A16z Partner Chris Dixon: Crypto and Web3 will be at the center of the next cycle

There has been a lot of talk recently about the possibility of a prolonged financial recession, reminiscent of 2008. 2008 was a difficult time for many.

But from a startup perspective, 2008 and the next 3 years proved to be a golden age. Apple released the iPhone in 2007 and the App Store in 2008. By 2009, talented founders were pouring in.

Most of today's top mobile apps were created by companies founded between 2009 and 2011, including Uber, Venmo, Snap, and Instagram.

In retrospect, that era was driven by three powerful trends: social media, cloud computing, and the rise of smartphones.

The separate product design space is multiplicative: even if social, cloud, and mobile all improve linearly, the combination can improve exponentially.

I made the chart below to summarize my views on products and financial cycles.

The key idea is that products and financial cycles mostly develop independently. The top of the chart shows the Nasdaq as a rough proxy for financial sentiment. Financial sentiment fluctuates unpredictably, sometimes violently.

The next row shows the year in which the iconic startup or product was created. The time is mainly determined by the product cycle and is shown on the bottom row.

Product cycles follow their own internal logic and tend to be more predictable than financial cycles.

They start with an incubation phase where hobbyists explore ideas and build products that are primarily used by other hobbyists.

For example, there were credible attempts to create smartphones as early as 1990. Smartphones continued to evolve over the next 15 years, but it wasn't until the launch of the iPhone that they transitioned from incubation to growth.

The growth phase begins when the right mix of technology, talent, and community knowledge come together. It is driven by an intensive feedback loop between infrastructure and applications.

For example, as the iPhone improves, better apps become possible. Better apps help drive iPhone sales, give Apple more money to invest, enable better apps, and more.

The tech industry today is very different from 2008. A handful of tech veterans dominate the internet, wielding enormous economic and cultural influence. Deep-rooted interest groups are actively responding to new movements that could one day threaten them.

I believe Crypto and Web3 will be at the center of the next cycle. We already have a wealth of technology, talent, and community knowledge at our disposal. In the nearly 10 years I've been in the field, the energy and creativity that the industry has gathered has never been higher.

If we are heading for a recession, there are some tactical lessons to be learned from the 2008 era, which is to preserve capital and focus on your long-term vision. But the most important lesson is to ignore the noise and focus on the product cycle.

source：The way of DIFI