⚓️ pedigree snobs
Cool Cats is currently searching far and wide for a new CEO.
they’ve got big-time recruiting agencies on the prowl and are likely leveraging their CAA connections to get in the rooms with the most qualified in the space.
…or so they think.
I’m constantly flummoxed by how much the NFT space has gotten swept up in ‘pedigree’ over the last year.
anyone who was a part of anything successful in Web2 for some reason gets to parlay that success directly into Web3.
the biggest example being how Kevin Rose (of Proof and Moonbirds) can basically do no wrong because he’s so well-connected. doodles delivers a keynote speech at their NFT NYC event with so much Web2 influence (from their CEO, a former music executive) that it’s treated with the same excitement as the newest iPhone announcement.
it’s all sounding *pretty* familiar. weren’t we supposed to be breaking free from all of this snobbery?
hey, I get it. past performance indicates future success…yada, yada, yada. this is how life works; I’m not delusional nor am I trying to upend that (maybe).
however, at a certain point in Web3, we have to start judging more off what people *do* and not what they *did*.
(Kevin Rose and Doodles have both delivered extreme value to their communities FWIW, so they’re off the hook)
I know nothing about the inner workings of Cool Cats’ hiring process, but I’m wondering if they are looking to Twitter *at all* to help conduct their CEO search. in fact, I wonder if they’re looking to Twitter for their current job listings…full stop.
I realize that sounds amateurish but hear me out.
I’m looking at submissions for the #Clontest (an event where Clon - the founding artist behind the Blue Cat - chooses his favorite ‘fan’ art to win an unminted Cool Cat).
I’ve found myself retweeting and in awe of the submissions from this year’s contest. the talent in the Cool Cats community is unmatched.
and if there are artists doing all this from obscurity (right in the community no less) who is to say their new CEO isn’t also lurking on Twitter? that talent as it turns out…might also be right under their nose.
this shouldn’t be isolated to Cool Cats either. there are plenty of projects who could search outside the box for *any* position they need to fill.
what I’ve personally loved about Web3 so far is that it’s been a big Etch-A-Sketch. what has been written is rarely done in stone.
instead, it’s been an evolving tapestry of characters, crooks, and evangelists…all wanting their names out there and their work to be put in front of the world to see.
and every few months the Etch-A-Sketch gets shaken and we start again.
I personally have used the opportunity of Web3 to start this newsletter…despite the fact that I have 1) no formal writing training and 2) my current resume looks as though someone vomited up a bunch of business words onto a PDF (I’m a former business development executive with 6 years of digital marketing experience currently working as a director of customer success for a martech platform and startup).
I’ve done this with no “pedigree” to speak of…yet the Web3 community has embraced me nonetheless.
there are likely hundreds of others doing things with no experience either. and many have more talent in one fingernail than I have in my whole body.
what’s been a constant is that the best projects come from the most unexpected places. talent that a year ago was likely scraping by (maybe doing something they hated) are now behemoths in the space.
a year ago, the Cool Cars founders themselves weren’t in complete obscurity but they were *pretty close* to it (considering their platforms today). so why couldn’t their new CEO have that same trajectory?
and more generally, why couldn’t the next generation of degens be “nobodies” now too? it’s out with the old and in with the new…