Say It To My Face
We live in a world where we never have to tell the people we work or vote against how we really feel in person. I think this is eroding the fabric of society and I will not stand for it in my own life
I am writing this post for a lot of very scared people who are too terrified to talk to me. They will diddle out little text messages to me, write sub-Tweets about me, send pithy emails to me, mention me in Telegram groups they think are private, but they will never say it to my face.
Here are some examples of incredibly weak people I have had to deal with:
🌈 When Rainbow forked away from Balance, they were too scared to talk to me in person. They decided to stick the knife in over email. They also decided to do it during my grandmother’s funeral when I was back in the United Kingdom. They only did this after paying themselves the last $100,000 I had out of the company’s bank account. That is the most cowardly thing I have ever seen. I will never forgive them.
🐤 When a bunch of woke nutbags tried to cancel me on Twitter and got my account moderated into oblivion, they wrote things about me that they would never have the minerals to say to my face.
🥷 When a former friend realised that I was judging the way he treated women, he did everything he could to needle me digitally. He never once pushed back in person. All he could do was send disappearing Signal messages—coward.
Conversely, here are some examples of people I truly respect putting me in my place:
🏦 When John Collison and Patrick Collison fired me from Stripe, they both met with me in person to try and explain why. They didn’t get anyone else to do it. They did it themselves. They set me straight.
♻️ When Alex MacCaw asked me to step down from Sourcing.io, the profitable SAAS company we built together, he did it in person. We went for a walk around SOMA and he let me know he did not want to work with me any more. It fired me up.
What I really admire about these men is that they had the stones to look me in the eye and tell me I was not good enough for them. That is absolutely brutal stuff. Both moments cost me dearly financially and psychologically. I look back on both of them with fondness. John, Patrick and Alex were right about me: I am not a good employee or co-founder. It is not my way.
I Will Say It To Your Face
I had to ask one of the co-founders of Balance to step down because he would not move to America with us. He was a wonderful person but he loved his life more than he loved our work. I did it in person. We went for a walk and talked it out. He appreciated the honesty and wished us well. I love him for that.
The hardest conversations I will have in my life have to be held in person. Digital communication leads to mis-interpretation all the time. Getting in sync with how someone thinks is the most valuable thing in the world. It reduces confusion and increases compassion.
If I am upset with you, I will say it to your face.
If I am in love with you, I will say it to your face.
If I am creating with you, I will say it your face.
I want to talk with you, person-to-person, and discuss things carefully. I want to debate new ideas gently. I want to make you a coffee. I want to go for a walk. I want to smell the fresh air together. I want to go for a run in the hills and a swim in the sea.
I want to see you.
I want to love you.
Remote Creation Is An Abomination
Remote work can work when things work. However, I believe that creating new things remotely is like making trying to make baby by sending vials of semen to your partner in another country—it is unnatural.
Creation is a sacred act. The best teams in the world still work together. Apple’s Industrial Design team still gather in Cupertino all the time. They have not let a virus stop them. Watch this video and really listen to what Jony Ive is trying to tell you:
The Ethereum protocol was solidified and made ready for Solidity with a lot of in-person engineering work in Berlin, Zug & Amsterdam. It was not birthed remotely.
As soon as Ethereum went global, asynchronous, and remote, everyone started fighting. How many of the founding team of Ethereum are still here today?
Jog On With Me
The polite, British way to tell someone to fuck off is to tell them to jog on. I used to say this to people on Twitter all the time before I left. It was unproductive on several levels.
I actually love jogging on. The Back On My Feet community in San Francisco is one of the most magical parts of this wild and wonderful city.
We gather together—in person—multiple times a month to run together. It is a gathering of people who struggle. There are people who have made huge progress and others who have a long way to go.
The person who took the photo below ran me into the ground. He picked a route that he knew would break me. We ran as hard as we could, as hot as we could, as far as we could, until I could not run any more. I was forced to walk. He made me jog on.
This person will reveal themselves to the Ethereum community this year.
Watch this space.
Facing Time on FaceTime
I am starting to spend more time using the latest version of FaceTime. It is only available on the latest iPad Pro. If I am forced to communicate with someone digitally, I want to do so as naturally as possible. Center Stage on FaceTime is so wonderful.
There is something so natural about the way iPad OS and the cameras will mould your face and eyes to reduce the anxiety of digital communication. It is the kind of attention-to-detail that a company like Zoom can never muster up. They are a soulless Chinese cypher of an organisation. They do not care about people the way Apple does:
If you make it through the video above, please consider joining us in building the Safari Wallet community.
It is remote today but we will all gather together in person soon.
Safari Wallet Discord ∞ Invite Link: https://discord.gg/safari-wallet