Idea
Turn Western Union into a Bitcoin remittance Trojan horse
Shaan's favorite pick from the thread: Western Union, with ~$1B free cash flow on $5B revenue, compliance in 200 countries, and 500,000 agents. The play is to use that trusted brand and agent network as the on-ramp/off-ramp to turn it into a global Bitcoin remittance network.
“Here's the play with Western Union. You have Chamath, who at one point owned 5% of all Bitcoin that was out there.”
Steal thisBuy a legacy distribution network with global trust and retrofit it as the on-ramp for a new technology rather than building distribution from scratch.
Take
Edison's genius: plan less, do more
Wilson's core takeaway from Edison's tinkering: as a self-taught non-theorist, Edison brute-forced inventions by trying every material rather than reasoning from first principles. The lesson is to spend less time planning and more time running reps and failing.
“He just dove in and started trying stuff, and he was just unbelievably persistent. He tried and he tried until he brute-forced his way into a solution, into an answer.”
Steal thisPlan less, do more: stop debating the optimal approach and start running reps, failing, and adapting on the fly.
Take
Edison's genius: plan less, do more
Wilson's core takeaway from Edison's tinkering: as a self-taught non-theorist, Edison brute-forced inventions by trying every material rather than reasoning from first principles. The lesson is to spend less time planning and more time running reps and failing.
“He just dove in and started trying stuff, and he was just unbelievably persistent. He tried and he tried until he brute-forced his way into a solution, into an answer.”
Steal thisPlan less, do more: stop debating the optimal approach and start running reps, failing, and adapting on the fly.