Paul Kasaija

1/21/2021

9:54 PM

 

“Never confuse movement with action,” said Ernest Hemingway. I would venture to guess that a lot of my day is movement: the time spent sitting down and dawdling on old news, or checking my email by habit, is probably all just movement. Today’s action was reading a book I was suggested called Blockchain Competitive Advantage by Alison Davis and Matthew C. Le Merle, who is part of the biggest blockchain venture capital firm called Blockchain Capital. The version I bought was an audiobook, which is something I rarely do since reading books in print or digital helps me to visualize the author’s sentiment more holistically.  This is an exception to that rule: due to its methodical and straightforward presentation of info, I had no problems with the audiobook version at all— the book is truly a modern gem.

 

So far I’ve completed half of the book, 11 out of the 22 chapters in total. The book goes through the loops and methodologies needed to bring one’s business to a competitive advantage in the 5th era: the era of technologies utilizing the Internet and digitization, and mobile technologies that are increasingly replacing the standard computing with the same capabilities or better, and the era where digitized and peer-to-peer commerce (i.e. blockchains) will replace the old centrally controlled systems. What more, it uses an extended comparison between the rise of the Internet and the rise of blockchain to describe the periods of growth that will mark the field in the future. Currently, blockchain has already been introduced to big businesses, and they are at the beginning of getting a competitive advantage (the book’s namesake), where they find and implement the technologies that give them an edge over their competitors.

 

One of my favorite parts of the book is the authors’ mention of Steve Jobs who answered what he looks for when creating a successful product, “The next big thing.” Then, the author connects this to how they see the technology industry as something where entrepreneurs (like Jobs) will first visualize the future, take in input from their consumers to direct the vision to a marketable and salable goal, and then map out the steps they will take using technologies that currently exist or need to be created. The visions of the future can range from 10 years to 3-5 years in markets where competition is rife; nonetheless, the evidence is clear that following this process is what led the biggest companies and will lead the future ones to success.

 

The action of getting forward in the niche but important technologies such as blockchain will provide a “competitive advantage” when I am looking for fields beyond what the normal economics major will be pursuing. I find the field of blockchain more than just interesting— as I move past the checkpoints of procuring an MBA and setting sail a business, I plan to use blockchain among other technologies to produce a flagship product that surpasses the technology market’s competition.