Blockchain Failed the Grandma Test. AI Passed on Day One.

I hear people liken the AI rush to the blockchain rush of 2017-2021. 

I used to work in the blockchain world, and having had an intimate view of both worlds, I think these couldn’t be more different. 

I hosted an educational podcast, taught people about smart contracts in laymen’s terms, and interviewed people with missions to use blockchain for altruistic or otherwise meaningful purposes. 

While working in the field, I kept a healthy balance of curiosity, enthusiasm, and skepticism. 

I’m partly embarrassed, partly proud, of the time I interviewed a founder on stage at an expo in Chicago. I was thrown in to replace the interviewer last minute, and as I learned more about this founder’s company, I held his feet to the fire: why did his company need blockchain when other solutions felt perfectly appropriate and more accessible? Why did they mint a token, when the tokens wouldn’t be necessary for customers to use the platform? Their desire to integrate blockchain into the product felt disingenuous, unnecessary, and clunky. And yet- they raised tens of millions of dollars with their ICO. 

I eventually left the blockchain space. Sold my crypto in 2020 and have had no regrets since. 

There was no shortage of founders with admirable pursuits, but they needed the support of the speculators in order to build enough momentum. And the speculators needed these founders to legitimize their clear cash grab. And yet, the two parties were at odds in making anything meaningful grow. 

Now we’re in the AI rush - and it’s likely that 90% of the companies founded today won’t amount to anything meaningful. 

But while blockchain promised to decentralize control and provide all kinds of access to people around the world, generative AI actually is. 

I see generative AI for its flaws: I’ve begun to fall for AI videos (I’ve spent the past year flagging these videos for my 60 year old mother who couldn’t tell the puppies and babies were fake! And now I’M the gen x-er?!); I’m concerned about kids not putting effort into figuring things out on their own or doing meaningful research; and I can feel my writing skills crumble as I revise emails with ChatGPT (no AI was used in the writing of this post). 

And yet- I’m now building products with Claude and Cursor that I never would have been able to otherwise. My coding knowledge is rudimentary, to say the least. And yet, any silly little idea that comes into my head - I can now build. 

Thousands more companies will be built or launched with vibe coding. 

New ideas will be brought to life. 

Where blockchain failed the “explain it to your grandma” test, AI has already succeeded. My grandmother doesn’t need to understand how the agents work behind the scenes, and neither do I - we’re both using these platforms daily to make sense of whatever it is we’re exploring. 

Anyway - this may be a gold rush, and there could be a massive bubble to pop. But the decentralization of the power to build has already begun, and it won’t stop. 

I believe every AI product launching will lead to another greater, stronger product — possibly built by another person with a great idea and no idea how to code.