52
Sina Habibian

@sinahab #52

building/investing sinahab.com + podcast intothebytecode.com
4137 Follower 247 Following
Here is my conversation with @socrates1024.

We talk about a simple idea with big implications: using TEEs to do web access control.

We also talk about research, making progress by prototyping, and how Andrew used bitcoin to buy beef jerky in 2011.

Podcast here: intothebytecode.com/46-andrew-miller
I'm planning to be at NeurIPS this week. Hit me up if you're around and want to meet.
Here's my conversation with @quintus.

TEEs are going to change block building, model training and inference, even make scifi autonomous agents a reality.

We talk about the history, the architecture, and the roadmap for building TEEs with open-source hardware and supply chains.

Podcast here: intothebytecode.com/45-quintus-kilbourn
Get in touch if you're interested in joining: intothebytecode.com/blog/agents
TEE is the latest arcane acronym to take over the memosphere, kind of like NFT and LLM

One would think these would have a harder time breaking through when there are alternatives like "secure hardware", "digital media", etc

But I wonder if this actually works to their favor. It's probably that they're initially used as a term of art with a precise meaning. And then the rest of us coopt them because they sounds kinda technical and give us an appearance of knowing what we're talking about. And we spread the meme in the process
Here is my conversation with @markus, cocreator/ceo of @ethos.

We talk about how Markus started working on this project after graduating high school in Austria, how the open software/hardware stack works, and where all of this could be going from here.

Podcast here: intothebytecode.com/44-markus-haas
Here is my conversation with @uma, cofounder/ceo of Succinct.

We dug into the Succinct zkVM architecture - how they use STARKs, recursion, and other techniques for proving program execution - and made an attempt at unpacking the design without getting lost in the sauce.

You can listen to the podcast here: intothebytecode.com/43-uma-roy
Here is my conversation with Andrew Huang, Founder/CEO of Conduit.

We talk about parallelized architectures for smart contracts + how we can scale sequencer throughput to 1 gigagas per second.

Podcast here: intothebytecode.com/42-andrew-huang
Here is my conversation with @gakonst.

We talk about Reth, how it’s architected under the hood, and how it could help build a scifi future where every laptop shares resources in a distributed network.

We also talk about more personal topics around engineering management, feedback loops, and writing.

I've known Georgios since we were part of a similar ETHResearch community getting into the space. I think Reth is one of the most important projects in Ethereum and am excited to help them build in the coming years.

Podcast here: intothebytecode.com/41-georgios-konstantopoulos
I'm looking to start working with a producer for Into the Bytecode.

$100 USDC if you tag or make a connection with someone I end up working with!

@bountybot
In the same way that the 20th century really started in 1911-1918, the 21st century started in 2020-2023. The world is more in sync than before with the pandemic, markets, and social networks. There is more conflict inside countries and around the world. And technology is accelerating - we’ve passed the turing test and might be in the last period before some kind of superhuman intelligence.

From my conversation with @vitalik.eth here: intothebytecode.com/40-vitalik-buterin
/AI
I watched the Ethereum documentary last night.

One of the themes that stood out to me was the resonance between nature and the internet worlds we’re creating. The trees in Marin. The infinite garden with its branches and evolution. Vitalik’s description of blockchains as digital life - once they’re seeded, they begin to grow without anyone being able to really control or stop them. Danny’s “I would either be working on this or I would be living in the woods”. It’s operating at multiple levels - there’s a way in which human beings end up reenacting nature, and there’s also something in the human psyche that resonates with this external form.

Anyway, enough with the armchair philosophy... I loved the documentary and would recommend watching if you haven’t.
I've recently become more interested in US political history and how the constitution setup a framework within which the next 250 years have evolved.

This is my conversation with Eric Alston, faculty director at CU Boulder and researcher in the Comparative Constitutions Project, who patiently explained this all to me.

We talk about how constitutions organically emerge from humans coordinating in large groups, presidential vs parliamentary systems, the balance between federal and state governments, and more.

Podcast here: intothebytecode.com/39-eric-alston
BaseCamp 001 was the first time the Base community has come together in-person. I recorded four conversations there -- with @jessepollak of @base, @benleventhal of Blackbird, Julian Holguin of Doodles, and @yele.eth of Onboard.

I think there's a good chance we'll look back on this period as a historic moment in time, and hope these conversations give a sense for what folks are building and also capture some of the magic of being there in Idyllwild.

Full podcast here: intothebytecode.com/38-basecamp
It's a good rule of thumb to just ship knowing that action produces information and that most missteps are reversible.

But looking more deeply, is there a right way to think about the trade-off between moving fast vs taking time to make sure one's moving fast in the right direction?

@colin had a good answer here, he thinks the right approach actually changes over time.

From intothebytecode.com/37-colin-armstrong
Here is my conversation with @colin.

We talk about the economics of writing online, the higher ARPUs in crypto, building for the crypto-native niche or a general audience, wallets vs emails, moving with focus and urgency, and more.

Full conversation here: intothebytecode.com/37-colin-armstrong
On how we're not rational economic agents

(from Justin Glibert, cofounder of Lattice and 0xPARC: https://youtu.be/cJ9QMZtDjyw)
Here is my conversation with Justin Glibert, cofounder of Lattice and 0xPARC.

We talk about autonomous worlds, digital physics, agency and violence on the internet, homo economics vs homo ludens, and reading weird books.

Full conversation here: intothebytecode.com/36-justin-glibert/
The purist thinks "gambling is uninteresting and perhaps morally corrupt"

The tourist thinks "I want to get rich and I don't care about this nerd shit"

The winning products/protocols embody both, like Uniswap.

From @nonlinear.eth in intothebytecode.com/35-jonny-mack
Here is my conversation with @nonlinear.eth.

We talk about Hypersub, pooling capital with shared ownership and upside, the computer and the casino, and what it means to be a crypto-native creator.

Full conversation here: intothebytecode.com/35-jonny-mack/
Any learnings to share on how Scoop gone on the app store @salvino ?

I was under the impression that all the PWA acrobatics were there because Apple was blocking crypto apps / in-app payments.
Let the Scoop wars begin, invite codes:
OZYDBW
736ZSA
Here is my conversation with Stephane Gosselin.

Stephane was cofounder of Flashbots and is now working on OneBalance. We talk about how blockspace is abundant and UX is the bottleneck, and how OneBalance organizes the interaction between accounts/applications to solve for this

intothebytecode.com/34-stephane-gosselin