When I watched HBO’s Silicon Valley for the first time in 2014, the show’s premise left me with a strange feeling — something just hit too close to home. They continue to nail the portrayal of the startup scene and it’s extremes; the good and the bad. I’m sure I’m not the only one who likes the show for its mixture of humor, familiarity, awkwardness, and the occasional feeling of discomfort. I appreciate the variety of characters and plot twists consistently challenging the audience.
The recurring theme in the show’s storyline that keeps standing out is main protagonist’s, Richard Hendricks, struggle to pursue his ambitious mission of building a decentralized version of the internet. He claims he’s developed the compression algorithm that — for the first time ever — would make such an endeavor possible.
Silicon Valley, the show, is of course a creation of fiction, but I believe Richard’s mission, at its core is more relevant and important now than ever before. Between severe privacy violations committed by Cambridge Analytica — enabled by Facebook’s neglect of people’s privacy, the continuous aggregation of e-commerce marketplaces (Google, Linkedin, Salesforce, etc), the overall decline of the industrial advertising complex, and privacy-bending micro-targeting — people have really found themselves with a lack of alternatives. It appears that somewhere along the way we’ve become lost in our consumption, and have turned into the product. We have unknowingly traded away our freedom for the convenience of “free” internet services. Meanwhile, the internet giants’ continue rapidly growing their walled gardens, solidifying their control as the ultimate intermediaries of our every transaction, furthering their economic monopolies.
I’m a big proponent of the virtues of the internet: How it connects people, allows knowledge to be broadly accessible, and all the innovation and business efficiencies that come with it. However, I believe that the convenience of requesting rides from your smartphone app, driving traffic to your web shop through AdWords, or acquiring customers through sponsored Instagram stories, have come with the hidden fees of an increasingly monopolized internet economy. Needless to say, the FCC’s most recent ruling to overturn Net Neutrality is a misguided step framed as an attempt to break up this monopolized digital economy in favor of its consumers.
Funnily enough, Richard Hendricks’ compression algorithm in Silicon Valley is what Distributed Ledger / Blockchain Technology actually offers to the real world today. People preach from the rooftops how Bitcoin can liberate the world from big banking interests, unfavorable monetary policy, government overreach, increase accountability in elections, and the removal of greedy middlemen from everyday transactions in payments. However, to unlock Blockchain’s value, we need to start looking past the currently overhyped and distracting crypto assets / ICO craze and focus on the short-term scope and potential of decentralized applications beyond speculation. I truly believe Blockchain can level the landscape for all participants in digital trade & commerce. It’s time to enable market participants to reclaim and decentralize ownership of the marketplaces they have grown so dependent on, without sacrificing the global, low friction access to the services of which we have become accustomed. Blockchain technology provides a reliable baseline for honest business transactions through transparent and tamper-proof record keeping, it’s the internet’s next logical evolution, and it’s time for Web 3.0.
There’s a lot more to be done to evolve technology and industry, to cross the chasm and fully embrace the potential of a Blockchain powered digital economy. After having spent the better part of the last year exploring the Blockchain landscape, I am determined to pursue my vision and create a company dedicated to the mission of privacy and freedom through decentralization — We’re calling it Dapphero. If you are curious to learn how we plan to accomplish this, get in touch! We are looking for amazing people to join Dapphero’s team and the right investors to help us achieve our mission.
