(2021-11-22) McCormick Idea Legos

Packy McCormick: Idea Legos. Ideas can build on each other like legos, just like software. Ideas are composable.

Composability is one of the key features of web3.

“Composability is to software as compounding interest is to finance.”

Composability is just software building on other software. Each new protocol or NFT is like a lego to snap into others.

Whether web3 protocols, APIs, or open source software, composability means building in such a way that the next builder can pick up where you left off, add their own twist, and leave the combined work for the next builder.

In August’s I wrote that composability is the reason that human progress accelerates: That’s what powers the increasing pace of innovation. Discoveries become inventions become building blocks become inventions become building blocks, ad infinitum.

That idea was a riff on an idea from Tim Urban’s 2017 Wait But Why essay on Neuralink: The forces of macroeconomics make the Human Colossus’s core motivation to create value, which means it tends to want to invent newer and better technology. Every time it does that, it becomes an even better inventor, which means it can invent new stuff even faster.

Urban’s is the most expansive view of composability I’ve come across, even though that’s not what he calls it, because he’s not talking web3 or software specifically, but about knowledge

Language made ideas composable. “Knowledge, when shared, becomes like a grand, collective, inter-generational collaboration.”

If compound interest is easy to quantify but difficult to feel in your bones, and software composability is harder to quantify and even harder to intuit, idea composability is the hardest to measure and feel of all.

Ideas are building on each other more quickly than ever before, too.

We’ve only had access to the world’s knowledge at our fingertips for like twenty years. That’s practical knowledge -- like mathematical equations or SAFEs or lectures -- but it’s also inspirational knowledge.

On the inspirational side, the famous example is the four-minute mile.

Bannister proved that humans could run a mile in under four minutes; other runners took that knowledge off the shelf and used to break it four minutes themselves.

a similar phenomenon in extreme sports like skateboarding. A particular trick would be impossible until it wasn’t, and then the next batch of skaters would build on top of that trick.

Importantly, unlike software, skateboarders can’t just plug in the other person’s 720 and snap another 180 on top. Skateboarding tricks aren’t technically composable. Each skater has to do the full thing themselves. But the proof that something is possible unlocks something that helps the next person go bigger

The same is true in the slice of the world that we cover here: startups and web3.

The gap between idea and execution is shrinking

A new idea, built on a long chain of older ideas, can quickly combine with software that’s been composed of other software and go live within weeks or even days

Smaller, faster advancements compound on themselves quickly. That kind of rapid compounding produces very big results very quickly.

Let’s get meta. DeFi 2.0 itself is a prime example of this phenomenon.

Instead of sucking in crypto assets, like Olympus does, Klima sucks in carbon offsets. It’s a financial instrument that also might help save the planet. Klima, in turn, is inspiring a new wave of builders to dig into how we might protect the oceans or improve healthcare with a similar mechanism.

And then, of course, there’s

ConstitutionDAO (📜,📜).

ConstitutionDAO itself was a beneficiary of both software composability and idea composability. The core team was able to snap together existing pieces like ETH, Juicebox, Discord, Twitter, meme formats (📜,📜), DAO legal structures, people’s understanding of crowdfunding, and their vague understanding of DAOs to create something out of nothing in a matter of days

I saw a bunch of tweets that basically said the same thing: “Instead of buying a piece of paper, why don’t you use that money on something important, like [curing cancer/ending homelessness/saving the planet/etc]?”

There will be DAOs that tackle those challenges sooner because ConstitutionDAO existed.

The next DAOs to launch will have a built-in advantage. The fact that DAOs operate more openly and publicly than a traditional company means that its lessons, positive and negative, are more easily composable.

The fun part is that anyone can add ideas to the composition. You don’t need to know how to code. All it takes is an awareness of the building blocks available and a willingness to play around, remix, and add your own unique twist, even if your twist is just an idea.

The future will be a composition of the legos we create today.