Kevin Rose: His $100M/Year Watch Blog, Money From Digg.com, & Web3 Business (#382)

About this video

Sam Parr and Shaan Puri interview Kevin Rose, an internet pioneer who founded Digg, invested early in Twitter and Square, built hodinki into a $100M+ revenue business, and recently launched Proof, an NFT project. They explore Kevin’s philosophy of exploration-driven entrepreneurship, his approach to hiring and building products, and debate the merits and limitations of web3 and cryptocurrency.

Key takeaways

• Kevin Rose built hodinki from ~$1-2M to over $100M in revenue by merging with watchville and focusing on expert editorial content combined with e-commerce—demonstrating that trust-based curation can support luxury commerce better than low-cost viral content
• Kevin’s career success came from early angel investments (like $25K into Twitter’s seed round) rather than his own company exits, showing that optionality and capital from early hits can compound returns more than single founders can achieve alone
• Kevin prioritizes personal passion and exploration over financial opportunity—he doesn’t start businesses to chase money but rather builds products for problems he sees and spaces he’s genuinely interested in, using 6-month testing windows and maintenance mode for early-stage projects
• Sam remains skeptical of web3’s circular economy and dogmatism (decentralizing everything without solving real problems better than Web 2), while Kevin believes AI, not crypto, will transform industries in the next five years and presents the most compelling near-term opportunities

Episode details: published November 3, 2022 · 88K views · 1:28:07 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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