DeSci, AGI, and Mansions… Oh MY!
Nick Linck’s Q1 2022 Recap
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Oct ’21 — Dec ‘21
In the last update, I told you I started this journey of “self-employment” to 1) write about AI, 2) make music, and 3) start a company. I told you that I was primarily focused on #3, starting a company. I also told you that the plan for this quarter was to secure funding for DiviDAO, the fractionalized real estate company, and to continue growing the team.
Since then a lot has changed…
Jan ’22 — Mar ‘22
During Miami Hack Week in January, I realized two things. 1) I didn’t need funding yet and 2) People in web 3 can successfully contribute to many projects.
No longer did I feel the need to go all in with DiviDAO and completely ignore AI or any of my other interests. So today I write to you to talk about how I ended up working on 5 different projects and what they are all about!
All the projects that I am working on fall into three categories. (1) Real estate. (2) Artificial Intelligence. (3) Higher education.
Real Estate
The first step of fractionalizing real estate: own or find real estate to fractionalize! This is a primary motivation for the following two projects: “MJ’s House” and “Rhome”.
MJ’s House -> DiviDAO
We are building a DAO to buy Michael Jordan’s Chicago mansion that has been on the market for 10 years!
This means that we are creating a governance token in order to raise the funds required to make the purchase. You can learn more about this process in this soon-to-be blog post we are writing. Please leave any comments or questions you have on the google doc!
We hope that by forming this DAO, we will establish a community of people who are excited about fractionalizing real estate using blockchain technology. These would be great people to bring on board to Divi. Also, Michael Jordan’s house would be a pretty awesome property to include on a “real estate stock exchange” if the DAO votes to move in that direction.
Follow along on Twitter and jump in our Discord if you want to stay up to date or be a part of it! We are just starting :)
PS: If you have any marketing ideas or know a good marketer, would love to talk!
Rhome
Early January I was trying to recruit my friend from college, Rick, to work on Divi with me. In the middle of January, Rick and I met Rama and Megan. They are two badasses who are making MOVES! The duo has years of experience in construction management and property development and have been working on startup ideas related to fractionalized real estate for the last year.
Rick, Rama, Megan, and I all talked about our long term visions for creating the best housing solutions for all types of people. I was excited to work with them to make all our visions a reality, and joining forces meant that I would have more free time for other projects, so after discussion, Rick and I decided to join their efforts to help build “Rhome”.
Pronounced “roam” (also “our home” has a nice ring to it), Rhome is luxury co-living for the digital nomad. A Rhome membership gives anyone the ability to live in a mansion with a community of other’s who share a common interest such as music, web 3, sustainability, etc. We provide private chefs, personal trainers, and even drivers for those living in a Rhome house.
We are targeting web 3 companies who want to give their remote teams a place to convene for months at a time. We are in talks with companies to work out the exact deal.
Show us some love by following us on Twitter! If you are feeling extra, we love retweets!
And for the curious, here is our current website.
Artificial Intelligence
In October of 2021, I thought I would blog about AI because that seemed like a feasible way to get my ideas out into the world as an independent researcher. But two events made me aware of another path.
First, reading Sam Altman’s blog, Moore’s Law of Everything. It talks about how all of the value generated by autonomous machines could fund something like a Universal Basic Income (UBI). I read this over a year ago and the idea still strongly resonates with me. The value that AI generates is going to be immense and ideally, everyone in the world will benefit from that value, not just a few large tech companies.
The second event happened earlier this year. I witnessed one of my friends, Pablo, crowdfund over 8 million dollars to create MoonDAO which now has a fully funded, thriving community. Their mission was simple: to literally send people to the moon!
Seeing MoonDAO launch showed me that bringing a “moonshot” mission to life does not require working at Google X or the like.
For me, creating AGI (Artificial General Intelligence / a computer as smart as a human) has been my moonshot mission for the last 6 years. And I think that creating a company that will ensure profits from AI go towards a UBI will be able to attract a motivated community.
So now I am working to build The AGI DAO.
The AGI DAO
The AGI DAO will research AI, sell AI as a service, and then put the profits towards some form of a UBI. Operating as a DAO allows for anyone in the world who demonstrates interest in the DAO’s mission to participate in governing how AI is developed and used. Moreover, using blockchain technology will allow for the UBI funds to be tracked transparently so that misuse of funds can be detected by anyone, even those outside of the DAO.
Currently we are ideating an NFT collection that we will use to raise funds and attract a community of individuals excited by our mission. After talking to one NFT marketer, this will be a more involved process than I imagined, but I am excited to see how this endeavor develops!
Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date, join the Discord to get involved, or reach out to learn more!
Education
Late last year I was working out of my small New York apartment as a solo-preneur. One night I was imagining what my ideal work environment would look like. I reflected on my college years living in a house with 7 of my best friends. I realized that for me, that would have been the PERFECT time to start a company. We were all super motivated, smart, got along, and most importantly, lived side together so it was easy to converse with one another whenever we wanted.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really even consider starting a company during college, our brains were wired to use our time in college to get good grades in order to get a good job. Startups were risky, college was not.
I have questioned where I would be if I had spent those 4 years dedicated to building a startup, or if I had spent that time interning at multiple companies. I will never know, but I’d love to create a way for any 18 year old to figure out!
Motivated to create a “better” college experience, I thought of two alternatives.
(1) Last year, I imagined buying homes throughout the world with DiviDAO so that students could travel the world, live in awesome houses with a cohort of students their age, and work on meaningful projects together while being guided by a knowledgable “fellow”. I imagine first marketing this as a “Gap Year” experience.
(2) February of this year, I imagined university lectures being replaced by “online apprenticeships” where instead of being “talked at” any number of students can watch a live stream of an expert perform their craft. I think students would learn more relevant knowledge through this method since the professor would be working on cutting edge technology. The students can ask and answer each other’s questions in an online chat and save the unanswered questions for the professor. The students “homework”/”job” would be to complete tasks that could help the professor bring their work to a larger audience. They could even be paid in cash or equity to complete these tasks! The main advantages of this style of education are (1) it could be completely free for the students (2) it would free up professors time from doing lectures so that they can focus on more impactful work (3) anyone in the world could participate.
I wasn’t really considering pursuing either of these ideas because I had enough to work on :) BUT then I went to “ETH Denver”, a crypto conference…
At ETH Denver there were so many people excited about a “web 3 future”. A future where everyone is fairly rewarded for their contributions. A future where anyone can participate and ALL transactions are transparently executed on chain.
I saw DeSci (Decentralized Science) talks on the schedule and was intrigued. DeSci is a new field that has been gaining traction over the last year. It aims to make the scientific process more efficient using web 3 technology and culture. Learn more about DeSci here.
At ETH Denver I met the founders of several prominent DeSci companies. It was really cool for me to get to chat with these individuals and to feel like I could help with the direction of the space since there are still so many unanswered questions. To get more involved, I competed for and won a “bounty” that asked to design an open peer review process!
In the submission I included the concept for “DeSciU”, a new higher education system that builds on the two ideas I mentioned previously.
As a continuation of the bounty, I started working part time for SCRF (Smart Contract Research Forum). I am helping them to design, implement, and test an open peer review process. The paycheck is nice, but more importantly I am working with some people who have awesome visions for the future and have a great network to help make those visions a reality!
The future of my place in helping with the education system is unclear right now, but I am excited to continue pushing my ideas of DeSciU forward! I am talking with DropoutDAO and DreamDAO to test the “online apprenticeship” teaching style. We will be teaching them 3d graphics software (and helping me build the NFT collection for AGI DAO).
Conclusion
That is about everything that I am currently putting my “work time” towards. Many advise me to focus on just one project if I want to make any project a huge success. They could be right, but I am hoping that if I steadily work on each project I will be able to connect with the right people in order to make each project a huge success!
Success for me would mean that for the real estate ideas: it is feasible for anyone to own a home, and it is easy for anyone to live their dream life; for the AGI DAO: AGI is created and the value of it is distributed fairly to all people; and for education at large: anyone in the world can efficiently learn whatever they want for free!
Connect with me on Twitter if you share any common interests and want to ideate or build!
