The Curious Learners

My guest today is Paul Hsu. He is the founder of Decasonic, a crypto native VC fund. Paul's background and his thesis at Decasonic put him in a unique position to help entrepreneurs ride the next wave of innovation in Blockchain.Our wide-ranging conversation covers the history of innovation in social world, biggest catalysts for mass adoption of web3 and the future of new social world that we are in. It was fascinating to hear Paul's wonderful insights with the hindsight of significant experience from his career. Here are some highlights from the show:- What is the most striking thing observed in your career? --> Technology changes faster than human nature.- Biggest catalyst to achieve mass adoption in Blockchain? --> It is the next generation immersive internet, a.k.a. Metaverse!- What does Blockchain technology really enable? --> Decentralized value transfer and asset ownership across trustless systems.- What does it take to go from zero to one? --> Deep focus and understanding of the customer, their needs and wants.- What future exists for crypto from where we sit in the beginning of a multi-year crypto winter? --> Bear markets are for real builders, for transformative companies to emerge. - Three key  components to build the future of open finance and DeFi? --> Trust, usability and accessibility.- How do we bring Metaverse to our daily lives? --> Games, work and some physical experiences (e.g. workout?).  It is critical however to align the development of applications and the infrastructure.- Paul's operating principle at Decasonic? -->  Collaborate and co-build with founders globally. Continuously engage with founders, share market insights, point them to white spaces in the market. - Most #curious about? --> Learning to view the world through others. It helps to build a shared empathy to make the world a better space (Book suggestion: Political Tribes from Amy Chua).Please enjoy my conversation with Paul Hsu. 

My guest today is Ulric Musset. He is the co-founder of Vauban, which is a technology platform that facilitates private market investing.He and his co-founder Remy Astie have worked on many other projects prior to Vauban, including the very unique idea of a French bakery in London! Luckily for us as investors, they landed on Vauban.Below are some key highlights from our very interesting discussion:- What was critical in the Vauban journey so far? --> It is timing. When started in 2018, a lot of VCs thought the market is too small. But then two years ago in 2020, things exploded.- What is the biggest trend that you have seen starting Vauban? --> Fund managers want to start their own funds and investors want to get more exposure into VC.- Why is VC the right space for Vauban? --> By definition, VC invests in tech and they are early adopters of new tech solutions.- Where does Vauban add value? --> Across the whole process of raising money and deploying into start-ups with a USP of being truly international. - Where would Vauban be in 3-5 years? --> Focus on the product, enable much larger number of fund managers and make investing process for investors extremely easy- Most curious about? --> Different types of civilisations and essentially SpaceTech!!!Please enjoy my conversation with Ulric Musset.

My guest today is my good friend Sam Peurifoy. He is the Head of Interactive for Hivemind Capital Partners and the founder of Playground Labs. The gaming community knows him as Das Kapitalist!Sam is my go-to person when it comes to deep discussions on gaming and web3. It was again a very insightful conversation with him. Here are some highlights from the episode:- Why Das Kapitalist? --> Emerged from the idea of capitalism meeting gaming and also a pseudonym was needed for game streaming (details in the episode:)).- How did a PhD degree contribute to what he does now? --> curiosity, drive to innovate,  navigation through uncharted territories.- What is missing in Web2 games? --> the community is not compensated for their contribution.- Why is the current Blockchain transformation in gaming bigger than the previous ones? --> it comes down to one thing: ownership and that it is a paradigm shift never going back.- What should buidlers focus on? --> clean user experience, simple token loops and robust token models. - How should we interpret the current market conditions? --> increasing correlation with equity markets, bear market to stay for some time, eventually healthy for fundamentally good projects.- Catalysts that will bring us to the other side of current bear market? --> Proper scaling and regulation.- What incentive model will prevail for the long term? --> the one that would encourage people to play inside an ecosystem and also grow the social fabric. A new piece from Sam on the way on this very topic. Please subscribe to his Medium page to hear more.- Most curious about? --> Which web2 studios will deploy some great web3 games in the coming year (anyone has a guess?).Please enjoy my conversation with Sam Peurifoy.

My guest today is Josh Benaron. He is the founder and CEO of Bundlr, which is an essential scaling solution for the decentralized storage network Arweave.His story from learning to code on his own to building Bundlr at a time when Arweave would hit network capacity is fascinating!Josh and I had a great conversation about everything decentralized storage and more: - Introduction to Blockchain: Youtube videos for new technologies- Bundlr one-liner: network that bridges web 2.0 and web 3.0 storage- Bundlr working principle: more secure version of roll-ups, as no dependance on layer 2 state- Ukraine archiving project: came to life on the back of his conversations with Sam Williams from Arweave.- The most surprising thing in Blockchain: strong community.- The most interesting problem to solve: not surprisingly, scaling.- Most curious these days about: history and how hierarchies within big states worked.Please enjoy my conversation with Josh Benaron.

My guest is Shanti Bergel. He is a gaming industry veteran with significant experience as an operator and founder. He is now one of the founding partners of Transcend Fund, which is a VC fund for the gaming and digital entertainment space.It was fantastic to hear Shanti's deep insights on the industry and his experience with several transformations that have unfolded in this space. Of course, we also talked about the future of web 3.0 and gaming:- There are multiple tailwinds that drive the current transformation - Web 3.0 has the ability to independently verify ownership and it would serve to craft a different experience for gamers- There is always the debate of 'sustainability' when a new business model or technology is introduced to the industry - In gaming, there are multiple ways to create large communities and interact with them - One of the exciting things in gaming is cross-play, where the experience is shared across different games- Founders who want to build high-growth businesses instead of single games- A true dedication is critical to be able to climb uphill, i.e. build a business from the ground up- Most curious about learning the British culture after living in Silicon Valley for 20 yearsPlease enjoy my conversation with Shanti Bergel.

I don't know if you do, but I don't get to speak to inventors of Blockchain very often.Scott Stornetta is the co-author of three out of eight works referenced in the original Bitcoin whitepaper. Initially, Scott's strong view on the need to create immutable records led him to work with cryptographer Stuart Haber and together invent the very first Blockchain.My conversation with Scott was eye-opening on the original idea behind Blockchain, social and technological developments leading to Bitcoin and today's world  of web 3.0:- Transformation from a theoretical physicist to Blockchain inventor: if you care deeply about a problem, you can train yourself to learn the skills- Bitcoin's success versus previous cryptocurrency attempts:-- gradual build-up of the movement to break existing social and financial structures,-- significant increase in compute power,-- amount of bandwidth available to enable peer-to-peer communication, and of course-- the clever incentive mechanism behind Bitcoin- NFTs are much more than a passing fad: it enables all assets to be traded and managed from the Blockchain- Scalability problem: it will follow as we solve consumers' (both individuals and enterprise) needs (e.g. processing transactions faster, storing their identity more secure and more portable)- Biggest catalyst for mass adoption: user experience that equates having a crypto wallet as stable, secure and as low-risk as having a bank account- Is he Satoshi?: No, unfortunately he is not:)- Curious about: quantum computing (who wants to be the Satoshi of quantum space?)Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Stornetta.

My guest today is Hasib Malik. He is the co-founder of Creditbook, which is a technology company that empowers merchants and MSMEs in Pakistan.Creditbook was built on the back of a deep market research that identified the biggest pain points for MSMEs in the country.Hasib and I had an insightful conversation about the potential of  Pakistan, what MSMEs need the most and Creditbook's current offerings and its roadmap to address them. Please see below a few key discussion points.- There is significant opportunity in Pakistan as access to financial services is still limited while use of technology is increasing across the country (e.g. 1 million smart phones added per month, 70k POS terminals vs. 35 million cards)- Creditbook is a B2B business, however it actually scales like a B2C given the characteristics of MSMEs, which actually shows the degree to which it contributes to financial inclusion- Hasib's north star metric at Creditbook: number of transactions per user-  His role as the CEO is also Chief Communication Officer to ensure everyone understands their "why"- Three key characteristics of Creditbook's team: comfort with ambiguity, bias for action and curiosityPlease enjoy my conversation with Hasib Malik.

My guest at The Curious Learners is Federico Travella. As a venture builder, he has been involved in the foundation of very successful start-ups in South East Asia (e.g. Lazada).He then went ahead and started his own company, Novicap, which is an end-to-end financing provider for SMEs.Federico and I had a great conversation about financing SMEs, inefficiency in the market and the opportunity to unlock financial inclusion. Some of the specifics that we discussed are below:- Opportunity in fintech lending --> Inefficiency of incumbent banks and their non-functioning unit economics due to lack of technology- Most critical building blocks of a fintech lending business --> Cutting edge technology, legal & regulatory knowledge, capital markets expertise- Opportunity for AI + Blockchain combined --> Automated risk underwriting and enhanced financial inclusion- Effectiveness of fintech & bank partnerships --> Not great due to complexity and regulated nature of the banks- Team vs. idea debate --> Choose team over anything (if there is a large enough market)Please enjoy my conversation with Federico Travella. 

Gokul Rajaram, the 'Godfather of Adsense' and a key figure in the growth of Google's advertising business, shares fascinating insights from his extensive career at leading tech companies. He discusses the essential traits that early-stage founders must possess and delves into the intricacies of building strong startup cultures. Gokul also explores the exciting potential of blockchain, its necessary infrastructure, and the evolving global investment landscape. Plus, he shares invaluable productivity hacks that enhance daily efficiency. A must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs!

My guest today is Supriyo Roy. He is the co-founder of Hyy.pe, which is a community-centric content platform for NFTs.NFT market continues to grow at a significant pace in trading volumes. And in parallel we continue to search for the next big thing in NFTs, be it new content or evolving business models.Supriyo and I had a rich conversation on a full agenda and touched on many interesting topics.A few specific notes are listed below: - NFTs represent a way of expressing your tribe- Collectors vs flippers of NFTs belong to different platforms- Huge opportunity exists to create consumer brands out of NFTs- Programmable NFTs expected to ride the next wave of innovations- Better NFT tooling needed to take NFTs to a mass adoptionPlease enjoy my conversation with Supriyo Roy.