This is episode episode 458 with guest Preeti Castle ready.
Welcome to epicenter to show which talks about the
Technologies projects and people, driving T centralization
and blockchain Revolution. My name is Brian Crane and today
I'm going to speak with Preeti Cassie ready.
She has been in the Crypt space for a long time.
She writes an excellent newsletter that I've been
reading for a while and his son a bunch of different stuff I
guess. Most significantly at the moment
is that camp? Which is it going to be?
Will for web three developers, but before we get into the
episode, just a quick announcement.
So we are hiring. So, we're looking for Community
manager, for epicenter to help us grow our audience and take
epicenter to the next level. So if you're interested in
crypto and creating great content, we want to hear from
you, it would be great if you apply.
So it's going to be a link for how to apply in the show notes.
So just click on that link and then you can follow there and
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With that pretty, thanks so much for coming on.
Excited to be here Ryan. Yeah, I know you've had, like,
intense hectic time. We had to reschedule a whole
bunch of times. Congratulations.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, having a newborn. It's like, oh, wait.
I think I want to be free that our and it's like, never mind.
He needs you right now. So, yeah.
But thanks for your patience if you, she ate it.
Yeah, no, no. I have now had quite a few
friends Friends have babies, and I think sort of witness witness
from afar a little bit, the the unique challenges that come with
that. Yeah, awesome, cool.
So well it's maybe we can start just hears it.
Sheriff is a bit like how did you how did you get into crypto?
And like what is your and what was your kind of initial journey
into this space? Space.
Yeah, I would say if I when I kind of came into the space,
dabbled into the space on and off in the beginning.
So I was working at Andreessen Horowitz on the I was on the
deal team, they're really have a crypto team back then because
this was like, way back in 2013, 2014, but I witnessed Chris
Dixon making the investment in coinbase.
And I remember him being super excited about coinbase.
Him and Mark kind of like, you know, like kind of selling the
firm on why coin basis is a great investment and I didn't
really understand it at that time, I was like, what is this
crypto thing? It's like a big because going
this was like a Bitcoin wallet and I had no idea what the hell
they were what that even meant and why that's a big deal and
then Balaji joined a 16z and then he was also very crypto,
you know, Enthusiast. And I remember him telling me to
read the Bitcoin white paper because it's going to To change
the world and, you know, like I read it and was interesting, but
it didn't really catch my attention at the time.
So I got some exposure to a 16v. But I wouldn't say like, that's
when I got into the space and then after I left a 60 MV, I
taught myself how to code and then I was trying to figure out
what I want to do afterwards and I remember asking prediction for
advice and he's like you should join an industry that's growing
and the two industries that are really growing right now are
like machine learning. Krypto, although machine
learning was very saturated at the time.
And so crypto felt very nascent and I was like, okay and then I
looked at sort of like, what crypto companies are even
available and coinbase was like one of them and so I got in
touch with them and did a few interviews and long story, sir,
I got an offer there. And so I was and then I got an
offer at several other tech companies that are doing really
cool things. I should try and decide what I
want to do and ultimately Lately, I chose coinbase and the
reason it was going to be, it was not because it was like a
company. It wasn't because I was like,
sold on crypto yet. It was because I just really
liked Brian. I like tried.
I liked the team. The engineering team at
coinbase. I felt like they were very like,
quirky and weird and doing something different, that no one
else was doing. So, like, for you to be in
crypto, in 2013, 2014, I think you have to be kind of weird.
Like, you weren't like a normal person that was going to join
clean days. And Be excited about it, right?
So it was like a bunch of like, really cool.
Quirky people who were like together and they were very,
very, very mission-oriented from day one.
And Ryan kind of did that very intentionally where he hired
people who were like, super, super passionate.
But crypto, if you want passion about crypto, you want a drink
joining coinbase. So I joined and I honestly loved
it. I learned so much from the
people there and I was not even doing crypto.
Cheering I was doing like react development so I was doing like
love development at Point base because obviously putting this
is not a, you know, decentralized company but still
like I was learning a lot and I still wouldn't say like I wasn't
like I was in like deep into the space because again I was doing
web development, I'd clean base, it wasn't until I after love
coinbase, that I started to like, dabble into etherium
development. So I heard you, I learned like
solidity smart contract development, Then I had worked
for like a small, I co company which went bust, which was
embarrassing. And like I thought, like I was
like working on something super cool and lady, you know,
everyone at the time was like, super optimistic, about all
these different projects and so was I, and I ended up joining
one and ended up being a complete failure, but I learned
a lot in the process, I learned about my contract development.
I learned about the space. I learned really really deeply
about ethereum. Like I went, I decided to go.
Ali deep into the appearing rabbit hole because the main
reason was because I just really love the community and sure you
can attest to this like in the early days, it didn't Community
was so strong. So passionate, I mean, they
still are. It was one of the most like
entrenched passionate Global communities.
And I just really like that. So I decided to just learn about
etherium. And that's how I got into this
base. I got really obsessed with the
darien, like, I just really found it.
Interesting, how the whole block chain work, how their consensus
were tell, State Management, worked how absolutely work like
actually, like programming and solidity.
And that's kind of how I got into it, and then I just kept
going and learning about different things.
Let me about things like Kosmos, and I met sake, and people like
that. And so I kept going deeper down
into a space and then eventually, obviously, I started
my own company and crypto, so, yeah, that was kind of my entry.
Yeah, I remember I think one of your articles, you wrote this
long article about etherium know, sort of like yeah.
Kind of detail work. Yeah.
That I think was like widely
read. And I kind of skimmed it.
I think I never like fully read it but at least I remembered
articles. Yeah.
That was a very viral article
that just explain how it there in worked.
Um, in a very like detailed and intricate way.
So yep. Yeah, and so true story.
I remember true story because I was working on Cosmos and I was
sort of, you know, like I guess you were one of the, you know,
early projects that started building on Cosmos.
I think one of the specially we project that race like from like
Venture capitalists. What was kind of the impetus for
you back then? To say, Okay, I want to start my
own company or my, you know, own crypto Network.
To be totally honest, I would say someone else actually
decided for me. And what I mean by that is after
I love claim base, I was just kind of doing random smart
contract work for different companies and then my seed
investor, she found out, you know, kind of a free bird and I
was exploring things. And she reached out and she's
like, hey, like if you want to start a company, like I'll find
you. And that's how it started.
I didn't even have a company name.
I didn't have a company formed like nothing.
It was just like me. And actually the the company
name was like, creepy Castle, ready LLC when she gave me the
sea check because I just I didn't I didn't know what I was
going to even build. She just thought I was a smart
person and she wanted to find me to go do something interesting.
That's how I kind of how it started, and then I just started
exploring different things that I probably spaces that I was
interested in. I couldn't imagine doing
something outside of crypto because I've already spent so
much time invested in crypto, by that point, that I was just
mostly focused on doing something.
And in the computer space, I just wasn't sure where I would,
what I want to do. And then the things that should
I start to really gravitate towards were like identity and
reputation type things like using like using tokens to kind
of build, some kind of identity a reputation later on the
blockchain. Pleasure going deep into that
rabbit hole. And then, you know, true story,
kind of emerged out of that where we were trying to build a
social network where you can use the token to, basically, curate
the truth quote-unquote and you kind of build your reputation
identity based on how good you are at curating truth as well as
extending to making truthful statements.
So yeah, that's kind of how And then we hired a bunch of people
and we worked on it for two years.
It didn't work out in the end. We shut the company down in 2020
but it was definitely a really, really fun and important
learning experience. I think we were one of the early
people who actually went pretty far deep into the rabbit hole of
trying to use this token to build a social network and
reputation system. Most people kind of just
Shrugged it off as possible problem but we actually spent
two years really, really going deep.
And so I would say we learned a lot and the takeaway from that
was I felt like we were a little bit too early to the market.
I felt that there were so many things that we want to test with
the market but the market wasn't ready for it.
Meaning like you know getting tokens weren't mainstream like
if we had built something like that today maybe people would be
more Don't even try using the product for back then.
In 2018 the idea of downloading a wallet to you the social
network app with the token like you know building a social
network on its own is hard to building social network with the
token was like, 100 times hard. They were just like a lot of
things that I felt like we're too early.
So I think tokens aren't mainstream yet and then,
secondly, the infrastructure was not there yet.
Like we were using Cosmos and kind of build on Cosmos because
it's more scalable Than if they're IAM.
But even still like, there are just so many bottlenecks to that
and like the idea that users have to go through a worse
experience and they're used to and web to was not like
acceptable or accepted yet because I again like this is
before defy even started. This is before and I've teased
and people started to accept this poor ux as a way, as a way
to do things because they can make money and be on the other
end. Like At that time like he had a
poor ux is like why would people even use you?
So yeah, we just ran into a lot of different challenges that I
felt like timing timing is definitely everything for a
start-up and we were definitely not the right time for it.
Yeah. So I guess you mentioned a whole
bunch of like issues that came up and maybe I'm curious.
Like if you sort of think in terms of, you know, what a
little lessons and learnings from it that you would like try
to generalize and they're like it going forward you know and in
other contexts in other situations, you know, they would
sort of shape in how you'd approach things what are those
is that this timing on and can you go a little bit deeper there
and what else is there? I think in hindsight II in as a
first time entrepreneur I think someone had a tree on this.
I forget who I think was just in Khan.
He's had a tree along the lines of like first time Founders.
Focus on products like a time for our Founders focus on
Market. I think that's very, very true,
like at the first time founder, I probably spent six months to a
year, trying to build like the right product.
But in hindsight now that I'm building other companies, they
the Thing I do is test the market.
Like I can, we can build, I can hire great engineers and build a
great product if I can validate the market.
So that's one huge learning for me, it's like flip the flip.
The order of how you do things, like make sure there's a market
for rebuilding and then build something.
And you know, like the other thing is I thought I was doing
it or a development and building an MVP, but I think as a
first-time founder, we spent way too much time getting that first
product out the door and not Like really stopping down to a
true MVP. There's like, founder ish
entrepreneur type first time, founder lessons kind of that I
can go into, but those are the two big ones.
It's like not valid in the market and not having fast,
iteration Cycles. In terms of like, just crypto
related, learnings, I would say, 2018 again, the infrastructure
was just too early to build any kind of user facing up.
We needed. We were in that cycle like Fred
Fred Wilson talks about the app infrastructure cycle, right?
Like first, a lot of people build infrastructure and then
once that infrastructure is built entrepreneurs, go in and
build applications on top of that.
And then those obligations reach a limit and then we As we have
to build infrastructure to to meet those requirements, we go
back to building infrastructure and then we build more apps.
And then we hit limits and then we build infrastructure.
We kind of go through these Loops, I would say, 2018 2019
was probably more of an infrastructure time prayer, time
frame, where people were really focus on building like more
scalable blockchains better, but cheaper, block chains and things
like that so that they can be more user-friendly.
And that's why You saw the wave of like defy and if teeth
happened in the last like in the last type cycle, and then we hit
the limit on that as well. And now people are continuing to
build infrastructure. So, yeah, I would say timing was
not the best. In 2018, another learning about
crypto is that like I think in my in terms of my team because
it was 2018 because it was a bear market like the people, I
hired they I wouldn't say they were I don't think they were
like 100% crypto native. And in some ways it was a good
thing as a good thing because they challenge me and they're
like why would you please her like why would people do things
this way? But the kind of it was that it
was really hard to get them to like true.
Embrace a crypto native product. And so I in hindsight I wonder
if we had like everyone on the team who was like truly crypto
native, would we have booked something more different?
Something that was actually usable etcetera.
Yeah. I'll think of more but those are
kind of some of the things that come to mind.
But yeah like I mean I think as a second time founder you just
do things so much differently. I just I feel like if I had the
knowledge Is that I have now. Like maybe we could have been
successful. I want to talk a little bit
about your so you newsletter right.
So I've been I've been I think on subscribe to newsletter for
quite a long time. Probably a lot of listeners
have, you know, are aware of it as well, but tell us a little
bit, like, how did you end up starting a newsletter and
what's, what's kind of the role of the newsletter and writing in
general, in sort of your own journey and especially around
learning? Because I think that's that's
that feels to me like this big weaker Team that like kind of
weaves through what you doing and what you writing. yeah, I
mean I have always just been A good writer.
And I don't mean to like bribe, but like I do, I did I just
enjoy writing because I find writing is a very, very powerful
way to articulate and and form your own thought, patterns, and,
and sort of crystallized. What you think, you know, I find
that if I try to learn something and I don't write about it, I
actually don't learn anything. Like, I haven't really truly
learned it. It's only when I written
something about it. I feel like I've really tested
oh my god of the gaps in my knowledge because as soon as I
put pen to paper and you start to realize like what you
actually don't know. So that's kind of why I started
writing is because like as I was learning programming.
So when I'm teaching myself, programming writing, goes away
to kind of test what I knew and test for those learning.
And I just started writing blogs every week and and writing about
different technologies that related to JavaScript and stuff
and it kind of continued. Doing that in my early days of
crypto and that's how I built an audience and so forth.
And so the newsletter now is just honestly, just a fun way to
interact with my audience and my audience is kind of pretty
broad. I have people in crypto, but I
also have people on my newsletter who are who follow me
from my like, JavaScript days, or from my Instagram, or just
like, in different things. I'm interested in like Fitness
food, like, These different interests that I've kind of
built up over time. People kind of follow me for
different reasons. So my list is kind of diverse
and I don't write just about crypto, I write if I feel like
writing about my life or something related to have
different, think how completely outside of crypto, I'll write
about it and I think people do find that interesting because
even though it's not a crypto topic, most people can relate to
what I write about. But yeah, like II and I don't
like I do now. Nowadays like having a
newsletter and a paid newsletter and the subscription-based
newsletter is like a huge thing now.
But personally, the only reason I have that newsletter is just
more of a hobby. It's like I write when I feel
like it to that to that newsletter.
But I also definitely use it for marketing to that campus as
well, which you know about? Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah. You thought we might, some of my
newsletter. I was like I think I've like I
used to, right? I was writing like a Weekly
Newsletter before the baby was born.
I'll continue it. But I was going to writing about
just different things I do in a week.
You know, like I dance, I'm a I've been learning how to dance
and I have a dog and now I have a kids.
There's a lot that a lot of interesting things that come out
of come out of that and it's fun to write about it.
Yeah. No.
Thanks for sharing. I feel like this what you said.
You know if I learn something and don't write about it I don't
actually. Learn it that like really?
Yeah, the restructure because I was like writing a bit on a Blog
especially at some point I was getting into the rhythm of like
I was like, different from you. I wouldn't write these like long
post but we try to write something short and just put it
out and I find it so enormously satisfying.
But then I would kind of get stuck again like not right for a
while and I, but I feel like this, the way you face it of
this kind of connection between expressing, you know,
expressing. Years about something you
learned and actually the act of learning.
I feel like that's a really nice way of thinking about it.
Yeah, I think the, like, I mean, you do podcast, so that's kind
of your I guess mode of expression.
Speaking is also one way to, if you're trying to explain
something through voice, that's also another way to, I guess,
crystallized your thoughts, but everyone has reformed, right.
Like, when people like to write, some people like to talk, some
people like to do both, but there has to be some way that
your, I think you have to force yourself to articulate, what you
think, you know. And that's the Attachment
knowledge, whether it's written or voice.
Yeah. No, I do think actually writing
is very powerful in this way. I mean, podcast is an amazing
tool to learn. It's amazing to have your
conversations with different people and like learning about
lots of different topics. But I think there's like
something something a bit different and it be harder in
having to condense it in like a written form.
Especially when you, when you sort of publish it, right?
I think. I think like putting your ideas
out in the world is a scary thing and not many people are
willing to do it. If you're willing to do it.
I think you get a lot of. That's why you get a lot of new
repo, a lot of benefits from it. You can build an audience, you
can make friends by writing publicly, you can make, you
know, have look really strong connections.
Like my, my husband is an example of someone who basically
wrote his way to two big. Damn, I guess he has connections
out all over the world based on his interest and people he has
followers from all over the world and anywhere we go, people
start to recognize him. So like there's really cool
benefits to writing and Publishing things online.
Definitely encourage more people to do it, the finger you say
about publishing, I think that it does absolutely right right.
Because like this just a huge there's like a world of a
difference between like writing some kind of drafts of Blog post
or blog, because it always feels like a draft of a blog post if
you don't publish it, right? It's like the actual Act of like
putting it out, like changes something.
Yeah, it's kind of like an artist, really?
Like I give I have a lot of respect for artists who are
willing to put their art out because there's a lot of people
who pain or dancer or, you know, do stuff, but they actually
don't publish it. Whereas like it takes a lot of
guts to put that out because, you know, you're going to be
critiqued, this is me somebody out there who doesn't like what
you're doing or what you're saying, what you're writing, and
it takes a strong-willed person to be able to be able to put
that, put that out and and And receive that kind of criticism
but you also receive positive to this positive positive responses
as well. So it balances out.
Yeah I mean that was that was the amazing thing when I was
like, right? I mean I will die.
You know like maybe 30 blog post last year and really my goal
was, I didn't republish. It didn't really promoted much
at all. The only thing he did was they
retweeted it automatically through my account.
That's the only thing I did. And my only goal was basically
just to probably stuff. So I get sort of Habit of like
putting something out and like not, not sort of censoring
myself and and getting into, some sort of writing habit and
everything. Especially like, also sort of
told myself. Okay.
I'm happy to publish like really bad blog posts, right?
Because and I'm not going to promote him, I just want to
publish stuff, right? So I'm kind of okay with
polishing about posts and then I was still amazed at like how
many people some have found it and gave feedback about and say
oh this is really Be great. And they really like it was very
interesting to see that even though I'm like you know,
definitely nowhere near like your level of like writing and
you know, a lot of it was like very quickly put out and but
yeah it's it's just it's just such a powerful thing.
It is it really is. And I'd like you said, even
though like, boys podcast and other forms exist, I still think
written form is is one of the most powerful because it can
like like when you write something it's out in the world
forever. Right?
Like you read written stuff from hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of
years ago. And I think people what you
write today, who knows if people from 100 years or 200 years or
dinner years because we do writing, like, I think it's a
very powerful thing and so you have a way to like kind of make
your mark in the world by putting your thoughts out there.
Let's talk about that camp. So how how did you decide to
start that camp? Like cut it?
That coma? So honestly with a side project
I was I took some time off from work just to focus on help life,
all different things and then I kind of missed doing crypto
stuff and I was like, how can I get into crypto with that like,
going full time and do it? Now they let me just do a little
chorus where I teach people how to do smart contract development
because it's something I already know.
So I was like, I'm just gonna leverage a skill.
I already have and do a course on it.
And Maven, I started I started at camp on Maven, actually.
Sounds like a cohort based online platform where you can
run cohort, based courses. And so I use Maven as a platform
to launch this course, and we had like 60 people during the
first cohort and someone in my network had reached out to me
and he's like, hey, can I help you with the course, I'd love to
work with you on it. And so I've me and him we were
co-instructors on the course and lo and behold.
Like it turned out to be a little really, really
successful. Course the people the students
loved it, we love teaching it. Like we got so much it was so
exciting. Like we walked away with so much
energy and we were just like so energized by teaching these
students and we just like felt like there's so much so much we
can do beyond what we had done in that first cohort like so
much potential for what we can do in cohorts 2 3 4 and so forth
and that's when we were like okay like let's keep doing more
cohorts and so we do the second one.
And then we did a third one and then like, every single time I
feel like we get better and better and better.
And we just like, we find so many cool things that we can do
Beyond just what we just did in that cohort and both me and my
co-instructor. We both love teaching and we
loves like the, the experience of having to sit down and keeps
that live course, because it's, it's different from what you see
out there in the market, right? Like, most of the online
courses, today are kind of asynchronous and you're kind of
having to passively read on your own and and complete the things
on your own. Like very few people are doing
like live courses and for us like print that live course was
was very unique. Like we got to have a room full
of 60 developers who are asking us like really really deep
intellectual questions. And we were answering them live
and everyone was getting to hear the answers and learn from the
learn from their peers. So it's really cool in that way.
Yeah. So we kind of started it and it
just blew up and we just kept doing it and now we're going to
be on our fourth cohort at the end of the year.
And we are making some pretty big improvements for what we,
what we're going to do going forward in a nutshell.
We're going to make a lot. We're going to make a lot of the
course, a lot more web, three native meaning, we're going to
experiment with things like, you know, signing with so everything
that as a student, you're represented as a as an interim
address. So you basically apply with your
The master address and everything is tied to your mat.
And last address, we give you badges for completing certain
milestones in the course we have like a reputation score for each
student based on like the different Milestones, they reach
different, cool things that we're doing, just explore like
can we can reuse some of the Primitives that have been built
in the last cycle like nft Badges and and identity and
things like that to build like a web three native experience for
the that cohort. But yeah, it's Been fun, curious
like these people so much like, enthusiasm, you know, about like
this experience of teaching, this course, what do you think
it is? That makes it such a wonderful
experience for you? It's seeing the students kind of
thrive on the other end. So like, you know, it's this is
knowledge. I already know, it's like
there's no point of me holding on to that knowledge, right?
Like if I pass it down, then it's super interesting to see
how other people use that analysis.
Then do really, really cool things that I would never do in
my lifetime. And then just seeing people who
maybe never had an opportunity to come into the space, to get
that knowledge and now be a full-time.
And but three engineer like the, seeing the, I think the best
part is seeing the outcome of what happens in these students.
After they graduate, my everyone is successful, of course, and
people, just and of going back to their current jobs, but a lot
of people do make strides towards becoming full time, but
three engineers. And, you know, you guys, I think
I heard a couple people from our grad grad list and so those
women like they it was hard to find them but it was cool to see
them go from like it's my Dream to be about their engineer to
them, taking the course. And then a few weeks later than
having a job offer, to be able to re-engineer, or just an
engineer at about three company. So that's probably the most
rewarding thing. Yeah, yeah.
So just explanation here. So we've course, one, I guess
we, I think I saw at some point in your newsletter, I think
there was, you know, some some company that did some
scholarships for dap camp and then we were Oh, this is cool.
Like we want to do this too and I think the company was and so
we also Focus the scholarships on women, right.
So we have been doing these T scholarships for a few cohorts.
I think we did three chords. Right?
I guess not the first one but I think the ones or the ones after
that and yeah we ended up carrying two people out of it.
So to like Marie until L, you know, that joint run this full
time and is very cool. I mean, first of all, the the do
both Amazing. So, I'm like really happy that
we hired them but they're also like very different like
backgrounds. Very different.
Yeah. Just very different from our
server, normal applicant pool and like bring you like very
different perspective and approach to it and you know,
very deep enthusiasm for crypto which is definitely something we
look for a lot. And so it's been like really
great for us to like work with with that component.
They're so eager to learn and so eager to contribute.
So it was cool to have them be part of the cohort and then go
on to do like really cool things like join course and it's also
like good motivation for other women to write.
Because if they see talita, they see Maria and they're like, oh
like you know, I'm just like, damn, like I could do what they
could do and so more people come in and just kind of follow their
lead. So it's cool to see you guys
open doors like that for them. So when it comes to like
learning rf3 development, is there, what's hard about this?
Like, what do people struggle with How to have the engineering
part of it. I was actually not that
difficult like learning solidity and that part that peace is not
that challenging. The, the challenging part is
like Like obviously crypto is very multi-discipline meaning.
We give to understand a lot of different things to truly
understand like The Right Use cases for it.
Like, you have to understand economics, like now crafter,
like blockchain engineering. Obviously you have to understand
my politics in some way. There's a lot of different
subject areas that could their kind of touches and I think as
an engineer, the challenging part for them is like thing.
What to see that bigger picture and think about product from
that angle and not just thinking about product from the
engineering side. Because just building this
engineering and product, doesn't mean it is not going to make it
useful. They give to think about how
you're going to get aligned. How you going to use like
incentives to basically align the different piece of people in
that Network. These are all just like very,
very, very big and thorny problems.
That Engineers are not really used to thinking about and so a
lot of people that take the course, As they kind of tell us
that blockchain engineering feels a lot more entrepreneurial
compared to other engineering because other engineering,
they're just kind of like engineering or is it crypto?
You're kind of thinking about the bigger picture and thinking
about a lot more different things until you are being a lot
more entrepreneurial in that way.
And a lot of people, some people are not that good at that.
So that's also the other challenge.
I would say like, there's people that come in thinking that, you
know, because they're really good engineers.
And that they're going to like it or they going to be
successful, but sometimes they're not like, we had a
really strong engineer who thought like would crush it.
But like it was pretty clear that like, he just like he was
just too stuck in the engineering side of things and
not able to see like the bigger picture of like how to build a
how to build a good product that people can actually use.
Yeah, I think that's right. I think this sort of like,
political and philosophical dimension of like, crypto is
like something that's like very crucial and a lot of people, I
really get it, right? And they kind of, like,
understand it on some deep level.
But then, like other people really struggle with it, and
they can even work in crypto, but just somehow, don't, they
don't quite they don't quite get it.
Yeah, Yeah and I think it's an acquired skill.
What I want to say is I think it has also to do something,
they've kind of maybe a fundamental you know values and
way of looking at the world I think you know especially people
who maybe don't like Authority so much or look for freedom.
In some way, you're like more sovereignty and autonomy.
I think they kind of well often they become interesting crypto.
Because of that. But then I think that also gives
you like. I mean, for example, if you
think about, you know, the keys and who controls the keys, and
the trust assumptions, and like, all of that stuff, I think
that's like, very deeply interwoven with that.
And I mean, I remember in the twenty Seventeen or eighteen
bull market, there's a lot of these people came and then they
do these ico's but like, clearly just like, didn't really, it was
maybe an opportunity for them to raise a bunch of money, but it
It missed the point of what it was all about.
Yes, that's a really good point. And the other, the other thing
that I would add to that is people I think like it's it
takes a really It's not easy to figure out where a token is
youthful. And we're talking is not useful
and that's like, I would say a skill that you only learn by
seeing a lot of a lot of different projects and really
trying to understand like what is the purpose of that token?
And I would say no one's really truly an expert on this till
later. Still debates about whether
certain projects should have a token or not.
So that seems to be something that I think the engineers
sometimes struggle with because they like put a token into That
probably maybe doesn't need a token and could be done without
and it might be a good engineering experience for them
but it's not like a really good use case for a token, you know.
So from from the people who came through dab cam, what do the
people who made it successfully and, you know, they're like,
working group do, what do they have in common?
I would say there, I mean number one is there strong Engineers
because we do do a pretty strong screening on them before they
take the cohort. So they're strong Engineers.
So they have like a strong fundamental Baseline set of
engineering skills. Secondly they're really eager to
learn and they're like super passionate because you know,
crypto it's like you're coming to space, you have to just be
willing to just drink through the fire.
Hose, And if you if you're just kind of slow and trying to take
your time, this is not going to work with give to be very very
on top of things. And eager to learn.
I would say most of the people the people that are most
successful are the ones that like are very eager to learn and
then and they learn fast too. And third, I would say they
going to like the point we're trying to make is like they have
a more, they have a they have a pretty good grasp on, like the
whole, the bigger picture of things and there.
Not just like a code monkey. But for lack of better words.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, that makes sense. I think one thing that also I
have stood out to me a bit that I see, sometimes people struggle
with a lot is, I guess if you're in an another industry, I then
you want to like work in this industry, then you know, you may
be research a bunch of companies and then like you apply there
and you try to get a job with those companies.
You know. I guess that's kind of like the
standard way but in crypto because These are so, like the
information is all open and a lot of this more kind of
Community Driven. Like, that's not the best way,
right? Like the, it's a better way to
sort of figure out like what you actually find interesting, and
then learn about that. And then kind of get involved in
that community and maybe like, you know, go through conference,
like right block, right, right, about it.
Write blog posts, so like contribute in some way and then
Two things will happen, right? So I think this sort of I'm
going to start with trying to get a job is if it can be a big
obstacle. Also because people don't want
to speak with you. If you don't if you if you if
you could just go ahead and get started but you don't and you
just want to do calls with people.
That's a good point. That's the way to put it.
Yeah. And I guess that's I mean that's
in any case because we're still good quiet, the beginning of
that. But I think this whole You know,
working for a doll is, you know, is another thing that you know,
there's probably maybe right now.
I don't know how well those start maybe some of the Dolls
work pretty well, but it's probably still, like a better
option for most people. I think might be to go for like
work for a normal website company but it's definitely
becoming something where it's just an entirely different way
of working. Yeah.
And I think, And I think whether you should join a job or whether
you should join a regular update company, just depends on your
personality. Like, if your entrepreneurial to
begin with and you have a high risk tolerance, I think you can
do it down low and, and you have like, I guess the financial
cushion, you can turn it down and be very exploratory that
way. Have maybe have a few different
dials that you're part of where you have different roles in
those dolls. But if you're more like employee
mindset ended then I I'm joining the web three company and going
spending maybe a year or two years there to truly understand
the space and have the time to build your confidence.
Before you go the doll route. This probably what makes sense
for you because like if I try to come into crypto and join it out
right away, I think I've been pretty confused and maybe
depending on what how I joined or what dowels, I joined, I
might even be discouraged or have false.
False starts or what not. But because I joined coinbase
for example, it gave me a really strong foundation and time to
really spend time learning about crypto before deciding to, like,
go out and explore and do my own thing.
But there are start a company or Journey down or whatever.
And I actually like when people graduate that camp, I tell the
same thing to them. I'm like, if I were in your
shoes, like the first thing I would do after June graduating,
a boot camp is joining, what? Great.
Even if it's boring spend like a year or two years there, and
then go do my own thing, go be more entrepreneurial Journey
Down. Start, my own company, whatnot.
There's some people who are ready to start a company right
after graduating and usually, those are people who either
started companies in the past or they just naturally more
entrepreneurial minded. So there's exceptions, but I
would say, for the most part, yeah, Joanna Webster company.
And for that can be talked a little bit about Fourth cohort
in like you know building in morph descriptor elements like
what's your what's beyond that? I mean, there's so much we can
do. I mean, right now, the cohorts
are like, less than 100 in size and mostly in the US and some
parts of Asia markets like one thing I mean I think like we can
scale this to a lot to be a lot bigger and to reach a lot more
people for one, especially people in like Emerging Markets,
you know, I can I continue to hear how about how people
countries like Certain countries in Africa, like Nigeria and so
forth. Are apparently very, very crypto
friendly and have really, really smart people.
They just don't have access to the best education, the best
platforms to learn and go off of.
So I think the bigger vision is just to like, scale it to a lot
bigger of an audience and be able to bring this to people
like that who can use it as a as a tool to jumpstart their
careers. Krypto basically, what we want
to be is like the bridge for people who want to get into
current do. So if you're an engineer and
you're kind of lurking in the background, we want to be that
bridge so that you don't have to go on it on your own.
Just like, you know, when I started learning how to code, I
could do it on my own, but it probably take like two years.
But instead, I did a coding bootcamp, which was a really
powerful way for me to learn in a very structured way, any other
people who are also learning to code, and then go do my own.
Thing. Yeah, I know, I think that's
very true, like this kind of like learning with others is to
keep a. I was also once you know, spend
time like try learning to code on my own and I was pretty
consistently, you know, for maybe two years.
I spent like, you know, most days like spent a bunch of time
coding but I was actually very slow progress.
And you know, in the end I was kind of like, all right, I also
need to do some kind of coding bootcamp, but then I discovered
crypto and I kind of just focused on crypto instead but I
felt very much this kind of lack of Like, working alone, makes it
very hard and and I think working with other developers,
right? Is that clearly such a powerful
thing that it's just like dramatically accelerated makes a
huge difference. Makes a huge difference.
Yep. Maybe talk a little bit about,
you know, the silver aspect of like, you know, is topic right
in the industry, a lot like spinach correspond in many
different contexts. But like you being a woman in
crypto, what are your thoughts on that?
And like, what is your experience?
Been kind of seeing that the chat the unique challenges of
women through that camp. I think compared to when I was
joining crypto and there's like, zero think he's gotten a lot
better. This is there's definitely a lot
of diversity. Now, a lot of a lot more female
in the space, especially with nft, which are more related to
art and culture. So I brought a much, much more
divorce, diverse audience into the space.
But in terms of Engineers, female Engineers is still a huge
lack of them. And I didn't realize that until
you guys gave us the opportunity to give scholarships to women to
join the cohort and we were like, okay, awesome, like we
have five tanks or ten scholarships to give to women.
And we realize, like there's actually very few female
Engineers who are one interested into, who are qualified.
We did haven't people who are interested, but they didn't know
how to code. So we couldn't really accept
them and so there's very few like it's it's really hard to
find, female, Engineers, or qualify.
And who want to do crypto? That's kind of a big challenge
that we continue to be forced to meet and deal with every cohort
with the scholarships that you give us.
And it's been a great thing to get it, forced us, to go outside
of our networks, and reach out to networks where they are
female engineers and try to get in to see if they are interested
in doing the cohort and to try to reach a broader audience
beyond what my my following. Because it seems like most of my
following is as male or female who don't know how to code yet.
Yeah. I think the the funny thing is
like the people who do and the female Engineers who do end up
joining are actually very very capable there sometimes strong
or a strong or stronger than the male.
So it's not like they're not capable, it's just that
sometimes they either don't have the resources to do something
like this. Scholarships help or they don't
sometimes of no. It's not.
It's just that they don't have the.
They don't even. They don't have their almost
intimidated to do something like this.
And so some of our marketing efforts have to kind of show
that like, hey, like you can do it too and we kind of encourage
them to apply. Yeah.
Is there something specific about crypto?
Do you think that like stops women from, you know, applying
to that camp in general like female developers of like
Wanting to work in the industry. So why don't you just don't feel
like some of them don't don't feel like they're qualified even
though they are. So there's a little bit of an
intimidation factor and this is just like a female thing.
Sometimes where we have we're not like as confident as the men
are about our skills. We can sometimes underestimate
ourselves and be a little bit more reserved or shy about or
skills. And we I think there's like a
lot of studies that prove that like men will apply for a job.
Even if they don't meet all the qualifications resume and they
don't want to meet every single qualification before they apply.
So we have some of that, a little bit of that Dynamic going
on. And secondly, I think just the
nature of a lot of like, if you're, there's not that many
women who are like mid-level senior Engineers to begin with,
because most people by the time, they're in their late 20s,
right? They might start families or
they might have kids. And so So there's just a lot
less female to begin with in the market so there's kind of both
factors playing into it and so our goal is never to I don't
believe that we're going to have like equal 50/50 ratio and the
Thunder goal because that's not realistic like women and men
like you know, they're just play different roles in society and
sometimes women don't want to be Engineers.
But our goal is at least like for the woman who are Engineers
to give them access and how do we Each them.
How do we get? How do we find them?
That's kind of our goal, each cohort, and we're short slowly
trying to discover different networks where these women exist
and, and trying to get to them as, as efficiently as possible.
Cool. Well, let's do one last question
before we wrap up because there is like asking, I think Marie
until L was like, oh, we should ask PT and like both Dimension
like one question, which is not a question.
One that I expected but it's like how do you stay up-to-date
with all that's going on in the crypto industry?
Yeah, I think everyone has their own way, personally, I don't
find that I like I will listen to podcasts, but it's more just
like to pass time than to truly learn.
It's kind of like passing knowledge, passive knowledge.
I mean, the best way I learn is by reading and and so for me,
the way I keep up with things is if I'll have friends or Twitter
whenever the interesting whenever like some of the big
Post drop, I'll read those and I'll just read stuff that like
people I trust or that I like their writing.
I read their writing. So that's how I keep up with
things. It's I like to read other people
like to use podcast as a way to keep up with things.
That's totally fair way. It's just that for me, I know I
get distracted easily and like I'm listening, but I'm half
listening because I'm doing five other things while listening to
a podcast. So it's not really the best way
to learn for me. And I I can't sit there and just
like listen to a podcast and take notes like that just
doesn't work as well as just like reading in terms of what
sources, how I find the sources mostly.
I don't really read like mainstream sources like coin
Market, coin gecko or whatever like all these like different
platforms that exist that proliferate node is mostly
individual. So they follow that I like and
that I trust I so I read their newsletters and everyone will be
different like who you resonate with?
Who's writing your resume, with will be different from mine.
So, you know, just go down the rabbit hole and find people that
you whose writings you really like and read that and I'm just
been follow their writing cool. Well, thanks so much Beauty and
thanks for coming on thing at a time and thanks for all the good
work you doing. If that cap, I'm excited to see,
you know where it goes. And you know all the all the new
developers that are going to come into the industry and also
of course, to follow along and see where your journey.
I will take you next. I'm sure you go on to do.
Lots of lots more, cool things in crypto and Beyond.
Yeah. Thank you, awesome.
Thanks fine. So yeah, thanks again for
listening for tuning in. If you want to support the show,
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we look forward to being back next week.
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