They say that game developers know more about human nature than psychologists, but gamers themselves are a close second if we can look at why we enjoy certain games over others.My guest this week is Sam Simmons, Co-Founder at Mintpass: a collecting experience that makes your travels a part of your digital identity. Previously he spent 9 years rising up to become the President at PokerGo, a world-leader in poker television. But his resume started where a lot of web3 builders start: MMOs. In this episode we hear about stories from Sam’s years spent around the highest level players in poker, reverse engineering WoW and other MMOs and why they’re so addictive, and gut check the difference between fandom and community (sneak peak: most web3 “communities” are more like fan bases). People listening: I hope you enjoy this long overdue episode.Making the best decisions with the information you have. Not outcomes based.Thinking in Bets - Annie Duke “Resulting”Variance and volume in poker win out: https://www.888poker.com/magazine/strategy/understanding-poker-variance-will-help-you-cope-downswings Quote: Game developers know more about psychology than psychologists.Gamification done right: Attainable but challengingHaving different ways to do things wellYu Kai Chou - Actionable Gamification: https://www.amazon.com/Actionable-Gamification-Beyond-Points-Leaderboards-ebook/dp/B00WAOGY4U 8 things that drive us to do what we doHigher purpose - Narrative around why you should do somethingWhite hat vs black hat - Some tactics make you feel good, others bad.Thinking in Bets - Annie Duke:https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Bets-Making-Smarter-Decisions/dp/0735216355https://www.quantifiedstrategies.com/annie-duke-thinking-in-bets/#:~:text=We%20judge%20the%20quality%20of,book%20called%20Thinking%20In%20Bets. Every hand revealed - Gus Hansen: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Hand-Revealed-Gus-Hansen/dp/0818407271 Zero to One - Peter Thiel: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 Stoicism - Ryan Holiday - Daily Stoic: https://ryanholiday.net/ The Messy Middle - Scott Belsky: https://www.amazon.com/Messy-Middle-Finding-Through-Hardest/dp/0735218072 Atomic Habits - James Clear: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299 Every action you take each day is a vote for the person you want to be.

Ever heard of social contract theory? If not, you have almost certainly heard the quote “...the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” That’s from our favorite optimist Thomas Hobbes, the father of modern social contract theory. Followed by other prominent figures like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this trifecta formed a lot of modern humanity’s opinions on human nature. And when you’re working in a field that is fundamentally using technology to create better coordination structures, human nature is kind of a prerequisite.Jon Hillis is co-founder of Creator Cabins, which provides coliving neighborhoods in nature for creators and remote workers. He’s become known as a resident expert on social contract theory in web3 and you can see his applications of that theory in the way he and his community design their neighborhoods.We cover everything from stories of working through the chaos of COVID to new theories of human nature. It’s a doozy. Hope you have as much fun listening as we did talking. Enjoy!Jon’s twitter: https://twitter.com/JonathanHillis Jon’s Mirror: https://jon.mirror.xyz/ A Brief History of Decentralized Cities: https://jon.mirror.xyz/Kf1tgUOcav-33CZNheL5_griDe5URu3KnQDD6qf52v0 The Blockchain Leviathan: https://jon.mirror.xyz/Ur0cBdyFxoOWEyzx_ZVc8hBwTMDLprXYdXNQxKE2v14 Social Contract Theory overview with synopsis from major thinkers: https://iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/ The Dawn of Everything: https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/dp/0374157359 Jane Jacobs - Catal Huyuk:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2427.12138 Nebelivka site: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-urban-megasites-may-reshape-history-first-cities Uruk - Standardization of measurements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Mesopotamian_units_of_measurement Teotihuacan - Mexico: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan Houdenosawni - Iriquoi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois Seeing like a State: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/20186

Ever heard of GPT? Obviously. But this episode isn’t covering the basics. Francesco Bisardi has been in small web3 and AI circles since 2017 working for Vite Labs, Nonfiction, TechCrunch and most recently at Bitgo. He’s been coding since he was 9 and brings that background to his work in growth hacking and influences the way he approaches his interests in AI. In this episode we discuss a lot of similarities he sees between the early AI and web3 communities, alpha on how to practically use AI today for business and pleasure, alpha on high-signal people to follow in AI, and how AI is somehow even faster paced than the most recent web3 bull market. Oh, and he is also an Italian National powerlifting champion. NBD. This is a well-rounded guy, the type of guest I love to have on the show. Enjoy!Francesco’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Francesco_Bis AutoGPT - Copy the stable version, not the master - https://github.com/Significant-Gravitas/Auto-GPT Godmode - https://godmode.space/?ref=futuretools.io AgentGPT - https://agentgpt.reworkd.ai/ Aitrepreneur - https://www.youtube.com/@AitrepreneurThere’s an AI for That - https://theresanaiforthat.com/ Format your own data to train an AI model: https://kanaries.net/home Guidance for keeping up: Follow certain people and projects on Github and see what people are talking about.

Hey People Listening, did you get your first foray into social media learning CSS and HTML to personalize your Myspace page? Do you doom scroll Twitter? Do you wonder about the elements of social media and which are good and bad?This week I have Lou Kerner on the show, who is both a social media and web3 veteran, to dig into social networks and community. Starting with his early days of helping run Bolt, an early social network started in 1996, he walks us through his love of community and how the new tools in web3 can help us create digital-native communities.Enjoy!Lou Kerner’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/loukerner CryptoOracle Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoOracleDAO Bolt Social Platform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_(website) Charles Eisenstein Sacred Economics: https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Economics-Money-Society-Transition/dp/1583943978

Jim Chang (0xJim) is known on Twitter for his DeFi wizardry, incubating projects through Aave’s experimental arm, and hilarious but dense research on things like interoperability and rollups as a service. But in this episode we dive into 2 of his loves: Backpacking and Fashion. What relation do these things have to web3? What relation do they have to each other (hint: convertible pants)?A sneak peak at what we cover in this episode:How does backpacking prepare you for product launches?Why should you backpack even though you’ll be exhausted and sleep like shit?How is the Steve Jobs style of fashion like atheism?What is Gorpcore and why do so many adopters of this fashion trend like tiny coffees?We had a lot of good laughs in this one. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.Jim’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/0xJim Kara Korum Highway: https://www.google.com/search?q=karakoram+highway&biw=2048&bih=1042&tbm=isch&sxsrf=APwXEdeOGYChpNLasXdxIhWuySpkHaiSpA:1680211013160&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP6djkyYT-AhUjIX0KHdyxCq4Q0pQJegQIBhAE Zhangjiajie: https://www.google.com/search?q=zhangjiajie&sxsrf=APwXEdcYjqEnJktsWzpNZK_YOhVwjS1A-g:1680211548202&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjsm-njy4T-AhWwCTQIHfbDA7oQ0pQJegQIBBAC&biw=2048&bih=1042&dpr=1.25 Gorp core: https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/what-is-gorpcore Kraig Adams - Hiking Blogger, silent hiking videos: https://www.youtube.com/@kraigadams/featured

David Goldberg is the co-founder of Macro which is a web3 security company that does smart contract audits with customers like Synthetix, MakerDAO, Frax, Connext and more. They also are building products for web3 security. Before he dove into web3, he was a software engineer at Salesforce for a few years and founded a few startups. He has synthesized his experience in startups down into guidelines for creating breakthrough ideas which we’ll dive into today.For founders, identifying potential inflection points - major shifts in the world that open up new markets - is the holy grail problem to solve when generating new business ideas. Join us on this deep dive on identifying different types of inflection points and articulating ideas to take advantage of those shifts. Main Topic: How To Generate Breakthrough Ideas starts at 22:50David’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/idavidgoldberg 0xMacro - Smart Contract Auditing: https://0xmacro.com/ John Cleese - Creativity Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g How to build a breakthrough: https://medium.com/@m2jr/how-to-build-a-breakthrough-3071b6415b06

ChatGPT has sparked a lot of new debate over the future of AI and whether it will be a net benefit or net detriment, usually to the extremes that it will either free humanity from the burdens of work so we can focus on our true passions or will kill us all Terminator style. When it comes to web3, how can we direct ourselves towards the former future?This is one of many things nintynick is working on at Hats Protocol. After reminiscing on the leadership skills and trust issues that gaming brought us both in our earlier years, we dive deep into what AI could look like for humanity if designed correctly and how Nick sees AI helping us more effectively delegating authority and responsibility in a meritocratic way. We both had a lot of fun on this one.Enjoy!nintynick’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/nintynick_ Hats Protocol Twitter: https://twitter.com/hatsprotocol Structure Without Capture: https://hats.mirror.xyz/sZjE4zm3jwV9pwUoiqkfbQzabTlWYcdTQqN46iiLkyw Impact Networks: https://www.converge.net/book When Will DAOs Overtake Traditional Orgs? https://mirror.xyz/nintynick.eth/i0PrUOd8_Vc_BUPpDP0xSjiy50DbjCqgfB1i4KO8yRQ Daniel Schmachtenberger: https://civilizationemerging.com/ Jordan Hall: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1UUWfcXYMOSOnv5VRaZ5Lu?si=b728673bc70f40ca Jim Rutt: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZNj2jLFvvEaMzdB4F8V9M?si=17f23a6bffdf49d3 Kevin Owocki - Green Pill: https://open.spotify.com/show/0l6aXWC94dd0RA3tkKfxjd Kevin Owocki - Pluriverse: https://fliphtml5.com/kpnio/fszd Ethereum Whitepaper: https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/

Hey People Listening, have you ever collected Pokemon or Yugioh cards? Did you have as absurd of a Beenie Baby collection as I did? Did you try to justify all of this spending to your parents who reluctantly relinquished hundreds or thousands of dollars for this seemingly pointless stuff? This episode is for you.Humpty Calderon, founder and host of the CryptoSapiens podcast, has always been an avid collector of many things: comic books and manga, action figures, whisky, watches, and of course digital collectibles. In this episode he shares his story of collecting, why he does it, and a glimpse into his factors for what makes something collectible. I don’t think I have to harp too much on why this is relevant to web3.Enjoy!Humpty’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/humptycalderon Crypto Sapiens Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3yS1Y61r0XkogChx12JQ2q Collecting: An Urge That’s Hard to Resist: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mind-collector/202010/collecting-urge-s-hard-resist Teddy Baldassarre Watch YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TeddyBaldassarre The Urban Gentry Watch YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@theurbangentry Watchfinder and Co YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@watchfinder Theo and Harris Watch YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheoandHarris Wristwatch Revival YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@WristwatchRevival Gerald Genta Designer of Nautilus and Royal Oak: https://www.geraldgenta-heritage.com/gerald-genta Tikkon Kinkreet Manga: https://myanimelist.net/manga/442/Tekkon_Kinkreet The Once and Future King - TH White: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43545.The_Once_and_Future_King Reinventing Organizations: : A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness - Frederic Laloux: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20787425-reinventing-organizations SPB143 Seiko Watch: https://www.seikowatches.com/us-en/products/prospex/spb143j1 GS SBGW289: https://www.grand-seiko.com/us-en/collections/sbgw289g Hodinkee: https://www.hodinkee.com/ Goldammer Vintage Watches YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GoldammerVintageWatches

How the hell could music, aliens and native American history have any possible connection to web3? You'd be surprised.Okay actually the Alien conversation was unplanned and had no tie in, but it was still fun.Dougie DeLuca has been an analyst in the Cosmos ecosystem for 3 years now and has been at Figment capital for over a year. Enjoy this wide ranging conversation between making music and how it’s a nice break for your brain from the screen, a quick debate on whether or not aliens have visited earth, and the surprising lessons from distributed communities of Native Americans and what they can teach us about designing our own communities.Dougie’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/DougieDeLuca Figment Capital: https://twitter.com/FigmentCapital Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America: https://www.amazon.com/Indigenous-Continent-Contest-North-America/dp/1631496999 History of Guerilla Warfare in the Adirondacks: https://hamiltoncs.org/forever-wild/military-history/history-of-guerrilla-warfare/ Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern WorldDougie’s Deep Dive Thread of Threads: https://twitter.com/DougieDeLuca/status/1485688448325402624 Mysterious Universe Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2jUIHJh8tpRxk6YLafhswz Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Obol and distributed validator technology: https://obol.tech/ Patrick star, push our validators somewhere else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_pTGhOyPbw Japanese Shintoism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto

Tasafila (Shane) is most well known as the founder of Blockbuster DAO which aimed to buy the Blockbuster IP in late 2021. We talk about his background in filmmaking and investigative journalism (there’s a fun story in this conversation about that) and how that positioned him to harness the power of nostalgia with Blockbuster DAO. Enjoy!Tasafila’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/tasafila R3WIND Twitter: https://twitter.com/R3WINDxyz R3WIND’s Mirror: https://rewind.mirror.xyz/ Baubax Travel Jacket: https://www.baubax.com/ Patterns of brain activity associated with nostalgia: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/17/12/1131/6585517 Nickelodeon Documentary: https://www.hulu.com/movie/the-orange-years-the-nickelodeon-story-05933844-48af-4c75-bb60-7ed497ca4916 Crypt TV: https://crypttv.com/ Screenwriting and Filmmaking book: Robert McCee: Storynomics: https://www.amazon.com/Storynomics-Story-Driven-Marketing-Post-Advertising-World/dp/1538727935 John August, Craig Maison Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ohMdZ91g1sXIYz8ylNgD9 Nicole - Nostalgia podcast: Nicstalgia: https://www.nicoletremaglio.com/nicstalgia Joseph Campbell: Hero With a Thousand Faces: https://www.amazon.com/Hero-with-Thousand-Faces-audiobook/dp/B01BFBXOM8/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw2cWgBhDYARIsALggUhpS-EqJx8xdQFFV6bDdow60ATDCzLI04ezghnsJ-xW0H1reaHifQPQaAncCEALw_wcB&hvadid=409986903515&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9028787&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9887489688688118478&hvtargid=kwd-642118551499&hydadcr=22566_11319577&keywords=the+hero+of+thousand+faces&qid=1678905755&sr=8-1 Baubax Travel Attire: https://www.baubax.com/

In crypto years, Pietro is a long-time friend and former teammate of mine from our college track days. He’s doing amazing things in the space pushing web3 use cases to an area that can hugely benefit but doesn’t get enough coverage because of lack of degen opportunities: Donations in crypto.As the Director of Crypto Partnerships at The Giving Block, Pietro is working directly with thousands of nonprofits to accept crypto donations and improve transparency and reduce transaction fees. If you aren’t currently donating crypto to nonprofits, this episode is for you.Enjoy!Pietro’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/PietroMoran The Giving Block Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheGivingBlock

Steph is a branding wizard and head of media at Seed Club, a DAO and creator accelerator. We cover her life in traditional branding before web3, geek out over the marketing genius of Ryan Reynolds, and dissect the elements of good storytelling to use for your own projects. Hint: Storytelling is a skill and can be learned and applied to more than just Pixar movies.Enjoy!Steph’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptohun3y Seed Club: https://twitter.com/seedclubhq Crucial Conversations: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-Second/dp/1469266822 Ryan Reynolds Aviation Gin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwulM1sTrxc Ryan Reynolds Aviation Gin Peloton Girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayD-4nMnB44 Ryan Reynolds Mint Mobile Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIN2OJKnfg Poolsuite: https://poolsuite.net/ The science of storytelling - Will Storr: https://www.amazon.com/Science-Storytelling-Stories-Human-Better/dp/1419743031 Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott: https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Some-Instructions-Writing-Life/dp/0385480016 The Writing Life - Annie Dillard: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Life-Annie-Dillard/dp/0060919884 Andrew Stanton Ted Talk: The Clues to a Great Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDwieKpawg Cheryl Strayed: https://www.cherylstrayed.com/ Have a guest recommendation? DM me on Twitter @AlexMexicotte

If you don't know who Stefen is, now is a good time. Stefen Deleveaux is the Head of Growth at Govern and President of the Caribbean Blockchain Alliance and one of the first friends I made in web3. Somehow, when you talk to anyone who knows Stefen personally he always comes up as one of their favorite people in the space. It’s hard not to like this guy. Not only is Stefen a great guy, but he’s a respected thinker in web3. He recently spoke at ETH Denver on better DAO contribution tracking (recording pending) and has spoken at many other events. And now his crown jewel of achievements: Guest appearance on People Talking (heh). Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.Twitter: https://twitter.com/stefdelev David Phelps Railroad Hype Twitter post: https://twitter.com/divine_economy/status/1499438477456334854?s=20 Das Kapital - Karl Marx: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith: https://eet.pixel-online.org/files/etranslation/original/The%20Wealth%20of%20Nations.pdfThe Theory of Moral Sentiments: https://www.ibiblio.org/ml/libri/s/SmithA_MoralSentiments_p.pdf

My buddy Christian joins me for the second episode of People Talking. This man is a true gigabrain, and you only need to browse his mirror page for a few seconds to see that. One of his many articles on mirror covers how to use physics to design more interesting metaverses and this coversation is an attempt to explain how to us lowly beings restricted to 3 dimentions. Show notes:Christian's Mirror home page: https://quantum.mirror.xyz/ Multidimentional Metaverses: https://quantum.mirror.xyz/jLwfw14sldqQjp0mjbQ3GgV0JvaOJEbz3thQPMDfUQs

Welcome to the first episode of People Talking, a web3 podcast.Why make another web3 podcast, you ask? I asked myself the same thing after finishing up co-hosting the Forefront podcast over the last year.The problem I see with a lot of web3 podcasts right now is they seem to bring on the same people to the same shows and talk about the same things. While I love a lot of these shows, I found myself getting exhausted by the highly tactical, intense, adderall-induced vibe that a lot of these shows emanate and feeling like I have to have my notes out and finger over the pause button to consume everything. Worst case, I've seen a more corporate, stodgy vibe start to emerge from some shows and the fun seems to be sucked out of the conversation in lieu of clearly articulating the "value prop" of whatever is being shilled. While they're exhausting to listen to, I still love many of these shows and they do what they do very well. I have no intention of trying to unseat them.Vibe-wise, what I feel is missing is some middle ground between something that's informative and educational and something that's fun and rejuvenating to listen to. At this starting point, I also noticed that a lot of the coolest people I talked to in web3 were interested in a lot of other topics. My favorite people in the space weren't just technologists or finance bros like the dominating narrative about crypto. These were people voraciously curious about economics, ecology, collective identity, probability and gambling, physics, native american history, music, skiing, charity, ego on the internet, and so much more. While some of these topics come up, web3 is always the dominating subject for all written and audio content created right now in the space. This is where People Talking comes in. This podcast is meant to create a chill, relaxed and intellectually curious space for the voraciously curious in web3 to talk about these other topics and explore the hidden connections that hugely influence their approach to web3. Collectively, we can’t afford to keep approaching web3 from a technologist or finance perspective if we want to build the new internet. Web3 is a means, not an end. By building up a collection of influences from all of these seemingly unrelated topics, we’ll all have a more holistic approach to building a digital world that’s whole, and have a shit ton of fun while doing it. With this mission in mind, I hope you enjoy the first season of People Talking and have as much fun as I do learning about a range of topics from the coolest people in web3.My first guest is Sam (@earthtosam_) of Tribute Labs. She graciously agreed to be my first guest on the show where we talk about alternative web3 podcast structures and dive deep into a concept that is at the forefront of her mind when building in the space: Collective Identity. Enjoy!