Smart Humans with Slava Rubin

Ryan Chang is an entrepreneur, collector, and artist.  He has one of the top sneaker collections and helped move sneakers forward as an investable asset class. Ryan sold Kanye West ‘Grammy Worn’ Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototypes from 2008 for a record-breaking $1.8 million in 2021 - The world record for most expensive sneaker sale. He is also the Founder and Chief Curator of Applied Arts which provides consulting services to individuals and companies investing in alternative assets such as sneakers, sports cards, NFTs, and other collectibles. Also Ryan founded Ivy Consulting which provides tutoring and other academic services.

Stephan Paternot is Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Slated, the leading online film packaging, financing, and distribution marketplace, supplying the exploding global demand for great content. In 2004, Stephan co-founded PalmStar, a film production and financing company that has produced and financed over 30 films including Hereditary (2018), Collateral Beauty (2016), Sing Street (2016) and John Wick (2014). Stephan is also the founder and general partner of the Actarus Funds. Founded in 2002, these angel funds have backed such companies as LendingClub, SecondMarket, Indiegogo, AngelList, Digital Currency Group, and many more. Prior to these ventures, Paternot is best known for co-founding one of the first Internet community sites, theglobe.com, in 1994. The company set stock market history when it went public in 1998 with a record-setting IPO, pushing the company valuation to over $1 billion. Over a six-year span, the company grew to over 300 employees, and the website became one of the top thirty most trafficked sites in the world. In 1999 Stephan won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and in 2001 published his memoir, A Very Public Offering, detailing his experience at theglobe.com. A Very Public Offering was updated and reissued in 2018 in conjunction with the worldwide release of the National Geographic Television series Valley of the Boom, in which Paternot is featured as a character.

Ezra Levine is the CEO of Collectable, leading the company’s efforts to democratize the sports card & memorabilia industry by providing investment and ownership opportunities to sports fans, collectors, and investors of all income brackets. Collectable has completed over $50M in fractionalized sports collectibles offerings since their September 2020 launch.  As of April 2022, investors have enjoyed 26 exits for an average return of 62% above the IPO price.  In addition, Collectable co-founded The MINT Collective, the first of its kind thought leadership conference for investing in sports collectibles.  Levine has regularly been featured in the media including the Wall Street Journal, CNN, & Bloomberg.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur, and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX,  the CEO of VaynerMedia and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Known as “GaryVee” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business - he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior. Whether its emerging artists, esports, NFT investing or digital communications, Gary understands how to bring brand relevance to the forefront. He is a prolific angel investor with early investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase and Uber. Gary is an entrepreneur at heart -- he builds businesses. Today, he helps Fortune 1000 brands leverage consumer attention through his full-service advertising agency, VaynerMedia which has offices in NY, LA, London, LATAM, and Singapore. VaynerMedia is part of the VaynerX holding company which also includes VaynerProductions, VaynerNFT, Gallery Media Group, The Sasha Group, Tracer, VaynerSpeakers, VaynerTalent and VaynerCommerce.  Gary is also a Board Member at Candy Digital, Co-Founder of VCR Group, Co-Founder of ArtOfficial, and Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Gary was recently named to the Fortune list of the Top 50 Influential people in the NFT industry. In addition to running multiple businesses, Gary documents his life daily as a CEO through his social media channels which has more than 34 million followers and garnishes over 272 million monthly impressions/views across all platforms.  His podcast ‘The GaryVee Audio Experience’ ranks among the top podcasts globally.  He is a five-time New York Times Best-Selling Author and one of the most highly sought after public speakers.

Tom Gearing is CEO of Cult Wines, a top wine investment platform. Tom has grown Cult Wines from a burgeoning start-up to an award-winning global company with six offices across the United Kingdom, North America, and Asia Pacific. Tom’s expertise, entrepreneurship and knowledge of wines have been widely regarded and he is regularly quoted in the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal. His most memorable vinous experiences to date are Petrus ’61 en Magnum, Liger Belair La Romanee ’09 and Domaine Leroy, Richebourg ’03.

Congressman Patrick McHenry is serving his ninth term as the representative for North Carolina's 10th Congressional District since starting in 2005. He has become a leader on crowdfunding, capital formation, and other forms of disruptive finance. In the 116th Congress, Congressman McHenry was elected as the Republican Leader of the House Financial Services Committee. Additionally, Congressman McHenry authored the primary legislation to legalize equity-based crowdfunding in the United States. The crowdfunding language he first authored in 2011 was eventually included in the JOBS Act which President Obama signed into law in April 2012.

Scott Lynn is a serial entrepreneur and passionate art collector.  He is the Founder and CEO of Masterworks.io, a platform making it possible to invest in multimillion-dollar works from artists like Banksy, Kaws, Basquiat, and more. In 2021 the platform reached unicorn status. In 2014, Scott founded Payability, a digital lending provider. Scott has been an active collector of contemporary art for more than fifteen years and has built an internationally-recognized collection of Abstract Expressionism that has included works by Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and more. In addition to Masterworks, Scott serves on the board of v2 ventures, Payability, and the Brooklyn Rail.

Sahil Lavingia is a founder, investor, and author. He is founder & CEO of Gumroad which exists to help every creative earn a living selling the stuff they make directly to their audience. He used the new equity crowdfunding rules in 2021 for Gumroad to be the first ever company to raise $5m from the crowd. He also founded SHL Capital, which invests more than $15 million a year in early-stage startups. Previously, he was Pinterest employee No. 2. In his spare time he wrote a book, “The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less.”

Nat Turner is currently CEO of Collectors Holdings after taking CLCT private from the Nasdaq for nearly $1 Billion. The holding company is focused on the collectibles industry - including PSA (trading card grading), PCGS (coin grading), Wata Games (video game grading), and Goldin Auctions. Before Collectors Holdings, Nat built and exited two companies - Flatiron Health, a technology company focused on the oncology industry, was acquired by Roche for $1.9 Billion in 2018. Invite Media, an advertising technology company based in NYC, was acquired by Google in 2010. An active angel investor since 2010, Nat has invested in over 250 startups, including BarkBox, Cedar, Clover Health, Color Genomics, Oscar, and Plaid.

Mary-Catherine Lader is Chief Operating Officer of Uniswap Labs, the top DeFi platform by marketcap. She previously was a Managing Director at BlackRock, and Chief Operating Officer of the firm’s Digital Wealth business and head of its climate tech business, Aladdin Sustainability. BlackRock has nearly $10 Trillion in assets under management, serving retail and institutional investors across the world. She began her career as an investment analyst with Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group and served on the staff of the World Economic Forum’s Davos gatherings for a decade.