Oddbean

Bitcoin: "A Thank you Note to @ODELL " I wanted to personally thank Matt Odell for his interview with Saylor. It meant a lot to the community and me. I really liked the format but of course my favorite part was the same as everyone else. When you addressed the "elephant in the room." Open source is the toughest environment there is, but having an open mind like you do, shows enlightenment. Of course I gave you kudos for your frustration with Saylor not opening up his checkbook and perhaps his being behind Cathie Wood/ARK not supporting developers (ARK has recently reversed this stance and is donating 8% of REVENUE to open source development.) It is no question Jack Dorsey is the king of Open Source and at first glance it would appear Michael Saylor is the spoiler. Here is where my 35 years of cube dwelling comes in, all my years were in the BI space, as a developer, including a stint working on the vendor side, as a tech rep, for a competing BI company to MicroStrategy. It was super eye opening being behind the scenes of BI Software and all the headaches. I know exactly what kept Saylor up at night and that was making sure his MicroStrategy software wasn't compromised. I worked the 3rd and 4th level Help Desk at times and that was nerve wracking as I had no clue how some of the software was supposed to work on various operating systems. My example, the WANG. I knew the mainframe, midrange, DB2/2, PC....but it was hard to learn and I quickly learned, I can't know it all and you had to hunt down the right people in the company or WORLD who could assist. Most of this was pre-Internet so I relied on Knowledge Bases behind firewalls. But the trickiest were the New Feature Requests (NFRs) or User Written Subroutines the customers demanded. The reason Saylor is so gun shy to just go gung ho on supporting the funding of Bitcoin development is exactly what I feared as a developer. Think about it, Microstrategy has 1000s of installations around the world, with millions of users. All behind firewalls and truly centralized. All those developers who are writing billions of lines of code with the MicroStrategy software doing reporting for internal lawyers, sales, or more important the SEC. Yes, that SEC, there are so damn many rules and regulations and most companies rely on the software to make sure they are not understating (they love it if you overstate and go quiet) PnL, Balance Sheets, General Ledgers. But what if one of those NFRs, was traced back to MicroStrategy's software and they were sued for Billions? Game over. Saylor is not anti-spending Bitcoin, but he has repeatedly said the most friction is Bitcoin as a currency. He also lays out why, with the legacy systems all built on the US dollar, but he also knows the scrutiny. The government is watching Saylor's every move, they even sued him because they didn't believe he shares half his time in Florida and DC. My friends are quick to bring up he paid $40 million just to settle, they see guilt, I see focus. Compare and Contrast this with Dorsey. Dorsey can be a lot more free wheeling than Saylor. Dorsey wrote Twitter which essentially is a one-stop-shop installation in one spot. (Coincidence Cash App/Block are all over the news with some recent $15 Million payout?) With Twitter/X, something goes bad in the code, they can easily do an 'emergency' change it in one place. Have you ever installed BI software in Fortune 50 companies? I have, sometimes all alone. It isn't easy at all. Especially with MicroStrategy, no offense, but I voted against them because I heard nightmares about their installation process. It matters to BI professionals. So, thank you Odell, for that interview with Saylor, and not bringing up the public discourse of Saylor not supporting open source development. I bet he does, but super calculated, and behind the scenes. I am sure he'd rather give NOSTR $40 Million than the government. Best. So, I know this is