Suggestions
Dan Stone
Group Product Manager at Coinbase
Product, marketing, technology, data geek. Currently working at Google Analytics. Any views expressed are my own.
Highlights
We just announced our $5M seed to build Icebreaker Labs, the world’s open professional network, where you meet exceptional people.
Unlike the platform you’re using, Icebreaker is a modern networking tool without a proprietary content platform, messaging layer, or data lock-in. You control your identity and network so you can bring as much or as little of your reputation with you as you wish, anywhere, whether digital or physical.
Jack Dillé and I founded Icebreaker a year ago with the conviction that the world is about to undergo a massive transformation from closed data to open data.
As this happens, network effect moats will erode and companies will be forced to once again compete through building great products.
Meanwhile, our model for digital trust is disintegrating. Gone are the days when you could blindly trust a simple web search, “authoritative” sources, online reviews, community forums, or influencers. And it’s a matter of time before AI assistants are gamed and monetized too.
When noise is everywhere, there is but one place you can turn: the people you know and trust.
This is why networks and reputations are too important to be locked into one platform. Instead, you deserve to see your full network across the many platforms where they exist. So, next time you need to find an amazing hire, intro, partner, etc., you can intelligently traverse the entirety of your trust network to discover and reach them.
Some people call us web3 LinkedIn. That’s fair. Many in web3 avoid existing platforms for reasons of privacy, data ownership, and frustration with paying $1k/yr to access your own data while simultaneously being monetized at $10k CPMs.
We think there is room for a tool that aggregates your existing networks and offers configurable privacy and interoperability, without performative content and inbox spam.
But more than that, we believe the world will be better if everyone has their own personal networking tool that elevates signal from the noise across every digital interaction.
If this vision resonates, join us on Icebreaker.
- Dan
𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐬: 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐮𝐩 𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐒 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘶𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳
I personally wrote 300+ letters in 2020 through Vote Forward hoping for an administration that would embrace truth, decency, and technology.
Yet I've been alarmed by the actions of the current administration to stymie and politicize crypto, which I and many other technologists who deeply understand the technology consider a major new technological wave, akin to the internet in the '90s and the rise of smartphones in the late 2000's.
Since last year, Icebreaker has grown from an idea to 6 employees spread across 4 states, red and blue. All of us, alongside tens of thousands of others across the US, are committed to the idea that user-owned programmable data is a critical lynchpin for a future internet that is fairer and more trusted. Especially post-AI.
Reactionary anti-crypto stances from wings of the current administration jeopardize this and other legitimate use cases of a technology that offers one of the only viable paths for evening the footing in a digital environment that increasingly favors corporate giants (and foreign government sponsored disinformation regimes) over smaller competitors, startups, organizations, and individuals.
If crypto continues to be politicized, the consequences will be dire, for the election and for the continued leadership of the US as a beacon of technological innovation.
I don't share much any more on LinkedIn as I've been heads down building, but felt compelled to post for those of you who may not have made your minds up on crypto but know me as a technologist who is deeply committed to innovation, America, and speaking the truth even when inconvenient.
