Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

This week’s podcast episode guest is Bolt Financial CEO Maju Kuruvilla. A former executive at Amazon, where he helped launch Amazon Fresh, Maju has taken over at Bolt to help build the future of e-commerce.   Searching for Mana is about finding future category leading tech firms in real-time. Almost every business goes through ups and downs, and the path to the top is never completely smooth. Bolt has scaled to great heights already, but also faced challenges, competing against the likes of Amazon, Shopify and Alibaba to create the future of e-commerce. Lloyd dives into Maju’s background, from helping the family business during his childhood in India, how this gave him perspective and shaped his leadership style, to becoming CEO at a leading FinTech player. Inspired by the Ride of a Lifetime, by Bob Iger, evening walks, and with a love of building, Lloyd dives into Maju’s psychology. Please subscribe for more content and check out our website for other episodes. [ 0:00 - 4:37 ] Size and Scale of Bolt [ 4:38 - 10:09 ] Commerce 3.0: Taking on Amazon, Shopify[ 10:10 - 13:46 ] Decentralised commerce & crypto [ 13:47 - 21:43 ] Bolt: seamlessly managing the checkout experience [ 21:44 - 25:57 ] Quick-fire round [ 25:58 - 32:58 ] Walking, walking and more walking & Maju’s Mana[ 32:59 - 39:10 ] Maju’s background and family shop [ 39:11 - 47:45 ] Competitiveness, Maju’s winning mentality and causing fundamental change[ 47:46 - 54:58 ] Helping merchants and providing solutions for the modern consumer [ 54:59 - 59:18 ] The Hollywood outcome for Bolt

Joining Lloyd this week, is Austin Allison, CEO of Pacaso, the fastest-growing tech unicorn of all time. From humble beginnings, and an unusual path, Austin Allison, founder at Pacaso, has taken an unconventional path to the top. A self-proclaimed “troubled teen” and near high-school drop-out, Austin, on the back of an epiphanical moment, turned his life around to become a top performer at college, and become a multi-unicorn founder. Son of a carpenter, with a clear entrepreneurial streak from a young age, selling birdhouses having seen the joy a birdhouse made by his father brought to his mother, Austin started his first business aged 8. Fast-forward a number of years, and Austin has founded a business sold for 9 figures, and now founded the fastest-growing tech unicorn ever. From 0 to a $1B+ valuation in 5 months! However, what stands out with Austin is his attention to culture. Despite all this success, where Austin really takes pride is in the environments he has created and the room for his team to flourish. Infusing Pacaso with an Infinite Mindset, focused not on the short-term, nor even long-term, but aiming to build a business that outlives even himself, Austin’s mentality is inspirational. A fantastic episode on how to build cultures, how to build sustainably in bear markets and really, a modern tech founder’s guide. Book recommendations: The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz The Infinite Mindset - Simon Sinek  [ 0:00 - 3:26 ] An introduction to Pacaso - the fastest growing tech unicorn of all time[ 3:27 - 10:46 ] Fractionalised ownership of 2nd homes & angry Cornwall seagulls[ 10:47 - 15:55 ] The How and Why of Pacaso[ 15:56 - 22:01 ] How Pacaso went from 0 to $1Bn+ in 5 months[ 22:02 - 28:38 ] The macro-market and building sustainably in a bear market[ 28:39 - 33:08 ] Austin’s background, from humble beginnings to unicorn founder[ 33:09 - 39:45 ] From being unproductive to maximum productivity[ 39:46 - 44:28] Austin Allison’s Forbes: He earned it[ 44:29 - 49:57 ] The cruciality of culture[ 49:58 - 55:46 ] The Infinite Mindset[ 55:47 - 58:59 ] The modern leader: vulnerable and empathetic[ 59:00 - 1:06:11 ] Future projections & Closing thoughts

Joining Lloyd this week is Solana Founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, in this fascinating, candid and eye-opening episode. Solana really needs no introduction. One of the most prominent and popular blockchain platforms, particularly amongst developers, Solana is able to run over 6,000 transactions per second and 30 million app transactions per day. For context, that’s more than all other blockchains combined! Diving into the rise of Solana, as well as speaking honestly on the struggles along the way, Anatoly sheds amazing light into his founding journey, and the future of a platform at the forefront of the web3 charge. From launching their new phone, to seeking to emulate the likes of Linux across web2, the sky truly is the limit with regard to where Solana can go. A superb podcast, Anatoly’s self-belief and belief in the potential of blockchain is incredible. [ 0:00 - 7:23 ] The power, potential and scale of Solana[ 7:24 - 15:54 ] NFTs, Solana outages and redundancy[ 15:55 - 20:39 ] Serum, SBF and increasing decentralisation[ 20:40 - 27:22 ] Quick-fire Mana round[ 27:23 - 33:28 ] Anatoly’s background, Qualcomm and encouragement from his wife[ 33:29 - 39:38 ] Water Hockey, Anatoly’s Eureka moment and founding Solana[ 39:39 - 44:44 ] The future of Social Media[ 44:45 - 51:16 ] Solana’s Mobile Phone - Saga[ 51:16 - 59:13 ] Venture Capital and the future of Solana

Amy Wu, Head of Ventures, M&A and Gaming at FTX represents one of the best-known and most successful Venture Capitalists in the crypto and web3 spaces.Having had FTX’s US President Brett Harrison on as our opening guest of the series, Amy is another individual leading this generational business, with a mandate of investing in further generational businesses.Formerly a Partner at Lightspeed, where she served on the Board at FTX, Amy switched sides at the start of the year, moving to Bahamas to work full-time 10 feet away from Sam Bankman-Fried, the youngest billionaire on the planet, who Amy describes at the greatest decision-maker and businessman of a generation.In this superb episode, Amy sheds light on her journey, from piano prodigy, to serving on the board of one of Asia’s largest e-commerce businesses at the age of 23, to becoming one of the leading venture capitalists in web3. Charismatic, engaging and highly insightful, this episode is not to be missed! [ 0:00 - 4:45 ] FTX, The Bahamas & the state of crypto[ 4:46 - 7:16 ] Decision-making at FTX Ventures [ 7:17 - 13:44 ] Bear Markets, M&A and SBF the visionary[ 13:45 - 20:15 ] Amy the Piano Prodigy[ 20:16 - 24:11 ] Insight Partners, mentors and appreciation of brilliance [ 24:12 - 28:15 ] Quick-fire round: Finding the right time to aggressively deploy capital[ 28:16 - 36:45 ] Vibing with founders and being a female role-model in crypto & venture[ 36:46 - 45:35 ] The role of a modern Venture Capitalist in Web3 & being on DAO boards [ 45:36 - 53:33 ] L1 wars, decentralisation and the timeframe of web3 mass adoption [ 53:34 - 60:14 ] Working for a generational business, investing in generational businesses

Few others’ experiences and career path have left them so destined to found their business, with Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Chris Dixon coining “perfect founder-market fit” to describe him, than this week’s guest, Diogo Monica, Co-Founder of Anchorage Digital. With a resume boasting a PhD in Network Security, working as an early employee at Square, and rounding out his skill-set at Docker, Diogo’s rise to the top has been meteoric. Diogo is now in charge of a leading crypto custodial player that has raised upwards of $450m from the likes of KKR, A16Z, Visa, PayPal and Goldman Sachs. On a pathway to supporting 20% of the world’s economy in the next 5-10 years, Anchorage is primed to be one of the most influential tech leaders of this generation, taking on 200-year-old incumbents in the likes of JP Morgan and BNY Mellon. Having already achieved incredible success, and clearly with so much more to come, maybe, just maybe, dreams of San Diogo will become a reality! A truly amazing episode, with one of the most impressive and likable guests to date.  [ 0:00 - 4:57 ] San Diogo, Pirate Custody & helping institutions build crypto platforms[ 4:58 - 8:39 ] Size & Scale of Anchorage and the Neumann Flow[ 8:39 - 12:11 ] AngelList and StableCoins[ 12:11 - 17:21 ] Angel Investing[ 17:22 - 24:59 ] Growing up in Portugal, computing superpowers & making video games[ 24:59 - 31:34 ] PhDs & Doctors decide dinners[ 31:34 - 36:50 ] Square & working with Jack Dorsey[ 36:51 - 41:08 ] Quick-fire round, Diogo’s worldview and mantra[ 41:09 - 47:29 ] Diogo’s Mana, coffee and reading in the rain in Seattle[ 47:30 - 53:40 ] The Nathan story = The Anchorage Story, Docker and founding[ 53:41 - 57:40 ] Anchorage projections: supporting 20% of the world’s economy[ 57:41 - 1:00:55 ] AI, morality and bear markets

Mike Weissman, CEO of music and tech giant SoundCloud needs no introduction.Leading one of the most prominent and well-known consumer tech companies on the planet, SoundCloud sits at the forefront of innovation within the music industry. Empowering the next generation of artists to launch their tracks and musical career, SoundCloud is connecting communities of fans and artists to transact directly.Lloyd and Mike walk us through the technology underpinning SoundCloud’s success, their culture that brings musical creativity into a technology company, kickstarting the careers of the likes of Post Malone and Billie Eilish, and what the future of the industry might look like.With an acute fascination in music, going from aspiring guitar player to band manager, at a young age, Mike combines a close personal passion for music, with business acumen developed in his early career working on Wall Street. Whilst many of his cohort from Wharton pursued careers in finance, Mike went against the grain to follow this interest, serendipitously landing himself into this world, and working at iconic names including the likes of Vimeo, Viacom and Universal Music.A truly brilliant episode to get into the mindset of someone driving innovation within the music industry, and leading the platform where the next generation of musical talent starts. [ 0:00 - 5:41 ] SoundCloud, and enabling fans and artists to interact[ 5:42 - 9:08 ] Post Malone, Billie Eilish and Lloyd & The Mana-ites[ 9:08 - 12:33 ] Helping artists to launch a career, building communities and creating genres[ 12:34 - 15:35 ] Size & scale of SoundCloud[ 15:36 - 20:37 ] Building and evolving SoundCloud’s culture[ 20:38 - 24:48 ] Communities, Web3 and NFTs [ 24:49 - 28:39 ] Quick-fire round, Mike’s Mana and steering the future of music[ 28:40 - 31:48 ] Reading 2 hours a day and building habits[ 31:49 - 36:38 ] Mike’s background and formative interest in music [ 36:39 - 40:29 ] Serendipity and starting a career in music [ 40:30 - 45:01 ] Mike the Marathon Runner, Cable TV & Mike’s journey to SoundCloud[ 45:02 - 49:50 ] Predicting the Future of Music

David Shriver, Head of Communications at Ocado Group, knows how to formulate and tell a story.Exceptionally eloquent and adept at forming narratives within high-growth tech businesses,  David joins Lloyd to walk through the cruciality of telling consistent and coherent stories.With over 35 years of experience in communications, this episode represents an absolute  masterclass in storytelling, so critical to the success of entrepreneurs, both internally and externally, as David elucidates.Lloyd guides us through David’s journey, how he was inspired from and incentivized by his  father from a young age into reading, his Master’s in Anglosaxon Language, and his rise to the  top, as a key leader within the Ocado Group.With so many critical takeaways for all entrepreneurs and those who formulate narratives, this  episode provides fascinating insight into how to tell a story, as David describes humanity’s  intrinsic desire to tell stories, harking back to medieval times and before, and relating this into the modern tech world. [ 0:00 - 4:14 ] Telling the story of The Ocado Group[ 4:15 - 7:11 ] The size and scale of Ocado[ 7:11 - 11:07 ] The USP of the Ocado Smart Platform & outdoing Amazon[ 11:08 - 16:15 ] Ocado’s Hollywood scenario[ 16:15 - 22:15 ] Future of the High Street[ 22:15 - 26:04 ] The cruciality of storytelling for tech entrepreneurs[ 26:04 - 33:42 ] How technology has affected Communications[ 33:42 - 39:18 ] Frameworking narratives and articulating purpose[ 39:18 - 44:18 ] David’s background and rise to the top[ 44:18 - 51:42 ] Reading, reading and reading more[ 51:42 - 56:05 ] Quick-fire round & David’s Mana[ 56:05 - 59:58 ] The Mana narrative[ 59:58 - 1:06:41 ] Critical analysis of the word, and the future of education

Illia Polosukhin, Founder & CEO of NEAR Protocol, is this week’s guest on Searching for Mana. Following on from the brilliant earlier episode with Marieke Flamant, Lloyd gets to the bottom of building a company sitting at the forefront of this potential paradigm shift to web3. Lloyd and Illia guide us through the technical intricacies of the platform, the wider NEAR ecosystem, building a leading developer community and bringing mass user adoption to blockchain, impacting the future of work, and Illia’s own journey from Ukraine to Silicon Valley and now to Lisbon. Developing a fascination with programming from a young age and becoming one of the top coders in Ukraine, Illia represents one of the most informed individuals on AI, having worked closely on Tensorflow prior to pivoting from one of the Big 4, and into his own entrepreneurial journey with NEAR. In an enthralling conversation that spans the deeply technical discussion of DAOs, the NEAR platform and its similarities with Linux, with ideas around entrepreneurship, thought leadership and psychology, this episode is not to be missed. On top of all of this, Illia is also at the forefront of Unchain Fund - an initiative leveraging blockchain and crypto to get money into the hands of those who desperately need it in the ongoing Ukraine war, which raised over $1 million within 24 hours. Links to Illia’s charity pages are below: Donate: https://unchain.fund/#donateInstagram with stories: https://www.instagram.com/unchain_fund/ [ 0:00 - 3:50 ] An intro to NEAR[ 3:50 - 10:10 ] Running a Layer 1 blockchain platform[ 10:10 - 16:04 ] How many winners will there be in web3[ 16:04 - 19:54 ] Incentivising cross-chain communication[ 19:54 - 24:07 ] Sweatcoin and onboarding users onto NEAR[ 24:07 - 25:39 ] Illia’s Mana[ 25:39 - 30:19 ] A winning mentality and the cruciality of communication[ 30:19 - 34:39 ] Artificial Intelligence - friend or foe?[ 34:39 - 39:07 ] Illia’s origin story and SciFi writings[ 39:07 - 44:28 ] Diving deeper into code[ 44:28 - 49:22 ] The future of education & universities[ 49:22 - 58:21 ] Working at Google and Entrepreneurship[ 58:21 - 1:02:41 ] Key skill-sets in web3[ 1:02:41 - 1:09:18 ] DAOs and the future of NEAR[ 1:09:18 - 1:16:05 ] The Ukraine war and the future of disaster relief

From discussing the meaning of life, to the cruciality of atomic habits, to genuinely aiming to change the world, this week’s guest, Michael Gronager - CEO of crypto behemoth Chainalysis - shares fascinating insights.With a valuation of upwards of $8 Billion, following their latest funding round in May this year, Chainalysis is providing critical financial data to enable governments, banks and blockchain companies to understand how people are using cryptocurrency.Drawing comparisons to Google - by indexing the blockchain industry, Bloomberg - through their creation of financial data, and Reuters through their leading content arm, Chainalysis is at the forefront of blockchain companies, already a market leader, with the potential to scale to astronomic levels.Michael dives into his journey, from growing up in Denmark and developing a close early interest in computers, to his academic research, to an epiphanic moment stuck in a typhoon in South-East Asia and all the way to founding Chainalysis. His mentality, fascination with Wabi Sabi and seeking beauty in everything, as well as creating achievable routine habits provide amazing insight into the minds of a true modern tech leader.[ 0:00 - 4:29] Chainalysis & how every company could become a crypto company[ 4:29 - 10:51 ] Timeframe on crypto adoption[ 10:51 - 16:01 ] Chainalysis user cases[ 16:01 - 18:32 ] Bridging law enforcement and the unregulated world of crypto[ 18:32 - 21:39 ] Size and scale of Chainalysis[ 21:39 - 25:19] Raising money in a bear market[ 25:19 - 27:43] Taking inspiration from Google and Reuters[ 27:43 - 32:17 ] Remaining calm and maintaining perspective [ 32:17 - 37:32 ] 2 miles runs every morning and home-made cortados [ 37:32 - 40:23 ] Finding beauty in everything[ 40:23 - 43:01 ] Michael’s Mana[ 43:01 - 46:17 ] An early fascination with computers and building things[ 46:17 - 52:07 ] Wanting to change the world[ 52:07 - 54:43 ] Finding the meaning of life at Bangkok airport [ 54:43 - 56:01 ] Who is Satoshi?[ 56:01 - 1:00:04 ] The Chainalysis Founding Story[ 1:00:04 - 1:05:47 ] Turning Chainalysis from an idea into an empire[ 1:04:41 - 1:07:58] Principles around culture[ 1:07:58 - 1:13:03 ] Winning talent, mentality as king and furthering careers[ 1:13:03 - 1:18:09 ] The Hollywood scenario for Chainalysis[ 1:18:09 - 1:23:13 ] Considering Space & Michael’s approach to problem-solving[ 1:23:13 - 1:26:04 ] Advice for a bear market

Sendi Young is the European Managing Director for global crypto payments leader Ripple, with  an extensive background across payments with traditional corporate powerhouses. Growing up  in Istanbul in the 1980s, Sendi’s background has helped her acclimatize to the volatility of the crypto world, becoming accustomed to cycles of economic growth and rapid declines, sparking  her curiosity and passion for macroeconomics.From here, Sendi built out expertise across global payments with marquee names, before  immersing herself in the world of blockchain, having recognised the pain points and pitfalls of  the traditional financial system. A “crypto gal” through and through, Sendi represents a  European and Global Crypto leader, providing invaluable technical insight into the crypto and  payments ecosystems, her love of the Argentine Tango and how she has risen to prominence. 00:00 - 1:24 - Introduction and Sendi’s Background 1:24 - 3:53 - Who is and how big is Ripple? 3:53 - 7:26 - The advantages of blockchain payments 7:26 - 9:05 - Pain points of current cross-border payments 9:05 - 10:53 - Market opportunity for Ripple 10:54 - 13:40 - Cruciality of Partnerships across Web3 13:40 - 15:38 - UK as a crypto hub? 15:38 - 17:16 - Scale of Ripple 17:16 - 21:23 - Ripple’s Culture & Sendi’s Upbringing 21:23 - 24:53 - Economic benefit of Web3 24:53 - 29:04 - Moving from corporate to startup 29:04 - 32:08 - Volatility of tokens 32:08 - 35:14 - Diversity within crypto 35:14 - 41:44 - Get to know Sendi 41:44 - 42:27 - Sendi’s Mana