With lucid and compelling prose--drawing from a twenty-five-year career in the software industry--Dixon shows how the internet has undergone three distinct eras, bringing us to the critical moment we're in today. The first was the "read" era, in which early networks democratized information. In the "read-write" era, corporate networks democratized publishing. We are now in the midst of the "read-write-own" era, sometimes called web3, in which blockchain networks are granting power and economic benefits to communities of users, not just corporations. This book is a must-read for anyone--internet users, business leaders, creators, entrepreneurs--who wants to understand where we've been and where we're going. It provides a vision for a better internet and a playbook to navigate and build the future.
Chris Dixon is a partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which he joined in 2013. He has invested there in Oculus (acquired by Facebook), Coinbase, Kickstarter, Pinterest, Stack Overflow, and Stripe. Dixon founded and leads a16z crypto, a division dedicated to investing in crypto and blockchain technologies.