Jaime Derringer is a serial entrepreneur, artist and Founder of the popular design platform Design Milk and Clever podcast. She is also an artist living in San Diego, CA.
Jaime and I recorded another podcast a few years back that appeared on Truth is Golden in 2018 (ep.106 - "The Milk That Never Spoils"). We talked then about her and life up to that point. Go check it out if you'd like to learn more about Jaime.
Today we're reconvening to talk about all things metaverse, web3 and crypto, as Jaime had now taken the next step in her professional life after selling Design Milk to Ahalife in 2019.
This is our second podcast episode on web3 innovation. Check out Episode 318 with Andrew Lane and Tessa Bain.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
Arnaud Marthouret:
So Jaime, thanks so much for coming back. It feels like an eternity since we last spoke.
Jaime Derringer:
It does. It's so funny thinking back 2018. It really wasn't that long ago, but we were living in a completely different world pre-pandemic. And yeah, that was before I sold Design Milk, so a lot has changed for me, and for the world since then.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Well, so that's going to be my first question. Usually ask people, "Can you tell us who you are and what you do in three sentences or less?" But given our podcasting history, I'll just refer people to the first podcast for that. Instead, can you catch us up to what you've been up to since 2018?
Jaime Derringer:
Of course. So as I mentioned, and as you mentioned, an introduction, I sold Design Milk in 2019, and I stayed on for three years as the Chief creative officer and helped bring the brand into e-commerce. And as everyone knows during those couple of years, through 2020 and 2021, and still right now we're still kind of in a global pandemic, so a lot of things shifted in the world as we know it since then. But yeah, I left Design Milk in March of last year, 2022. And so it's been almost a year since I left. And in the meantime, I took some downtime, and also did some consulting and advising, and also helped bring a new art NFT gallery and platform called Tonic, Tonic.xyz, helped bring that to the world. So yeah, I'm doing lots of things, making lots of art too also.
Arnaud Marthouret:
That's great. You told me offline that you are leaving Tonic. What's next for Jaime then?
Jaime Derringer:
Yes, I don't know what's next for me right now. I'll be honest with you. Before I was helping Tonic full-time, I was considering launching a consulting company, so maybe I will consult. But I'm leaving the possibilities open for me. So I'm actually really excited about that. I think after leaving Design Milk, having the opportunities and possibilities to be open was a lot more terrifying, but now I feel really good about it.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So is that an open call for people to reach out if they have ideas?
Jaime Derringer:
100%. Yeah. I'm all over social media, and it's just my name at Jaime Derringer. You can find me everywhere.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah, you're not hard to find.
Jaime Derringer:
No.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So today, like I mentioned before, we're going to talk about the Metaverse and Web three and crypto. How did you get into that space?
Jaime Derringer:
Well, I started by... I jumped back on Twitter. I've had a Twitter account forever, but I dumped back on there and started seeing some of my friends sharing things about NFT artwork. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. Someone had mentioned that technology to me a couple years prior, and I thought it was really interesting, but I never dove into it. So this time I dove pretty deep down the rabbit hole of NFTs and what I could do as an artist. And so after making lots and lots of NFT art, I started thinking a little bit more broadly about blockchain technology and all of the other things that kind of surround that. There's AI and metaverse, and just web3 in general and crypto, and all of these things that are happening in technology that are really fascinating. There's a lot that can be applied to business in general.
So after I kind of came out from making lots and lots of art, I started thinking about it as an entrepreneur, which is the other half of me. I feel like Jekyll and Hyde, but they're both great. I guess it's Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Jekyll, artist and entrepreneur. So I started thinking of it from a business perspective and what impact it might have on our lives. And then I just started sharing those things on LinkedIn and started reaching out to friends and other people who were in those spaces to talk to them about what they were doing. I just was really curious. And that's always what's driven me, is my curiosity to find out what might happen. And someone recently called me, I think called me a futurist. And I didn't ever think of myself as a futurist, more like a trend spotter, but now I guess I'm a futurist, which I accept, and I like it.
Arnaud Marthouret:
It's a cool term, and it's also so broad that you can really pretty much fit anything in it, which can be great. And I remember, when I was in school 15 years ago, back then, futurists were people like this great sci-fi author, I forget his name, Bruce something, quite well known, and they were using their kind of expertise as a sci-fi author to predict or to forecast transfer the future, which was fascinating. So maybe there's something for you there. I recently recorded another episode of this podcast with Andrew Lane and Tessa Bain Digby. The only reason I'm mentioning that is because it's a bit of a primer on all things web3, metaverse and blockchain. So for listeners that are interested in learning more about that world, I strongly suggest you go check out. That episode. It just came out a couple of months ago. I'll put the link in the show notes as well.
I want to dive a little deeper into NFTs because I've only ever been looking at it from the outside, with interests, but never really taking the jump. And there was this huge... I have an interest in blockchain more broadly speaking, and I've gone quite deep the rabbit hole in that, but not so much NFTs. And NFTs to me, when they came out, what was it a couple of years ago or a year ago or something, you had that craze where people were selling them for outrageous amounts of money. And so that's the part that never quite understood because it felt like it was a bit of a bubble. But I also see the potential as a tool to regulate the use of art and make sure that artists are fairly compensated. Since you have experienced doing that and you've actually sold your own NFTs, can you tell us what's your take on this whole thing, and maybe putting a bit aside the bubble aspect of it, which seems to have blown over now and look at what the future holds for this technology and especially our independent artists?
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of hype. And now that the dust has settled, the people who will be staying around are still here making wonderful work. And what I really think happened is that the pandemic probably escalated this, or accelerated it in a way, but the technology innovations are coming head to head with the creator economy, which I think it's really made it incredibly powerful for creators to take the next step in owning their work and being able to be paid for it. We've been very beholden to platforms, social media platforms to help pay creators. But I think that the blockchain enables creators to take ownership of all the work they create. They could mint their pieces on the blockchain and have a perpetual royalty set. So for example, I might sell you a physical painting. And let's say in 20 years, I become like the next Picasso or something, and then you sell that painting for a million dollars.
I don't get any of that money from that painting. But if it were an NFT piece of art, I could put in a royalty amount, and I could continually be paid on that every single time it changes hands. So I think that's a really powerful way that creators can take the power back and hold that power to be financially compensated for their work long-term, no matter what happens to it and whose hands ends up in. And it also, what is really interesting to me too about it is it's like a very public ledger of provenance. So you can trace a piece of work back to its original owner on the blockchain because it's all public ledger, it's publicly available information, so you can actually authenticate a piece of work to its original creator. And I think that's incredibly powerful for designers, artists, any kind of creator, in addition to manufacturers, if you think about the idea of authentic furniture or authentic works that manufacturers or brands can take ownership to as well. And then they could also pay a perpetual royalty to any collaborator that they work with.
So I believe it is a wonderful way for people to be able to not only authenticate ownership, but be paid for their work in perpetuity.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah, and that's very appealing. I'm a creator also in the commercial art world, and enforcing the licensing is always a pain in the ass, to be honest, so it seems to be a great tool for that. And I also like the fact that creators now, or rather, especially in the art world, speculators get less power, and it's more power to the creators. Because like you rightly said, if Picasso sold a painting in 1910 for a thousand bucks, and in 1960, it's worth $2 million, he doesn't get any of it, right? And I think it's, in some sense, more fair that there's a royalty system for artists, because it also incentivizes them to maybe put more art out there or not worry too much about the sale price early on and ensure that they continuously get royalties from the resell of if they ever become popular.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah.
Arnaud Marthouret:
I think people in the design industry are slowly waking up to the fact that those technologies are coming. But why do you think it's important for them maybe to educate themselves on the matter? And what are the implications for the design industry of all those, let's call it under the umbrella of web three, all those technologies that we mentioned?
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah. All of the things that are happening right now in technology will impact how we interact in the future. I think that I've had conversations very similar to this many, many, many years ago when social media started to emerge, and I would be on panels or calls talking about why it's important for brands to have an Instagram presence or Twitter or Pinterest, whatever. And now this is the same conversation again with a different technology. So I believe there's a place for all of these technologies that will impact design in some way or another. Of course, AI we know will impact everything that we do. We'll be partnering or using it or collaborating it with it in some way or another in most of our jobs in the future. I believe that NFTs will play a bigger role in the design industry for authenticating ownership and paying out royalties.
But also, the Metaverse is another one that I really think is a big, very interesting idea. It's not here yet fully, and we don't really know how it will unfold, but I do think that immersive VR, AR types of technologies will be integrated into really interesting use cases. I think right now, it looks a little far off for a lot of people because a lot of what's being designed right now in the three D space is more for gaming, and it looks very space age, very futuristic, not really applicable to let's say a boardroom or conference room. But I think that eventually, we will be having... We're on Zoom right now. We may be having this in a more immersive 3D environment where we feel like we really are sitting across from one another. And that, I think, enhances our experience of talking and experiencing each other as humans, because a flat screen really doesn't replicate being in person, but at least a 3D immersive environment would do that.
But I also think that there are ways in which that technology will impact design. Right now, we're already seeing AR and VR being used in interior design for walkthroughs, in construction, to see where things should be going. That's already happening. And then I think manufacturers will be creating digital twins of their products to be sold virtually, or just for their sales reps to use as a better tool for customers to experience their products. Instead of seeing it on a flat screen, you can walk around it even if you're not in the same location. So I think there's a lot of benefits that feel much more applicable than, let's say me having some digital land and some gaming metaverse. Yeah, so a lot of people are talking about that, but I think the real use case scenario is what we might need in our everyday lives and doing business and interacting with each other.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Which makes more sense, makes more sense, because someone like me, and I'm sure there are a lot of people that feel the same, spending your day in a purely 3D metaverse is really not all that appealing. I'm much more comfortable with the idea of augmented reality where you still live in a real world, but you might have layers of information appearing here and there when you need them. As generally a tech skeptic, one of my biggest concerns, because we've seen that with the big tech and the social media world, is privacy. I do know that privacy is more baked in web three by virtue of how the blockchain operates, but how do we make sure that the mistakes of web2 and the rampant monetization of private data doesn't happen, if it's at all possible? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, there are companies out there that are being built as we speak that are trying to give the ownership of data back to the user, so that it is in my hands or your hands who sees and accesses your private data and information. We have basically given these companies away so much information when we register for any website, email address, date of birth, but they're able to know so much more about us than we even offer up. So I think that... I believe that the blockchain can enable this data privacy so that we have more self sovereignty and we can elect to sell our data, or we can revoke access to our data when we connect or disconnect from a website. And you can opt in or opt out as much as you would like.
And then I think it would be great to be able to be paid for that. So we're not getting paid for giving all of these companies our information that they then use to sell to advertisers. And I don't see a dollar or $2 from Facebook every time I log on. So it would be nice to be able to share in those revenue or to be able to opt out of that.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah. I agree. Facebook, even if you don't have a Facebook account, there's evidence that they know a lot about your habits and where you go hang out online. So that's, I think, the big hurdle that we'll have to overcome, and those companies will have to get used to the fact that their business model is, first of all... That's just my opinion. I think it's completely morally corrupt, but also not viable in the long term when people start waking up to the fact. And maybe it won't happen. Maybe people will just be content to get access to free stuff and have their data monetized, but I think it's changing, so hopefully we'll go in the right direction. You mentioned a few minutes ago that the conversations you're having right now about web3, you had them a decade plus ago about social media with web2. Do you see any parallels in the way those two revolutions are happened and are happening? Is there any common themes. Since you've already surfed that wave one time, do you see similar things happening now, or is it completely different?
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, I do see similar patterns. So the first one is people are just afraid of change. I think that people like to know what's going to happen when and how. Certainly, the pandemic really threw us all off in having to force us to create new ways of living and question everything basically around us. But I think that what we're seeing now is pushback on new tech because it seems scary to people. How are they going to have to change their lives? What will they need to learn? Will their jobs become obsolete? Will they have to hire new people or learn a new skill? So I think there is a lot of fear. And so one of the things that I try to do in a lot of the conversations that I have is demystify it and try to help people adopt it, or even just dip their toe into it.
Because when we talked about social media and the early days, people really didn't just understand why they needed these things to do business. And I was trying to explain that you'll need this because your customers are going to be there and you need to meet them where they are. This is kind of the same situation, in that you will need to adapt to these new technologies because that's where your customers will eventually be. If you think about the Gen Z, that generation has grown up. They don't know a world without an iPad or phones or all of these technologies. And my daughter, who's Gen Alpha, doesn't know a world without Roblox. So these are the future customers, consumers of all of the companies products, and so that's how they will expect business to be done. But it doesn't have to be overnight. Companies don't need to jump right in and adapt all of these things all at once.
I think it's much more of thinking about learning, dipping your toe into things, watching and listening, and thinking about your client or your customer and how those folks will benefit from one of these types of services that you could offer. I think that brands and companies will need to think about their own customers and clients and figure out what makes the most sense. For example, back in the early social media days, sometimes it didn't make sense for a brand to be on Facebook at all, or Pinterest at all. It was just go to Twitter, or just go to Instagram. And I think that that's also going to be relevant here. You don't have to learn all of these things overnight. Dip your toe to a couple and figure out where your customer might end up gravitating toward, and then just go in that direction. But right now, it's really time to learn, and just be open-minded and look at all of the opportunities.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So if I asked you to write the Healthy Skeptics rule to approaching those new technologies, how would you tell people to approach it?
Jaime Derringer:
I approach everything being open-minded and optimistic and with curiosity. And I think that now would be a great time together everybody at your company together, or your friends and colleagues or trusted colleagues and just talk about it, get some new perspectives, find out who's interested in it and who might want to take a class on it, or find out what types of contractors might be able to help you expand your design business into a 3D immersive environment. It may not be a skill that you need to acquire. There are many people out there who already do it. Just like in the beginning of the social media days, people had to find somebody who knew how to do social media and bring them onto their team. This is much more about education opportunities and exploration, I think in these early days. I would also say that... You talk about being a skeptic. I think it is very, very much a watch and/or learn or educate yourself.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Jaime Derringer:
I don't know if that was good at all answer. I'm so sorry.
Arnaud Marthouret:
That's fine. I know what I would do because I actually just wrote a piece on this whole thing as a kind of primer. So my approach was like think about what the technology can do for you. So if you find a technology that's mature enough and has commercial potential for you and your clients, then by all means, jump right into it. If you find yourself looking at a technology that looks promising but requires a lot of upfront investment for it to work, it might be worthwhile, but you should really consider if you want to put all those resources into it. But the third point I made is that there's also a lot of scammy things happening. And so that's why I keep bringing the words skeptic up, because you want to be wary of those snake old oil peddlers we've seen it with FTX. And there's been, frankly, crypto exchanges blowing up since 2013 to 2014 since the first one blew up, Mt. Gox, that nobody remembers today, it was still the early days of crypto.
But it happens every couple of years. There's one that promises the moon, and then it turns out to be a scam, and then they blow up. So it's like everything else. There's Bernie Madoffs in every industry, so you just want to be careful with that. So that's kind of my approach. That's why... I tend to be skeptical, but I'm also not a [inaudible]. I don't want to say don't approach new technology because it can be very beneficial, and we've all benefited from it in some way or another over the years. But I think it's interesting to look at that. I like your approach of watching and learning and being curious, because I think that's the best way to protect yourself from scams while still learning about the important stuff, and then eventually dipping your toes and embracing it.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, I don't think it makes sense for anyone to go from zero to a hundred overnight with any of these technologies. I think it's a lot of experimentation right now. There's a lot of tools that are still being built. So I don't think we will see the full spectrum of what we're dealing with for another couple of years. Once new companies start emerging with really good utility and applications for this technology, it still feels very much like we're in the beta version of all of these things.
Arnaud Marthouret:
If not even before the beta version, the alpha release or whatever. So let's talk maybe about some specific applications. What are the most promising ones you've seen so far?
Jaime Derringer:
Oh, great question. One of the things I think is really great... You've already talked to Andrew and Tessa from Digby, so I think their design authenticator is fantastic, and I love the idea of being able to trace originality and lifecycle of a product using this technology. So I think we'll continue to see a lot of growth in that area. I'm very interested to see what kind of hardware comes out in the next couple of years for AR. I think that you mentioned AR as being something you're mostly interested in versus being fully immersed 24/7, which totally makes sense. I think that we will see some interesting hardware coming out for AR. So I don't really see it as being something we're using regularly, unless you're shopping every day and you've got your phone up and you can see a sofa in your room before you buy it, but that's a great application of AR technology that we already have right now.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah, that's been around for a couple of years.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's going to explode if we can have some glasses or something that helps us do that. As we look around a room, we can see different enhancements or instructions. Imagine if we had enhancement on how to operate something, or how to fix a problem with your car on the side of the road. All of these things that you could possibly have instantaneous access to, those, I think, are really exciting. But right now, we're not there yet. So I can't say that's something that exists that I'm really excited about, but we all have experienced the idea of AR with these shopping sites. So I just think it will get more and more interesting as we go. And then I think in the design industry, these applications of metaverse type environments are mostly immersive, so that you can walk through a house before it's been constructed and decide, "Yes, I like the sink here," or "No, I want the sink over there." Those decisions are incredibly costly to do after the fact.
So if you can make them prior to, I think it's fantastic. And it also enables you to do things more quickly. If I'm unable to get to a job site because I'm traveling, I can put on a headset, or even just go into an application on my computer and decide where I want things in a home. That is fantastic, and I think that that will continue to get more widely used.
Arnaud Marthouret:
It just popped in my head as an idea. Have you seen anyone design an application where you could be... And say you're in your house and you're looking to renovate or redecorate it, and then you could look at it through a VR system and then you see the finished product. Does that exist?
Jaime Derringer:
It doesn't exist in that there's no application for a homeowner to do that themselves. There are certainly ways that you can create your own 3D immersive environments, but it's not like your house. I think that comes from a designer. But maybe that's something that will emerge over time, where consumers can go in and scan their room and be able to change things around on their own and drag and drop doorways or furniture or whatever in there. I think that's really exciting. We already have things like the paint apps where you can put different paint colors on your wall and see what it looks like. So it would be cool to have a fully immersive redesigning experience for homeowners, but it is available for designers and architects.
Arnaud Marthouret:
And I've seen architecture firms as early as five or six years ago doing VR tours at their buildings, but it doesn't seem to have become super common yet. Am I wrong?
Jaime Derringer:
No, it's not. I think part of it is the hardware, and the infrastructure that we have for creating these has just been very slow. And at least now, we're seeing a lot more momentum and acceleration in that. So I think we'll probably be seeing more and more of it emerge soon.
Arnaud Marthouret:
And do you see promising applications maybe more in the art world or the creator's world outside of design?
Jaime Derringer:
Huge. Huge applications for creators? Certainly from an artist's perspective, yes. The blockchain enables so much exciting stuff to happen. I could mint an NFT piece of art that evolves over time, that has sound, that has movement, that could be placed in an immersive experience or experienced immersively in a 3D environment. So that's really exciting for artists. But I also think if you think about any creator, any designer, there's tools out there already to be designing in three D using your hands in VR, and I think it's only going to get more and more exciting for the creator.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So in the course of our preparation, you mentioned to me generative art. Can you tell us more about what that is?
Jaime Derringer:
Sure. So generative art is any kind of art that's created using an autonomous or semi-autonomous system, which is basically just a set of instructions. So it could be anything from... It actually started to emerge... It's been around for a really long time. There was a lot of it in the 50s. Sol LeWitt, Damien Hurst, Marcel Duchamp, all of these artists have used instructions in order to carry out artwork. So the blockchain technology is really enabling this boom right now for artists that are creating work using code and AI. So AI is considered a type of generative art, but I also really strongly feel like artists who are writing their own code and using that to generate outputs of art are really making some incredible work that I think will be here for a long time. And that movement, I think, is going to continue to be on the rise. And these artists that are doing that right now will probably be collected by museums.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So you just touched on AI. And it's really topical right now because talking about ChatGPT and other technologies, and you see a lot of those, was it DALL-E and other are generating Ais. And there seems to be a lot of fear about AI. And I frankly had similar fears until I started reading a little more about it, and realized a few things that reassured me somewhat. What do you think about AI? And is that something we should really be afraid of, or be more like you and just optimistic and embrace?
Jaime Derringer:
Well, I like your idea of being a little bit of a skeptic with AI. I certainly think it is a little bit scary, but I also, being the optimist that I am, can see the potential of this as a tool. If we just think of it as another tool that will enable us to do things more quickly, whether it's iterate on an idea more quickly or collaborate with others more quickly, or even just get a rough draft of something done. I'm the kind of person that doesn't work well with a blank canvas or a blank piece of paper, so having a starting point to just get me going is sometimes necessary for me. So I utilize it in that way, to just kind of get my creative juices flowing, and then it's all me from there on. But I can see how scary it can be.
And also, I understand the controversy around it. Certainly, an artist who's spent 20 plus years honing their craft and developing a style, a signature style, and then just to have somebody type that into mid journey and generate an image that looks just like it can be... That would be heartbreaking as an artist. But I also feel like that could be a really great tool for that artist, or maybe it's time to push yourself into a new direction.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So that makes sense. I want to push back a little bit against that idea because.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, of course.
Arnaud Marthouret:
... yes, that type of art, and let's say the style can become much more accessible to just about anyone. But when the artist who actually is physically capable, or even mentally capable to generate that art without any crutch, so to speak, wouldn't that art still be more valuable because it would still be more scarce than the AI generated art which anyone can literally generate, and therefore be more valued?
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah. I think we can look at it like anything else that's been copied over time. Chanel handbags have been sold on the street all over the world, fake ones for $15, but the Chanel handbag hasn't gone down in price at all. And in fact, I believe some of the bigger brands said that the knockoffs are good for business because they direct people more to that brand as being something that people see or recognize. So yeah, there's two sides to this conversation. Maybe even multiple sides. It's a multifaceted conversation. I don't think it's a black or white issue. It's just like let's talk about it and see where it goes. I hope, for the artist's sake, that the original art from that artist continues to be valuable, for sure.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah. And I think it's slightly different approach to AI, but I think there's a lot of fears for people who, especially in white collar jobs or knowledge workers that thought their jobs were safe, and now AI is threatening them, at least the lower level ones. I think that higher level knowledge workers will still be in demand because the human mind hasn't been reproduced by AI yet, so we're still good for now. And that's where I'm going to play the optimist on that front. I think what's happening is what we saw with automation a hundred years or 80 years ago when a lot of blue collar jobs disappeared and where they're shipped to China or replaced by robots, but it didn't destroy the economy. People just found other things to do. So it overall made humanity more productive and freed up a bunch of people to do other things that could keep moving the humans forward, so to speak.
And I think that's what's going to happen with AI, at least in its current guise. I don't know what's going to happen when we reach general AI that's as or more intelligent than humans, but we're not there yet. Is that a lot of those jobs are going to be... The same way CAD killed the architecture draftsman. It didn't kill the architecture profession. It just removed a whole bunch of jobs that were made redundant. I think it's similar to what's happening. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's the case. And then those people will find other things to do. And maybe that's a good way to go back to the trades, because a shortage of trades, and we need trades to make the world work. So maybe we're going to come full circle and change things around a bit.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, I love that you brought it back to the trade because this is something that I feel really strongly about, but there is a shortage of tradespeople, and there are jobs available for that. So I think that that's a really, really important point. And I would love to see more people enroll in trade school. I know that going to college has been beaten into all of us for so many years, but I really think that trade is a respectable and amazing profession, and it allows individuals to become pretty independent or create their own businesses. So it's very empowering. But yeah, it's tough work, but I think there's so much great opportunity in that industry.
Arnaud Marthouret:
But if you look at it strictly pragmatically, you can make, I'm sure now it's well over 100 grand because of inflation, but as a welder, maybe you study for a year or two, and you come out of school at 20, whatever, say 21, and you start making 100 grand right away or close to, that's not a bad career. Yeah, you're not going to make as much as a lawyer or a doctor, but you also don't have to spend 10 years plus in school.
Jaime Derringer:
And all the student loans.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah, and pay half a million or a million dollars worth of student loans back. So from a strict financial point of view, it makes a lot of sense. And I also think that a lot of people see the trades as being the plumber that's a little overweight that shows up at your house and shows your shows his crack when he's working under your sink, but you can be a plumber and still be very educated and well-learned person. They're not mutually exclusive either.
Jaime Derringer:
Absolutely.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So I am a huge fan of Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs because he's been advocating for trades for probably about 20 years now. And he says the same thing. Those people who he's met throughout his career, a lot of them have become literal millionaires because they've started businesses and they've grown. And now they have 10, 20, 50 people working under them. Yeah, they work hard, but it's rewarding, and it leads to a great quality of life. So I am a big proponent. And I think the colleges now have become just degree mills. Most degrees don't really lead to anything. There are degrees that are useful if you want to be an engineer or an architect. Those are still valuable because they lead to great careers, but most degrees just are not... The cost is not worth the effort anymore because you can't find jobs with those anymore, which is plain and simple.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah. And I think it's important to take into consideration is that four years better spent getting experience in a specific profession or specialty versus sitting in a classroom.
Arnaud Marthouret:
[inaudible] of life, baby. That's where it's at.
Jaime Derringer:
Love it. Yeah, I don't use my degree. I have one, but it feels kind of useless.
Arnaud Marthouret:
I have three, and none of what I do directly applies. They've been helpful in learning about things that I work on every day, but I don't need them to do what I do, so I'm with you. I have one more question for you. And switching gears a little bit, but there's been a community aspect to everything you've done, at least since the beginning of Design Milk. And it seems to be even growing as you move further into your career. What do you think community is so important? And what you get out of it?
Jaime Derringer:
Great question. What do I personally get out of it?
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah. First of all, I think community is incredibly important. I think there's nothing better than bonding over similar experiences or things that you like with your peers that just makes you feel included. I think it's a very human need to be part of a group of people who are like-minded or who will care about you or for you, and you for them. I think that's just a very human thing that we all need. And coming out of the pandemic, even though we're kind of still in it, we are at least moving about the world again and seeing each other in person, and I think that people really are welcoming that much more than they would have if we hadn't been through that experience being stuck at home without human contact for so long.
So I feel like it's definitely another one of those things that's been accelerated because of the pandemic is really big in web3 communities, really big. Part of it is this post pandemic phenomena, but the other part of it, I believe, is because for so long, we've been on these social platforms that are supposed to be social and connecting us and bringing us together, and yet somehow they've been somewhat divisive, also not really friendly for conversation. Hard to really have a conversation on social. You could maybe in the MySpace days. Yeah, it feels very much like you're shouting into a vacuum and you're not really seeing the interactions or meeting people like you would have in the early days. So I think there's this backlash that is more focused on ways that we actually can converse with each other. And there's been a movement back to in-person events and smaller, more intimate communities, like communities on Discord, Discord servers, or small groups of people on WhatsApp where you all have something in common and you're bonding over that.
And I think a big part of web3 is about developing a community around something. Sometimes it turns into a brand, and sometimes it's just people helping other people with resources, or coming together around something that they all love. And I think it's fantastic. I've always been a community person my whole career and my whole life. And so I feel like in the early days of the internet, for me personally, when I started finding other people online who liked the things I liked, that was why I fell in love with the internet in the first place. So it's been the driving force behind my entire career.
Arnaud Marthouret:
And I think you and I are old enough to remember the days of web1 where you go to IRC chats or internet forums. And those were a true community. I remember about, I was around 19, 20, I was part of this computer forum because it was really into computers at the time for some reason. And there was a group of maybe 10 people that were on there all the time, and we'd become friends without even knowing what we looked like. And I thought that was really cool. But I think it got lost with web2. And it would be awesome if Web three could bring that back somehow, in different form, but [inaudible]
Jaime Derringer:
It is coming back though. It really is.
Arnaud Marthouret:
It's coming back in person, but I haven't seen it online that much yet. Maybe I'm not in the right spots
Jaime Derringer:
In the Discord servers that I'm in, it is. I'm having dinner this week with people I met in a community that just so happened to be local. And it's bringing new friends to me, which I just thought wasn't possible with the internet, the way that it was going these days. Because I used to meet all my friends online in the early days and then it kind of lost the excitement and the luster of where we would gravitate toward each other or around something together. But it seems to be moving back toward that, and I really... That's probably why I'm extra excited about it, because it reminds me of those early days where you could very easily and intimately connect with other people. And even if you don't meet them in person, they're still there online and always there to chat or be supportive, and I love that.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Yeah, those were the days. So what is Discord? Is the 21st century version of a forum?
Jaime Derringer:
Kind of. Yeah. Basically. I think it's just like a giant... Let me start that over. Discord is an app that you can use to either create your own server, which is basically just a group of rooms that you can create, chat rooms around a specific issue or a brand or a person or whatnot. So anyone can create a Discord server. And it is typically like an invite only or private servers. And there's a lot of public servers as well that you can join around certain issues or brands that you like. So it's just another way to connect with people online.
Arnaud Marthouret:
So is it similar to Slack, but less business oriented then?
Jaime Derringer:
I would say it's very similar to Slack. Yeah.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Okay. Now it's starting to make sense. That's how out of touch I am. I don't know Discord.
Jaime Derringer:
It's okay. It's very confusing for first timers. I think the reason why I am comfortable with it is because I've been creating forums and internet communities for so long that I'm just kind of used to it. But it's very similar to Slack.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Gotcha. I think that's all the questions I had for you. So do you have any last words of wisdom for our listeners about what we talked about today?
Jaime Derringer:
I've been asked this a lot in most of the talks that I've done, and my takeaway is usually to maintain your optimism and your curiosity in exploring your frontiers of technology and what it can do for you or how you can use it. I advise against being scared and pushing against it because it's going to advance whether or not you embrace it. And I think that embracing it makes it much easier to deal with, even if you don't love it. So I think, yeah [inaudible]
Arnaud Marthouret:
It might be a bit uncomfortable at first, but humans are very resilient and adaptable. So eventually...
Jaime Derringer:
Absolutely.
Arnaud Marthouret:
... I think if you... Because we've all done it before with one thing or another eventually. If you get familiar with something and it's less scary. And then you get used to it, and then it becomes part of life.
Jaime Derringer:
Yeah, exactly.
Arnaud Marthouret:
Great. Well, Jaime, thank you very much. That was great. And hopefully we'll do another interview this time in less than six years.
Jaime Derringer:
Thank you.