You Can Choose What Kind of People You Attract

YOU CAN CHOOSE WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE YOU ATTRACT

The media has called Vitalik Buterin a “prophet,” a “mastermind,” a “genius,” and “the blockchain movement’s biggest celebrity.” His star rose in 2013, when a nineteen-year-old Buterin cofounded the Ethereum blockchain and its corresponding cryptocurrency, Ether, one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin. Buterin’s importance in the cryptocurrency world is so great that in 2017, a false rumor that he had died in a car accident sent the price of Ether tumbling, wiping out billions of dollars of value in a few hours.

Given his reputation, you might expect Buterin to speak with the utter certainty of a guru, or even a cult leader. However, it’s an odd kind of cryptocurrency cult leader who says, as Buterin has, “I’ve just never had 100% confidence in cryptocurrency as a sector. See my many blog posts and videos, I’m consistent in my uncertainty.”

Indeed he is. At the height of crypto-mania in December 2017, when the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies hit half a trillion dollars and other crypto folks were crowing, Buterin tweeted skeptically, “But have we *earned* it?” and listed reasons the whole field was overvalued. He’s warned people repeatedly that crypto is a highly volatile field that could drop to near zero at any time, and that they shouldn’t invest any money they aren’t prepared to lose. In fact, he cashed out 25 percent of his own holdings of Ether well before the peak. When some critics accused him of lacking confidence in his own currency, he shrugged it off, saying: “Meh, I am not going to apologize for sound financial planning.”

Buterin is similarly frank about the best arguments for and against his strategic decisions, and the strengths and weaknesses of Ethereum. In one online conversation about Ethereum’s flaws, he dropped in uninvited and said, “IMO the most valid criticisms of Ethereum as it currently stands are . . .” and listed seven problems.

That truthfulness sometimes creates headaches for him. Critics paraphrase him uncharitably (“Buterin admits he doesn’t believe in Ethereum!”) or chide him for not maintaining a positive attitude.

So why does he keep doing it? Because even though Buterin’s style doesn’t appeal to everyone, the people to whom it does appeal tend to be especially thoughtful, smart, and scout-like—and those are the kinds of people he wants to attract to Ethereum. “Part of that is an intrinsic taste preference: I would honestly rather keep the one thousand of my Twitter followers that I respect the most than all the others,” he told me, “and part of it is because I really do think that having that culture increases Ethereum’s chances of success.”

Whether you’re starting a company, growing an audience for your writing or networking with potential clients, you build a niche for yourself based on how you talk and act. If you strive to be a scout, it’s true that you won’t please everyone. However—as your parents may have told you growing up—that’s impossible anyway. So you might as well aim to please the kind of people you’d most like to have around you, people who you respect and who motivate you to be a better version of yourself.