Hi nerds -

I salute you from Panama City, where I'm celebrating the first 6 months of nerd splashing weekly.

Images, emojis, and headers are only some of the quirky differences I spotted from that first edition half a year ago. It’s crazy to see how much can change in 6 months.

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In other important news, last Friday was my last day working at Admios. Learning from some of the top engineers in the region is a luxury I’ll always be grateful for. But also, I’m super excited about diving deeper into new rabbit holes.

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3 brain farts

🐇 Rabbit holes: Rabbit holes rule the world. They are the source of most incredible human innovations.

Moreover, rabbit holes are clues. They’re windows into our most intimate questions, our 12 favorite problems, our unique perspectives, and obscure ideas.

Rabbit holes are time investments we’re making on ourselves. Every successful nerd knows when to dig deeper, when to share the insights, where to look for the best juicy insights, and ultimately, when to stop digging.

The best careers come from following a good rabbit hole.

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💸 The opportunity cost of success: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my definition of success.

I look up to people like Bezos and Zuckerberg and although they’ve built trillion-dollar firms, I’m not entirely sure they lead the life I want for myself.

But no matter the life I design, success has a cost. More often than not, decision-making roadblocks are in fact failures to resolve which value takes precedence.

So a question I keep asking myself is: What value am I optimizing for?

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🌎 Hello Web3: Web 1.0 is the internet we remember from the dot-com boom. Filled with static text and images, these sites were mostly built by early developers who hard-coded information, instead of fetching it dynamically from a database.

Web2 is the web we know today. Highly interactive, over 50% of the web is currently built by creators using systems like WordPress, SquareSpace, etc. It is great in many ways, but it also has some caveats:

• All data is centralized, stored in servers owned by companies like Amazon or Google.
• Monetization strategies consist of using our data for advertising.
• Applications repeatedly face data breaches that put in jeopardy our sensitive information.

Web3 aims to solve these issues. It’s just like web2, but developers don’t build and deploy applications that run on a single server or that store their data in a single database.

Instead, applications called dApps (decentralized apps) run on blockchains and we'll be seeing a lot more of this within the next few days.

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2 intellectual goodies

"According to a University of California-Berkley study, nappers easily outperform non-nappers on their ability to retain information."

​When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink​

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“Decentralized technologies provide users unparalleled power to transact and interact with a level of security never seen before. Thanks to cryptography and economic incentives, users can now own truly sovereign assets, create fully sovereign entities, and build truly sovereign identities."

​The Aragon Manifesto​

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1 funky audio

​Air is one of those bands that created its own genre. Containing almost no lyrics, they play a sensual, synthesized sound that is deliciously paired with a cup of wine while you cook after a long day of work. Here's my fav song.

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& a featured snack

Problem: Kids in schools follow curriculums created by adults, assuming we know what’s best for their learning journey.

But kids are creatively intrigued by their surroundings. By empowering their curiosity, we're often surprised by what they can create.

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Solution: Primer puts kids at the driver’s seat of their journey, by allowing them to create the experience they want for themselves.

They design Rooms that kids around the world can join, they interact in audio-only Rooms with a facilitator, and join Clubs where they asynchronously organize around their interests. And to add the cherry on top, they’ve built Pursuits, which are galactic explorations where kids learn by playing and problem-solving.

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Today I want to thank my online writing group for all the shared wisdom every week: Adam, Daniel, and Kevin. Can’t wait to meet IRL 💙

As always, feel free to connect by hitting reply and sharing a juicy thought 💡.

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Best,

Jules 🤸🏻‍♂️