2026.07.16 19:50

"Most people who need a transplant die without getting one." Nobel laureate Alvin Roth helped pioneer modern market design — the same toolkit crypto builders use to reason about rules, incentives, and allocation in onchain markets. Here’s what that thinking looks like when applied to kidneys: "You can't pay a donor for a kidney. That's a repugnant transaction... Kidneys are gifts. Their price is zero and they're very scarce therefore." "Maybe I could give a kidney to your kid and you could give a kidney to my kid. That's a kidney exchange. Now we do about a third of living donor transplants through exchange."

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a16z crypto@a16zcrypto

2026.07.14 16:35

First Principles Ep. 4 with Alvin Roth Long before crypto made coordination programmable, Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth was designing markets where coordination could save lives, matching doctors to hospitals, students to schools, and kidney donors to the patients who need them. Roth explains why markets are not just natural forces, but engineered systems; why the details of timing, congestion, incentives, and trust can make or break a marketplace; and why some of the most important markets are the ones where simply exchanging money can’t do the work. Hosted by @Tim_Roughgarden with @skominers. 00:00 Intro: Why market design matters 04:18 The economist as engineer 08:09 When theory meets the real world 07:02 Fixing the medical residency match 15:32 Why markets unravel 18:22 Redesigning NYC high school admissions 28:05 The hidden problem of congestion 34:47 How kidney exchange saves lives 45:26 How the internet changed market design 48:25 Airbnb, Uber and smarter marketplaces 51:28 Repugnant transactions and moral economics 53:32 When markets need social support 54:32 The unexpected effects of criminalizing surrogacy 01:04:58 Preference signals and the job market 01:18:53 A broken market: resettling refugees and other migrants

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