I have heard a number of people describe this blog as covering all that is new. That wasn't my explicit goal when I started writing it. My goal was simply to focus on cities and all the wonderful things that shape them. But it turns that new ideas form a big part of that and that I am very interested in new ideas. Change is what moves the world forward.

Of course, there is no shortage of new ideas. We all have brilliant ideas. Maybe you're looking at Toronto's public garbage bins right now and thinking to yourself, "You know what, I have some terrific ideas for how these could be greatly improved." And chances are, your ideas are good ones. The problem, however, is that ideas are fleeting. The real challenge is bringing them to fruition before they die.

So here are a few thoughts that came to mind this morning:

• There is a difference between incremental improvements and directional/fundamental change. Generally speaking, we tend to be naturally better at ideas related to the former than the latter. When we look at a Toronto garbage bin on the street and see it overflowing with rubbish and see all its side panels swung open, we intuitively see the problems. But it is less common to think about, oh I don't know, subterranean garbage networks for moving refuse around or networked robots that come out at night and tidy our streets with purple brooms. This is also why when we come up with something new like a horseless carriage or an iPhone, we often name them after the thing we already know and are familiar with, even though it probably undersells how meaningful the change is. It helps our minds make the leap.

• Many organizations have separate decision making processes that depend on the above. Amazon, for example, likes to ensure that incremental improvements have "multiple paths to yes" within the company. Again, these are the more intuitive kind of changes and so you don't want some brilliant, yet fragile, idea to get killed by some naysayer along the way. You want as many of them being implemented as possible. On the other hand, ideas that might change the direction of the company are typically slowed down and carefully deliberated. This is a common split. "Major decisions" go up to some greater governance body; whereas all other day-to-day decisions just get made on the fly by those "in the field". This is one way to keep things moving quickly.

• On a related note, venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote today about the virtues of small and flat partnerships when it comes to early-stage investing (but I don't think the lesson only applies to this sector). In his view, the biggest venture winners -- at least when it comes to early-stage companies -- often come from the most "controversial and out there" ideas. And to make these sorts of bets it is helpful to have a small and flat team with a lot of trust. I found this particular insight really interesting because it implies that when you have the opposite -- big and hierarchical organizations -- you naturally start to lose your ability to experiment with non-consensus ideas. And so what you're likely left with is just the intuitive and incremental stuff.

• Recently, we also spoke about the argument that generations view change differently. Young people are often more open to new ideas, at least partially because they view it as a way for them to make their mark on the world. Older generations, on the other hand, often view change as a threat to their current position in the world. None of this is universally true, but think about how this often plays out with new housing. Young people view housing supply as a way for them to buy or rent something new and form their own household. Whereas already established households can view it as a threat to their community and their existing way of life.

These are a broad set of thoughts. But if there are any lessons to extract from these bullet points it is perhaps these: One, consider the kind of decision that needs to be made. Is it something incremental and intuitive? Is it an obviously sound infill housing project? Because if so, you want multiple paths to a quick yes. And two, consider who gets a say and who controls the decision. Because the wrong group dynamic can kill even the best new ideas.

Everybody wishes that they bought companies like Amazon way back when they first went public, and then held them until today. If you did that, you would of course now be rich. But what would you have had to deal with along the way?

Well, for one, you would have had to stomach an 80% decline in its share price when the dot-com bubble burst. And so while hindsight is always 20-20, do you really think that, faced with this cliff, you would have held on, not freaked out, and not sold? Yeah, who knows.

Moving to today and the crypto space, the price of Ether is down 51% over the last 6 months. That's not quite 80%, but 51% is still a big number, especially if you dumped all of your savings into it and/or borrowed money to do so.

But does this decline really mean that crypto is rat poison?

Last year when the market cap of crypto was rising, I believed that crypto had the potential to become the next big thing for the internet. And I still believe that today, which is why I continue to dollar cost average and why I continue to collect NFTs that I like.

I may be wrong with the conviction I have (and this post will serve as permanent evidence of it), but it's what I believe. And my conviction doesn't depend on today's price. It depends on what I think it could happen with crypto in the next 10 years.

So with that, here is an interesting "State of Crypto" report that venture firm a16z just published. I think the key message here is that this is a longtime coming. And while it is still early days, momentum continues to grow. But of course, you should decide for yourself what you believe.

Today, Amazon ships approximately 72% of its own packages. This is up from about 47% in 2019. Ben Thompson of Stratechery recently published an excellent article talking about why this is important and how the company’s investments in logistics are, yet again, paying dividends.

The foundation of Amazon’s “moat”, Ben argues, is aggregating customer demand. When most people buy something on Amazon from a third party merchant, they think and feel as if they're buying directly from Amazon. Some people probably don’t even appreciate the difference and in most cases it probably doesn't matter. It comes in a box with Amazon's logo on it and that's that.

But it's an important distinction because if you're a third party merchant, Amazon pretty much "owns" your customers. They are the ones aggregating demand. They have the brand equity and loyalty. And if you left the platform, your customers would be unlikely to follow you.

This is kind of the opposite of how Shopify's ecommerce platform works. When you operate a Shopify store you are using their platform, but you are bringing your own brand, web domain, and other assets to it, such that you can now establish a more direct relationship with your customers. This doesn’t mean that Shopify doesn’t have a moat, it’s just something different.

All things being equal, most businesses would rather “own” their customers than not. The problem right now is that shipping and supply chains are no joke, and so there are real advantages to being on Amazon and having them handle your fulfillment. It could mean the difference between getting your products out for Christmas, or not.