The J Curve with Olga Maslikhova The Aviation Principle That Built a Unicorn - with Daniel Vogel (Bitso)
We talk about disruption all the time — but few founders have lived it like Daniel Vogel.
In 2014, when crypto was still synonymous with Silk Road headlines and skepticism, Daniel left a comfortable Silicon Valley job to move back to Mexico and build Bitso — a crypto exchange in a country where millions remained outside the formal banking system.
Ten years later, Bitso is one of Latin America’s largest digital-asset platforms — a cross-border payments engine moving billions in remittances and one of the region’s first crypto unicorns. But its story is far more nuanced than the headlines.
Behind every “first crypto unicorn” lies a founder who spent a decade fighting regulators, skeptics, market crashes, and cultural resistance to risk — and still managed to build trust in one of the world’s most misunderstood industries.
What stood out about Daniel wasn’t the scale of Bitso’s success — it was the depth of his conviction and the discipline behind his obsession. He talks about curiosity as a lifelong engine, leadership as reinvention, and composure as a skill refined the night the Central Bank nearly shut the company down on Christmas Eve.
This conversation is a masterclass in resilience, clarity, and long-term thinking.
- The pilot’s mindset of leadership — what flying small planes taught Daniel about control, composure, and crisis management.
- The risk paradox — how growing up in a culture defined by risk-aversion shaped his contrarian approach to building in volatile markets.
- The product decision that killed the competition — how Bitso’s choice to own its tech stack became the unseen edge that turned early disadvantage into dominance.
- The end game of crypto—why AI agents will eat the crypto market before humans do, and what Daniel means when he says machines will transact with each other "in ways we don't even understand."
- The paradox of rivalry — how competition became Bitso’s great source of discipline and growth.
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