This Week in Startups Weekly Recap: Oct 11-15

Hey Everybody,?

It’s Producer Justin here at This Week in Startups.?

Jason’s interview with?Solana Founder Anatoly Yakovenko?was the episode I learned the most from this week.?The Ethereum network can process ~13 transactions per second, Solana can do over 50,000. There are some tradeoffs, but Solana’s “proof of history” innovation is at the core of why transactions can be so fast and cheap. Anatoly explained crypto project structures, the use cases for Solana, how his time at Qualcomm influenced his network design and more. There’s certainly been a lot of speculation around the project this year, so it was great to hear from the source?(listen for yourself here).

Here’s recap of what else happened with the show:

Authors

• Jacob Helberg, author of “The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power.” Jacob asserts that a “New Cold War” has begun between the US and China. The struggle for technological superiority of “front-end” software systems and “back-end” hardware. He expertly lays out the challenges ahead for both countries.?
• Max Chafkin, author of “The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power.” Max is a reporter for Bloomberg and tells the story of Peter’s ventures in Silicon Valley and in right-wing politics.

Meetups!

Our Producer Rachel has been working hard to coordinate meetups. The first ones have been great. Right now they are “for founders, by founders.” If you fit that description and want to get to know other people who are listening to the pod, sign up for your city here: thisweekinstartups.com/meetups

Tactical startup advice

• Startup Checklist:?Choosing a Business Model?- Jason covers 10 things founders need to know before choosing a business model.
• How to master?customer engagement

The news we covered last week

• Coinbase chases NFT billions, so far over 1 million people have signed up for access to the product when it goes live. This will be a direct competitor to OpenSea (we had the CEO founder?Devin Finzer on E1255). While we don’t have inside information, there is a high probability OpenSea was the most profitable startup for its maturity. Founded in 2017 the it helped facilitate $3.4B in transactions in August which at a 2.5% fee would kick off $85M in revenue. Given Coinbase’s mission, and the money at stake, it makes total sense why Coinbase is expanding here.
• Is Netflix over cancel culture??Funding & releasing Dave Chappelle’s new special “The Closer,” unleashed a wave of employee complaints. Neftlix co-CEO Ted Sarandos crafted a memo to explain why the company leadership believes onscreen behavior ≠ real world actions.?
• The US inherits China’s Bitcoin Mining Dynasty?At some point this summer, China’s hashrate (contribution of the China-based miners securing the bitcoin network) fell to zero. The US is now the largest mining hub in the world. As China cracked down on Bitcoin operators, miners moved to the US. Throughout the transition, the network was unfazed.

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