Ownership Economy with Variant

On this episode of Building at the Edges we sit down with Li Jin and Jesse Walden, Co-founders and General Partners at Variant Fund. Variant Fund is an early stage fund investing in web3 that believes the next generation of the internet will transform users into owners.   We kickoff the episode by diving into that thesis as Li shares her vision for the ownership economy one day leading us to the passion economy. We break down some of the narratives around decentralization and distributed ownership to analyze what is truly driving value in the space - what kind of ownership experiences do users actually want?   Li and Jesse share their bedrock convictions in the ownership economy and Jesse gives his thoughts on token design as well as some frameworks to think about when designing a token. We also discuss tokens as products and token design as a consumer experience.    To close out our conversation, Li and Jesse give us the inside scoop on their recent announcement, the Variant Founder Fellowship, as well as how early stage founders can get involved.    FOLLOW US Jess: https://twitter.com/thattallguy  Li: https://twitter.com/ljin18  Jesse: https://twitter.com/jessewldn  Seed Club: https://twitter.com/seedclubhq  Variant Fund: https://twitter.com/variantfund    LINKS https://www.seedclub.xyz/  https://variant.fund/     TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 1:43 Welcome Li and Jesse 3:16 Ownership economy and passion economy 7:33 Turning users into owners with tokens 11:09 Why aren't more products user-owned? 17:10 Do people actually want ownership? 20:17 The evolving culture of ownership 22:26 Bedrock convictions in the ownership economy 26:53 Tokens are products 32:16 Unpacking Jesse's recent tweet 36:54 The Variant Founder Fellowship 41:12 Closing thoughts 41:52 Outro   DISCLAIMER: The information in this video is the opinion of the speaker(s) only and is for informational purposes only. You should not construe it as investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and it does not represent any entity's opinion but those of the speaker(s). For investment or legal advice, please seek a duly licensed professional.