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Entrepreneurial Spirit, Imposter Syndrome & The Future of AI | WT3 001
34 Plays1 year ago
99% of Influencers Don't Know What They're Talking About Either!" Join us for the first episode of What The 3, the no-bs podcast for emerging tech startups.
In this introductory episode, hosts Charlie, Liam, and Thomas dive into the realities of building a successful emerging tech startup. They explore topics ranging from the future of AI and the failures of Web3 to the importance of embracing imposter syndrome and developing a growth mindset. The trio also shares their own entrepreneurial journeys, offering unfiltered insights, lessons learned, and stories of pivots and perseverance along the way. This episode sets the stage for the entire season, giving you a taste of the valuable content to come.
What is What The 3?
WT3 is the beacon guiding you through the fog of emerging tech. Unlike other podcasts that merely scratch the surface, WT3 dives deep, providing a comprehensive, step-by-step roadmap to launching and scaling a successful emerging tech venture. With a combined decades of experience in the trenches, the hosts and their carefully selected guests offer practical advice on every aspect of building an emerging tech business, from identifying market opportunities and crafting a winning strategy to securing funding and assembling a rockstar team.
Season 1 is a 15-episode masterclass packed with actionable insights and real-world examples. You'll learn how to validate your product, navigate the legal landscape, optimise your finances, and scale your operations. You'll also gain invaluable wisdom on the mindset and leadership skills needed to thrive in the fast-paced world of emerging tech. The guests, ranging from successful founders to industry experts, share their own stories of triumph and failure, providing relatable and inspiring lessons for entrepreneurs at any stage of their journey.
Whether you're pioneering a new application for blockchain, harnessing the power of AI, or venturing into a space so cutting-edge it doesn't even have a name yet, What The 3 is your indispensable guide. Tune in and become part of the growing community of emerging tech entrepreneurs who are shaping the future.
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello
Introduction of Hosts and Podcast Purpose
00:00:03
Speaker
and welcome to the very first episode of the What The Three podcast. This is your beacon through the fog of emerging tech. I'm one of your co-hosts, Liam. I also go by Akiba. And with us as my co-host, we have Thomas and Charlie, but we'll get into the full introductions in a minute. What we're going to do is we're going to guide you through the exhilarating yet intricate journey of being an emerging tech founder.
00:00:27
Speaker
Basically, Charlie, I think you're the best person to explain it in the kind of elevator pitch as to what this podcast is, because it ultimately was your original baby. In terms of seeing that there just wasn't anything out there for emerging tech founders, like where do you start? That's the goal of what we're trying to achieve here, isn't it?
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for that awesome intro. The direction of travel for this has always been there's so much content out there. And we actually did a breakdown in the market and we did research and looked at, well, there's entrepreneur podcasts, there's web three podcasts, there's AI podcasts, there's investment podcasts. But actually, when you look at the intersection,
00:01:13
Speaker
and you watch a lot of this content, which have been for years, there's nothing in there that's a practical step-by-step version of what do you do? What is it that I'm supposed to do with, well, you've really got to know your numbers, the sort of general frameworks that these experts come on these podcasts and they're useful. And I think it's because it's obvious to them, right?
00:01:39
Speaker
It's obvious to them, yeah, you got to know your numbers. What's actually mean? Well, you've got to have balance sheet. You've got to just communicate with your FD. You've got to know what's the most important number. Is it lifetime value? Is it acquisition cost? Where exactly am I going with this information? And whilst these people are really knowledgeable, I think that's the actual problem. They know this stuff.
00:02:05
Speaker
what might be a flash of the blindingly obvious to them is something that we actually have to take a course onto. A, figure out what it is they mean, and B, what we practically have to do as startup founders to say, okay, this is the next task that I have to achieve, this salient number of activity that actually is creating value for my business.
00:02:33
Speaker
That all sounds great, but everyone watching now is saying, awesome, that sounds great, but why the hell should I listen to you three nerds? So, let's explain why you should listen to us.
Liam's Career Journey and Blockchain Involvement
00:02:46
Speaker
I'll go first. So, I started my career, I mean, I'm an elder millennial, I use this term on X today, because I realize I'm an elder millennial. What does that even mean? I started my career about 20 years ago, getting into, I started for the filmmaker.
00:03:00
Speaker
And I made a feature film while I was at university, became an entrepreneur at university, started my own business. And then that grew and grew and grew until the point where I had my own media company. We started winning awards. We had clients like Suzuki. We had Nike. We did stuff with Umbro, Vimto, Colgate.
00:03:20
Speaker
huge blue chip brands. And given that I have always been a nerd and not a geek at heart, we kind of diversified from just doing video production to doing web design, doing software, to doing marketing, we're over a full service marketing agency. And it was about that time around 2016 when I realized I absolutely hated marketing. It wasn't for me. And this is something that I've realized in terms of this entrepreneurs journey, we're going to be talking about this throughout the series, is that
00:03:50
Speaker
Elder millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, we're still taught this idea that you go to school, get good grades, get a job, get a house. That doesn't happen. That Coinbase advert, I absolutely love it. It resonates so much to me because it's just not true. And you go through phases and different things in your life. I don't know anyone that has left university or left school from my generation and had one job, or even actually had one career.
00:04:19
Speaker
everyone has multiple careers. So I realized around 2016 that once I was good at marketing, I kind of fallen into it. It wasn't for me. And that's when I started working with Charlie, doing more marketing still. But instead of working directly with clients as much, it was more of a consulting. It was more on the strategy. I realized that strategy was more something that I
00:04:41
Speaker
fitted better into. I think one of our very good friends Ross McKenzie helped me realize that my skill is figuring out the puzzle before others have realized where the pieces are. And that is something that's very intangible. I offer a lot of intangibles, right? I think that's a lot of millennials in general have a lot of intangibles. They have different like we used to talk about like M shape and T shaped people.
00:05:05
Speaker
I think we've got a lot of zigzag people in our generation. But then when 2022 happened, everyone managed to take stock. I got back into blockchain. There's something that I'd been doing with my media company in 2014.
00:05:23
Speaker
we'd be mining Dogecoin with the video editing suites when basically when everyone finished work they would turn off instead of turn off the computers they would switch on the Dogecoin miner and we'd mine overnight and I'm sure we'll have some anecdotes about why I am not a Dogecoin millionaire right now even though I was mining Doge in 2014 when the price was I think at the moment it's like five cents but then there was like six or seven zeros before the five that's how early I was in Doge.
00:05:53
Speaker
And I started writing again, which was my original first love. I wrote the feature film that I made at university. And through writing, I've found my way back into blockchain. I'm now the senior editor at Crypto Slate, where I make content. I'm the co-host of the Slatecast with Nate. I'm also a contributor for Forbes. So I write the digital assets section for Forbes. And I've been all over the world speaking and working and collaborating with
00:06:21
Speaker
crypto projects. I also am an advisor with Core Blockchain that I think we're going to be talking with later on in the season, which is something I'm very excited about. It's a very cool project. And it shows the difference in emerging tech and what blockchain can do. But ultimately, that's why maybe you should listen to me. I've done some interesting things. I've worked with some interesting people, but probably
00:06:43
Speaker
The most powerful thing for me right now is the fact that I'm in the middle of all the conversations. And that's why I'm so happy with what I'm doing in a career right now. Like I had like I'm getting text messages from founders of huge projects asking if they can come on. This lake has to talk. We've got Sonny from Osmosis coming on like next week, which I'm really excited. We spoke to him previously. We're going to be meeting up with Paula Arduino in Prague later on this year to talk. He's the CEO.
00:07:11
Speaker
like all these people are just within my black book and like i'm not a celebrity i'm not famous but i'm talking to a lot of people that i think are very cool and are very well known so whilst maybe don't maybe listen to me maybe i have some good ideas every now and then but what i do have is ability to listen and learn from some very intelligent people around me and hopefully
00:07:33
Speaker
kind of regurgitate that into some of these episodes and some of the thinking that we are going to be doing. So that's me, why maybe you should probably not, but maybe listen to me. Let's now introduce, oh, so very good host I am. So I am Liam Wright, but I do go by Akiba. And as I say, senior editor at Cryptosay and contributor for Forbes. Thomas, let's move over to you, sir.
00:07:58
Speaker
I really want to ask a question first before we get started. Can we watch our feature film anywhere? Is it still somewhere online? It's called Excathedra. It's available to buy and rent on Amazon.
00:08:16
Speaker
There we go. I like it. You search for Excathedra movie or search for my name and it should come up all, it's on IMDB. You can find it through that as well. Sweet. You're saying you're not a celebrity, but you know, you're a little bit of a celebrity. I was. I peaked in 2009. Like, so you go, like, I managed to do this the other night. If you go on Google trends, like there is a, I put it on Twitter, on Google trends, you know, it's all relative, isn't it? It's a hundred to zero.
00:08:42
Speaker
So in like 2008 or 2007, I was 100 and now I'm zero. I think that Internet itself has been a very interesting experience as well, right? Like at least that's how I look at these things. But I got d platform from Wikipedia.
00:09:02
Speaker
because I'm no longer relevant. Now you're no longer relevant. iq.wiki, the web3 version of Wikipedia. Navin that builds that project is very, very cool. Decentralize everything. You're not the platform there because you can't.
00:09:22
Speaker
That is definitely a story I want to hear later on, Liam, about how you got the platform of Wikipedia. Because I think that's, you know, stories for days. We'll talk about it. So quickly, quick plug again for us so this time, we will also be running what we're going to be calling what the three after dark, which will be us three completely unscripted, just waffling about web three and emerging tech and
00:09:48
Speaker
It'll be a lot of fun, a lot more laid back, a lot more chill, a lot more talking over each other. But I will recommend that as the live, we're going to be doing that hopefully live on X spaces. Absolutely.
Thomas' Transition to Tech and Blockchain
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, so from my perspective, like I started my career in healthcare.
00:10:07
Speaker
absolutely non tech. So what you just said, Liam resonates very heavily with me multiple careers, right? Like, I don't believe at the time, being coming from the Netherlands coming from a small bubble, you take one career, you keep on doing that. So my friends, the Soltens and
00:10:22
Speaker
social counselors and I figured I should do the same. So I did eight years of health care with very interesting stories that some of them at some point maybe I'll refer to. I was telling Charlie a couple this this week. And after that, I realized this is while I like health care and I'm all like social health care and I like my patients and they were batshit crazy in the most positive sense.
00:10:51
Speaker
We hit a point or I hit a point where I thought, I'm not sure if I really wanted to do this for the rest of my life around like 2014, 2013, 2013, 2024. I'm not sure if I want to do this. And then we had an interesting thing going on in the organization that I worked at.
00:11:09
Speaker
And they said, hey, look, we're building this digital call center for our patients. Our patients are generally, you know, average IQ and EQ, and they need help. Nothing like that in the Netherlands. So I helped building that in that year. And I was always, as you know, they am always a nerd, always like at home, like taking apart computers and building servers and do all the crazy shit.
00:11:33
Speaker
Never really got into blockchain up until that point. I mean, I dabbled a little bit, but nothing from the technology perspective. And I decided after the years, like, you know what? Screw this. I'm going to do something else. I want to really do something that I love. And I think it's technology. So I started literally, again, as a consultant. I think everybody that started in IT doesn't know how the program starts as a consultant. And I have very strong opinions about these kind of jobs, because I've been through it myself.
00:12:01
Speaker
But I learned a lot and I got a really interesting perspective on like commercial technology because I've been always doing like just private crappy technology stuff on my own, writing crappy Python scripts that worked, but nobody would ever be proud of.
00:12:17
Speaker
And from there on, I just dove deeper and deeper. I moved countries, came into a different country, started in the outsourcing agencies world here in Poland, which was a wild experience. And I think if we have college viewers, they will maybe laugh, or especially it's like, why was it wild?
00:12:36
Speaker
If you're working with all these agencies working for unicorns in San Francisco, the culture difference or culture shock is sometimes pretty big. Talking proactive versus passive communication, clients that will call you in the middle of the night getting stuff done.
00:12:54
Speaker
Really really wild experience maybe also because we worked with it with the unicorn still really enjoyed it as a project manager I was always I brought all the crazy stuff and all the interesting things I learned about communication and technology to the job Up until we got contracted for an L0 building an L0 and they're like hey Thomas, you know at this team and
00:13:16
Speaker
You want to have this and build this research paper into a functionable L1, L0. That was my first real work in crypto and it was insane. We're talking 2017-ish, I would say.
00:13:35
Speaker
middle 2017. So Web 3 wasn't a thing, right? It was just blockchain. We had a bunch of nerds doing writing code and having some ideas about how commercial blockchain looks like. These guys were part of that and they pulled in some commercial looking guys. It was the same time. Nobody really knew how this tech works. Super bleeding edge. Crazy hours. Again, time zone differences.
00:14:00
Speaker
But I fell in love. I couldn't stop looking at the tech, exploring it. We wrote this particular L0 in Scala.
00:14:09
Speaker
And I was always a big fan of Scala from my work with my engineers that I've been working prior. And I just fell in love. I found it such a beautiful, crazy thing to think about. Like, wait, we're doing something that's completely outside of a system. We're going to, in this case, data security. Are we going to build something that is not on any system? Yes, we're going to do that. That's insane. Tell me more.
00:14:33
Speaker
And that's where I got started. And then we got contracted for another job and another job. And we did integrations. And we built wallets. And we did DeFi pieces, early DeFi pieces. And I got deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And up until the point that I was like, I think I need to make a career out of this. Not because I want to make money out of it. I just really, really love what I'm doing. I love talking to all these founders. I love talking to all these engineers. I love hearing these crazy ideas and seeing what we can and cannot do.
00:15:02
Speaker
So, you know, I joined a firm a couple of years ago, also 2020. And it was already what I did, like was really heavily involved in building for three years, 2017, 2020. Join the firm in 2020. We did a lot of biz staff, which was great. And as you said, Liam, like, you know, sitting with all these people, we're I'm not a celebrity at all. I don't have, I think, the black book that any of you have. But
00:15:28
Speaker
somehow people that had some sales always found me and also founders that had some sales on the bill always found me. And we did a couple of really crazy, interesting projects and also a lot of research. And that kind of went forward into my newest company or consultancy actually, which is Intersect, which I'm co-founder of, where we really focus on blockchain and AI and actually the impact of what that has on commercial solutions. Like I'm a big believer of adoption and I truly believe that
00:15:58
Speaker
Adoption doesn't come by talking about the technology, but talking about the solutions that this technology can provide. Having these discussions done for the last couple of years just made me more and more passionate. I was like, I want to do this full time with my own company and running this. And the interesting part of all of this, what I found that half a year ago in the bear, probably for most people that are in crypto, is like, no, crypto's dead. We'll never come back.
00:16:25
Speaker
Uh, and then AI hit really hard. Like Jenny, I had really hard, it's like, oh, your crypto super debt. Um, nothing will happen. And I said, well, okay. That's even, even if the crypto side of things doesn't go off, which I find a hard time believing. I just love the technology. I love the, the vibe and the passion of the founders. I love the degenerate memes in the bear market. I love the degenerate memes in, in the, in the bull, right? Like that's, that's why I'm here for, I'm here to have an enjoyable life and, and.
00:16:54
Speaker
while I'm working. And by doing that, I just made so much friends and so much people that I learned from every day. And our motto in that is, my personal motto is always like, why do you need a blockchain? I have a group with my research team on Telegram, which is literally called that. Why do you need blockchain? Every time I ask people that they shield things to me, why do you need blockchain?
00:17:16
Speaker
And for that same thing, is it the same about AI? Why do you need AI? Why do you need Gen-AI? If you can't really answer that question, you're probably just trying to lift on the hype, which is fine. But we're trying to build something that is impactful, trying to help founders moving that forward. So I can talk about this for hours because I'm just very passionate about that. You know, I want to give Charlie some speaker time as well, otherwise he just sits there.
00:17:38
Speaker
So we'll get onto Charlie. As you can maybe start to see, this was Charlie's vision, that you had the marketer turned kind of, well, not influencer, but I'm within the influence sphere of the space, which is very much communications and media. So the media side of things, you've got Thomas, which is very much the hacker, the tech side of things. And then we come onto Charlie.
00:18:03
Speaker
Well, of that trifecta, the hustler side of things. That would be more the finance, more the sales put together the pitch deck and have the chat kind of guy. At least that's what the standard central casting for a startup team usually is.
00:18:26
Speaker
I'm just like, well, I'm wondering to myself, like, how do I follow up your two introductions? They're both pretty good. It's just like, hmm, okay.
Charlie's Diverse Career Path and Blockchain Pivot
00:18:37
Speaker
So essentially, I started my career for my sins in PR. So we were working in Milan and it was one of those moments where you can't afford university. This was during sort of
00:18:55
Speaker
class for myself as an elder millennial as well I guess and I had to pay for school so we had like entrepreneurship for me has always been something out of necessity and in Milan there's two organizations that run nightlife there so we essentially organized events for
00:19:14
Speaker
the international students in that city and because we're international we were allowed to work with both of those organizations and that's really where my sort of first sales experience came from which was come to the party in that city and from there having sort of bombed out of university I then did so much manual jobs, so I
00:19:38
Speaker
I was literally my job was putting paper in envelopes for a legal firm. And at some point I was like, okay, king of, king of menial jobs. So there's probably more to life than this. So I kind of set myself up a bit of a penance for bombing out of uni and said, I will pick and stack a thousand boxes at Amazon FC fulfillment center in Milton Keynes, which is not far from where I am now.
00:20:06
Speaker
And I did that during the time that Amazon was in the papers here in the UK for being, for not treating their staff well, I guess is the issues with that. And I did that during the Christmas rush at night. And I don't know if anyone's ever done some factory work, but it's pretty brutal gig. You're getting up and in work, you're getting up at 5 p.m. in work for God knows when finishing at 6 a.m.
00:20:33
Speaker
picking and packing and stacking boxes. As soon as I sort of hit, I had this counter in my head by this is like box 237, this is box 500, this is box 700. I sort of had enough and got to, when I got to a thousand, I was like, right, I firmly believe there's more to life than this. And picked myself up, started studying hard, went back to university and started applying to master's courses.
00:21:03
Speaker
Luckily, I got accepted into Cranfield again, which is down the road from where I am, North London. And that experience sort of shot my trajectory into the finance world, which is where at that time everyone was making lots of money and it sounded like a great idea.
00:21:22
Speaker
So I became a cost leadership consultant for private equity companies that were being bought, sold or economized. And I got an introduction into how it was to be a sort of corporate attack dog is what I've heard one of my directors describe us as where we come in after a purchase or for a buy or just when a company needs to find some extra cash and economize their balance sheet.
00:21:48
Speaker
or whatever they were buying, actually a really skilled, highly technical job. And that taught me a lot about work ethic, taught me a lot about how you negotiate and have conversations with people. And in consulting, it's kind of like the entire career is a trial by fire. And you are 27 and you're briefing a C-suite team on the direction of
00:22:17
Speaker
You know, interestingly, like the specific thing that you know a lot about, whether it be their budget for travel to, you know, the specific kind of grain that they're putting in their cookie. And you have to learn this stuff immediately. Welcome to your job. You've just traveled an hour to get to this random office that is at the ass end of God knows where. And now you have to learn all of this kind of stuff and make the numbers work.
00:22:44
Speaker
I think I lasted in that gig to Liam's point, maybe 15 to 18 months, year, year and a half, where I looked around and I was like, this isn't the kind of where I want to go. And that was the experience I was having at the time as well. I was probably not the easiest employee, no doubt.
00:23:06
Speaker
I went from that company to another company called Cadence and it was basically sharp end of the corporate spear straight down to public sector. So I was working, my first project was again consulting, but technical consulting. So I was working for the department for education and credit to the team. There was a project, the first project I was put on was called SFB.
00:23:31
Speaker
And it was the, it's the piece of tech that all educational institutions in the UK report their numbers into.
00:23:40
Speaker
And thankfully the team did an amazing job and really what they needed from me was kind of understand the project, understand what they were doing and provide them that top cover, like help, in essence, help my director support my directors at the time to navigate that political landscape and essentially give the team a bit of a shove when they needed it to ensure that they pass beta. That team went on to
00:24:06
Speaker
launched that project and I think they won awards and it was actually lauded in the House of Lords, one of their biggest wins in the last decade. It was fantastic. So after that, I went onto a project called DDAT, which was essentially building the technical infrastructure. And at that point, I was then tapped up by the CEO of that consultancy. So we're going to go work in this new cool thing called blockchain.
00:24:35
Speaker
which my response was probably along the lines of, that sounds cool, what is it? And it took me on a wild ride. We worked in two companies at the same time, one called Block Labs, another called Circudal. And it was one of those sort of
00:24:57
Speaker
pivotal moments in your career where you're like, Hey, I've kind of, I've grown a bit here. Like I'm sitting at a table, couldn't quote me on this, but we were in a, we work in the West End of London and we were all sort of talking about what we could do for these companies. Like, what was our skillset? And, uh,
00:25:20
Speaker
the CEO attacked me. I said I'll be the CEO. He brought his COO with him so he'll be like I'll be chief operations officer.
00:25:28
Speaker
There was a hedge fund guy be like I'll do I'll do chief finance. There was Another chap who who was essentially cyber warfare hacker like Thomas who basically I want to wreck I am not even close to guys like that. I I don't have those kind of skills Charlie But you know, he basically wrote the rule book for GCHQ on cyber warfare and he was like, I'll be the CTO it's no argument there and
00:25:57
Speaker
I got around the table, got around to me and I was like, all right, I'll do the marketing because everything else had been taken. And I was probably the only one who had an Instagram account. So it's funny that you talk about your career trajectory, you kind of fall into these things. From that came the collaboration with Liam. So after a while I left those businesses to essentially start my own entrepreneurial journey.
00:26:27
Speaker
in doing that, Lee and I collaborated on an AI application. And from that, we've then got to aspects where we're essentially helping businesses build their own businesses using for marketing, operational efficiency, and strategic advisory.
Vision and Tools of 'What The Three' Podcast
00:26:43
Speaker
So it's never just a clean road.
00:26:50
Speaker
No, it isn't. And I think that to that point, like sometimes when I hear you guys talking, I almost have imposter syndrome. I mean, there's so much knowledge to get in the world. And there's so much knowledge I don't possess. I see this every day when I'm outside my comfort zone tech.
00:27:10
Speaker
I would say tech and being out of the comfort zone of tech is okay, but when I talk marketing, when I talk anything that is not tech, I'm always like, shit, there's so much to learn. And I hear you guys start making career out of these things. You can't know everything, but it's always that imposter syndrome, because as an entrepreneur, you're supposed to know something of it at least, or at least enough of it. I disagree with that. I mean, there's something that I based the first kind of, I think, 10, 15 years of my career on the concept that
00:27:39
Speaker
If I didn't feel I was out of my depth, I knew that I wasn't moving forward. Whenever you feel comfortable, whenever you feel like I know how to do this, that's fine if that's where you want to be in your career. But that means you're not moving forward. The times when you're moving forward, you create it when you feel like you're an imposter. For me, that is the definition of an entrepreneur or the entrepreneurial spirit.
00:28:02
Speaker
But the thing is, and this is why I wanted to bring this up, so I loved Charlie's idea of bringing us three together to talk about this for a podcast. Because his concept was, where do you start? And for me, I had exactly that problem in a lot of parts of my career in marketing, but especially one thing that really jumps to mind is in film.
00:28:23
Speaker
And what there was in the early 2000s is that I've got it on one of these shelves behind me somewhere, a big green fat book called The Gorilla Filmmaker's Handbook. And that was a book that everyone who got into filmmaking, basically, that is the reason why YouTube kind of almost exists in a way. Because that was a tool that basically gave you all the hacks
00:28:47
Speaker
to get started in filming, but also gave you all the blurb, all the terminology. What's a best boy? What's a gaffer? The stuff that you don't know where to start now, we have AI that we can ask these questions. But the thing is, what you don't have, and I would say, so this is one of the things we're going to be doing is, I have actually been building a what the three GPT for listeners to be able to access and use that will be being built into the show, which is a bit of a
00:29:15
Speaker
exclusive kind of behind the scenes idea of like what we're going to be releasing to subscribers is going to be completely free. The only thing we're going to do, well, I say that we're going to charge you your information because that is what free really means. And the thing that I wanted to then come back to with that is that with the idea and having that place of we want to be the Gorilla filmmakers handbook, but for emerging tech founders,
00:29:37
Speaker
is we're also just three guys that are doing it. And what we're going to be is no bullshit, no, no overhype. Because the thing is, if you haven't figured it out yet, 99% of influencers don't know what they're talking about either. And it's all bravado and front and image. And I'm going to show you this because it makes me look good. They don't show you the other stuff. We'll show you everything warts and all. We're three guys that have had
00:30:06
Speaker
I'd say in terms of the global population, extremely successful careers. And I think if, I think there's a lot of people that without sounding like an asshole, there's a lot of people that would be happy to have had similar careers to us. But we're not the 1% of like, we're not the Gary V's. I think that's kind of for me,
00:30:28
Speaker
That resonates more. No, I agree. Only 1% can be. I agree. And that's also, I think, what I mean by Boston syndrome. You can look at it two ways. I fully agree. I think the moment when I get a Boston syndrome is when I talk to my lawyers about something. And I'm like, I am severely out of my depth. OK, let's learn this. And this happens way more often than I want to admit. Also to myself, I'm like, shouldn't I know this kind of thing?
00:30:59
Speaker
But that's also the other side of it. It's like, oh, I don't know this.
00:31:05
Speaker
Let's learn about this. And that's what I mean by imposter syndrome. And I think that a lot of tech people that start building a company or start their entrepreneurial journey have that thing because they're like most, most tech entrepreneurs I know they're stellar, right? Like they're, you know, you ask them anything about their piece of technology, they will go on for days and they will explain it to you in such detail. But then you ask them what the revenue structure is and they look at your like,
00:31:31
Speaker
revenue structure, I have no idea what that means, right? And that imposter syndrome, I think it's a really good call to action. And that's always what if you don't know, hire for it, right? Like, or learn or hire for it. In this case, I generally hire for it because I just don't have the skills of that of a lawyer. But to that point, I think it's a really strong call to action on both sides, hire or learn it. So yeah, but depending on how you look at it, right?
00:32:01
Speaker
I agree. To take the concept forward, the biggest issue I've always had and I consume a lot of content is when you look at the episodic nature of a lot of these podcasts, it's very much like what's happening at the time and what's relevant to
00:32:27
Speaker
your situation. It can be very, very specific. It can be sector-specific. You've got to sort of strike this balance between filling the void and trying to be as specific as possible. When I was brainstorming, how does Bot3 fill that void?
00:32:47
Speaker
like to Liam's point when we're saying, all right, we're going to go out, we're going to like speak to all these, the experts. Our only real need for quantification in this is that we're quantified enough to ask the questions that matter. So one of the biggest pieces for us is like, okay, we've gone out and we've said, okay, like we want to, first thing we want to do is add value because if you don't add value
00:33:16
Speaker
in a podcast at any foreign media, why should anyone bother spending their time watching your stuff? Number one. Number two is we obviously want to make sure that
00:33:27
Speaker
what we're talking about is in bollocks because we've got our faces on it. That's quite a big deal. That's fair. And third is how do we make this content as evergreen as possible, which is where the frameworky balance comes into play where people are saying, okay, I'm just gonna
00:33:47
Speaker
sort of give you the general pieces because the general pieces give you the access to the thinking that they're thinking you suddenly then go and research. So it gives you like the white stripe around the football pitch that shows you okay you're playing in this field and then you know where the goals are. So really the lack of comprehensive guides to this kind of stuff is where we think that this has got an edge and where we're really looking on
00:34:15
Speaker
adding that value and taking it forward. That's why I think people should follow and watch our stuff. I think you raised some really great points there, Charlie, which I kind of missed really, which is
00:34:28
Speaker
We're also in this as well. We're on the journey with everyone that is watching. We're basically saying, hey, we're going to go do it so you guys don't have to. And we've got the contact. So we're going to bring the people in that know this stuff. And one of the things that I'm sure you always agree with is kind of verifying your thesis. So we've got a thesis as to this is what the structure is for the emerging tech business. But we're going to verify that by speaking to the experts.
00:34:55
Speaker
Someone might come to the show and go, hey, why are you doing this as number three? This should be number two. This should be number 10. You've got this all wrong. And school is on some stuff. And we're excited to be a part of that conversation if and when that happens. So yeah, I'm very much excited. And I think you're completely right in terms of having that playbook. And that, again, is something that I'm going to keep shilling what the three GPT because it's going to be my baby.
00:35:23
Speaker
We're going to be putting all of the information from each episode into this and training it on the data. So essentially, what you'll actually have is a generative AI tool where Charlie says, oh, you've got the framework. OK, well, imagine then from that podcast where someone's talking to you and giving you the framework, you can then actually have a one-to-one conversation with them, like the Q&A after a podcast that sometimes you might get. Well, you're going to have basically access to that
00:35:50
Speaker
through a GPT for powered AI tool that you'll be able to jump onto our website and access at any time and put in like we've gone through if we've just gone through like a legal section, you better go in there and ask it for like
00:36:06
Speaker
advice on not legal advice that you'll be able to take action on what do you mean get some ideas of who you should be talking to those things like this stuff where you don't know what you don't know well if the expert knows it this gpt tool will be able to help you and once we get onto things like content and marketing then 100% is going to help you figure out content plans and marketing and stuff so yeah basically if you watch one of our episodes and you think oh that was really great the content that the guest spoke about was amazing
00:36:33
Speaker
wait a few hours and jump on the GPT and you can essentially talk to a virtual version of them. But it's also a version of every other guest as well put into one mammoth epic AI tool. Can you tell I'm a bit excited about it?
00:36:49
Speaker
Oh man, but I think that is when we talk about podcasts, like so I, Charlie, you're an addict in the best way possible, right? Like you're consuming, I think 10 times, 20 times more content than I do. But I always found really hard with podcasts and it's like, it's a lot of listening and I like interactive moments. And that's why this resonates very well with me, Liam, because
00:37:17
Speaker
When I hear something interesting, I don't want to go to Google because generally when I have a podcast on, I'm doing something. What is nice with this GPT, and I assume it's available if I have GPT 4, I'm not sure how it will be available, but I assume it will be available that I can use on phone. I can just quickly talk to it. I think that's super valuable because very often when I listen to podcasts, I'm like, all right, that's really great.
00:37:45
Speaker
you know, I consume other pieces of data and it goes kind of to the background where this, you know, now there's a follow-up and there's something that I'm actually learning and I'm actually storing because I like it. So what we're working on and the final version may look slightly different, but hopefully what we're going to be having is on the back end of the website will be a passwordless login into the subscriber part of the website. You'll jump in and you'll basically have the video on one side, the transcript of the podcast episode on the other side.
00:38:15
Speaker
It will go as it's playing through the podcast, you build a read along with the podcast. And then at any point that you want to basically talk to the podcast, you can pop open the what the three GPT and ask it a question. And it will be as if you're asking us essentially and the guests and every other guest that's been on there and all of our research that we've done that we've trained and put into the rag model, like as you're watching it live.
00:38:41
Speaker
like there is no more interactive way of having a podcast like this and I'm super excited about it. It's something that we all came up with together in terms of like what would be the best value for the audience and how can we utilize emerging tech in this tech podcast?
00:38:57
Speaker
And the even crazier thing is, it's not even that hard to build. I will give you that secret in terms of like, this is one of the secrets of like, like to build stuff with AI, like it's so modular. I say it's not that hard to build. I probably like 80% of the people in the world have no idea how to build it. But for me, like for the people listening, that's what I'm saying. It's not that hard to build. If you're a tech founder, an emerging tech founder, or you know the guy to hire or the girl to hire,
00:39:20
Speaker
To do this stuff, it is very doable. It's not like you're going to need months to build this with a 30 person team. You better hire a dev to do it. Right. So I'm going to step in in a way so we can be under away from the AI tool, which is going to be awesome. No, all we talk about is GPT. More silly. I want more silly.
00:39:44
Speaker
So, right. Shall we jump onto what the mission statement is, essentially? Because I prepared a little something, something, Charlie, if you want me to give it a go. It was mission, and then I was going to go through the episode structure so people know the game. You do that. You do the episode structure. I'm going to say, in a world
00:40:04
Speaker
In a world where technology evolves faster than we can keep up, and it's crucial for founders to stay ahead of the curve. Whether it's the transformative potential of Web3, the omnipresence artificial intelligence, or the intricacies of blockchain, we've got you covered.
00:40:21
Speaker
But what the three is more than a podcast. It's a mission, a mission to empower you, the backbone and future of technology, with the knowledge and insights and wisdom from those who've navigated navigated these waters before. From reputable startup leaders to seasoned professionals, we're bringing the experts to your ears.
00:40:42
Speaker
Our inaugural season is packed with everything you need to lay the foundation for your venture. We're talking venture capital insights, legal insights, go-to-market strategies and so much more. Each episode is a piece of the puzzle, helping you to see the big picture of what it means to run an emerging tech business.
00:40:59
Speaker
But it's not just about the hard skills, it's about the mindset, the strategies and the failures and the victories. It's about understanding that the heart of technology, it's about people who make a difference. That's why we're here, to connect you with the stories and strategies and the people behind the tech.
00:41:18
Speaker
So, whether you're in the trenches of building your startup, or you're dreaming of launching the next big thing, What The Three is your guide through the ever-changing landscape of emerging technology. So join us on the adventure as we explore the next stage of the internet, dive into the minds of startup founders, unravel the complexities of venture capital, and so much more. Together, we'll uncover the secrets to success in the tech ecosystem, one episode at a time. So buckle up.
00:41:47
Speaker
and dive into the world of emerging tech with our very first episode, What is Web 3? The Next Stage of the Internet. It's time to explore the infrastructure and tools that will define the future of tech startups. I should have said that earlier.
00:42:02
Speaker
Why do I feel that we need like the more, you know, kind of thing rolling in right now? Like, you know, you know, that thing, right? It's like the more, you know, or Skeletor, or Fallout. Yeah. One man. Yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
Exactly. One opportunity. This is the key. For me, this is the key. I want to point like, we're going to try and have some fun with it. It's going to be professional. It's going to be to the point, but everything we said on that, I just said that we're going to be delivering. Um, and it's not going to be dry. The, what the three after the dark is going to be very not dry. Like we're going to have a lot of fun with that. Um, but this is going to be very structured. And I think that's something that Charlie wants to talk to you next, that this isn't also just.
00:42:48
Speaker
a sporadic random collection of thoughts. This is six to nine months worth of work going into this project in terms of what we've prepped for it. So there's been a lot of thought, a lot of strategy, a lot of pivoting left and right around specific concepts till we've figured out what we're very sure is
00:43:12
Speaker
the perfect formula for how we would want to ingest this content because say we're you guys, we're the listeners in a lot of this. Also allowing for the guests to tell us that we're all wrong because that's all fine because we're all learning together. Charlie, do you want to run us through the structure and say this is a season. This has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end. This isn't like each week's a different guest for a random reason, is it?
Podcast Structure and Guest Segments
00:43:38
Speaker
No, so I mean, we went back and forth on this quite a bit and the idea being that so we're looking at 12 to 14 episode run. Our goal was to give people the kind of starter pack of what you should be thinking about and what you should do when you're starting a
00:44:00
Speaker
emerging tech startup. The first episode is us. Welcome to the episode. The second is the mindset of the startup founder. Originally it was going to be how do you run the startup business, but it just became painfully obvious that this was really all about mindset. So we've, again, an example of the pivot that we've had to make. Third, venture capital insights. So it's in essence, so why
00:44:30
Speaker
Like so much of the burden of figuring stuff out is on the startup founder. We're literally just going to go to people who know the market inside and out and ask them, what is it you are looking to invest in and how would you see that? Like, what is it you're looking for? Why do you look at that that way?
00:44:48
Speaker
which in my hope is that that episode will be able to give you the insight to be able to look in the right place and then position yourself correctly to be able to say, okay, I've answered these questions that the people who give money to these businesses.
00:45:03
Speaker
are looking for. I think just, just to quickly jump in, I think what it also allows people to do, and this will be really fun. So have a think about this and bring note powder your laptop with you when you watch the first episode is almost the idea of build along as well. Like you could, if you, if you don't have an idea, but you want to be an emerging tech founder and you're not,
00:45:22
Speaker
Listen to the first episode, as Jelly said, that'll give you the ideas of what people are investing in. You can then go away, do some thinking, speak to what the three GPT, and then come up with some ideas for startup. And then the next week, it goes on. And do you want to explain how that process, cause it is like very much that, isn't it? It's literally step by step. So, um, let's say you've got your mindset locked in, you've listened to us ramble and have a good time.
00:45:50
Speaker
And then you've spoken to VCs and got a general idea, also that access, right? So how, when could you get?
00:46:00
Speaker
and now I'm meeting with a managing partner of a prolific VC in the web3 space. Quite difficult, right? Episode four is then speaking to someone who has been on that journey and done it successfully time and time again, looking at the market landscape, which is the next thing you should do, and finding the opportunities. So when you're looking at the market, what are the VCs looking for? What should I be looking for?
00:46:30
Speaker
What are the patterns that I should be looking for? Why is this idea even remotely good? And how do you de-quantify that? Fifth episode, again, partner of a law firm, so it's legal insights. So is what I'm trying to do even legal was the fifth thing or fourth originally, but fifth thing now that we thought was probably a good question to ask up front.
00:46:55
Speaker
moving on to go to market strategies. And this is one where I think it's just so fundamental in that people get wrong all the time. A lot of people I see, they go out, they have an idea, they ask their family, they think it's a good idea, and then they spend six months trying to build it. I've made that mistake too. The one thing to do is, and this is like, you learn this, you either learn this lesson or you just get burnt by it over and over again.
00:47:23
Speaker
Figure out whether people want it first, whether there's an opportunity in the market, figure out whether the signals are good, figure out whether it's legal, and then try and pre-sell it. Go to market with the product already and see if anyone's willing to give you any money for it. Actual money. So let's go to market strategies is next. Validate your product. Number one, devising effective go to market strategies and once you've validated it, how can I scale the way I validated it?
00:47:54
Speaker
and then seven is valuation. So the quick answer there is go to Solana and do a pre-sale meme coin because that's all the rage at the moment you just people just ate Solana at you so there you go.
00:48:11
Speaker
I said problem solved. You don't need to listen to that episode if you're going to go on Solana. If you're emerging tech is some sort of dog in new cat frog coin, then yeah, skip that one, pre-sale Solana, done the work for you. Episode 7 moving on is then valuation. So I've pre-sold it, got some traction, the market likes it, legal's are there.
00:48:37
Speaker
What's this thing worth? Like, I think one of the things that people really have to ask themselves is, is this worth my time? Is this what I want to do? Eight is then looking at the finances. Like, how do I optimize my capital expenditure? Roughly how much they give to what part of what function. Nine is potentially strategy and operations if we get the guest in. So, right, I've got my finance. I've got everything else lined up. What do I then do?
00:49:06
Speaker
what's the first thing I should be doing? What's the next thing I should be doing? How should I operationalize that? How should I run that? So it's not me jumping from task to task for nine to 10 hours a day, just struggling to keep late spinning. 10 is then once you've got the start off, it's then what do you have to consider when you're running that business? Like where are you looking for the edge in running that business?
00:49:35
Speaker
11, tech building and innovation from a prolific builder. 12 is growth strategies. So once you've got this mechanism, you've built this engine, how do you put more gas in the tank? 13, sales conversations. So how are we selling this machine that we've built? And 14 is what you're building towards brand. How do you,
00:50:04
Speaker
essentially build that goodwill. So everyone can go to the far east and buy some sneakers for 50 quid, 20 quid, 10 quid. Why are 90s, 150 brand? Like how are you going to start your brand? How are you building your brand? What is it about your brand that's important?
00:50:23
Speaker
15 bumper episodes UI UX. What is it as a base level design? And this is, I mean, this is one of those questions that I've had a hundred times, which is what's the optimal outline for a landing page?
00:50:39
Speaker
How do I get people to convert? How do we get people to sign up and click on my link and talk to me? So that's the 12 to 14 with a bonus. If you make it all the way through, that will become released to you. But yeah, that's the structure of the episodes. And then so for each episode, we're going to be bringing on a
00:51:00
Speaker
an expert in that vertical. And we've got a very specific structure for how the episode is ran. Um, do you want to run through that? Just very briefly, Thomas or Charlie, whoever's feels more comfortable doing it. We start with an introduction segment just to dig into who the guest really is. Some anecdotes on what they've done in their generally long and fruitful career.
00:51:24
Speaker
And also, you know, some stories around fun stories, sad stories, scary stories, crazy stories, right? Like we're emerging tech that they've been in, some have been in a dot com bubble, or even before that, and they did tech before that they're, they're amazing stories just to listen to. But in each of these stories, there's also I think, some lessons or some perspectives for new entrepreneurs or Syrian entrepreneurs. And then we make our way to
00:51:52
Speaker
So the tips like we always ask our guests like, Hey, what, what would you recommend to like first time founders or serial entrepreneurs that are coming in the, in the emerging tech space? What, what, what are the 10 most important things you will give?
00:52:08
Speaker
After that, we love to just have a brainstorm with like three, two or three segments depending on the time that we have left. But there are always industry specific and expert specific brainstorms where what we found or what we will find is a lot of knowledge rolls out and a lot of perspectives roll out that we think otherwise won't roll out. It's just an interview, right? Because what we really want to do is having a conversation with our guests rather than just
00:52:40
Speaker
you know, asking questions, getting answers, and move on. And then lastly, just to jump in, that's one of the sections that hopefully going forward, we will be able to get audience and listener kind of more participation in. Because what those brainstorms are is basically, here's some scenarios. How do you deal with this? And actually like trying to find solutions. So rather than just like, what would you do in this scenario? And being very generic kind of question they've been asked a million times, like trying to play out some very specific things.
00:53:09
Speaker
that we need their expertise from. So that'll be where we'll be asking the community if you've got any really specific scaling problems or legal problems, send us over the information. Get in touch. And maybe we can figure out and create a bit of a brainstorming session. We can basically try and problem solve your problem with one of these experts for you.
00:53:32
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think to that point, if there's a lot of comments and questions, I'm pretty sure that some of these guests would love to come on to the After Dark show. So we can have that discussion live if there are large questions. We have great guests that are really down to earth and love to talk. That's at least what we found. And then the last and final segment, which I always find really cool and
00:53:59
Speaker
So far, I had a lot of, is that we call it desert island essentials. So what are you taking to a desert island? What are your essentials? You go to a desert island, or you get dropped onto it. And again, this really goes back to, okay, you have a 20, 25 year career in
00:54:21
Speaker
product design, EUI, in legal. What are the five things you would take if you're 20 or you're starting a startup with nothing? What are the five essential things? That's the thing. It's a very special desert island. It's a desert island that sends you back in time 30 years.
00:54:37
Speaker
when you land to start again. No bags, no money. You've got no bags, no connections, no investor connections, nothing. No phone. Although I believe that one of our guests said, I want to take a Kindle. So we agreed on that one.
00:54:55
Speaker
The beauty of it is that every time we ask these questions, there's new again, new perspectives rolling out. Like I found like sometimes it's books. Sometimes it's a mindset. Sometimes it's a health advice. Be healthy as an entrepreneur. Like you sometimes do be 60 or say 70 or crazy hours. Be healthy. Your body is able to deal with it a lot easier. There's a lot of different things.
00:55:20
Speaker
rolling out and we have like 12 to 14 episodes that comes out to 60 to 80 pieces of essential advices that we believe will add value to listeners and to the people that are actually building, right? And our first-time founders, but now or once actually centralized into
00:55:42
Speaker
let's say, per episode five and then per season 60 essential advice and perspectives to take on your journey to be successful.
00:55:55
Speaker
Which what the three GPT will all have the information on I I gotta admit like that. We definitely too I've just realized I'm gonna have to set up my stream deck for a couple of little sound effects and I'm gonna have to make a what the three GPT sound effect Can be played every time it's mentioned just like an NLP like
00:56:31
Speaker
So that's the structure and as I said like we've spent months going through this and finalizing and arguing backwards and forwards and debating and moving episodes around like
00:56:44
Speaker
It's been very much a labor of love, and we're really excited for people to now listen in, join us on this journey. We want to make it as collaborative as possible, because emerging tech space is something that's really close to a lot of our hearts.
Web3 Evolution and Blockchain Debate
00:57:01
Speaker
And I think the idea, so going back to the title of this podcast, it's like, what is Web3? The reason why I pitched that as the title was
00:57:13
Speaker
Thinking about the concept of web three so i love to see your guys take on this as well before we finally wrap up is. When people say web three what they mean is the next version after web two web two was interactive and social media,
00:57:30
Speaker
websites web one was just the world wide web everything was pretty much standard static apart from maybe some marquee text in html it was all tables and frames we then got dynamic we got mobile with web two web three is the next evolution.
00:57:46
Speaker
And I think it was Gavin Woods actually coined it as being for blockchain with Web3. And he basically took hold of it and said, OK, well, blockchain is now Web3. So Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, all of these things are Web3. I do not believe that Bitcoin is part of Web3. And we can talk about that in probably an after dark episode. My view on the difference between Bitcoin, crypto and Web3 is definitely something we can debate about. But Web3 was taken up by blockchain.
00:58:15
Speaker
But we're getting some adoption in blockchain online and logging in with wallets and stuff. But I would say we're getting less adoption than we are for AI. And AI is changing the way the internet moves very, very quickly. Whether you're thinking about it from the point of view of the contents of like
00:58:37
Speaker
like, trash heap, to a degree. Like, I don't know if you've seen any of these posts on Reddit, but the amount of, like, now research papers that have just been written by GPT, like, you just search for, I'm sorry, as an AI in Google Scholar, and it comes up with lists of stuff. You've got images, you go on YouTube Shorts now, half of them are just AI-generated garbage. There's AI, and then there's really bad generative AI. But regardless of whether you like it or not,
00:59:03
Speaker
AI has been integrated into every part of the internet. I think it's actually a very good case to say that tokenization of the internet, which essentially is what blockchain and web3 is kind of thought of now, would be more likely web4 and be something to be built on top of a new AI layer. And the web3 should maybe actually be reserved for AI.
00:59:27
Speaker
There's no right or wrong answer here. It's a kind of an open-ended question. I know. What do you think, Charlie, being involved from when I was involved in 2017, 2018, I think Web3 failed? I don't think it existed at that point, right? Like it was... Well, there's been ICOs and things like that were coming out. Yeah. Was the Web3 turn then already there? I think we were still like just in the blockchain industry. At least that's how I always perceived it as a builder, but... It evolved from there. Yeah.
01:00:00
Speaker
Okay. No, 2014 is, is when Gavin would first use the term web three, which is when it then he kind of popularized it. Right. Right. So, uh, to rephrase then when I was working in it and we were calling it web three.
01:00:15
Speaker
which was 2017, 2018. We were releasing ICOs. The whole concept, the vision of the industry was things were going to be decentralized, identity, money. The whole point of it was we were going to decentralize away control of the financial sector away from governments that didn't really care about us as individuals. We would regain agency.
01:00:45
Speaker
over our funds and how we were going to make that work. I think the reason why I say I think Web3 failed is 70 something percentage, 73 ish percent of blockchain projects are on Amazon. That was on hosting services.
01:01:05
Speaker
Well, there are notes sometimes too. Is Amazon where to turn off? The decentralized dream would turn off with it.
01:01:17
Speaker
regardless of the percentage. And that is just fundamentally against what we were working on in 2017, 2018. I agree with your perception on AI. And I actually think AI is the more usable, more interesting, it's gathered more
01:01:38
Speaker
Velocity then I can make some money with crypto in in the circles I run in it's it's more practical There's still a lot of complexity around blockchain that a lot of people don't understand why you barely understand That is a barrier to entry. Whereas AI is kind of I'm talking to you know, the end user They can they should like okay. I get what this does. I can exceptionally understand it. I
01:02:05
Speaker
And I guess that's my point of view. What about yours, Thomas? So, Thomas, before you give your answer, I want to say that I think you make a really good point there, which kind of backs up my view of kind of AI is kind of needs to...
01:02:20
Speaker
Blockchain needs to kind of leapfrog AI a little bit in terminology, but I don't know whether we can reclaim the vernacular now But the reason why I say that is I've just done a Twitter space today with the guys from the internet computer ICP they also look at what are we were doing now with their virtualization and stuff. I think the Decentralized computing and decentralized cloud is really starting to find its feet but
01:02:46
Speaker
It's kind of, it's now behind AI in that thing. So I think it does really so fit of tokenization of things kind of needs to be web four, but I think we kind of stuck with it now. Yeah, I mean, when you talk about tokenization, like I remember we already tokenized data back in the day when we worked at AWS, right? You needed to buy tokens to get data. So there was some tokenization going on. That's always like, I know an engineer told me that a while ago, like shit, man.
01:03:14
Speaker
It wasn't tokenized on a decentralized blockchain. No, it wasn't. No, and so like I maybe I have a couple of spicy takes on both AI and blockchain because like I'm long enough in the space probably to be a DJEN and I love it, but I'm also very skeptical, right? Like I said earlier, like I look at blockchain, do you really need a blockchain? 90% of the times we've asked that question to agencies of two projects. They don't, right? Like they want it because it's called HIPAA. They really understand it.
01:03:44
Speaker
And then secondly, sometimes you need blockchain but you don't encrypt them. Hyperledger is a great solution for a lot of issues, enterprise issues that I think solve a lot of good things. So for me, and secondly, do you need decentralized blockchain? A lot of solutions you need
01:04:12
Speaker
immutable, right? You need transparency. Do you need decentralized? I don't know. Like, does your average SaaS platform need decentralized data? Do they really want to give up that data? Because that's also, I always love that discussion around decentralized social media. And don't get me wrong here, I really love the perspective of Web3 and being decentralized, right? Like just decentralization of your data.
01:04:39
Speaker
Practically, if you look at what a Facebook does or what an X does, what is their biggest stack? It's data, right? Everybody's like, yeah, but if we get big enough, then Facebook has no choice than to use decentralized data. I doubt it. We're talking about 2 billion and some changed users. They're not going to switch because you're talking about your data. Nobody cares. And that's the problem.
01:05:04
Speaker
of what we've seen in blockchain for a long time. We're focusing very heavily on technology. Everybody's always like, oh, I did this really cool thing, and it's powered by blockchain. I always said, does my mom care? No. Does my dad care? No. Does my sister care who is 10 years older than me? Yeah, but when Facebook collapses, just like Myspace did, and you lose all of your data and access to everything, you'll be wishing you were using Lens. I fully agree. But I'd argue that
01:05:34
Speaker
even if that, uh, breaks down and the collapse. And I, I surely hope so, uh, to get away with all the other big social media companies. Oh no, it will, but it's like, it's eventually people will keep like, there needs to be a move, but I think the movement of the centralization is a lot, takes a lot longer time than what people think. I feel, and that's on the scratch, like, oh no, it's like five to 10 years. I'm like, no, it's, I think it's close to 20 to 40.
01:06:03
Speaker
because it's a really long, like you're talking about data, that's like oil. It's like it's asking Saudi Arabia to say, oh yeah, we're switching to electric right now. Saudi Arabia was like, yeah, well, it's great, but we're still selling oil. We're not gonna just throwing our oil away, right? Like there's a lot of resistance from big companies and there's a lot of lobby behind it. So I'm very curious what this leads us. And Liam, to your point, like I also look at Bitcoin and it's different, totally different discussion. Well, I mean,
01:06:32
Speaker
The interesting point you raised was you were switching to electric. That means sold all. Where does the electricity come from? Oh, look, hey, I fully agree. I had the discussion many times. I think full for a few of us. Coal, mate. We take coal, like, scroll oil. But what I will say is this regarding AI. We've been doing data science in the field pipelines for the last 10 years. So we did AI before it was cool. And that's still the uncool side of AI, right?
01:07:01
Speaker
Gennai is the cool shiny side, but that's what all AI has going for them. They were front runner. They have, they have Gennai. How, how quick.
01:07:09
Speaker
did open AI get there until 90 million? Was it five days or six days? Something like it was an insane amount of subscriptions or people signing up in less than five days. What do we have in blockchain? We have an ETF, which by the way, it works really well, but it says something that our industry is more of an infrastructure, potentially heavy finance industry, where AI is more
01:07:34
Speaker
It becomes more of a consumer product. You say that, sorry, but BlackRock just announced the $100 million seed investment of a tokenized asset fund. So they're tokenizing assets on blockchain on Ethereum as of two days ago. So it is also happening in the tokenization part. It is, it is. And I'm curious if that will actually accelerate things, right? I really hope so.
01:08:01
Speaker
you know, throwing money at something or getting natural adoption on open AI did, which kept a lot of money thrown at it. Right? I mean, was it like a strong amount of billions? Good point. Yeah, so it's, I fully agree with with like, but money doesn't solve everything. I have a great last thing I will say about this. I used to work for a project
01:08:24
Speaker
a billion dollar unicorn project from a certain country that always throw money at the problem. It's kind of like that, oh yeah, we're having one mother, nine months per baby, right? Now we'll have nine mothers and it takes one month. Some things you can't accelerate with money. And it is really great that BlackRock throws 100 mil at tokenization. I'm really bullish on that.
01:08:52
Speaker
But still, um, that doesn't like the fact that an open AI gets like what 90 million, uh, signups in less than five days or five, 10 days. I don't remember the numbers says something about the adoption that we don't have. Well, we're doing this for a very long time, right? Like we've been.
01:09:12
Speaker
pitching and pushing for mass adoption for such a long time. I actually saw that Starbucks NFT program died a couple days ago, which was, in my opinion, also a shitty program. But it says something about bad implementation, right? And we're really good in our industry to do bad implementation or to focus too much on technology. And that's something that makes me a bit sad because there's a lot of good solutions out there. And I'm sure you've both seen them. And it's just a shame that they're not being shown for what they really are. And instead, it's as, oh, it's a great blockchain solution.
01:09:42
Speaker
What he cares, right? Sorry. This is, we're delving into what, and I think we've stopped this at this point, but I'm going to get the final say. This is essentially one of the three after the dark, because this is the stuff we're going to go into. We're going to push back on each other much more than this.
01:10:04
Speaker
The one thing I just wanted to leave it on was you also just said that you were building AI before it was cool. AI was being built and has been worked on for 20, 30 years. So you've got to remember that as well. You think, oh, AI got adoption really quickly. Generative AI got adoption. I was using Dali, not Dali, DaVinci in 2019 or whatever. And there were other models before that. So it had its unicorn app moment.
01:10:33
Speaker
We need something similar in Web3, yes, I would agree. But I think it's wrong to suggest that they're like parallels, like OpenAI came out of nowhere with this AI thing. No, no. Okay. I fully agree. And again, this is an after dark discussion, 100%. But I will say that, what is it? They do have a front runner, right? I'm sure I do. You folded your hands real quick there, Thomas. I'm not sure I do agree with you.
01:11:03
Speaker
Well, no, no, I mean, like, no, I won't. Yeah, it's the consumer side. No, but the blockchain is like the infrastructure. Oh, OK. We're going full after dark, though. Oh, we're going full after dark at this point now. No, of course. There's been A.I. versions of A.I. video editing, A.I. this. Yeah. Like what it was is actually way less penetration the blockchains got. I actually say the blockchain and organization has got massive amount of penetration over its time. Look like Coinbase becomes every every top of the bull market. Coinbase becomes the number one finance app.
01:11:32
Speaker
on downloads. The only AI app that before check GPT was maybe a number one was probably some sort of face fixing app for Instagram photos. So no, I call bullshit. Well, I mean, okay. And so and like, I'm not sure if we're comparing like the whole AI industry or Gen AI with with with blockchain, right? Because you have to compare the whole AI industry. You can't say, oh, Gen AI is a new thing now.
01:12:01
Speaker
I'll say this is not blockchain anymore. This is gen blockchain and we've just got adoption in the first week and it's the best.
01:12:11
Speaker
Right. I'm sorry. We're going to carry this conversation on from here in the very first, what the three after dark, which will be, what is web three? And the three of us are going to duke it out as to what is. So you've got a little bit of taster of what's going on. And the fact that I've stopped, I feel like I'm going to get like hit on two sides.
01:12:31
Speaker
the final view on it. But ultimately, what we really need you to do is if you've enjoyed any of this episode, if you're watching on X, if you're on one of the social media platforms, like, subscribe, whatever you're able to do in terms of interacting with this content right now, that means you'll see it again. If you're on X or whatever, and there's a way to kind of click a bell button to get notified, make sure you do that. So you see the next episode coming up. And
01:13:01
Speaker
Leave comments, ask us, tell us what you like, tell us what you don't like. We've got thick skin here, so if you think all this is a pile of shit, tell us and we'll fight you. Now we won't. But we'll engage a little bit. We're all in together and we're looking forward to the very first episode where we actually start bringing our guests in and you get to hear from people that really know what they're talking about and that's what we've been trying to do, is bring people to you that will add value.
01:13:27
Speaker
We want to build a community here. We know that's not going to be easy. We're willing to put in the effort and we know it's going to be difficult. There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of choice. Charlie's concept here was to build something that is cornerstone content that can live forever. I'm going to put it on the blockchain. I'm going to post all the episodes to Lens. I've just decided and people will find it whenever.
01:13:54
Speaker
So, Thomas, Charlie, do you want to sign us off with anything else? I think I've said all I need to say now. Well, I think this all shows that like, we all have different takes on this. And I think that's also the value of when we talk to our guests and when we go through this whole season, we all look different at different topics. And I think that's the value because we all come from different
01:14:19
Speaker
hopefully that value will roll out to the rest of our listeners and viewers. For sure. Yeah. Sign off. Thank you for being here. We've got to this part of the video.
01:14:33
Speaker
You see spicy takes you know some spicy takes yep So everyone we have been what the three and we will see you on our very first This is like our session zero and your D&D players out there trying to kind of get the lay of the land We'll see you at the official episode one where we are talking with who are we talking with Charlie? Tim O'Brien on mindset. Oh That guy's lived a life. I live he lived a life and a half
01:15:00
Speaker
We've had a few careers, this guy's tripled that. For sure, for sure. Well, we will see you on mindset. Goodbye.