Braintrust’s Founders on How to Run a Decentralised Marketplace

A recurring theme on this show has been creator and user empowerment—more specifically, how founders can build scalable businesses that don’t just extract value from their users, but instead, allow them to directly benefit from the value they help create. 

In the past, web2 gig economy marketplaces have had to be extractive—imposing higher take-rates and lower payouts seemed to be the only way to stay in business. Many of them still struggle to be profitable. 

However, our guests for this episode are using web3 to build a radically different alternative. Gabe Luna Ostaseski and Adam Jackson are the founders of Braintrust—a decentralized talent network like Upwork or Fiverr that is user-owned and redistributes its value back to its participants. 

It’s still early, but the talent on Braintrust has already been hired by the likes of Nike, Porsche, NASA, and Goldman Sachs. 

In this conversation, we talk to them about: 

• Why they think our current way of building marketplaces is broken 
• What led them to founding Braintrust 
• The practical challenges of running a decentralized talent network; and  
• Braintrust’s vision for the future of work 

We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did!