Around The Coin

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Adam Jackson, Founder & CEO of Braintrust. Adam believes that the way we work is broken. In fact, it’s been broken for a long time now, which is why he founded Braintrust, the world’s first user-controlled talent platform-- one that aligns incentives, removes expensive middlemen and gives value and control back to Talent and Organizations. Braintrust’s unique business model allows talent to retain 100% of their market rate and enables organizations to spin up flexible teams and make their budgets go 2-3x further by cutting out the middlemen.Adam is a serial technology entrepreneur and investor and has spent his career creating and deploying capital into software systems that make complex tasks simple and intuitive. He has founded 4 VC-backed companies and an asset management company over the last 16 years.In August 2017 he co-founded Cambrian Asset Management, a blockchain asset management company.  In 2012, he also co-founded and served as CEO of Doctor On Demand, a healthcare service that provides Video Visits with board-certified physicians and psychologists. Doctor On Demand delivers services through employers, health systems, health plans, and directly to consumers and has raised $165M in VC.His previous business, DriverSide was founded in 2007 and was acquired by Advance Auto Parts in September of 2011. Adam's first venture-backed business, MarketSquare, founded in 2004, was the first online local shopping destinations on the Internet. It was acquired by Intuit in September of 2006.Jackson is an angel investor in 100+ companies/projects, including Eco, Collective, Ethereum, Bolt, Placer, Aktana, Skale Labs, Protocol Labs, JCTurbo, Apero Health, Rapportive, MyTime, Automatic, Womply, Superhuman and Zenefits.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our new episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Bobby Lee, CEO of Ballet. Bobby is among the leading and most recognizable figures in the cryptocurrency space. His startup, Ballet, provides a more user-friendly physical wallet for storing cryptocurrency. He is the co-founder of BTCC, the longest-running Bitcoin exchange and leading financial platform worldwide. Before founding BTCC, Lee was vice president of the technology of Walmart. Previously, Lee was a software engineer at Yahoo!, where he led the development of the earliest online communities.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our latest episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Amrit Santhirasenan, Founder & CEO of Hyperexponential. Amrit is fast becoming an influential figure in the world of fintech. He's founder and CEO of hyperexponential (hx), a cutting-edge fintech startup that's transforming the world of insurance. Amrit is actively engaged in tackling the broader challenges faced in the finance industry by looking to develop better pricing solutions in an increasingly data-driven and technological world. The idea for hx was borne out of Amrit's frustration with the software available to actuaries in the task of modelling, analysis and making difficult judgements with little data. hx developed innovative software to solve these problems which are having a profound effect on the financial industry. Due to its growing success, the startup is currently closing its Series A funding round.Amrit is also a proud father and the host of the Startup Dads podcast. A show navigating the highs and lows of running a business whilst also raising children, along with expert guests from the startup world.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our new episode, Tegan Kline interviews Abbey Titcomb, Community Lead at Radicle, a decentralized network for code collaboration. Abbey began her career in venture capital at Underscore VC, an early-stage firm investing across the stack in enterprise open-source, AI/ML, blockchain, and more. Since then, Abbey has been building in the Ethereum ecosystem, working with venture studios and startups building decentralized technologies. At Radicle, Abbey cultivates the project's open-source community and manages partnerships to support the growth of the Radicle ecosystem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with William Quigley. Mr. Quigley is a Managing Director of Magnetic, a crypto focused investment fund. He was the first institutional investor in Paypal and has over 25 years of experience as a technology focused venture capitalist. Mr. Quigley has incubated and invested in more than 30 bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency-related investments. Mr. Quigley co-developed the first crypto derivative used to trade pre-release Ethereum. He co-founded many other transformative crypto companies including Tether, the first fiat-backed stablecoin and world's most traded cryptocurrency and GoCoin, a pioneering crypto payments processor. He also co-founded WAX, a blockchain built for video game and NFT virtual item trading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Faisal Khan sits down with Mariya George, the Co-founder and President at Cleareye.ai, a leading fintech platform transforming banks into hyper-agile organizations using advanced AI techniques. Previously, Mariya worked for nearly 15 years at UST Global, a US-based digital technology and IT services provider. Most recently, she served as the Head of Banking and Insurance at UST where she was responsible for the industry group’s overall vision, strategy, and investment priorities. Before that, she led multiple consulting engagements with a focus on bridging business demand and technology solutions.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Min Kim interviews Maya Pochiraju. Maya is the Vice President in Blackstone’s Innovations Group driving firm-wide strategic technology programs across investor experience, fundraising, new-business regulation, and cloud computing. Maya’s work is based on her belief that technology should be leveraged to propel growth by providing unique business insights along with faster innovation, scale, and efficiency. Maya is deeply committed to mentoring and unlocking potential in others. She has been volunteering with StreetWise Partners since 2017 as a mentor and lead volunteer. Maya joined the Program Committee in 2018 before joining the Board in 2020.Maya received BAs in both Economics and Information Science from Cornell University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Danny Shader. Danny founded PayNearMe in 2009 and is driven to do right by customers, employees, and investors. Prior to PayNearMe, Danny led Good Technology, Inc., a wireless software company that was acquired by Motorola in 2007. Danny previously co-founded Accept.com, one of the first person-to-person payments providers, which Amazon acquired in 1999. Danny earned a BS from UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering and an MBA from Stanford University. Outside of work, you’ll find him trying to improve his terrible backstroke with a group of middle-aged swimming dads called The Mermaids.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Alexander S. Blum, managing director of Two Prime. Alexander bought his first bitcoin for $9 in 2012 and has been professionally involved with the industry ever since. Two Prime offers an actively managed BTC and ETH long fund, focusing on wealth preservation and a secondary focus on growth. He previously founded digital investment group Atomic Capital, worked as a technology advisor for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, and as an economic development specialist for the Peace Corps. Alexander is a Fellow at University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies and Chair of the Nexus Global Lab on Blockchain and Systems Change. He graduated from Tufts University, Arizona State, and MIT.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brian Dammeir, President, North America at Adyen. As the President of North America for Adyen, Brian Dammeir is focused on bringing the company’s global payments solution to major retail, tech, platform, and hospitality companies - including McDonald’s, Uber, Spotify, Subway, Postmates, and Gap. He oversees all North American operations including sales, account management, marketing, product development and operations. Committed to helping merchants meet changing consumer expectations, Brian keeps a pulse on Adyen’s merchants around the globe to understand their unique needs and pain points, logging over 125 flights last year. Brian previously led product strategy as Adyen’s Head of Product and has extensive experience working across APAC, Europe, and the Americas. He honed his product mindset with earlier stints at Airbnb and Google before joining Adyen in 2015.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices