Crowdfunding Quotes

Crowdfunding is the new black.

Today, we would call it crowdfunding.

The Decentralization of Finance is really good for humanity and it’s ultimately a win for each and every one of us. Because now that we can circumvent banks, exchanges and brokerage companies by using smart contracts on the blockchain… every person, every family, and every business will experience more liberty, more freedom, more opportunities, more abundance, more power, and more wealth. This makes way for more opportunities around financial wellness, permaculture investing, more effective crowdfunding, better ownership and equity arrangements, and more.

Double Fine had found a fourth option: Kickstarter, a “crowdfunding” website that had launched in 2009. Using this website, creators could pitch directly to their fans: You give us money; we’ll give you something cool.

Growing up, those of us who had to put a hyphen before "American" got scoffed at for sending money home to cousins in the old country or supporting aging parents here on green cards. But you used to shake your head and tell me how, back home, nobody put their parents into nursing homes or let their kin go hungry. The same thing lives on among Sami's queer and trans friends of color, he tells me, crowdfunding for medical care and housing online, or in the group chats he tells me about where friends help one another escape abusive relationship or housing crises with safety planning and couches to sleep on. We take care of one another because no one else will, eh says. But every time is a gamble.

A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition

Don't take advice from people unless they are writing you a check.

To improve chances of success, you want to build a project or product where you think you’re filling a hole. Part of the trick is showing people things that they either a) haven’t seen in a long time or b) things they haven’t seen before.

But increasing the amount of equity finance in an economy is easier said than done: it is a project that would take decades rather than years. Some of the barriers are institutional: outside of the very small world of venture capital (of which more later) and the even smaller and newer field of equity crowdfunding, most businesses do not raise equity, and most financial institutions do not provide it. There are established agencies that can rate the creditworthiness of even quite small businesses, and algorithms to allow banks to quickly and cheaply decide whether to lend to them. Nothing similar exists for equity investment, and the equivalent analytical task (working out a company's likely future value, rather than its likelihood of servicing a fixed debt) is more complex. And cultural factors stand in the ways too: despite a very elegant financial economics theorem that shows that business owners should be indifferent between equity and debt finance, for many small business owners there seems a cognitive and cultural bias against giving away equity.

Found a startup society. This is simply an online community with aspirations of something greater. Anyone can found one, just like anyone can found a company or cryptocurrency.2 And the founder’s legitimacy comes from whether people opt to follow them. Organize it into a group capable of collective action. Given a sufficiently dedicated online community, the next step is to organize it into a network union. Unlike a social network, a network union has a purpose: it coordinates its members for their mutual benefit. And unlike a traditional union, a network union is not set up solely in opposition to a particular corporation, so it can take a variety of different collective actions.3 Unionization is a key step because it turns an otherwise ineffective online community into a group of people working together for a common cause. Build trust offline and a cryptoeconomy online. Begin holding in-person meetups in the physical world, of increasing scale and duration, while simultaneously building an internal economy using cryptocurrency. Crowdfund physical nodes. Once sufficient trust has been built and funds have been accumulated, start crowdfunding apartments, houses, and even towns to bring digital citizens into the physical world within real co-living communities. Digitally connect physical communities. Link these physical nodes together into a network archipelago, a set of digitally connected physical territories distributed around the world. Nodes of the network archipelago range from one-person apartments to in-person communities of arbitrary size. Physical access is granted by holding a web3 cryptopassport, and mixed reality is used to seamlessly link the online and offline worlds. Conduct an on-chain census. As the society scales, run a cryptographically auditable census to demonstrate the growing size of your population, income, and real-estate footprint. This is how a startup society proves traction in the face of skepticism. Gain diplomatic recognition. A startup society with sufficient scale should eventually be able to negotiate for diplomatic recognition from at least one pre-existing government, and from there gradually increased sovereignty, slowly becoming a true network state.

Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole. What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house? I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want. Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process. These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can make a thing) or subscription services (which is more like pay me some money every month so that I can make things) or Patreon, which is like pay per piece of content pledge service (that basically means pay me some money every time I make a thing). It doesn't matter, the fundamental building block of all of these relationships boils down to the same simple thing: trust. If you're asking your fans to support you, the artist, it shouldn't matter what your choices are, as long as you're delivering your side of the bargain. You may be spending the money on guitar picks, Mai Tais, baby formula, college loans, gas for the car or coffee to fuel your all-night writing sessions. As long as art is coming out the other side, and you're making your patrons happy, the money you need to live (and need to live is hard to define) is almost indistinguishable from the money you need to make art. ... (6:06:57) ... When she posts a photo of herself in a vintage dress that she just bought, no one scolds her for spending money on something other than effects pedals. It's not like her fan's money is an allowance with nosy and critical strings attached, it's a gift in the form of money in exchange for her gift, in the form of music. The relative values are... messy. But if we accept the messiness we're all okay. If Beck needs to moisturize his cuticles with truffle oil in order to play guitar tracks on his crowdfunded record, I don't care that the money I fronted him isn't going towards two turntables or a microphone; just as long as the art gets made, I get the album and Beck doesn't die in the process.

No more using your imagination. You’ll get to play LARPing the Apocalypse in a real depopulated wasteland,

The tech start-up world from which Musk hails embraces disruption as one of its organizing principles, encouraged in part by the influential blog TechCrunch, which named its flagship conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, for the concept. Silicon Valley’s budding capitalists have long been encouraged to use their software prowess and processes to disrupt existing industries, and hence we have Facebook, which disrupted the news media industry, Airbnb, which disrupted hotels, and crowdfunding, which disrupted traditional investing. When Ted Craver asked Musk to share his thoughts on disruption with an audience of old-school electricity providers, you could see why the chairman might nervously fiddle with his pen. Could Tesla, with its emerging energy-storage business, disrupt the utilities? It might have come as some comfort to those at the conference that Musk is no fan of disruption. Indeed, he and Straubel were probably there to convince utilities to work with Tesla on energy storage projects that could benefit both parties. But the industry’s fear that it might have been on the wrong side of history would not have dissipated completely. The same was true for at least one auto industry leader. The man who, until May 2017, was CEO of the Ford Motor Company is one person who does appear to be a fan of disruption. Mark Fields, a Harvard business grad and Clayton Christensen follower, was fifty-three when he was appointed to succeed outgoing CEO Alan Mulally.

Tencent, and Alibaba, the flow of crowdfunding through Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe,

Een of andere 'schrijfster' klaagde steen en been op facebook omdat een andere schrijfster een crowdfund link had gestuurd. Alsof ze een enorme dickpic toegestuurd had gekregen. Ik zei tegen haar dat ze als ze een crowdfunding link als 'persoonlijk' ervaart ze snel naar de zielenknijper moet. Meteen werd ik geblocked, gelukkig maar.

Consider consultant Clay Herbert, who is an expert in running crowd-funding campaigns for technology start-ups: a specialty that attracts a lot of correspondents hoping to glean some helpful advice. As a Forbes.com article on sender filters reports, “At some point, the number of people reaching out exceeded [Herbert’s] capacity, so he created filters that put the onus on the person asking for help.” Though he started from a similar motivation as me, Herbert’s filters ended up taking a different form. To contact him, you must first consult an FAQ to make sure your question has not already been answered (which was the case for a lot of the messages Herbert was processing before his filters were in place). If you make it through this FAQ sieve, he then asks you to fill out a survey that allows him to further screen for connections that seem particularly relevant to his expertise. For those who make it past this step, Herbert enforces a small fee you must pay before communicating with him. This fee is not about making extra money, but is instead about selecting for individuals who are serious about receiving and acting on advice. Herbert’s filters still enable him to help people and encounter interesting opportunities. But at the same time, they have reduced his incoming communication to a level he can easily handle.

Examples of projects could include: Projects at work: Complete web-page design; Create slide deck for conference; Develop project schedule; Plan recruitment drive. Personal projects: Finish Spanish language course; Plan vacation; Buy new living room furniture; Find local volunteer opportunity. Side projects: Publish blog post; Launch crowdfunding campaign; Research best podcast microphone; Complete online course. If you are not already framing your work in terms of specific, concrete projects, making this shift will give you a powerful jump start to your productivity.

The criteria that I found most valuable when making my decisions were the following: What is the size of the investor community invested in other offerings on the platform to-date? Does the platform accept investments via credit card? For example, about 40% of my crowdfunding investors invested with a credit card. Does the platform allow for campaign extensions (if you fall short of your goal within your campaign period, can you extend the campaign until you reach your goal)? I’ve extended my campaigns multiple times. Does the platform allow for multiple disbursements? I prefer to disburse money from my campaign once a month. However, many platforms don’t allow you to disburse the funds until after the campaign is over What are the fees? Platforms can charge between 5-20% of your raise as fees, with some platforms having complicated fee structures that involve taking some of your Securities as part of the offering. Some platforms require you to pay them cash upfront before launching an offering. Does the platform allow you to set your own terms? For example, some platforms don’t allow you to sell convertible notes. Some others don’t allow you to sell non-voting common stock. Some platforms insist that they set the valuation for your startup in order to launch—the logic being that they know their investors, and they want to provide them with a “good deal.” For many reasons, you want to sell the Security that’s right for your startup. Does the platform allow you to have design freedom on the campaign page? You want to make sure that your brand is well represented. The aesthetics and optimization of the page are highly correlated with conversion (how many people invest after visiting your page). Does the platform support analytics? You need advanced analytics to market your offering. Some platforms, for example, allow you to enter a Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics code into the campaign page, while others do not. Does the platform have a good reputation? You will be driving a lot of potential investors and media folks to this platform, and you want to be sure that your platform of choice hasn’t been involved in anything shady in the past. Does the platform allow you to update your investors and prospective investors with campaign notifications? Some platforms have a built-in functionality where you can post updates right on the campaign, download email, and mailing contact lists of your investors (allowing you to contact them by email and allowing you to build Facebook “lookalike audiences”). Whereas, other platforms don’t even share the email addresses of the folks who have already invested in your startup. Does the platform support or plan to support secondary trading for the Securities that it sells on its platform? Will your investors be able to sell the Securities that they buy from you? The ability to sell Securities in a marketplace brings a lot of liquidity and increases its value significantly. In order to allow for secondary trading, the platform needs to obtain an Alternative Trading System (ATS) approval from FINRA.

We encourage you to follow the changes occurring within your microbiota by participating in the American Gut Project. Although we are not involved in this crowd-funded science project, it is run by a team of well-respected scientists and has provided thousands of people with information about their microbiota. You can have your gut microbiota sequenced before and during your process of microbiota improvement to witness the changes to the new aspects of your diet and lifestyle. You will be provided with a report specifying the types of microbes that make up your microbiota and how it compares with others who have participated as well as to people living in developing regions of the world (Malawi and Venezuela). This information will not only allow a better view of your microbiota and how it compares with others, but will also contribute to the scientific understanding of these communities. To guide you in your journey of microbiota revitalization, we recommend submitting multiple samples—an initial sample to document where your microbiota started out, then one or more after you have made dietary and lifestyle adjustments in order to see how these changes are impacting your gut community over time. This will not only be informative but may also motivate you to keep improving the health of your microbiota.

Convenience sampling—testing the waters with friends and family—often leads to false positive results because loved ones tend to adore your idea no matter what. Crowdfunding campaigns—like the one Jibo ran on Indiegogo—pose a similar hazard. Individuals who back such campaigns are often product category enthusiasts looking for bright, shiny new things and are eager to be first to sample them. Crowdfunding campaigns can demonstrate a product’s appeal to such zealots, but they don’t provide data on mass-market demand.

1. Plataformas de mercado (marketplace). Listado de startups. 2. Peer to peer (P2P) o economía colaborativa. Listado de startups. 3. Big data (rating, valoraciones/tasaciones, análisis/investigación, geolocalización). Listado de startups. 4. Inversión (Crowdfunding). Listado de startups. 5. Software. Listado de startups. 6. Smart Home o domótica (IoT). Listado de startups. 7. Finanzas (créditos/hipotecas/avales). Listado de startups. 8. Property Management softwares (PMS) y gestión. Listado de startups. 9. Visuales (realidad virtual, realidad aumentada). Listado de startups. 10. Contech (tecnología en la construcción). Listado de startups. 11. Marketing. Listado de startups.

The second crowdfunding campaign, the one we launched after the fire, ended up being even more moving and inspiring than the first. We had to rebuild half the bookshop, rewire the whole electric system, buy new books, lamps, mugs, teacups. A friend of mine named Luca wrote to me saying I should try GoFundMe, which I later realised was one of the most powerful fundraising platforms out there.

A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.

Modern Hoppean-Rothbardians are not only pro-market and anti-state: they are pro-technology, anti-democracy and anti-intellectual property as well. They promote the use of the Internet, smart phones and video cameras, blogging, podcasting, Youtube, social media and phyles, encryption, anonymity, VPNs, open source software and culture, torrents, wikileaking, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, MOOCs, 3D printing and Bitcoin to network, communicate, learn, profit and spread ideas—and to counter, monitor, fight, and circumvent the state. To increasingly render the state irrelevant and to reveal it as retrograde, crude, and antiquated, not to mention inefficient, cold, and evil.

But I don’t love being asked to be an investor in a crowd-funded honeymoon. Here is why: it’s not especially emotionally rewarding to know that I paid for three of five nights of a yurt rental in Big Sur.

Jay Parmar, co-founder of crowdfunded ticketing site Picatic, told us that simply changing the company’s call to action from “Get started free” to “Try it out free” increased the number of people who clicked on an offer — known as the click-through rate — by 376% for a 10-day period.

A crowdfunding investment involves a risk. You should not invest any funds in this offering unless you can afford to lose your entire investment.” All that is required by Section

you can afford to lose your entire investment.

A vision of sustainability acknowledges the damage incurred by the sole pursuit of wealth while trying to build an equitable system that can enable the production of socially valuable goods. The proliferation of crowdfunding Web sites, which allow people to back creative projects without expectation of financial return, are an encouraging development and a critical source of support to artists and tinkerers—yet they are no panacea.

Now she volunteered to open an account in her name at Yandex Money, the largest online payment service in Russia, in order to collect donations to support the protests. The organizing committee agreed. With Romanova in charge, it meant that nobody would question where the money went, given her unblemished reputation for integrity. The money would be safe from government pressure too; any attempt to intimidate Romanova would clearly be futile. The account at Yandex Money became known as Romanova’s Purse.11 On December 20 Yandex published on Facebook a new application that facilitated crowdfunding through Facebook for Yandex Money. Previously Yandex Money had become a common way for Moscow’s middle class to carry out e-commerce online; people trusted Yandex with their credit cards and used it to make purchases. Now the crowdsourcing application took it to a new level. Protesters were quickly able to utilize a transparent way to collect money for the demonstrations, and it was all done thanks to Internet technology. Romanova was a fearless overseer. Yandex said it was pure coincidence that the new crowdsourcing app was rolled out at the same time that protesters were raising money for the next rally. The next big protest rally was scheduled for December 24 on Prospect Sakharova. Ilya Klishin renamed the main protest event page on Facebook, with the cover photo depicting a wide image of the Bolotnaya crowd and the slogan, “We Were on Bolotnaya and We Are Coming Back,” and on the side carried a picture with the words, “We Are for Fair Elections.” Organizers announced they needed 3 million rubles, about $100,000. Romanova soon collected more than 4 million rubles online and immediately posted a detailed report of how the money would be spent.

One hour until the next assassin deadline. Dead-line. An appropriate word. Sean Womack checked his wristwatch and tried to steady his shaking hand. It was noon. Clang. Clang… The clocks of London chimed their consensus. Sixty minutes until the next assassin bet, but he only needed half that. The Assassin Market—a crowd-funded murder collective—was on the hunt for him.

The entrepreneurs in this book sell. They frequent public parks to see if anyone will buy their custom, typewritten stories. They use crowdfunding websites to raise money from customers before their products even exist. They post their ideas to massive web forums to gauge interest, or set up online shops the second they have a product to sell. Sales come first, not last. Finally, the entrepreneurs in this book try again. In almost every instance, the first versions of their products don’t work properly, or customers don’t want them. Instead of giving up, they tinker – sometimes for years – until they get things right. They hit roadblocks and spend late nights anguishing over seemingly insurmountable obstacles, until one day, through sheer force of will, they make it. The ones who survive are the ones who don’t quit.

While some have suggested that crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter can replace government agencies to do much of this work, such a view is shortsighted. Crowdfunding allows individual creators to raise money from their contacts, which gives well-known and often well-resourced individuals a significant advantage. In contrast, a government agency must concern itself with the larger public good,

The best crowdfunding campaigns draw in backers with powerful, compelling narratives.

Just believe in it and do it! Do not ask people for advice. They are going to tell you no. That’s the problem. Asking for advice all day long is great but taking action is more important.

The fog tried to remember something from its fog childhood, but the memory was...foggy.

The results can pay off dramatically: Jay Parmar, co-founder of crowdfunded ticketing site Picatic, told us that simply changing the company’s call to action from “Get started free” to “Try it out free” increased the number of people who clicked on an offer — known as the click-through rate — by 376% for a 10-day period.

Social money and payments: iZettle, Payatrader, mPowa, SumUp, payleven, Inuit GoPayment, Square •   Social lending and saving: Zopa, RateSetter, smava, Prosper, Lending Club, Cashare •   Social insurance: Friendsurance •   Social investing and trading: StockTwits, eToro, Myfxbook, Fxstat, MetaTrader Trade Signals, Collective2, Tradeo, ZuluTrade, Nutmeg •   Social trade financing: MarketInvoice, Platform Black, the Receivables Exchange, Urica •   Payday Lending: Wonga, Cash America, Advance America •   Goal setting and gamification: SmartyPig, Moven, Simple •   Crowdfunding: Funding Circle, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, crowdrise, Razoo

According to WordSpy.com, the earliest recorded use of the word "crowdfunding" was by Michael Sullivan in fundavlog in August 2006. Crowdfunding gained traction after the

Cambridge or Boston. The same urban tech migration is playing out in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City as some of the hottest tech companies in those areas establish themselves in downtown offices. For example, Twitter Inc. is headquartered in the gritty Mid-Market neighborhood in San Francisco, and the crowdfunding site Kickstarter Inc. opened its headquarters in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, N.Y. “It didn’t surprise me that young people wanted to move back to the city, because cities are fun,’’ said Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. “What really surprised me was this move among tech firms back to the cities.

Two well-known examples of crowdfunding companies are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. In 2012 there was an estimated $2.8 billion raised via crowdfunding campaigns. By 2015 that number is expected to climb to $15 billion. The World Bank predicts crowdfunding to grow to $93 billion by 2025.

Effective crowdfunding is not about relying on the kindness of strangers, it’s about relying on the kindness of your crowd. There’s a difference.

Spíš než o prostor k bydlení má jít o zázemí pro koncerty, divadla, přednášky, jazykové kurzy nebo veřejnou tělocvičnu – to vše přístupné za symbolický či nulový poplatek. „V Praze existuje řada klubů, fitness center a podobně, kdo ale nemá peníze, není v nich vítán,“ říká Novák. V představách Obsaď a žij! má centrum šetřit náklady tím, že program bude vznikat na dobrovolnické bázi – kdo umí třeba sebeobranu, vegansky vařit nebo ovládá španělštinu, nabídne bezplatný kurz ostatním. Bez dotací a grantů by se rádi obešli i při provozu budovy. „Bydlelo by tam asi sedm lidí, kteří by se zároveň starali o údržbu budovy a úklid,“ shrnuje představu spoluautor projektu Kliniky Arnošt Novák. „Jídlo by se dalo částečně řešit lovením v kontejnerech, na topení by se dalo ušetřit třeba soláry,“ uvažuje další členka sdružení Tereza Virtová. Na vodu a elektřinu by také rádi vybírali z dobrovolných příspěvků na baru nebo koncertech. „A když to nebude stačit, zkusíme třeba crowdfunding,“ dodává Hausnerová.

I can still remember every detail of that night in April, two years ago, when it all began. A word on the top right of the Facebook tab on my iPad caught my attention: crowdfunding. I wasn’t so much drawn to the ‘funding’ element, but to the concept of crowd: a multitude of people. It instantly reminded me of ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’ by Walt Whitman: Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd. I sat up and started typing. Title: ‘Opening a bookshop in a tiny village (Lucignana).

CoinDesk provides some of this information as seen in Figure 13.13. Though, as we will address in Chapter 16 on ICOs, the trend in this space is moving away from venture funding and toward crowdfunding.

In 2012, President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law. This bill, among many other things, included the ability for private companies like Gumroad to sell shares to the general public, making it possible for almost anyone to invest in the business. On March 15, 2021, the legal limit for regulation crowdfunding went from $1.07 million to $5 million. These new rules also allow for “testing the waters,” allowing companies like Gumroad to see how much demand there is to invest in the company before committing to a crowdfunding campaign. I believe that crowdfunding will reorganize the funding landscape. There will always be a place for venture capitalists, but who better to fund a business than its customers, who understand how valuable its offering is? And once founders can vet demand before committing, we should see the numbers skyrocket. In the old way, the number one downside of raising money was that you created two distinct sets of stakeholders: your investors and your customers. This new practice will allow entrepreneurs to minimize complexity by turning customers into investors. All of a sudden, you have a single group of people you are serving: your community. I can speak from experience: On March 15, 2021, I used Regulation Crowdfunding to allow some of Gumroad’s creators to become part-owners. In 12 hours, we raised $5 million from more than 7,000 individual investors. Now we have thousands of our creators as our investors too, keeping our interests more cleanly aligned. For the businesses that neither need to bootstrap completely nor want to go the venture-backed path, I’m hopeful that Regulation Crowdfunding will offer a middle ground. But the ultimate long-term goal remains profitability (read: sustainability). Once you’re in control of your destiny, you should never let it go.

The platforms screen out a lot of companies and only list the best ones because they want to gain a reputation for being the platform with the highest-quality deals. If they can gain this preeminent reputational position, they will stand a better chance of attracting and retaining a large investor audience, and with that, more high-quality companies will choose to list on their platform. But wait a minute. Isn’t equity crowdfunding meant to be all about improving access to capital, not restricting it? Understanding this issue will be useful for forming your pitch. One of the oft-repeated benefits of equity crowdfunding is meant to be the so-called ‘democratization of finance’ – smashing down the barriers, giving investors and companies unrestricted access to each other. But if we have got the platforms curating the deals that are shown to the public, then aren’t we right back where we started – with gatekeepers restricting access? The platforms may have ditched the suits, blue shirts, and dark ties for jeans, T-shirts, and stylish blazers… but there is no doubt that some of the old barriers are reappearing.

If so many people in the United States need help paying basic medical bills, this raises the question of whether there’s a better solution to the problem than pitting people against each other in an online competition for strangers’ money.8 The same logic holds true when you consider the increasing number of college students looking for help with food and shelter or graduates seeking help with crushing student debt. Crowdfunding makes it easier than ever for individuals to raise money from strangers. It also may be absolving us from looking at problems, such as medical costs, more systemically.

It is, in a way, the telos of everything I have been describing so far. It is as though the enlightened youth of the Sixties had stepped straight from battling the pig in Chicago ’68 to a panel discussion on crowdfunding at this year’s South by Southwest, the annual festival in Austin, Texas, that has mutated from an indie-rock get-together into a tech-entrepreneur’s convention; a place where the hip share the streets with venture capitalists on the prowl. This combination might sound strange to you, but for a certain breed of Democratic politician it has become a natural habitat. At SXSW 2015, for example, Fetty Wap performed “Trap Queen,” the Zombies played hits from the ’60s, Snoop Dogg talked about his paintings—and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker swore in the new director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Michelle Lee. In case you’re keeping track, that’s a former subprime lender swearing in a former Google executive, before an audience of hard-rocking entrepreneurship fans.