Azeem Azhar

You'll know my lovely bronze fountain pen that doesn't have the ink reservoir in it.

That work with the pen, the work of observing the world around you, of reading different things, the effort that you put in, that becomes a differentiator.

And I think the funny thing that's the funny parallel is that that's also what made Bitcoin valuable, right?

It was the proof of work that made Bitcoin valuable.

It's a proof of work that makes the authenticity valuable because we did the thing that John Kennedy called the hard thing.

And what I'm doing is I'm putting my attention and my taste and my experience into the output.

So where do I think value goes in that world?

And I think this creates an opportunity for community builders, for people who develop a sense of taste, a sense of perspective, the experience that they can bring together, things that are difficult, because difficulty plus authenticity will turn into scarcity and value.

And Ben Thompson at Stratechery has written a piece just in the last few days that sort of reflects on this as well, the idea that imperfection becomes the

premium, the rambling podcast, the slightly rambling Substack Lives, the things that could only come from that person.

A quick note.

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So let's get to part three.

So here are the foundations.

What's underpinning all of this?

Well, it's energy and it's whether the capital, whether the economics can hold.

First part of this anchor is about what's happening with solar power.

This is super important, you know, because all of these things I've talked about require energy.

And there is a crunch in the US, which is why we're seeing a lot of gas turbines being reused and moved from the aeronautical industry to power data centers.

This will be a short-term thing.