With the launch of a zillion NFT projects and other crypto experiments (DeFi apps, DAOs, etc.), the blockchain space is as wild as one of those giant inflatables at the car dealership. But there’s a company giving it a backbone: Alchemy. Founded in August 2017, the startup hit a $10+ billion valuation this February and has been heralded by some investors as the “Amazon Web Services of crypto.”

Morning Brew chatted with Alchemy’s co-founders, Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau, to learn about the hot term of the moment, “Web3,” and what the company, well, does exactly.

So, what does Alchemy do, for the uninitiated?

Nikil: When you think about the big shifts in technology in the last 100 years, there’s three: personal computers, the internet, and now there’s blockchain or web3. They each had this developer platform that enabled people to build apps. For the computer, that’s your operating system, so Windows or iOS, which lets you build apps on top of it, like Excel or Chrome. The way it does that is by abstracting the underlying technology and making it really easy for people to build.

Alchemy is that developer platform layer for Web3, for blockchain. So we make it easy for people to build applications [like NFTs].

You mentioned the term “Web3.” Can you explain what that means?

Nikil: Computers came along with the idea that machines could follow human instructions. And then the internet gave it this new capability: Two machines could now exchange information between each other, they could talk to each other.

Web3 is giving a new building block: Now, machines can transact—meaning they can have commerce, they can send money to and from each other. And I know there’s some confusion here because we have PayPal and Venmo, but, without going into technical details, that’s not really being able to transact. That’s just an application built on there. Now, you can take money and put it into code, which was never possible before.

With all this breakneck growth, do you think blockchain will experience a shakeout similar to what happened following the dot-com boom?

Nikil: There were a lot of companies that ended up dying in 1999. But it didn’t mean the internet was dead, right? Certain ideas might not have worked out or they might have been too early. And when you look at crypto, there are a lot of people playing with experiments, and “experiment” doesn’t mean it’s going to work. But what it means is there’s a lot of new ideas, new ingenuity, and new products coming into the space. And fundamentally, the reason that Web3 and blockchain is interesting and useful is not because of the technology—it’s because it enables new types of products that were never possible before. Like when you think about NFTs…actually funny story: Now, we do $100+ billion in transactions annually. But our very first user was this guy who built a side project that we thought no one was ever going to use. He built CryptoPunks.

Do you have any advice for co-founder duos like yourselves?

Joe: One lesson is just to work with friends and pick them carefully.

Nikil: This is how we think about hiring and also how we tell people to think about product⁠–market fit, which is the hardest thing to get [right] in an early stage startup. If you’re asking, “Is this the right co-founder fit or do we have product⁠–market fit?”—the answer is no. If you have to ask that question, then you’re not there.

Each week, our workplace whisperer Shane Loughnane answers a reader-submitted question about problems at work. Anything nagging at you? Ask Shane here.

I am a high school senior who is in the college/career market. This isn’t necessarily a question about the workplace, but rather how to find the best workplace for me. What’s the best way to find one that suits me?—J. from Michigan

A friend in crisis sought my counsel via text this week: “Is there anything more unsettling than realizing your fly is down?” Reflexively, I countered, “At least you’re at home,” forgetting they’ve been called back to the office after two years of remote work. I am fortunate to still have WFH flexibility, an arrangement that agrees with both my work and overall lifestyle (to say nothing of my wardrobe) quite well. Indeed, there are no flies on me these days, so to speak.

In the current climate, it’s increasingly important to consider how suited you think you'd be to the traditional workplace experience. My own zipper-free Xanadu notwithstanding, remote/hybrid options certainly aren’t one-size-fits-all. For example, I have colleagues for whom the lack of in-person collaboration is demotivating. Similarly, while not reporting to a physical location has helped catalyze the ability of some folks to achieve certain personal goals, that hasn’t been the case for others. Where do you fall on this spectrum, and how might that influence your decision?

Of course, what makes a workplace ideal is more than deciding whether you’ll take up space on a floor plan. Finding a culture that values learning and curiosity—not just for your job, but whatever calls up your passion—is key. If you can nail that aspect, the X-factor becomes surrounding yourself with the right people. Early in your career especially, you’ll find that you inevitably become more like your co-workers. So before you take a job (or commit to that college), it’s worth considering who you’ll be spending your time with.

My idea of the “best workplace ever” has continuously evolved. As your priorities change and you gain experience, yours will too. Enjoy the ride—and if you wind up staring at a closet full of office clothes for your newly remote gig one day, remember you can probably wear them to your 20th reunion or something.

Baseball will hold its Opening Day on Thursday, bringing with it another season of walk-off homers, too many pitching changes, and lawful monopoly status.

…come again?

Major League Baseball, for about 100 years now, has been exempt from the US’ broad antitrust rules that ensure a competitive marketplace. But will MLB’s 100th year as a legal monopoly be one of its last? Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill, the “Save American Baseball Act,” that would end MLB’s antitrust exemption and “prevent the greed of baseball’s oligarchs from destroying the game.”

Last year, three Republican senators also attempted to strip the monopoly shield—but for different reasons than Bernie. They were angry that the league pulled its All-Star Game from Georgia after the state passed a restrictive voting law.

So how did MLB end up with this exemption in the first place?

In the early 1900s, baseball was composed of multiple leagues duking it out for supremacy. A club from one league (the Federal League) sued MLB for monopolizing the market for players, and in turn violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

• The Sherman Act of 1890 is the earliest and most important piece of antitrust legislation in the US. It aims to prevent the formation of price-gouging monopolies, as well as to regulate interstate commerce.

In 1922, the Supreme Court decided that the National League holding games between teams from different states did not amount to “interstate commerce” (it was just guys playing a game in a single location, after all), and thus fell outside the purview of the Sherman Act. That 1922 ruling has taken a beating by legal scholars in the decades since, but it’s withstood a barrage of challenges, including a major case in 1953 involving a former Yankees player.

The implications are minor

Despite its antitrust exemption, the MLB operates similarly to the other US professional sports leagues that aren’t considered legal monopolies under US law.

Well, except for one aspect: its tight grip over its minor league system. The league has historically paid its minor league players well below minimum wage, often under a uniform pay scale that definitely wouldn’t fly under the Sherman Act. And in the lead-up to the 2021 season, it scrapped 40 of the 160 affiliated minor league teams. It’s this removal of 25% of minor league teams that forms the crux of Bernie’s monopoly allegations.

Looking ahead…baseball’s been slow to change, and its monopoly status is no exception. But challengers may try to exploit a remark made during a recent Supreme Court case on the NCAA’s amateurism rules. In that case, the judges said they would not extend baseball’s antitrust exemption to other sports leagues, because, as Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, the Court has acknowledged that the 1922 decision was “unrealistic,” “inconsistent,” and an “aberration.”—NF

Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that isn’t afraid to get its paws dirty. We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price.

Today, we’re heading where no Metro-North train has gone before: to New York’s Catskills, where a 193-acre zoo is looking for its next caretaker. What began as a family-run petting zoo in 1933 was bringing in over 500,000 visitors a year by the ’60s to see its hippos, mountain lions, and “prehistoric horses.” (Spirit?) In 2012, the animals went…hopefully somewhere nice…and the main “giraffe house” building was renovated into a boutique hotel with six bedrooms and lots of kitschy zoo decor. Amenities include:

• Outdoor hot tub and indoor rec room
• Private glamping sites
• Loads of animal stalls (could be a cool hostel concept)
• The ghosts of the 150+ species that used to live here

How much to yell, “We bought a zoo!” and really mean it?

1. How an Ivy League school turned against a student. (New Yorker)
2. Online shopping in the middle of the ocean. (Rest of World)
3. Keep getting lost? Maybe you grew up on the grid. (NYT)
4. The business students skipping Wall Street for Web3. (Morning Brew)
5. The cabin on the mountain. (Longreads)
6. Eurovision 2022: All songs and participating countries. (wiwibloggs)
7. Attempting to break the world record in Tetris. (Boston Globe)
8. The rise, flop, and fall of the comb-over. (Mel Magazine)
9. A bookstore revival channels nostalgia for big-box chains. (Bloomberg CityLab)
10. Losing my ambition. (The Cut)

Humblebrag: We went to SXSW. We were there to understand all the ways the world’s greatest creatives make the world’s greatest work. To help us make sense of it all, we spoke to the creative collaboration experts at WeTransfer. Read all about what we learned at SXSW here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Welcome back to Morning Brew’s Meme Competition, where we crown a single memelord every Sunday.

Today’s winner: Lexi in Orem, UT

This week’s challenge: You can find the new template here for next Sunday. Once you’re done making your meme, submit it at this link for consideration.