Social engineering and internet friends

Hi nerds -

I salute you from the Panama City airport, about to hop on a flight to Athens, Greece.

Something interesting about bear markets is that they have been breeding ground for some of the most renown names in technology today:

Square, Stripe, and Uber in 2009,
Airbnb and Groupon in 2008,
Facebook in 2004,
Adobe in ‘82 and Microsoft in ‘75.

But to build successful solutions teams need to run research - so that’s what we’re doing at Surge!

If you have 1-2 minutes, please fill out this survey and be a part of defining our next steps.

3_brain_farts

🕸 Online Communities: Few things more powerful to professional growth than leveraging online communities, be it cohort-based courses, Discord communities, or industry-specific Forums or Slack Workspaces.

They’re filled with like-minded people from around the world interested in similar things, but with distinct backgrounds.
They’re a space to teach, learn, and connect with other industry leaders.
We take them with us everywhere we go.
The more proactive we are within them, the more we get out of them.

🔑 Cybersecurity: Most hacks on cyberspace occur not because the technologies are faulty, but because of social engineering -psychological tricks that get users to hand over sensitive information or make security mistakes.

Here are some tips that help mitigate the risk:

Never repeat the same password. Use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass instead.
Always have 2 Factor-Authentication whenever possible.
Always check the domain name (i.e email@domain.name) of senders before clicking on any links. Only click them if:
- you've researched the domain name + person and deem them legit,
- you trust the brand, and
- you cannot get the same link on your own by googling it.

💅🏽 Interfaces and protocols: In bull markets, crypto projects tend to focus on building strong interfaces, responding to the big inflow of newcomers into the space.

During bear markets, teams focus on building protocols instead, serving the web3 native, techie audience that stayed.

Better interfaces win mainstream adoption, while protocol level contracts attracts developers - and developers ultimately build the flywheel that fuels the next bull market.