Stop Chasing the Latest “Meta”
It is short-sighted, and will make you less competitive
Did you hear about this exciting new thing going on in crypto?
Depending on when you are reading this, the above sentence will mean something very different. If you read this again next month, the meaning will likely change again. This is the magic of the ADHD-like world of crypto (or Web3). We are constantly innovating and finding new use cases for this groundbreaking technology. We should take the time to enjoy that. Mess around with the shiny new toy, throw some ETH at it (responsibly), make it your own, go wild! But also know that this shiny new thing will very soon fall into the background. It won’t necessarily fall into obscurity or lose adoption, but it will stop being what everyone is talking about once a shinier and newer meta comes along. If you hitch your career or the direction of your company to whatever the latest meta is, you will always be at a disadvantage.
When I graduated from university and began my professional career as a smart contract developer, NFTs were at their peak craze. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) had just launched the month before and there were new NFTs dropping every day. Naturally, my first job was at a development studio that specialized in launching NFTs for companies and influencers. For about a year and a half, things were amazing. We were getting more clients than we knew what to do with! Eventually, though, the market took a downturn and the clients dried up.
The year before, in 2020, Web3 experienced a phenomenon known as “DeFi Summer”. This was a time when Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols and infrastructure were having their Cambrian Explosion.
Now, imagine if I had entered the workforce in 2020. I would have almost certainly specialized in developing DeFi protocols. By 2021, when NFTs were having their moment, I may have been tempted to pivot into NFT development. In that case, I would be a developer with 1 year of DeFi experience and 0 years of NFT experience. By the time NFTs had slowed down and a new meta was emerging, I would be a developer with 1 year of DeFi experience, 1 year of NFT experience, and 0 years of experience in whatever I went into next. Hopefully the problem is becoming apparent.
Changing your career or business trajectory every time something new pops up means you will never be an expert in what you are currently doing. Your competitors who have been working in the same field for years will always be more experienced. They will do better in job interviews and have more previous work to show clients. Employers and clients will more likely choose them over someone who has just entered the arena to chase a fad. This makes sense intuitively if we apply it to our own lives.
Imagine your house suffers a pipe leak and you need a plumber. For some reason plumbing as a profession has recently become very popular. Plumbers are all the rage. They’re all over the news, they’re getting sponsorship deals, it’s very cool to be a plumber. When you are searching for plumbers, are you going to hire one who has just jumped onto the bandwagon or one who has been a plumber for 8+ years? The answer is obvious. Now apply that to an industry that has billions of dollars sloshing around. Probably not where you want to hire newbies who just jumped on the latest hype.
So what should you do if a new use case blows up and you’re really interested in it?
First, you should investigate whether this use case has the potential to stick around for the long term. You don’t want to pursue a career in something that isn’t going to be around in 5 years. This step may require some waiting, which is not a popular concept in Web3. If after 6 months to a year usage of this new technology is consistent, then it may have longer term staying power. This doesn’t mean you need to sit on your hands for that time. Rather, you should be learning what you can in your free time and developing personal projects related to this new meta. It should not, however, become your sole focus and take time away from what you are already specializing in.
Now that you’ve determined that this use case is here to stay, it’s time to take a look at yourself and decide if you are still interested in it. Many times we jump into things that seem exciting only to find ourselves losing interest soon after. If this happens, it’s probably best not to pursue a career we’re not interested in. Otherwise we will not do our best work and we will not enjoy what we are doing.
So, this shiny new toy has lasting potential and your interest in it is stable as well. It may be time to take things up a notch! Now you have 6 months to a year of experience learning and developing with this new use case. You know enough to impress in an interview or make an effective business plan related to this use case. Start diving deeper, building more serious projects, contributing to open-source projects, and complete the pivot into this new arena. Luckily, if you’re already a developer, many of your skills gained from previous experience will carry over nicely.
Web3 is an exciting world, precisely because of how fast it is evolving. Any journey, however, cannot get very far if we are changing course every mile. If you are a developer or business leader in this space, it is important to keep in mind that the amount of time you spend in a field matters. It matters for your credibility and for your professional development. In many cases, staying in your lane prepares you nicely for the next time your field has its moment in the spotlight. While everyone is newly entering your field you get to be the expert, because you’ve already been there for years. The good news is this doesn’t mean you have to be bored all the time. Even within any single ‘lane’ of Web3, new things are always popping up. In NFTs, for example, token-bound accounts are an exciting innovation. In DeFi, off-chain trade ‘intents’ are in the spotlight thanks to Uniswap’s latest developments. Whatever corner of Web3 you’re in, there’s always something new build!
