Original author: Bethany Crystal
Original translation: TechFlow
I woke up this morning intending to write a blog post about why Halloween is the perfect holiday to bring together our NYC neighborhoods. However, when I logged into Slack, I saw colleagues sharing their experiments with the new ChatGPT search feature they had just launched yesterday.
I also saw some similar discussions on Twitter:
“This is a Google killer.”
“This new tool changes everything.”
“It will revolutionize the way you use the internet.”
Goodbye, everything old. Hello, everything new. If you cant keep up, youre already behind.
By 8:05am, I had run a few small chat log tests myself, successfully found myself in ChatGPT search , and installed the browser extension in my Chrome browser, making it the default search engine instead of Google.
Wow, this all happened so fast.
So, I decided to abandon my original article plan and write this article about new technology instead.
If you woke up this morning with that “Oops, here we go again…” feeling, trust me, you’re not alone. Let’s take a deep breath and dig deeper into this topic.
How to avoid the “I can’t keep up” trap
It can be stressful to see disruptive commentary like this floating around. These seemingly huge changes happening on a monthly, if not weekly, basis can feel overwhelming.
Im a bit impulsive and extreme, so whenever this happens, I always have to restrain myself from doing either of the following two things:
Fight or flight? I have two polarized instincts when it comes to new things
Drop everything you were doing, throw yourself into something new, quickly familiarize your entire team, and immediately start exploring opportunities for collaboration to get ahead of the competition. This is the new world order, and there is no turning back.
Or, reject the new altogether, just give up, vow to shut down all technology forever, change direction completely, and start imagining yourself living a completely agricultural, isolated life in some upstate state while you wait out the inevitable robot apocalypse.
Overall, this reflects the fight-or-flight mentality that new technology often evokes, though I find my actual reaction is always somewhere in between.
In my 15-year career working in tech startups and venture-backed businesses, I’ve received a lot of “disruptive! Never before seen!” tech emails. Unfortunately, I’m easily swayed by visionary builders and entrepreneurs who see the world from a long-term perspective. This led to a period in 2018 when I was working in venture capital when I truly believed that companies no longer needed to go public through traditional banks, that new social media apps couldn’t stand out, and that Ethereum would be the ultimate blockchain technology.
Of course, these expectations were not fully realized.
I’ve come to realize that after the initial hype, there’s a longer, more challenging phase of habit formation and strategic integration. This phase can last months or even years. While a handful of early adopters may jump on new opportunities quickly, there’s no point in blindly chasing every new trend if you’re not in the first 5% (which I am not).
So, I began to focus on accepting the inevitability of change. While I can’t control when change happens, I can control how I react to it. Rather than feeling deep “fear of missing out” anxiety about every new trend, I prefer to approach change with a mindset of play and curiosity — informed by my experience in the cryptocurrency space.
Lessons Learned from the Crypto Community
This isn’t the first time I’ve felt “FOMO” or experienced imposter syndrome in a new technology space. Through three years of working closely with the crypto community, I’ve learned that there’s value in showing curiosity and getting involved, even when you feel like you’re falling behind.
I admit that FOMO was a big part of what initially drew me into this ecosystem. While I’ve been exposed to builders in the crypto space for years, it wasn’t until 2021, a year after my first child was born, that I really felt the urge to learn more about the space myself.
Since I didn’t personally work in crypto for years like others, I felt a lot of imposter syndrome when I entered the space. I felt like an outsider with a non-technical, non-crypto background. I really thought that unless I could discuss the nuances of blockchain consensus or governance in a white paper, I wasn’t “smart” enough to fit in.
This mindset is a trap. Once you start believing that you’re not “smart” or “brave” enough to try something, you’re stuck in a fixed mindset. And that can really stunt your future growth.
When I first decided to learn more about cryptocurrencies, I started joining Discord channels and checking Twitter almost 24/7. My computer was constantly alerting me about new cryptocurrencies, new communities, new businesses, new conferences, and new technologies. I put them all on a huge to-learn list.
Should I go to the developer conference in Denver or Amsterdam? Better not miss it. Which airdrop should I participate in? Why not try both? Do I know about this DAO? Do I understand the latest on-chain governance? Have you attended that demo day? Not yet, but I will definitely check it out.
In those early days, I often asked myself:
The deep anxiety that comes with keeping up with the trends in the cryptocurrency space
“Why do I feel like I’m falling behind just when I think I’m catching up?”
“Was all the hard work on the previous project wasted?”
“How can I tell which tools and trends are truly important and which are just secondary?”
“How will I find the time to learn something new again?”
What I didn’t realize was that in the process of my exploration, I was actually improving myself. It was gradual, but it happened all of a sudden.
While I was learning, I was also working. I assisted venture capital firms in facilitating communication between builders in their networks. I helped technical teams present their work in simple and easy-to-understand language. I also helped hybrid enterprises (such as crypto-native foundations) design strategies based on traditional and non-traditional best practices.
It turns out that I didn’t need to suddenly master deep scientific knowledge to succeed in this field. I just had to understand how to apply my strengths in a new context.
It took me a long time to break free of that mindset, but I’m glad I did. Now I know I can do it again in whatever industry I enter next.
Finding peace in the chaos of new technology
I did feel a familiar tinge of “I’m behind” panic this morning when I saw the first message on Slack “ChatGPT Search is the end of Google.” But now I’m used to that feeling and know what’s coming, so it’s not as scary or unsettling as it once was.
So I chose to pour myself a second cup of coffee, try out ChatGPT search myself, and then write this blog post.
So is this latest innovation really the “ultimate” technology that will change the world? Who knows? But in the meantime, why not play around with it for yourself and see what you think? I’d venture to say that others aren’t as far ahead as they appear. After all, we’re all still in the same 24-hour release window. Wait and see what next week has in store…
Game-over, doomsday technology? Maybe. But we still cant get the fonts on the DALL-E image to display correctly, so dont panic too much just yet...
