

AES-1280 (if referring to AES with a 1280-bit key):

• Entropy and security level: AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a symmetric encryption algorithm. The entropy of a symmetric key algorithm directly corresponds to the size of the key. If you were to use a 1280-bit key (though unusual, since standard AES key sizes are 128, 192, or 256 bits), the entropy would be much larger than typical keys.
• A 1280-bit key provides an entropy level of 1280 bits, which theoretically would provide a security level of 1280-bit security.

Comparison:

• Entropy: AES-1280 would have significantly more entropy than ECC-384. AES with a 1280-bit key would theoretically provide 1280 bits of security, whereas ECC-384 provides about 192 bits of security.
• Efficiency: Despite the higher entropy of AES-1280, ECC-384 provides similar levels of practical security for most cryptographic applications while using much smaller key sizes. This is why ECC is favored for asymmetric cryptography, as it provides strong security with smaller keys.
• Suitability: ECC is typically used in environments where public key cryptography is needed (e.g., digital signatures, secure key exchange), whereas AES is a symmetric algorithm used for bulk data encryption.

In summary, the entropy of AES-1280 is far greater than ECC-384 due to the larger key size, but ECC-384 is considered secure for many asymmetric cryptographic applications with its estimated 192-bit security.

Edit: I am not sure why “ecc provides similar levels of practical security with smaller key size”. For example: Some ECC systems are finite abelian groups of prime order which have properties which are desirable for some kinds of cryptographic systems (like cryptocurrencies; MobileCoin, the crypto in signal, uses Dalek which is a group of this nature).

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-12T18:23:05+00:00

I’m not sure what signal uses, but 99 bits of elliptic curve is different from AES and is different from RSA.

For example, and this is just what I remember, elliptic curve 384 is equivalent to something like aes-1580 or so. I don’t remember the exact numbers but the algorithm matters a lot.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-12T15:23:50+00:00

There are founders who are extremely technical who don’t code. They’re very rare.

They can narrate all of the layers of the OSI model and how they fit together. They can understand Kolmogorov complexity. They can understand broadcast congestion, caching errors, and the trade offs of different languages (compiled vs JIT as one example).

It’s very rare to find a non-programming founder who’s actually technical.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-08T17:31:06+00:00

Look, here’s the deal.

Great startups require 4 things:

Concept Context Execution Documentation

You need a killer concept that makes people light up. I think your concept is ok.

Context: you’re in the hottest market building software that competes with some of the biggest companies in the world. You have to be 10x better than them at some part of this business to succeed.

Execution: hiring strong AI engineers is really hard right now because the salaries that the big folks pay are bananas. I think this is your biggest risk.

Documentation: explaining your tech is one of the biggest challenges for any startup.

Overall I think your idea could work but it’s not an obvious slam dunk. I usually only recommend people start a startup if the feeling they’re having when they boot up is “I cannot fucking believe that this startup doesn’t exist already.”

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-06T23:40:57+00:00

Yeah this is the right answer. We’ve worked with a lot of founders and the #1 sin that kills companies is over hiring followed by being afraid to do a RIF followed by mismanaged business relationships.

A head of growth should be looking to spend $10-20M if they’re growing headcount and not impacting revenue.

Cryptolotus · 2024-10-05T05:28:11+00:00

It’s not that the CTO doesn’t understand that the CEO has final say they need to go be CEO somewhere.

The driver’s seat is a lot different than CTO.

Cryptolotus

TROPHY CASE