On humility, learning, and the process for building great products
There’s no denying that some of the ideas behind Ripe are quite radical: Earn yield on everything. Sounds like buzzwordy marketing speak. Sounds distant from reality — and perhaps it is. Perhaps we are delusional… our imagination has run amok.
But what if it were possible? What impact could this have on people all over the world? What new economic opportunities could open up? What small business could this help? What education could this fund? What home could this buy? What dream could this unlock?
The potential impact is hard to ignore. That mission is what fuels us. It’s why I personally will pursue this mission with relentless vigor until the very end. Because I can see this future right in front of us. I can feel and touch it in the smart contracts I write. It’s the promise and potential of programmable money.
But I know this won’t be easy. Nothing of great value is. We need all the help we can get. We are not so naive to think we can figure all of this out all on our own.
Jam Sessions
So on our way to Devcon Bogota a little over two weeks ago, we reached out to all the biggest brains we knew in the industry. We wanted to find a time to meet so they could poke holes at our mechanism design and help us refine our thinking. Ripe’s development had reached a point where it made sense to start talking more openly and getting feedback.
We pulled out whiteboards and got straight to “Jam Session” mode. We were often huddled 2 or 3 deep around the whiteboard, sketching out ideas, circling areas to go deeper on, and double-clicking into concepts. Sometimes the room went silent as we grappled with a thorny issue, or jubilant as we tried out a new idea. It was wonderful.
The live jam sessions in Bogota quickly transitioned into virtual jam sessions over Zoom all last week. We were doing meetings at all hours of the day to accommodate the many time zones. And then earlier this week, we resumed the in-person jam sessions in Vegas at Money2020 (stress-testing our ideas with TradFi/fintech people).
The last two weeks have been a blur. It’s been exhausting… but exhilarating.
Our team has been like a sponge… soaking up every ounce of wisdom and learning we can possibly absorb. Many people have been willing to share their time and insights with us. We are grateful. 🙏
Always Learning
Beyond the academic and theoretical, we don’t know exactly how the system will behave once it goes live. Some economic assumptions might not work as expected. Some monetary policy levers might not make the impact we hope. I‘m not gonna pretend like we have everything exactly figured out… that all the problems are solved.
We’ve been building tech products long enough to know that getting a product exactly right on the first go is extremely rare. A direct bullseye after throwing the first dart is not a realistic expectation anyone should have. It’s hard enough to build a product that people want. A web3 protocol? Even harder (higher stakes, adversarial environment, immutable smart contracts, new technology, etc).
And that’s okay. That’s not something that scares us. We expect this. We’re used to it.
Ripe will take time to get right. It will take a lot of iteration, experimentation, evolution, and learning. It will take moments of failure and setback along the way (hopefully minor). This is also why we will slowly open up Ripe — first with a small beta allowlist, and gradually letting in more people and money as we prove out assumptions.
The faster we can go through learning cycles, the faster we can reach our goals. And the faster we can change the world.
So at this point, there is no point in hiding. We cannot be afraid of skepticism, questions, or scrutiny. We must embrace and welcome any and all of it. In a world of open source code and permissionless smart contracts, there is nowhere to run. The Ripe protocol will win because of strong mechanism design and sound fundamentals, not because of persuasive Medium posts, memes, or theory. One cannot pretend in web3. One cannot “fake it until you make it.” The protocol must ultimately stand on its own and speak for itself. Either it withstands the monsters of the dark forest, or it gets eaten by them.
So as for us… we will continue to meet all the biggest brains we can find. Difficult questions and hole-poking is something we appreciate. That’s how Ripe gets stronger. That’s how Ripe becomes more resilient.
We will seek learning, clarity, and progress in all the places we can find it. We will stay curious. We will stay hungry. And we will stay humble. I believe that’s how great products (and protocols) are built. But perhaps more importantly, for a protocol as ambitious and important as this… we need all the help we can get. You in? DM me on twitter if you’re a big brain and want to dig in.
~ Dre
