F**k It, We’ll Build the Ships

We’ve Lost The Plot.

Preamble

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Rising Tides Might Lift All Ships. But you know what.....

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The problem with the ‘labor-optional’ (jobless) utopian futures AI technocrats desperately pedal is that those rising tides won’t save anyone if those very tides flood our lungs before lifting our corpses. And the problem with Private Equity firms feebly constructing a series of lose-lose ships for brick & mortar owners, communities, and the third spaces they lovingly share(d) is that those ships fall apart easily ... those very tides flood our lungs before lifting our corpses. In fact they’re designed to. 

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And so unironically it is these very undesired artificial technologies and techniques little-adopted and less-desired by the common man that are melting the ice, faking the size and security of their fleet, and flooding our valley.

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Now first and foremost Gotham Oracle believes we have a choice in whether or not to flood the valley in the first place. Let that be clear. Hit them in their wallets. Reject their non-consensual proposals to steal our proprietary human histories and data while altogether hiding their own. The dam works perfectly at the current load! Or at the very least warn us if you’ve sabotaged the dam already.

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But seeing as these seemingly high IQ men don’t have a plan or just don’t care about the 10%-25% chance of the end of humanity (their words, not ours) …

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Gotham Oracle is working on a Plan B:

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‍‍Democratizing the human engineered building of ships, the rerouting of extra tides back into deserts negative actors created, and refocusing our attention on basic microeconomic and behavioial principles. 

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Using longstanding microeconomic truths combined with modern technologies that reject baseless future concepts we can lean in and proudly. Or, in a more colloquial way of saying, the reasons applications of the late 2000s early 2010s were both original and familiar as well as thoughtful such that they were adopted and enjoyed: 

• Early AirBnB when the supply and demand of the sharing economy criss-crossed naturally. Hello affordable and diverse housing.
• Early Uber vs Lyft where natural competition (and once more the sharing economy) utilized existent technologies and inventory (cars) to save (cheap rides), employ, and benefit society (no more DDs)
• Even early social-networks (yay!) NOT corrupted social-medias (booo). Those early versions utilized modern technologies (e.g. Web1) to connect and contribute natural dialogue. 

Here’s the fun part, likely the byproduct of CEO Quinn Zsido’s having gotten progressively PO’d and demanding it be embedded in the DNA of his company. Gotham Oracle doesn’t just want to supply a Plan B. G.O. is building it itself up to be optional, transparent, easy-to-understand, accessible, and beneficial to all that engage with it. And likely because he takes pride in having bootstrapped something people could actually want… information both financial, logistic and otherwise will not only be regularly displayed for the people on stage, but the content and economics that make up the Gotham Oracle B2B2C ecosystem (G.O. = The “B” in the Middle) will be powered by the communities they directly benefit. 

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Ahhhh, agency. Remember agency? Remember what they took from us the past 10 years? Pepperidge Farms remembers. 

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An App, Ecosystem, and Engine for New Yorkers by New Yorkers | Gotham Oracle

Introduction

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If you’re a common investor or affiliate of Gotham Oracle’s, much of this economic theory you may have already perused on our website’s Pitch Page. But everyone should benefit from reading the below. A brief note on CEO Quinn Zsido’s background should be noted to (ideally) install confidence as well as lend context as to why he set off like a crazy man building out these technologies, ecosystems, and principles with little to no indicators of success or around any Silicon Valley buzz words. He doesn’t and hasn’t held disdain for all disdain for Tech Bros and P.E. warriors… just those that with no originality. 

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Quinn is a Kentucky born (7 years near Fort Knox) NY bread (12 years near West Point) kid who has been living across New York City the better part of the past decade. He is a 29y/o middle of 7 children having at different times been both the baby and babysitter throughout the 2000s & 2010s when he ultimately attended Carnegie Mellon University (Roll Tarts). He was a decent wrestler out of NY and enjoyed playing Linebacker through college too. Maybe it was the bruises, maybe it was the hand-me-downs, maybe it was surrounding himself with the best and brightest (certainly brighter than himself). Irregardless, somewhere along the way he developed not only a desire to build technologies right by his peers, but also believes himself aware enough to call bulls**t on the seemingly smartest that we’ve lent unchecked power to. 

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And that leaves us with Gotham Oracle, an App for New Yorkers by New Yorkers. 

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A bit of a double-entendre. Because, yes, Quinn and co. (childhood friends of his from NY) have built it understanding the required social dynamics and requirements of the best city in the world (KNICKS IN 5). Too often Consumer Apps and attempted get rich quick schemes on the backs of buzzwords fall flat and question why. In their hearts… they know why. But not only is G.O. built by New Yorkers for NYC discovery, but it is also New Yorkers themselves that power its engine; the very engine propping up the very ecosystem that benefits them. That’s called a B2B2B Flywheel and we’ll get to that in Chapter 2. But this paragraph leads to the ___ socioeconomic, microeconomic, and business principles that G.O.’s theory is rooted in [A theory is a principle formed to explain the things already shown in data. Because of the rigors of experiment and control, it is much more likely that a theory will be true than a hypothesis]

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The 5 Chapters of G.O. Organizational, Economic, & Business Theory

1. A (Future) Founder’s 20s
   
   1. Lessons from University
   2. A Corporate Marketer in NYC
   3. Realizations
2. The Costs of Freedom
   
   1. I’m Not an Entrepreneur!
   2. I’m an Entrepreneur.
      
      • Do the Work
      • MTV Roast My App
      • Go Get Some No’s
      • Then Get Some Yes’s
   3. Friends & Family. Loves Lost & Loves Gained.
      
      • Fighting for Those I Love
      • Fighting for Those I Hate
   4. Employment Theory & Commitment
      
      • The 60 / 40 Agreement
3. Sell the Shovels
   
   1. Inspiration
   2. Too Poor to Pan for Gold
      
      • 0’s & 1’s Are Cheap
      • 0’s & 1’s Need Trust
      • Trust Takes Commitment
      • Commitment Takes Time
      • More Time is Both Bad & Good
   3. Aggregated Search
   4. Pivoting =/ Weakness
      
      • All That’s SaaS ain’t Golden
      • Web or Native | Web vs Native | Web & Native
   5. The Point of Consumer Apps
   6. Consumer App Foundations
   7. P2P & Gamification
   8. Horizontal Integrations
      
      • Direct Deals | Your Grandma’s Coupon Book 
   9. Vertical Integrations
      
      • Betting on Literacy | Bloggers
      • Compensating The People | Affiliates
      • Top-of-Funnel Lead Generation | Web
      • Disrupting Trillion Dollar Industries | Deeplinking the Ignored 
   10. K.I.S.S. | Keep It Simple, Sally
       
       • Microeconomics | What Works & Why 
       • I’m Close & I Want It
4. Capturing Critical Masses
   
   1. Intention & Localized Branding 
      
      • The Power of Populous 
      • The Power of the People
      • NY, The (sole remaining?) Role Model of SMBs
      • Expansions of Brand (e.g. Golden Oracle in SF, Windy Oracle in Chicago, etc.) 
   2. B2B Supply | Working on Behalf of Local SMBs 
   3. B2C Demand | Working on Behalf of Fellow Locals 
   4. B2_2C | Determining the Missing Link 
   5. B2B2C | Be the Link. Wax on. Wax off. 
      
      • The Localized Marketing Flywheel 
      • An Affiliate Marketing Engine for Brick & Mortar 
5. So You’ve Got a Song? Sing it.
   
   1. Becoming an Artist
   2. Remaining a Businessman
   3. Swing for the Fences | Shooting a Movie
      
      • Can’t Say It? Show It
   4. Going-to-the-Market

Footnotes:

• Calling Our Shot. Hidden in Plain Sight. —  at the end of the day one can take this article as proof of these two very things. This written during start of OEF Film Tour at 29/y/o before any definitive indicators of “success”
• Writing books is cool and all, but never forget you're a servant of the greater good. Separate oneself from ego.
• By not selling out or taking technological shortcuts (you know what we mean 🤖), and by building because you love something, you outpace everyone and end up with complete control of the vision. We've witnessed the best and worst of companies, so forgive us for believing that we can build a better one.  

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