Cryptoshit. This thing is crazy to buy.

Charlie Munger is revered and powerful in finance.

Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is noted for his wit, no-nonsense attitude to investment, and ability to spot promising firms and markets.

Munger's crypto views have upset some despite his reputation as a straight shooter.

“There’s only one correct answer for intelligent people, just totally avoid all the people that are promoting it.” — Charlie Munger

The Munger Interview on CNBC (4:48 secs)

This Monday, CNBC co-anchor Rebecca Quick interviewed Munger and brought up his 2007 statement, "I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this subject until I can present the arguments against my viewpoint better than the folks who are supporting it."

Great investing and life advice!

If you can't explain the opposing reasons, you're not informed enough to have an opinion.

In today's world, it's important to grasp both sides of a debate before supporting one.

Rebecca inquired:

Does your Wall Street Journal article on banning cryptocurrency apply? If so, would you like to present the counterarguments?

Mungers reply:

I don't see any viable counterarguments. I think my opponents are idiots, hence there is no sensible argument against my position.

Consider his words.

Do you believe Munger has studied both sides?

He said, "I assume my opponents are idiots, thus there is no sensible argument against my position."

This is worrisome, especially from a guy who once encouraged studying both sides before forming an opinion.

Munger said:

National currencies have benefitted humanity more than almost anything else.

Hang on, I think we located the perpetrator.

Munger thinks crypto will replace currencies.

False.

I doubt he studied cryptocurrencies because the name is deceptive.

He misread a headline as a Dollar destroyer.

Cryptocurrencies are speculations.

Like Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.

Crypto won't replace dollars.

In the interview with CNBC, Munger continued:

“I’m not proud of my country for allowing this crap, what I call the cryptoshit. It’s worthless, it’s no good, it’s crazy, it’ll do nothing but harm, it’s anti-social to allow it.” — Charlie Munger

Not entirely inaccurate.

Daily cryptos are established solely to pump and dump regular investors.

Let's get into Munger's crypto aversion.

Rat poison is bitcoin.

Munger famously dubbed Bitcoin rat poison and a speculative bubble that would implode.

Partially.

But the bubble broke. Since 2021, the market has fallen.

Scam currencies and NFTs are being eliminated, which I like.

Whoa.

Why does Munger doubt crypto?

Mungers thinks cryptocurrencies has no intrinsic value.

He worries about crypto fraud and money laundering.

Both are valid issues.

Yet grouping crypto is intellectually dishonest.

Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Chainlink, Flow, and Dogecoin have different purposes and values (not saying they’re all good investments).

Fraudsters who hurt innocents will be punished.

Therefore, complaining is useless.

Why not stop it? Repair rather than complain.

Regrettably, individuals today don't offer solutions.

Blind Areas for Mungers

As with everyone, Mungers' bitcoin views may be impacted by his biases and experiences.

OK.

But Munger has always advocated classic value investing and may be wary of investing in an asset outside his expertise.

Mungers' banking and insurance investments may influence his bitcoin views.

Could a coworker or acquaintance have told him crypto is bad and goes against traditional finance?

Right?

Takeaways

Do you respect Charlie Mungers?

Yes and no, like any investor or individual.

To understand Mungers' bitcoin beliefs, you must be critical.

Mungers is a successful investor, but his views about bitcoin should be considered alongside other viewpoints.

Munger’s success as an investor has made him an influencer in the space.

Influence gives power.

He controls people's thoughts.

Munger's ok. He will always be heard.

I'll do so cautiously.

WRITE FOR THE WEB3

Why web3’s messaging is lost and how crypto winter is growing growth seeds

People interested in crypto, blockchain, and web3 typically read Bitcoin and Ethereum's white papers. It's a good idea. Documents produced for developers and academia aren't always the ideal resource for beginners.

Given the surge of extremely technical material and the number of fly-by-nights, rug pulls, and other scams, it's little wonder mainstream audiences regard the blockchain sector as an expensive sideshow act.

What's the solution?

Web3 needs more than just builders.

After joining TikTok, I followed Amy Suto of SutoScience. Amy switched from TV scriptwriting to IT copywriting years ago. She concentrates on web3 now. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are seeking skilled copywriters for web3.

Amy has found that web3's basics are easy to grasp; you don't need technical knowledge. There's a paradigm shift in knowing the basics; be persistent and patient.

Apple is positioning itself as a data privacy advocate, leveraging web3's zero-trust ethos on data ownership.

Finn Lobsien, who writes about web3 copywriting for the Mirror and Twitter, agrees: acronyms and abstractions won't do.

Web3 preached to the choir. Curious newcomers have only found whitepapers and scams when trying to learn why the community loves it. No wonder people resist education and buy-in.

Due to the gender gap in crypto (Crypto Bro is not just a stereotype), it attracts people singing to the choir or trying to cash in on the next big thing.

Last year, the industry was booming, so writing wasn't necessary. Now that the bear market has returned (for everyone, but especially web3), holding readers' attention is a valuable skill.

White papers and the Web3

Why does web3 rely so much on non-growth content?

Businesses must polish and improve their messaging moving into the 2022 recession. The 2021 tech boom provided such a sense of affluence and (unsustainable) growth that no one needed great marketing material. The market found them.

This was especially true for web3 and the first-time crypto believers. Obviously. If they knew which was good.

White papers help. White papers are highly technical texts that walk a reader through a product's details. How Does a White Paper Help Your Business and That White Paper Guy discuss them.

They're meant for knowledgeable readers. Investors and the technical (academic/developer) community read web3 white papers. White papers are used when a product is extremely technical or difficult to assist an informed reader to a conclusion. Web3 uses them most often for ICOs (initial coin offerings).

White papers for web3 education help newcomers learn about the web3 industry's components. It's like sending a first-grader to the Annotated Oxford English Dictionary to learn to read. It's a reference, not a learning tool, for words.

Newcomers can use platforms that teach the basics. These included Coinbase's Crypto Basics tutorials or Cryptochicks Academy, founded by the mother of Ethereum's inventor to get more women utilizing and working in crypto.

Discord and Web3 communities

Discord communities are web3's opposite. Discord communities involve personal communications and group involvement.

Online audience growth begins with community building. User personas prefer 1000 dedicated admirers over 1 million lukewarm followers, and the language is much more easygoing. Discord groups are renowned for phishing scams, compromised wallets, and incorrect information, especially since the crypto crisis.

White papers and Discord increase industry insularity. White papers are complicated, and Discord has a high risk threshold.

Web3 and writing ads

Copywriting is emotional, but white papers are logical. It uses the brain's quick-decision centers. It's meant to make the reader invest immediately.

Not bad. People think sales are sleazy, but they can spot the poor things.

Ethical copywriting helps you reach the correct audience. People who gain a following on Medium are likely to have copywriting training and a readership (or three) in mind when they publish. Tim Denning and Sinem Günel know how to identify a target audience and make them want to learn more.

In a fast-moving market, copywriting is less about long-form content like sales pages or blogs, but many organizations do. Instead, the copy is concise, individualized, and high-value. Tweets, email marketing, and IM apps (Discord, Telegram, Slack to a lesser extent) keep engagement high.

What does web3's messaging lack? As DAOs add stricter copyrighting, narrative and connecting tales seem to be missing.

Web3 is passionate about constructing the next internet. Now, they can connect their passion to a specific audience so newcomers understand why.

His story will inspire you.

“Google search went down for a few hours in 2002; Jeff Dean handled all the queries by hand and checked quality doubled.”- Jeff Dean Facts.

One of many Jeff Dean jokes, but you get the idea.

Google's top six engineers met in a war room in mid-2000. Google's crawling system, which indexed the Web, stopped working. Users could still enter queries, but results were five months old.

Google just signed a deal with Yahoo to power a ten-times-larger search engine. Tension rose. It was crucial. If they failed, the Yahoo agreement would likely fall through, risking bankruptcy for the firm. Their efforts could be lost.

A rangy, tall, energetic thirty-one-year-old man named Jeff dean was among those six brilliant engineers in the makeshift room. He had just left D. E. C. a couple of months ago and started his career in a relatively new firm Google, which was about to change the world. He rolled his chair over his colleague Sanjay and sat right next to him, cajoling his code like a movie director. The history started from there.

When you think of people who shaped the World Wide Web, you probably picture founders and CEOs like Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Marc Andreesen, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. They’re undoubtedly the brightest people on earth.

Under these giants, legions of anonymous coders work at keyboards to create the systems and products we use. These computer workers are irreplaceable.

Let's get to know him better.

It's possible you've never heard of Jeff Dean. He's American. Dean created many behind-the-scenes Google products. Jeff, co-founder and head of Google's deep learning research engineering team, is a popular technology, innovation, and AI keynote speaker.

While earning an MS and Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Washington, he was a teaching assistant, instructor, and research assistant. Dean joined the Compaq Computer Corporation Western Research Laboratory research team after graduating.

Jeff co-created ProfileMe and the Continuous Profiling Infrastructure for Digital at Compaq. He co-designed and implemented Swift, one of the fastest Java implementations. He was a senior technical staff member at mySimon Inc., retrieving and caching electronic commerce content.

Dean, a top young computer scientist, joined Google in mid-1999. He was always trying to maximize a computer's potential as a child.

An expert

His high school program for processing massive epidemiological data was 26 times faster than professionals'. Epi Info, in 13 languages, is used by the CDC. He worked on compilers as a computer science Ph.D. These apps make source code computer-readable.

Dean never wanted to work on compilers forever. He left Academia for Google, which had less than 20 employees. Dean helped found Google News and AdSense, which transformed the internet economy. He then addressed Google's biggest issue, scaling.

Growing Google faced a huge computing challenge. They developed PageRank in the late 1990s to return the most relevant search results. Google's popularity slowed machine deployment.

Dean solved problems, his specialty. He and fellow great programmer Sanjay Ghemawat created the Google File System, which distributed large data over thousands of cheap machines.

These two also created MapReduce, which let programmers handle massive data quantities on parallel machines. They could also add calculations to the search algorithm. A 2004 research article explained MapReduce, which became an industry sensation.

Several revolutionary inventions

Dean's other initiatives were also game-changers. BigTable, a petabyte-capable distributed data storage system, was based on Google File. The first global database, Spanner, stores data on millions of servers in dozens of data centers worldwide.

It underpins Gmail and AdWords. Google Translate co-founder Jeff Dean is surprising. He contributes heavily to Google News. Dean is Senior Fellow of Google Research and Health and leads Google AI.

Recognitions

The National Academy of Engineering elected Dean in 2009. He received the 2009 Association for Computing Machinery fellowship and the 2016 American Academy of Arts and Science fellowship. He received the 2007 ACM-SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award and the 2012 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award. Lists could continue.

A sneaky question may arrive in your mind: How much does this big brain earn? Well, most believe he is one of the highest-paid employees at Google. According to a survey, he is paid $3 million a year.

He makes espresso and chats with a small group of Googlers most mornings. Dean steams milk, another grinds, and another brews espresso. They discuss families and technology while making coffee. He thinks this little collaboration and idea-sharing keeps Google going.

“Some of us have been working together for more than 15 years,” Dean said. “We estimate that we’ve collectively made more than 20,000 cappuccinos together.”

We all know great developers and software engineers. It may inspire many.

And morning water bottle struggles.

Welcome to my TikTok, where I share my stay-at-home life! I'll show you my usual day from morning to night.

I rise early to prepare my guy iced coffee. I make matcha, my favorite drink. I also fill our water bottles, which takes time and effort, so I record and describe the procedure. As you see me perform the unthinkable by putting a water bottle in a soda machine, you'll see my magnificent but unowned condo. My lover has everything, including:

1. In the living room, a sizable velvet alabaster divan. I was unable to use the words white or sofa in place of alabaster or a divan since they are insufficiently elegant and do not adequately convey how opulent the item is. The price tag on the divan was another huge feature; I'm sure my lover wouldn't purchase any furniture for less than $20k because it would be beneath him.

2. A plush Swiss coffee-colored Tabriz carpet. Once more, white is a color associated with the underclass; for us, the wealthy, it's alabaster or swiss coffee. Sorry, my boyfriend is wealthy; I'm truly in the same situation. And yet, I’m the one whos freeloading off of him, not you haha!

3. Soft translucent powder is the hue of the vinyl wallcoverings. I merely made up the name of that hue, but I have to maintain the online character I've established. There is no room for adopting language typical of peasant people; I must reiterate that I am wealthy while they are not.

I rest after filling our water bottles. I'm really fatigued from chores. My boyfriend is skeptical about hiring a housekeeper and cook. Does he assume I'm a servant or maid? I can't be overly demanding or throw a tantrum since he may replace me with a younger version. Leonardo Di Caprio's fault!

After the break, I bring my lover a water bottle. He's off to work with my best wishes. After cleaning the shower, I text my BF saying I broke a nail. He charged $675 for a crystal-topped shellac manicure. Lucky me!

After this morning's crazy choirs, especially the water bottle one, I'm famished. I dress quickly and go to the neighborhood organic-vegan-gluten-free-sugar-free-plasma-free-GMO-free-HBO-free breakfast place. Most folks can't afford $17.99 for a caffeine-free-mushroom-plus-mud-and-electrolytes morning beverage. It goes nicely with my matcha. Eggs Benedict cost $68. English muffins are off-limits. I can't make myself obese. My partner said he'd swap me for a 19-year-old Eastern European if I keep eating bacon.

I leave no tip since tipping is too much pressure and math for me, so I go shopping.

My shopping adventures have gotten monotonous. 47 designer bags and 114 bag covers Birkins need their own luggage. My babies! I've never caught my BF with a baby. I have sleeping medications and a turkey baster. Tatiana is much younger and thinner than me, so I can't lose him to her. The goal is to become a stay-at-home wife shortly. A turkey baster is essential.

After spending $955 on La Mer lotions and getting a crystal manicure, I nap. Before my boyfriend's return, I can nap for 5 hours.

I wake up around 4 pm — it’s time to prepare dinner. Yes, I said “prepare for dinner,” not “prepare dinner.” I have crystals on my nails! Do you really think I would cook? No way.

My husband's arrival still requires much work. I clean the kitchen, get cutlery and napkins. I order UberEats while my BF is 30-45 minutes away.

Wagyu steaks with Matsutake mushroom soup today. I pick desserts for my lover but not myself. Eastern European threat?

When my BF gets home from work, we eat. I don't believe in tipping UberEats drivers. If he wants to appreciate life's finer things, he should locate a rich woman.

After eating, we plan our getaway. I requested Aruba's fanciest hotel for winter and expect a butler. We're bickering over who gets the butler. We may need two.

Day's end, I'm exhausted. Stay-at-home girlfriends put in a lot of time and work. Work and duties are never-ending.

Before bed, I shower and use a liquid gold mask in my 27-step makeup procedure. It's a French luxury brand, not La Mer.

Here's my day.

Note: I like satire and absurd trends. Stay-at-home-girlfriend TikTok videos have become popular recently.

I don't shame or support such agreements; I'm just an observer. Thanks for reading.

Never design a product without explicit metrics and tracking tools.

Imagine driving cross-country without a dashboard. How do you know your school zone speed? Low gas? Without a dashboard, you can't monitor your car. You can't improve what you don't measure, as Peter Drucker said. Product managers must constantly enhance their understanding of their users, how they use their product, and how to improve it for optimum value. Customers will only pay if they consistently acquire value from your product.

I’m Solomon Ayanlakin. I’m a product manager at CredPal, a financial business that offers credit cards and Buy Now Pay Later services. Before falling into product management (like most PMs lol), I self-trained as a data analyst, using Alex the Analyst's YouTube playlists and DannyMas' virtual data internship. This article aims to help product managers, owners, and CXOs understand product metrics, give a methodology for creating them, and execute product experiments to enhance them.

☝🏽Introduction

Product metrics assist companies track product performance from the user's perspective. Metrics help firms decide what to construct (feature priority), how to build it, and the outcome's success or failure. To give the best value to new and existing users, track product metrics.

Why should a product manager monitor metrics?

• to assist your users in having a "aha" moment

• To inform you of which features are frequently used by users and which are not

• To assess the effectiveness of a product feature

• To aid in enhancing client onboarding and retention

• To assist you in identifying areas throughout the user journey where customers are satisfied or dissatisfied

• to determine the percentage of returning users and determine the reasons for their return

📈 What Metrics Ought a Product Manager to Monitor?

What indicators should a product manager watch to monitor product health? The metrics to follow change based on the industry, business stage (early, growth, late), consumer needs, and company goals. A startup should focus more on conversion, activation, and active user engagement than revenue growth and retention. The company hasn't found product-market fit or discovered what features drive customer value.

Depending on your use case, company goals, or business stage, here are some important product metric buckets:

All measurements shouldn't be used simultaneously. It depends on your business goals and what value means for your users, then selecting what metrics to track to see if they get it.

Some KPIs are more beneficial to track, independent of industry or customer type. To prevent recording vanity metrics, product managers must clearly specify the types of metrics they should track. Here's how to segment metrics:

1. The North Star Metric, also known as the Focus Metric, is the indicator and aid in keeping track of the top value you provide to users.

2. Primary/Level 1 Metrics: These metrics should either add to the north star metric or be used to determine whether it is moving in the appropriate direction. They are metrics that support the north star metric.

3. These measures serve as leading indications for your north star and Level 2 metrics. You ought to have been aware of certain problems with your L2 measurements prior to the North star metric modifications.

North Star Metric

This is the key metric. A good north star metric measures customer value. It emphasizes your product's longevity. Many organizations fail to grow because they confuse north star measures with other indicators. A good focus metric should touch all company teams and be tracked forever. If a company gives its customers outstanding value, growth and success are inevitable. How do we measure this value?

A north star metric has these benefits:

• Customer Obsession: It promotes a culture of customer value throughout the entire organization.

• Consensus: Everyone can quickly understand where the business is at and can promptly make improvements, according to consensus.

• Growth: It provides a tool to measure the company's long-term success. Do you think your company will last for a long time?

How can I pick a reliable North Star Metric?

Some fear a single metric. Ensure product leaders can objectively determine a north star metric. Your company's focus metric should meet certain conditions. Here are a few:

1. A good focus metric should reflect value and, as such, should be closely related to the point at which customers obtain the desired value from your product. For instance, the quick delivery to your home is a value proposition of UberEats. The value received from a delivery would be a suitable focal metric to use. While counting orders is alluring, the quantity of successfully completed positive review orders would make a superior north star statistic. This is due to the fact that a client who placed an order but received a defective or erratic delivery is not benefiting from Uber Eats. By tracking core value gain, which is the number of purchases that resulted in satisfied customers, we are able to track not only the total number of orders placed during a specific time period but also the core value proposition.
   

2. Focus metrics need to be quantifiable; they shouldn't only be feelings or states; they need to be actionable. A smart place to start is by counting how many times an activity has been completed.
   

3. A great focus metric is one that can be measured within predetermined time limits; otherwise, you are not measuring at all. The company can improve that measure more quickly by having time-bound focus metrics. Measuring and accounting for progress over set time periods is the only method to determine whether or not you are moving in the right path. You can then evaluate your metrics for today and yesterday. It's generally not a good idea to use a year as a time frame. Ideally, depending on the nature of your organization and the measure you are focusing on, you want to take into account on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
   

4. Everyone in the firm has the potential to affect it: A short glance at the well-known AAARRR funnel, also known as the Pirate Metrics, reveals that various teams inside the organization have an impact on the funnel. Ideally, the NSM should be impacted if changes are made to one portion of the funnel. Consider how the growth team in your firm is enhancing customer retention. This would have a good effect on the north star indicator because at this stage, a repeat client is probably being satisfied on a regular basis. Additionally, if the opposite were true and a client churned, it would have a negative effect on the focus metric.
   

5. It ought to be connected to the business's long-term success: The direction of sustainability would be indicated by a good north star metric. A company's lifeblood is product demand and revenue, so it's critical that your NSM points in the direction of sustainability. If UberEats can effectively increase the monthly total of happy client orders, it will remain in operation indefinitely.

Many product teams make the mistake of focusing on revenue. When the bottom line is emphasized, a company's goal moves from giving value to extracting money from customers. A happy consumer will stay and pay for your service. Customer lifetime value always exceeds initial daily, monthly, or weekly revenue.

Great North Star Metrics Examples

🥇 Basic/L1 Metrics:

The NSM is broad and focuses on providing value for users, while the primary metric is product/feature focused and utilized to drive the focus metric or signal its health. The primary statistic is team-specific, whereas the north star metric is company-wide. For UberEats' NSM, the marketing team may measure the amount of quality food vendors who sign up using email marketing. With quality vendors, more orders will be satisfied. Shorter feedback loops and unambiguous team assignments make L1 metrics more actionable and significant in the immediate term.

🥈 Supporting L2 metrics:

These are supporting metrics to the L1 and focus metrics. Location, demographics, or features are examples of L1 metrics. UberEats' supporting metrics might be the number of sales emails sent to food vendors, the number of opens, and the click-through rate. Secondary metrics are low-level and evident, and they relate into primary and north star measurements. UberEats needs a high email open rate to attract high-quality food vendors. L2 is a leading sign for L1.

Where can I find product metrics?

How can I measure in-app usage and activity now that I know what metrics to track? Enter product analytics. Product analytics tools evaluate and improve product management parameters that indicate a product's health from a user's perspective.

Various analytics tools on the market supply product insight. From page views and user flows through A/B testing, in-app walkthroughs, and surveys. Depending on your use case and necessity, you may combine tools to see how users engage with your product. Gainsight, MixPanel, Amplitude, Google Analytics, FullStory, Heap, and Pendo are product tools.

This article isn't sponsored and doesn't market product analytics tools. When choosing an analytics tool, consider the following:

• Tools for tracking your Focus, L1, and L2 measurements

• Pricing

• Adaptations to include external data sources and other products

• Usability and the interface

• Scalability

• Security

An investment in the appropriate tool pays off. To choose the correct metrics to track, you must first understand your business need and what value means to your users. Metrics and analytics are crucial for any tech product's growth. It shows how your business is doing and how to best serve users.