Stefan Cohen

7/

building with open principles is how we stay sovereign as institutions shift, fragment, or reassert control
open systems—physical or digital—offer legibility, adaptability, and agency

they're expressions of the same design instinct: resilience through openness

6/

so the strange inversion:

the real world is becoming more closed + scarce via geopolitics
the digital world is becoming more open + infinite via ai
and both need balancing forces to stay legible + useful

5/

applied cryptography steps in here—not just blockchains, but a broader toolkit for making digital things verifiable, ownable, and scarce

it brings structure and trust to a world where everything can be copied, generated, or faked

4/

meanwhile in digital:
ai makes it trivial to generate infinite content, code, media, even designs
but that breaks the concept of value
everything is everywhere, owned by no one

3/

but openness doesn’t disappear in closed conditions—it adapts

open systems emerge as strategic responses:
interoperable by default
usable without permission
resilient to fragmentation
they’re architectures of autonomy—mirroring what cryptographic systems do in digital space

2/

on the “real” side:
international trade is splintering
immigration is tightening
critical supply chains are being walled off
we’re watching the old rules of globalization unravel

1/

two big shifts are unfolding at once:

the real world—people, goods, borders, trade—is getting more closed, permissioned, fragmented

the digital world is getting flooded with ai-driven abundance
but both are running into their own kind of limits

Video surveillance aggregation shouldn’t be the default. Instead of governments aggregating everything, imagine AI-powered smart glasses—recording locally, with individuals choosing when to submit evidence. A decentralized model where safety is crowdsourced, not imposed.

We're now witnessing a rebuild of existing social media categories—but on atproto. Short form text, long form text, pictures and now, short form video.

There's still room here. Once these are done, I predict we'll see a bunch of supporting services + entirely new social paradigms emerge.

9/ The implication of all of this is that we are much earlier in the “creator economy” than most expect. As it pertains to our work @baincapitalcrypto, we believe there will be a further explosion of digitally native content and creators.

8/ The hard part (I don’t have the answer to) is how do parents cultivate creative expression, and what to do in this interim period where the curriculum across education levels are oriented around “legacy work”.

7/ These new groups could provide the same sense of pedigree and belonging, tailored to a world where creative expression and unique contributions are the ultimate differentiators.

6/ The one thing higher education provides today that’s hard to replicate is the *seal of approval.* But even that could evolve. New affiliation groups—like Thiel Fellows or Y Combinator—might emerge for the career paths of the future.

5/ In a world where labor, services, and intelligence are infinite, *scarcity* becomes the differentiator. What’s scarce? Things we create:

- Art
- Writing
- Events/experiences

Human creativity, *amplified by AI*, will be what sets us apart.

4/ Here’s what I see:

a) Education will be increasingly commoditized (beyond affiliation/pedigree).

b) The nature of work will shift dramatically.

c) *What will matter most is our ability to creatively express ourselves.*

3/ But I think focusing on cost misses the bigger picture. In a world transformed by AGI and ubiquitous digital education, the *style* of work, education, and value creation will look radically different.

2/ Naturally, this starts with the question of cost. At $60K/year for private college today, a 5% annual increase puts it at *$150K/year* in 18 years—before factoring in non-tuition costs.

1/ A fun holiday conversation: what will higher education look like for kids born today? With AGI on the horizon, I’m increasingly convinced that the defining skillset of the future will be *creative expression*. 🧵

Cool checking out @graze.social -- ability to generate, share, (one day monetize?) your own type of feed.

I wonder when we'll have dynamic, prompted LLM-style feeds. Aka say "make me smarter, show me things that are funnier" and the feed will be curated as such

Yes please, send help immediately