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Li Jin

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1 Oct, 12 tweets, 4 min read

@AtelierVentures

I want to share the story of how the first analyst I ever hired @AtelierVentures was someone I never expected—an 18-year-old recent high school graduate: @LilaShroff

@peytonkleinpgh

Last fall, I was still in the thick of fundraising, but looking for help with community building, content, and research for my first fund.

Lila had been connected through @peytonkleinpgh, another recent high school graduate whom I had recently chatted with.

After meeting Lila, I was immediately struck by two things: her age and the fact that her resume, just after graduating high school, was somehow more impressive than mine had been when I was 25.

@KUOW

She had worked with @KUOW (Seattle’s NPR station), @GlowDotFM (a podcast monetization startup), and @splicenewsroom (startup supporting media innovation in Asia)... all while in high school! 😱

(Meanwhile, in high school, I worked as a Panera Bread salad maker)

I was gobsmacked and scheduled a call with her, but caveated that I was also quite busy and wouldn't be available to mentor her super actively.

But she was persistent with her ideas and her eagerness to learn. She emailed me proactively with research. I could tell that her tenacity and hustle were special, so I brought her on as Atelier's first research analyst. And I am so glad that I did.

Over the past year, we've gone down myriad different rabbit holes: the history of economic inequality in the US, current debates in modern labor and economic policy, trends in Gen Z tech usage, cooperatives and governance structures, and so much more.

@sidehustlestack

We built @sidehustlestack together (along with @brndnwll) and a TikTok account w/ 16K followers.

We've written about Universal Creative Income and platform labor policy, built a course about the creator economy, taught angel investing, and read and discussed philosophy.

@Stanford

Over the summer, we finally met IRL in New York and just a few weeks ago, Lila started her first year at @Stanford.

Congrats on this new chapter!

At Stanford, she is planning to continue exploring the relationship between technology and society, studying some combination of cyber policy, computer science, cognitive science, and creative writing.

I have no doubt that in 10 years, Lila will have taken over the world (at the ripe age of 29).

It's been an incredible experience so far watching her learn and grow, and I couldn't have gotten through this first year of Atelier without her!

@LilaShroff

Lessons to take away:
- Follow @LilaShroff
- If there's someone you really want to work with, just start working with them, even if they haven't hired you yet :P
- If this sounds fun, I'm hiring!

https://twitter.com/ljin18/status/1436031944270176256

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More from @ljin18

Li Jin

@ljin18

24 Sep

@skominers

The labor movement has given us many of our current rights, including paid sick leave & protection against job discrimination.

But as work shifts to platforms, what becomes of participants' ability to effect change?

New essay w/ @skominers & @LilaShroff

hbr.org/2021/09/a-labo…

Gig workers and content creators are now reckoning with the fact that their livelihoods depend on the actions of platforms that they have little ability to sway, and to which are locked in given lack of data ownership and portability.

As a result, a new form of labor activism is appearing in the platform economy, which we call decentralized collective action or DCA.

DCA aims to achieve many of the same goals as historical labor movements: better pay and working environments, protection from harassment, etc.

Read 29 tweets

Li Jin

@ljin18

21 Sep

Today, it seems inconceivable that for much of human history, people accepted the 'divine right' of monarchs as a legitimate source of power.

Years from now, we may look back on this era and wonder why we were accepting of autocratic companies led by 'enlightened dictators.'

For much of human history, people lived under authoritarian/monarchical forms of government.

In the late 17th century, republican forms of government arose, inspired by conceptions of natural rights developed during the Enlightenment. >50% of the world now lives in a democracy.

The American and French Revolutions were major contributors to the growth of representative governments.

The Springtime of Nations in 1848 was a revolutionary wave affecting 50 countries in Europe, wherein people demanded more participation in government, economic rights, etc.

Read 7 tweets

Li Jin

@ljin18

11 Sep

Universal Basic Capital > Universal Basic Income

Income inequality in the US is the highest of all the G7 nations. The wealth gap between the richest and poorer families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016.

How do we change the fundamental dynamic driving wealth inequality?

In a world in which returns to capital outpace returns to labor, we need to give everyone access to owning capital assets that appreciate in value, not just short-term income.

(i.e., those who earn from work can never catch up to those who grow their wealth from investments)

A oft-cited stat is that 55% of US households own stock.

What is lesser-known is that that ownership is very concentrated: the top 10% wealthiest American households own 84% of all stocks. The top 1% of households own 50% of all stocks.

Read 8 tweets

Li Jin

@ljin18

10 Aug

The creator economy is starting to resemble the gig economy, with commoditization of workers and economic precarity masqueraded as entrepreneurship.

New post about the perils of the creator economy and how we move forward from here:

li.mirror.xyz/Rgk2La8izmn5La…

The gig economy--though home to many valuable companies--has had a controversial impact on labor, eroding a century's worth of worker rights & creating widespread precarity.

The creator economy is now experiencing the same.

If we're not thoughtful about building platforms, we can easily recreate the problems of the real-world economy in the online world.

Even though the creator economy is often framed as an improvement upon the gig economy, parallels problems and risks are emerging for workers.

Read 13 tweets

Li Jin

@ljin18

16 Jul

@YieldGuild

Announcing the Leaping Corgi Scholarship for players to start earning in the metaverse with @YieldGuild!

Play-to-earn is a new category of games where players earn in-game assets & tokens that can be turned into IRL income.

(read on for how to support!)
li.mirror.xyz/Dd7gY8Ip1tRcpz…

@AxieInfinity

During the pandemic, as local jobs dried up, play-to-earn game @AxieInfinity helped people around the world put food on the table, pay rent, and pay off debt.

Players are earning between $500-1000 per month playing the game—which is often higher than local minimum wage jobs.

For all of the game’s promise, there are barriers to entry: to play Axie Infinity, a player must first purchase a team of three Axies, which are themselves NFTs.

That's prohibitively expensive for many: a starter team of Axies can easily cost upwards of $500.

Read 10 tweets

Li Jin

@ljin18

1 Jul

Proposing a new definition of "creator":

Creators are internet-native workers.

They are using tools to produce something of value for an end user.

Historically, those tools were owned by someone else (platforms), and creators' work was often undervalued and exploited.

The reason why the creator economy is now intersecting with the crypto economy is because cryptonetworks provide a way to distribute that value more fairly.

If we pull on the thread of creators as internet workers, where does that take us?

History rhymes, and we can look at past labor movements for clues:

- Creator rights and protections

- Creator- and community-owned platforms

Read 4 tweets

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