Growing Up: Eva Beylin

Transcript

Ava, welcome to the Human Protocol podcast. >> Thank you for having me, Simona. Great to see you. >> Great to see you. So, a little bit of background for anybody watching this as their first episode. As I was just um going through it with you, the Human Protocol podcast looks at the personal side of building big things. It's all about the people behind the tech, the people behind the projects that are out there. Um, and what I'm really really interested in is that human arc, that personal arc, that personal story that the people who have gotten us here have been through and I would love to share them and that is why we are here. All

right. So, from the beginning, let's go wind it all back to pre crypto times. You are a daughter of two engineers. You're Canadian. So many friends in crypto are Canadian. So I was chatting about this with Rick that it seems we gravitate towards each other. I don't know why, but I find Canadians very very I don't know very soothing and wonderful people. And so I'd like to go back to growing up, whatever it is that you want to share, and then obviously lead us to the moment where that little crack in regular life happened and then the

crypto trajectory set in. Yeah. Cool. So like you said, I'm Canadian. I was born in Toronto, Canada. My parents are Russian, not only engineers. So my whole family, my my background is Russian. So my brother and I are first generation immigrants to Canada, which is quite common in Toronto. So, you know, I went to a high school where I was the minority racially. So, you know, quite diverse. And anyone who's from Toronto can probably attest to, you know, you you've got friends from like 15 different countries, you know, that you may never visit. So that was really exciting from a sort of like diverse perspective because although I'm like white presenting my ethnicity being European was really interesting to then also have friends from different

countries as well. So you kind of feel like you fit in anywhere in Toronto because like everyone's kind of from somewhere else. >> So growing up in that environment, you know, I was really drawn to speaking different languages, global affairs, news, that kind of thing. So when I went to university, I focused on economics, global economics and Spanish and really just like was obsessed with the idea of like I mean not only the internet connecting everybody cuz at that time we we had internet but the idea of like global markets the way that you know a small like pin drop in one country you know adds like 20% cost to you know a product in another country. I mean we're seeing that a little bit with oil these days but I found that also fascinating.

So, you know, I definitely think that my my my heritage might have actually influenced that. But then I also learned French. So, you know, in addition to Spanish and Russian and so was really excited about sort of like global opportunities, not just sort of like staying local to Canada, even though I went to university in Canada. So after I graduated college, I went straight into management consulting, which >> my business school it was sort of like you either go directly into finance like banking or you go into management consulting which is much more problem solving based. You're working directly with companies to you know maybe cut millions of dollars or like rebrand. So problems that I found incredibly exciting especially at the ripe age of 21 um you know getting to be in a room

with these people and learning so much. So, I felt that was more interesting. Even though I definitely am still sort of in the finance realm, I didn't really want to go into banking and kind of like do the whole banking circuit specifically. Um, within management consulting, I was able to sort of lean on both like economics, finance, technology, business, sort of all the above. And, you know, getting to share passions like, you know, like the the problems you're solving. Like I had one project that had to do with cheese and like I love cheese and I got to work with a company to reduce their costs on for for the cheese that they sell which is just like fascinating as an idea that like a lot of the North American cheese is not optimized like in Europe for like flavor and like richness. It's optimized

for cost. And that was like one of the projects I worked on. So that was so fun because I'm like I love cheese and get to combine my work and that's great. And then at some point during management consulting, I started learning more about crypto and that's kind of where I left. I fled the nest in a way. You did flee the nest. You basically cuz you obviously your Twitter is incredibly incredibly entertaining and very very honest. And so I think you shared a little bit about the quarterlife crisis where it was what that moment was like to kind of go m you know what this particular path that is safer is not really for me because you

were checking crypto Twitter in the bathroom [laughter] and then we're like yeah I'm going to I'm just going to exit stage left crypto and and with no real job lined up, no real plan, student debt. Tell me what that felt like. >> Yeah. So my brother who you knew, no actually still you've worked with multiple times. So he's the one that introduced a blockchain to my family and because my dad and mom are both engineers. >> It seemed sort of like dinner and breakfast conversation that we'd kind of learned more and more about it. And I was working more focused on payments in management consulting. So a lot of my clients were more of the banking sector.

So for me, crypto clicked pretty instantly and Ethereum specifically. The idea of sort of a new payment rails, a new technology that didn't have all these problems that I knew within my management consulting company, we were like duct taping a lot of these like payment problems for some of these banks. So >> as my brother Mark Balen was teaching us and you know himself learning I started learning more and like you said you know it got to a point where I was literally going into the bathroom to check crypto Twitter because I was like kind of bored but also it wasn't necessarily boredom it was just like this is way more exciting than like whatever else I was doing. I did try to stay so like I actually like would start teaching people about blockchains. At one point

some of the projects we were doing related to tokenization which meant something a little different. It's more of like the web 2 version of tokens. Not the tokens that we know but more so in the backend. A lot of the payment systems that we use today like Fedwire, Swift, they have the concept of tokenization in their back end. It's just like a much more analog version. >> Okay. So there were people interested in learning and like you know it was definitely like a word we heard but I remember at one point um I think we were like sizing the payments market in the entire US and sort of projecting what we expected to be the usage of like credit cards and all that and what whatnot and Bitcoin's usage had skyrocketed to like 1,500% that year and I remember my associate being like we can't include

this we can't model it because it was so astronomical. >> Yes. And like in in my mind it's like well no that's exactly why you should model it. Just like apply a massive discount. But at that point like we were like we don't even know how to include this. Like we don't know what Bitcoin is. And that was sort of the start of me realizing like this really wasn't the place that I was going to stay even though like you said very stable well-paying you know huge career ladder that that I had the opportunity to access. But I started like talking about blockchains like getting really sort of um like forward even with partners and principles being like hey have we considered this and blah blah blah. And at this point I mean I think it was 20 uh 2018 or sorry 2017. So crypto was

just picking up and I think it was like the EA that had just been announced. So people heard word about it, but I understand, you know, in management consulting when you're dealing with these Fortune 500s that move like snails, like they're only now, and I mean that's like 10 years later now starting to implement some of those ideas. So I recognize I definitely was too early. Um, but it was sort of that drive of like, okay, well, no one's listening to me. Nobody cares. And that's fine. And so then I need to leave to sort of like feed my soul with something else. So like you said, I I actually first took a sbatical for about 3 months to like learn about crypto. I was a little burnt out, so it took some time. Came back and was like, "Nope, guys. I need to leave."

>> You know, this isn't for me anymore. And then I left and I didn't have a job. I was interviewing with several places cuz I was like I wasn't even really sure what the opportunities were in crypto at the time. It was a lot of >> It was very early. >> It was super early and it was like I mean I I don't think anyone really even knew what we were doing collectively. But I ended up accepting a job in Bangkok. So kind of you know related to the sort of international attitude and worked at Omise Go for about a year um which was really exciting you know regardless of kind of what people think about Omise go at the time it was you know a vessel for a lot of the layer 2 and scaling research and so I learned a lot I was able to meet a lot of the

Ethereum people kind of recognized this is definitely where I want to stay left Omise go went to work at the Ethereum foundation a little bit hopped around in different places and eventually found a longerterm home at the graph >> which serves data to Ethereum and all crypto applications. But basically, it was sort of like a okay, are you sure, guys? Like, you really don't want to like do this? No. Okay, I'm out of here. >> So, what because you mention kind of a little bit of the burnout and then taking the time to learn and so on. Did you find it when you went to Amise, did you just find yourself at home? like were you finally felt okay these are my people this is where I need to be and

stay in this space >> definitely I would say throughout that initial period I wouldn't say necessarily me specifically okay >> but I I want to say even before I think I had just gotten the offer or I was about to get the offer so I hadn't moved yet in my first inn was actually volunteering at East Denver 2018 which was the first East Denver and I remember that actually having a much larger impression on me that I had found right people >> less about whether my co-workers were the right people but just clearly like the Ethereum community. Um I felt like I finally found people that I like could connect with intellectually and cared about a lot of similar things. I will say now I mean at that time I was reading the communist manifesto being like yeah I know my parents fled communism but you know Soviet Union just

did it wrong. And I mean it's just like one of those things everyone goes through where they're they have this idea of like communism could work. It's just never been implemented correctly. And I mean I'm at my ripe age now and I'm like no absolutely not. That was like a very not childish but sort of maybe more like less mature view on the world. And so I like I think that crypto adopted a lot of those ideologies. I think a lot of those ideologies have fled but a lot of those have stayed. And so we're in a very different sort of like culture now than we were when I joined. >> What does that feel like? because both of us have been in this for like you say like 9 10 years. What do you feel that change? How do you look at that change?

Is it a necessary evolution or do you feel we've lost some of those very appealing qualities that drew us in? And cuz you mentioned ETH Denver 2018, I mean it was a whole of I don't know 300 people max, right? And those initial events where everybody was sharing the enthusiasm and the values and the there were ven diagrams of all of our values and thoughts about the world. What do you feel is the change and and how do you feel about it?

>> So I mean there's definitely a coziness that there was early on that doesn't exist anymore, but you know that's almost like what we wanted. We wanted crypto to get big enough, Ethereum to get big enough. So can't lament that. >> Yeah. I will say I feel like we underestimate how privileged we've been to have, you know, 8 to 10 years of experimentation. Like most industries don't have so much money and interest and talent that are willing to basically like enter a petri dish and try anything possible and then exit and like still stay aligned or like still have their head on their shoulders. And crypto for better or worse has had that period of experimentation. And so um you know when I say like early on you know reading communist manifesto even a lot of the

things we were experimenting as a whole were very maybe more socialist more more community- based less individualistic [clears throat] less capitalist >> dows in particular and I just feel like a lot of experimentation has happened since then that have disproven a lot of our thesis and also the ideologies that we had originally kind of brought forward. you know, I'm sure you've participated in many Dows and a lot most of them don't work and in fact, you know, it's kind of a question of of like what is the what is a the right implementation of a DAO or even the use of a DAO, but but I feel like because we've had so much experimentation, it's allowed us to sort of tease out the right path. I think in a very like sort of first principles way rather than if people had started saying, "Hey, Dows

just won't work or you know, this way won't work." No one would have listened. I mean, we really had to like play it through hundreds of times for people to now know, okay, a DAO works in this context or it doesn't work in this context or we definitely don't want this kind of payment salaried structure with this DAO. Um because that was actually also one of the ideologies sort of a perspective of like people didn't need to get paid as much to do work or like you know you don't need full-time people you can just have 10 DAO members and like also a very sort of socialist perspective on work and I mean that's proven to not be very efficient and honestly very expensive for a lot of companies. So, so I think that some of the ideologies have left in a positive way in the sense that we've kind of

disproven them or people have come to terms with the results >> while others, you know, it's it's it it's sort of just like new people entering the space. They bring their new ideas. The space is also at a different maturity level. It requires kind of different levels of of thinking than than previously. Um, so so I definitely think the space has changed and I personally am very happy with that change. I like the more capitalist direction. I think it's a much more realistic view on how technology can be applied rather than a lot of sort of ouropium ideas that that we had for the last few years. And to your point, I think that kind of take on things where a lot of people are a little bit disillusioned right by the fact that

this has happened the way it has happened. But I think it is that evolution of an organism moving through the stages of maturation, right? Like you start and you play and you cuz realistically like you said we had a lot a lot of time to experiment with so many things and we've been part of those experiments right with everything and anything and now figuring out okay what works what doesn't but I'm curious on your take around do you think potentially that let's say let's take Dows as an example do you think they didn't work in these past six years cuz

let's say they came around came about in 2020. Do you think it's also because we do not have and aren't necessarily used to operating in that way? Because generationally we have operated in very structured spaces and very kind of hierarchical setups and also in a much more rules-based dynamic where those are a little bit looser and also people have to take responsibility and have accountability that maybe they just as humans we've like I don't know that muscle has atrophied a little bit. I think it's very possible that we are like not aware of how we should

coordinate with blockchains in a way. >> Definitely. I I don't know if it's like a we forgot or it's just like the technology fundamentally changes some of the ways that we coordinate. I mean trust we talk about this all the time like being trustless and everything. I think there's a little bit of lays involved as well of sort of like admitting what doesn't work and what does work and I mean disillusioned is sort of the right word of like expecting more or less or like kind of expecting the opposite of what that the evidence shows. You know, going back to Dows, like I remember I' I've launched a few Dows and sort of there was this vision of like this is an autonomous machine.

Like nobody needs a manager. Everyone will self-organize and they'll know which tasks to complete and they'll be incentivized rag and so they have to get paid enough. And so that means to have someone who's actually talented in the DAO, they have to get paid something comparable to a salary. And so there's all these like kind of human questions that end up playing in with blockchains that I think we underestimated as a community. Like I think we thought okay technology that means everything is now on the technology train and that's just like not what happens. And so part of it could be like you said that we just like have atrophied. Part of it might be like our own denial of like what what it is

that the technology actually enables and like what these words mean. You know, like we say the word trustless a lot and so often people think, oh, that means like trust person to person, you know, like I trust Simona that Simona is not going to steal my lunch money, but actually that's not what it means. And in fact, like blockchain's kind of the the opposite. Like there's so much opportunity to get taken advantage of. Trust kind of means something a little different. It's more in sort of the escrow sense or in the in the like intermediary sense where like you're not waiting for your bank to um deposit funds. You can see exactly where they're going at all times. You don't have to trust an intermediary. But I I think that like you know even to this day you see people on Twitter you know designing

mechanisms that like don't pass the game theory test of everything we've learned in the last 10 years and especially early on you know Dows I mean even certain mechanisms people kind of had the expectation of like no people are good and they'll be aligned to this goal of this treasury and so they won't do that thing and crypto actually is the is like the opposite because there's so many or so so much fewer rules so many fewer guard rails there's a lot more room for people to take advantage and I mean we've seen all the hacks that have happened from North Korea etc. I mean even in you know in in the US and China and so I I I think that like a little bit of realism is needed. I think we've definitely gotten there and I am actually quite excited now for sort of

new blood. There was like a moment early in crypto where it was like, you know, us versus them. Like we used to call them muggles, you know, like if you're in web 2, you're a muggle. And >> that was great at the time. Like I think like cultural fervor is really important. Like you really have to have enough people that are crazy enough to think this idea is good to work on it. And now we're at the point where I feel like enough has been disproven. There's enough evidence and there's sort of enough real world acceptance of what blockchains are good for. And when I go on Twitter and I see someone like proposing a delusional idea again, I'm like, "Oh, dear God." like like like like mute or whatever because I'm just so over like like we've done the experimentation. We've done so many

experiments >> that when when I see people kind of rehashing the same experiment, I'm like, "Okay, let's move on." Like there's other things going on. And in fact, crypto is not operating at the productivity level of like other tech industries like AI. And so we should actually like stop wasting time on some of these things and actually maybe coalesce around some of the larger problems. So, you know, like maybe a few years ago I would have been like, w Stripe and PayPal getting involved. Boohoo. And now I'm like, no, wait. Like Stripe thinks this is serious and Stripe is going to bring the work prowess to crypto. Like, fantastic. Like, yes, let's, you know, kick out all the people that are lazy and don't know what they're doing and just like bring this culture of like efficiency because I think that that's where we're at in the

maturity level of the industry. >> Okay. Do you feel that cuz you kind of go back to the way you looked at things in the beginning like how has you maturing as an individual really played into let's say your trajectory within crypto and then also maybe stepping back when you did from the graph etc. like how has have the two like your personal growth and the maturation of the ecosystem kind of gone together and where maybe they haven't or they've clashed.

>> That's a great question. Well, so like reading the communist manifesto with rosecolored glasses, you know, that's a great example because again like my parents fled former Soviet Union. So I grew up hating communism and when I was reading the book, I was sort of like going from an educational standpoint and the the you know, the ideologies that we have as youngans, you know, sort of like anything is possible. Part of it is sort of the experimentation I think that we saw in crypto that kind of taught me that that doesn't work. And part of it is also like seeing the way people actually behave because like again just to go back to the communist manifesto example I and many people think it just hasn't been implemented the right way and to assume that assumes that there are people that can implement it the right

way and I think that what we learn in crypto is like everyone is self-interested and sort of like that's the baseline assumption of this technology is you should assume the user the node operator whoever is is self-interested which if you actually take that for face value, then of course communism can never work because that's exactly what happens is like you've got the labor unions or the government or whoever is there the ones that are self-interested. And so I would say I've become way more capitalist and I wouldn't even say necessarily more like libertarian capitalist just because like I don't think like I think again that that's a that's a fallacy early on in crypto, you know, like anti-government, but it's like you know some governments, you know, do want to cooperate with the tech. They want to evolve with the technology. So I I think that like in

general I and the crypto industry have become more capitalist. >> Mhm. >> And and a lot of that has come from just like seeing with our eyeballs what happens you know in free markets because especially early on you know now we've got a few more regulations. We've got the Clarity Act genius. We've got like even KYC and all this other stuff. But before it was sort of like like truly the freest market possible. And I I really as like an economics major I love that. Like I loved seeing that. but also it like teaches you from first principles like what does work and what doesn't work in the wild. And I'm glad that we like like I think without being in the industry if you just read about it you probably wouldn't have learned that. And so it almost like took like us losing money or us like seeing things

like happen tragedy in a way and and and favors to to recognize like okay this is like actually how a market works or actually how an industry works. not this sort of like idealized way that a lot of us felt was possible. I also think that like because crypto started with a lot of people who didn't graduate college. I mean even people who did graduate college I want to say maybe the average age was like 25 you know early on and now the average age is probably closer to 40 maybe 35. And so there's sort of like like it does feel like the industry matured as everyone aged. Like as our prefrontal cortex developed like there are new ideas that we were like oh okay yeah that's why it can't work. which in a way is kind of nice. Like it feels like we've all kind of grown up

together. >> Yes. >> In a way. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And it's I like the fact that you know us growing up because it's it's one of the things that I've said many times. The technology itself is can be neutral but the humans behind it are not. Right. And so you see through this maturation and us getting older plus learning all of those lessons then we have that capacity to actually separate let's say intention or idealism from okay here's what the reality is but more than that here's what can be done in maintaining

those ideas but in a much less kind dreamy way, right? In a much more contextbased, reality based way. One thing that you've said and now I'm going to go back to maybe the space particularly when we both got in was very very very technical, right? Like everybody was a developer, much less now, but at that time 2017 2018, 99% were developers. You've said that you're not necessarily technically minded. How did you navigate that space and then obviously cuz you mentioned the graph end up leading right one of the biggest

pieces of web three infrastructure. What was that like and how did you craft your own kind of authority in this space starting from early on and then building in a space that is inherently technical. >> Yeah. So like like you mentioned, my parents both being engineers and my brother being a computer engineer, my mom at some point printed out pages of code for me to learn when I was in high school. So like to me it was like I either could have been an engineer or a business person and it was very much this choice. Like I remember being like you know I could and I mean I I took Java and HTML in high school like old languages.

>> Yeah. So to me it was like I was always adjacent and I felt sufficient like fluent or understanding of computers and kind of where tech was heading. But I found just the the world of business, economics, finance much more fascinating. But by the time that I had gotten to crypto like because of that sort of like like proximity and like again have you know having the these kinds of discussions at the breakfast table and I have two computer engineers being able to like answer my question like that really really helps you. Oops, sorry about that. So, so I I never felt like I was like handicapped in any way because I wasn't going into it. I wasn't trying to be become a Devril. But what was great is like especially in management consulting, you're thrown into like the randomst industry, the randomest project every few months. And

so you have to build this like aptitude for adapting to problems or technology stacks or like learning really quickly about the tech stack of a company. And so I think that that skill probably helped me a lot coming into crypto. And so when when I was here like or sorry when when when I arrived like I spent a lot of time catching up like I at one point was trying to teach myself to um code solidity just so I could learn. I like hacked on I don't know if you were there but at ETH Prague several years ago. A few of us hacked a an auction that was uh connected to a dildo. So you can simulate, you know, like performers getting tips and, you know, the the audience or the customer being able to

control it. And so I was definitely trying to play around more with the technology so I could understand it. Like to me, it's so important to just understand it. And so by the time I did get to the graph, I didn't feel like I said handicapped, >> but I was constantly still learning especially about the API and data layer, which you know is not something brand new. It was just like sort of the the web 3 version of how you gave access to data. So, you know, all this to say is I I think that like if if somebody can just like understand the framework of technology, I think that goes along a lot farther than people perceive. Like no one is asking you to debug the product if you are a BD person or a strategy person or even if you are like the CEO. I mean some CEOs debug but like

you're not the one that has to do that. You often hire for that skill set. I do recall to to your point like there were conversations I was having with some founders in crypto that were engineers and I'd be like do you have like a business person and they're like no we don't need that and there was this perspective that like a CTO type individual could lead a company successfully without any kind of like sales business whatever it might be you know some of them would just call it admin and I'm like wait what are you talking about like the entire world runs on marketing like you are crypto and you are no different than the rest of the Um, and I definitely think there's a maturity now, obviously. I mean, there's a lot more companies that that that have like maybe more sales and business

people than engineers. >> Y, >> but I also will say I feel like the graveyard of a lot of crypto projects like I wouldn't be surprised if they're correlated to how many business people did you hire early in your project. Like did you really try to sell the project yourself as an engineer? Like that's quite difficult, you know, >> to to to a Joe Schmo. So, I think that like technical proficiency is actually overestimated and I think a lot of people are more scared than they should be because it's really just like any tech stack. You know, you enter a new job, you learn about the accounting tech stack, whatever it is, and crypto is just the same. The It's interesting that you mentioned this because for sure for I don't know how many years there was barely any marketing or any sales of any

type. And now I think to your point there's so much more focus on that and the communication side of things and how the message gets delivered etc etc and potentially it is opening the door to the fresh blood that you mentioned earlier that's like okay this is like any other right part of technology that can also have the roles that are traditional in a And that's not to say that like a CTO can't be a CEO. Some, right? It's some can. I think it's just about like acknowledging the realities of how a product, you know, it's like if a tree

falls in the woods and it and nobody heard it, did it fall? Like okay, in the sense of like did it fall? Yes. But like in a product sense, if nobody saw your product, like no one gives a I don't know if I'm allowed to swear, >> but like no one is seeing your product. And I am flabbergasted that to this day I still see some great products in crypto with a Twitter and they don't do the full I don't want to say like necessarily PR campaign but they don't like capitalize on the event that they created whether it's like a new feature or you know a milestone. And to to me that's like the the lowest hanging fruit that anybody could do. You don't need a business background. You don't need anything. you just need to think about like, hey, if somebody like a customer

wanted to learn about this, are they going to go into the documents and read about it because they check the docs every week? Like absolutely not. Um, and so there's some of this like business acumen that I think is is like actually the most important part of selling the product and a lot of the engineers just don't have it. And so or or they they don't have it themselves. And so I'm I'm glad to see like a lot more sort of like recognition of like what it takes to actually build a company and a product. Now, do you think for a lot of founders in crypto and maybe from the early stages of it, there is still a little bit of an imposttor syndrome?

>> You're saying people >> like for being out in the world and being a real business, right? Like, is there an imposttor syndrome or is there a little bit of a but we're kind of over here and we're on guard. We're not like the norm. >> That's a great question. I feel like the last cycle was sort of the transition of a lot of that, you know, like even within the graph, there was a very clear moment that we kind of enterpriseified our offering, >> right?

>> In the sense that like, you know, our materials were more mature. Like everything that we were talking about SLAs's was just like for a client that had real business in the real world, not a DAP that, you know, was really exciting, but you know, so many DAPs that we love like are either down or have zero revenue, unfortunately. And so that's not the ideal customer for a service. But definitely I think that we've improved in that sense of like leveling up our offerings. I think part of that came from a need of just like money like people started running out of money like you know especially not not last cycle maybe the last the cycle before that was the big bull. People expected that to stay. They made a lot of decisions based on the expectation of price and that price didn't hold. And so

then you have to get a lot more serious about revenue and customers. And that requires you then to get sort of nitty-gritty on sort of like the the enterpriseification. And so I think that if people are still feeling imposter syndrome, I think that says more about whether they have product market fit at this point. >> Because to to me it's like you know like this world of like only crypto people being your customers is kind of no longer the world that we live in. Whereas I do recall a time when we were like our industry can we can take it over and we will like you know bring it with us to the top just us and then the bankers will join in and it was like no the bankers actually have to be part of it we can't do it all ourselves you know

the enterprise or the small businesses have to be part of it um and so I so I I think that we see a lot more of that now than than we did before >> with circling back to to the graph what made you leave or say okay this is kind of that chapter is done and whatever comes next we'll figure it out. >> So when I joined the graph I had been kind of like searching for my next mission per se >> uh >> for for for a little bit like I I had left me go I knew that I wanted to stay in crypto but I didn't know exactly what that meant but I knew that like for me it was really important to work on

problems that I was excited about. Okay. >> So, and like to me the problem at that time was so obvious that there was not enough infrastructure for people to build on Ethereum in a way that they should and engineers and so the graph was was positioning the products hub graphs as like a necessary layer for building your application because it was it was very difficult for um anyone to retrieve data from smart contracts if you wanted to build a front-end application. And so the subgraphs obiscated that and like more from a visionary perspective I viewed it as like this is the best place that I can apply my skills to help grow Ethereum.

It was like very clearly like okay what can I do to grow Ethereum? Like you said we were in such a technical time that I was like I'm not going to start a business right now. Like I'm not trying to be a network operator or a node operator but I think that we need to increase the ability for developers to build on Ethereum. And so subgraphs and the graph was such an obvious space to me. I was there for I want to say five and a half years. >> So we we did quite a lot. We saw quite a lot. Um ended up supporting every single chain, not Ethereum, not only Ethereum. And by the time that I left, I was fully burnt out. I would say that's like the main reason was like I'd been running for so long leading the found also a lot

of decentralization efforts. There was so much that we had kind of experimented with that worked and also didn't work. And then I was also feeling like like you know when your skill set is being maximally used and you know when you're sort of like uh providing the most value and I was finding that because you know despite being being the director of the foundation and one of the original team and and kind of just like part of the the way the graph started I felt like I was no longer performing at the level that I would expect of a leader like myself.

>> Okay. and what the graph needed in this next phase. Like I just simply didn't have the energy to do it. And to me it was like a very honest conversation with myself. Like some people might take the opposite approach that's more egotistical that's like no I need to stay because I have to finish this. And for me it was like I can't stay because I feel like I'm actually now somewhat detrimental. And maybe it wasn't obvious in any metrics but it was like I'm waking up every day not feeling very well. And so you know a lot of people go through that in crypto especially because everything's 24/7. there's no like holiday schedule, you know, and and so I I definitely felt myself get to that level of burnout and and recognizing just like that the graph had also evolved. And so the thing that

drove me originally, which was like help get more devs to build on Ethereum, was just no longer where we were at in the industry. The graph was also sort of it it was much less a gateway to every single developer being able to now build whereas they weren't be able to build to kind of being this established mature middleware layer where I just felt like my skill set and vision just like weren't as as as valuable and I just like I was too tired. Yeah. What? Cuz in my episode with Sani, he said, "I sometimes wish that crypto h was a 9 to5 where you can just shut the laptop and then like have some normal time." What do you or have you put in place now in terms of boundaries, work life balance,

things to kind of make sure that you don't get to that stage? Because to your point, it's very very easy to get there, particularly when you love a project, particularly with crypto being 24/7. That's how I burnt myself out just doing a million things at breakneck speed. And then you're kind of like, that's actually having an effect on me physically, mentally, and all of that. and then you're just not able to function just like on a daily basis. Do you have things that you or as a result of that you've like you know put in place or thought about putting

>> I remember in like sort of peak community frenzy >> my team was really struggling with Discord because like the rest of the world isn't operate even if your work is like kind of 9 to5 the rest of the world isn't and especially being global. So, a lot of my team members would get messages at like 2:00 in the morning from someone in Japan and in their mind they're like, "Oh my god, I have to respond now." And it actually took like there were several like sessions internally that we did that were about like managing your own time and like like having ownership over your own time. I guess maybe not just managing because it it's it's really difficult like when you receive Telegram messages, Discord, like your first impression is oh, I need to respond immediately. But

because the nature of the job is 24/7 um like immediately all the time like like what what are we talking about? Like we we don't have office hours or the the idea of hours. So at one point I remove Discord and Slack from my phone. I know that's like a crazy decision, but I was on my laptop so much and like I had like the pings, the sounds that I was like, "Okay, if I'm on my phone, if I've like left my station, then I can't like I can't do this." And anyone who really needs something from me, like one of my execs, they'll message me on Telegram or signal. Like they'll contact me through other channels. And that was sort of an established thing we developed that worked well for our team was like remove Discord from your phone. And I removed Slack. I don't know if everyone else

did, but to me that helped just because I was on Slack so much. Anyways, I would say now what I find interesting about what Stani said, so like for for the longest time, everyone's like, "Let's have 247 markets. Like markets need to be 247 rah rah." And I was very much a proponent of that and like I still love that. I'm very much happy about that. But one thing I've noticed in the maturation of the assets and the liquidity that we now have in crypto is the 9 to5 actually matters a little more now because you notice like I mean if you just look at a chart of Ether Bitcoin >> 9:30 a.m. on a Monday rolls around and the candles are they look different.

They're it's not the same traders. It's not the same market makers. like you have a completely different like set of liquidity and and capital that has entered the market at these set times because market operates that way. Okay, why does a trify market operate that way? Well, because they have lives, too. And like you can't hold a position that's like fairly risky into the weekend knowing that, you know, the straight of Hormuz is going to be opened and reopened three more times in that time. And so TRDFI like has kind of built systems around that. And I remember like being like why? And so like all this to say, I think it crypto needs to stay sort of permissionless 24/7, but I actually think socially we're going to gravitate back towards some of those social constructs of

things like a 9 to5 simply because it actually ends up being easier to operate. Like if you are working, you know, at a company with a treasury or like a hedge fund, like you could sell your crypto and buy your crypto on the weekend. Sometimes it's better, but often it's not. like you're often not going to get the best spread or or like the the optimal price simply because like there aren't enough market makers online at that moment and so then you are we we are then forced to kind of come back into that social construct of you know 9:30 to 4:00 p.m. market hours or a 9 to5. So I I I agree with Stani in the sense that like I think we will end up being that like we'll get there from a human perspective even if our technology doesn't and I don't think our

technology should reflect those social constructs. That's kind of part of the neutral aspect, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's more 9 to5ification in crypto. >> I mean, there's got to be time to touch some grass. And I think like and also clear your mind because you can really really get tunnel vision particularly in making decisions, right? Big decisions. And I mean, we've seen these events at different times where certain people make certain decisions and you kind of go, "Whoa, where did that come from?" And I wonder how much of this intense constantly on, constantly in it maybe not necessarily causes that but can contribute to let's say making less than

optimal decisions. >> Absolutely. There's a lot more autonomy required like you have to self-direct because there aren't these limits. There isn't someone that's telling you to clock out and in fact I'm sure you've worked on remote teams like most of my teams have been remote and aren't in the same continent. So then you really are working at opposite hours. And I mean there was like one >> um employee I had I had to have a conversation with them being like look if our colleague in Lisbon messages you at your 10 p.m. you do not need to respond. And it was like a very difficult thing because like you want to respond to your co-workers oh that means they won't be able to do that thing but you have to. So I actually think that crypto ends up self- selecting in a way for the type of person that is more

interested in that kind of autonomy or or is maybe more comfortable with like boundaryless jobs or opportunities because you know I'm sure even at Stripe you know privy etc. I'm sure they've got hours, but at the same time, happens on the weekends all the time in crypto. And so that means that somebody has to be awake or somebody has to have a pager duty ready to hop on in case the DAP was hacked. >> And and it really like requires a certain I think risk tolerance also from the the type of people that stay in crypto. Mhm.

>> Like I've seen some job descriptions lately that are like must be comfortable with regulatory uncertainty or something like that because you know I'm guessing they interviewed enough people that were like not happy with it. >> Right. So >> but I mean that to your point for years being in crypto really meant very very intense risk particularly from a regulatory standpoint. Yeah. I mean especially at the very beginning and I wonder now coming back a little bit to this balance of touching grass and so on. Tell me about the art side of Eva. So you obviously have that that's kind of it emerged a

little bit more like I wasn't aware that that was you know a part of you until the NFT kind of brought it to attention. So tell me a little bit about that. Was that always there? Did you discover it in your like by being in crypto through crypto or was that what made it kind of real and out there? >> So I've been painting since I was a child. It's been my hobby for a long time. When NFTTS came out, I mean I bought CryptoKitties. Like I did all of that. So it was really fun.

>> Yeah. >> And I I you know purchased some of them being sort of the the like chain. Sorry, I'm I'm blanking. Like when when the chain generates the image, chain generated image. >> Okay. >> And then also I was buying like artists that would either digital artist or they had >> made copies of their physical art in digital form. And for me it was like wow, you know, I'm not a full-time artist. I'm a hobby artist. I'm also not amazing. Like I just like am doing it for fun. So I'm not in a place of sort of having a network of art people or galleries or opportunities and I just like don't have even the time to invest in developing this kind of network that you might need to show your art. And so when NFTTS came out, for me it was

insane of like, wow, like I now have a venue as a hobby artist to share my art and make money off my art in a way that like harnesses the technology and also preserves the art and also enables sort of like a financialization in a way of like being able to, you know, auction and bid and and you know, Manifold in particular has a lot of really cool mechanisms for how you want to price your art or how you want to release it depending on what it is. And so for me that that's all it was was like wow I can finally share my art in a way that isn't simply me like posting a photo and someone being like cool painting but people could actually purchase it or interact with it. So for example some of the drops I did one was I had made a

painting and then I I had made digital sort of images of those paintings and anyone that bought those prints I also gifted a t-shirt with the image on it. And for me, it was like really important early on that because like I'm not Slime Sunday. I'm not Bele like I don't have a digital art presence or a digital art skill set where like simply the the piece of digital art >> is is is like enough. >> Um and so for me it was like really important to connect physical and experiences with the art that I was selling. So that NFT everyone got a free t-shirt. So it was almost like they paid for a free t-shirt. I had another painting that I sold the NFT and with the NFT came the canvas and I shipped

the canvas to somebody and so most of my art has been a little bit more physical tied not all of it but I found that like a to be a lot more meaningful to me and like understandable I will say my perspective on NFTs has like totally changed and it's like not very good anymore in the sense that like like I did it all. I've wasted so much money buying up you know the the everything and there's something Right. And I mean like stoner kitties or stoner cats or whatever, you know, like there's just so many things that like you say the name and it's like wow. Hash masks.

>> Yes. >> And so like a lot of it is like still cool because if you like the art then maybe you'll print it. So like a bunch of the NFTs I bought I ended up printing onto canvases and I like decorated my home. Awesome. But a lot of the you know like this is the rosecolored glasses stuff. Like when NFTs first came out, everyone was like, "Well, you know that royalties don't transfer over." And everyone's like, "Sh, it's okay. This is still worth eight ETH or whatever it is." And this is part of the realism that we have now, which is like, well, no, the royalties are a choice. And it's it it doesn't seem like the NFT itself has actually done a lot to change the art industry. Like, aside from being another format for selling and like showcasing your art, the NFT and art

form specifically. So, I'm not talking about NFTs for sort of other use cases like ticketing or or even tokenization in a backend process, but like I wouldn't say that it's done a lot for the art industry. >> And so, I've actually become quite bearish on NFTTS personally unless there is sort of the physical element or something else that I am purchasing that I I I I see more value in other than just the image. And I know that's controversial. I saw recently someone's like, "NF seasons is back." And I'm like, "Absolutely not." like I'm not falling for this. I'm not spending money on this again. And I'm also okay to forego like being part of that cultural meme because I just at the moment like to me being aligned and believing in something

is so important and I just like don't see it right now. Even though I'm still painting, I'm still into art. I'd love for there to be maybe a more s sustainable way for NFTs to the art world. >> But honestly, I think one of the best use cases that I see today is like Prada, you know. So Prada has the NFTTS and I think it's like NFC chip in their bags and I love that you know like that that's really the way that like it should be but like that's not like a mass adoption use case that's going to drive thousands of transactions necessarily but that's like a real use case. So I'm I'm much more bullish on these kinds of sort of real world applications of NFTs and a little less the like stick an image on even though I've benefited from that myself as an

artist as well. The again the balance between kind of the art and the work and also work life balance. Do you think you now do you think you would do anything differently than you have done and it could be approaching certain situations, certain roles, certain I don't know like you were saying NFTTS or whatever. Would you do anything differently?

>> Okay, this is going to be really controversial. Okay. I would have indexed and spent a lot less time on certain DAPs and chains. >> Okay. Like I think in crypto something happens where like the meme is alive and like if the meme is alive, everyone's obsessed with it regardless of like whether it's actually good or whether it's useful, things like that. >> And there are, you know, like especially in the graph context, like at some point we >> supported every chain. And I'm I'm I'm sure to this day we support most chains, but there would be decisions around like which chain do we prioritize? And that's a decision of, you know, financial decision-m of like which chain do we think will have the most customers, but it's also like a team decision of like, okay, how many engineers do we have

available to even work on this? What's a higher priority feature? Do we need this XYZ chain or do we need to improve this? And because crypto was historically so meme driven and so headline driven, every single chain deserved that energy. And in retrospect, like I mean like so many things are dead now and like it would have been probably kind of harsh at that time to be like, "No, we're not going to prioritize you at all because we don't think you're going to survive." Like we couldn't say that. But I think that like in retrospect, there probably could have been a bit more discernment from not only the graph, but just like, you know, like even in buying certain tokens, like there's tokens I used to buy I was like, "Yeah, I really believe in the team." and it's like a year later they're they've shut down and it's like

well okay I did something wrong then in overindexing on the excitement around this project and thinking less about what they'd shipped and I think a lot of that I'm sure a lot of apps a lot of infrastructure companies feel the same way that they've spent you know like maybe 30% of the work they did is now throwaway because you know those DAPs don't exist anymore the chains don't have any volume or no one's building on them and so then it was like okay well that was literally wasted money and time that otherwise could have gone to improving product Right. Is there anything else that you maybe haven't said publicly up until now? Although, like we said, you're very outspoken and we all love you for it and you share things, you know, and have always shared

things and and your thoughts on things, but is there anything that you haven't shared publicly before? It can be about anything. >> No, I think you're you're you're right. Like, I tend to be pretty honest. So, anything is on Twitter. By the way, are you cuz I definitely took some steps steps back from Twitter for about a year or so and now coming back with the podcast and so on. Kind of dipping my way way back in. And thank goodness the algorithm has changed that we finally see the people who we actually follow cuz that was a weird thing coming back.

So, are you back back? >> If I'm back back, I would say like I definitely took a step back. Yeah, >> partially because like when you leave a job, your framing and like the way you're looking at things is now different. So like before I was looking at things from the perspective of my role and the graph and when I left I was like okay now I'm just an independent crypto person >> and so I felt like I was able to be a lot more honest in a way because it didn't reflect my my company or like it wouldn't hinder any relationships. And then I also felt like I related a lot less to people because like there there is this sort of feeling of like tunnel vision when you are and it doesn't matter what you're working on the DAP infrastructure whatever it is like we're

still in startup land so the belief that you have to have in what you're building is immense like it might even borderline arrogance to just be able to like wake up and build this crazy idea >> and I feel like a lot of Twitter is still in that like this can work and here's my thing and like I'm so excited and because I I left and I didn't have this like no one is like no one's telling me what to think or not not that they were before but I mean like no one is you know there there's no like motivation tied to my employer or my company that I am way like I'm I was able to see like the the real things a lot more clearly me meaning like who's like whose am I am I seeing again that is getting hundreds of

likes and I'm like I don't understand and like that has actually really changed my relationship with Twitter where I find it much more difficult to be on Twitter because I find there's still so much of this like like there's these like mimemetic loops and like I'll talk to someone and they're like, "Oh, you didn't see this thing that happened the other day?" And I'm like, "No." And like to me that's and like I'm glad like thank you. So some some of that has happened, but actually what it's it's done is it's made me feel more comfortable being vocal because like I can't be the only one that is seeing this and then like shutting their phone off because I'm like pissed off or frustrated by what's what's being said.

I'm sure a lot of people can relate like especially a year and a half ago a lot of what the EF was putting out was like really upsetting and difficult to take and you know felt like they hadn't learned and so a lot has changed with the EF in the last year and I feel like that has been visible on Twitter >> whereas there was times in the past where you know Twitter >> Twitter kind of embodies like the perspectives of the people on it at the moment and all this to say is like I still find it difficult to be on Twitter because I don't share the perspective anymore because I feel a a little bit out of it and I've also I've grown and at the same time I feel like now is actually the right time to share the dissenting perspectives because the

group think is still large. It's there there's still a lot of group think on crypto Twitter. >> Yeah, I definitely share that sentiment and it is a little bit interesting kind of delving back into it and to your point all of this like have you seen this and I'm like no cuz I was doing other things. >> Yeah, it was in the bathroom. I missed that whole thing. I'm sorry. >> What's next? Do you know? Do you rest, rebalance, touch grass? Do you want to Is there anything that is inspiring you at the moment?

>> So, I I definitely feel rested. Um, at the moment I'm more so trying to figure out where my passion and mission lies and sort of even like my role in crypto because like I said to me it was so clear when I entered what my skill set was and what I wanted to achieve and I think even crypto that like the word as an industry the crypto industry is like so strange to say now like sure there is an IT industry but more often than not it's every industry has an IT department or like an IT cohort. And so I kind of feel the same thing is happening in crypto a little bit. So mostly I've been kind of just investing or or talking to other people in the community, helping out where I can. But I I do find the RWA space to be quite boring right now. I

think it's I and I understand I mean treasuries and US dollar most important you know most valuable asset on earth. I find when we are just bringing tradi on chain it's like quite boring like and and and I've spoken to some you know tradi people being like hey you know there's gold futures on now and there's like you know copper futures like why don't you trade that or like a flash loan. >> Yes. >> Their responses are like why would I do that? I have a broker account that basically gives me a loan for a whole day that behaves like a flash loan because I have $5 million you know under my name. And so like when you hear that it's like oh wait that's like a great point. Like why is this big wig going to take on the smart contract risk when like actually for him it's not a problem

for the retail person that can't get access to a brokerage account. A flash loan is really important because there's literally no other option. >> Mhm. >> So like I I found like trying to figure out like what parts of finance don't exist in Tradfi but like could exist in crypto to be the most interesting areas that I'm like excited about. Okay. or or trying to figure out what that looks like and especially with clarity coming through hopefully next week. >> Yeah, >> it should really give a lot more like opportunity for different kinds of assets and different kinds of sort of contracts, you know, like how do we >> how how do we do things that like ICE and CME and Goldman Sachs, you know, could be doing but for whatever reason have like forced the market not to sell those products or offer those offerings,

but like there is actually demand. Like to me that's a great opportunity for where crypto can come in because crypto is a lot more difficult to control and so those incumbents actually may not have as much influence on you rather than you know using their own rails >> and that actually like supports a new product I find unless like the crypto version is like materially better which sometimes it is you know like capital efficiency >> is definitely important but like when again when I when I talked to that that hedge fun guy and I was like you bring up a great point like you aren't the customer anymore And so you don't care.

And so that means that we kind of need to think about other products that you would care about because you're the money. The person with $100 that's the retail investor. Like they could make money, but they're not the ones that are really making making the largest impact on a DAP or or a chain. And so I I I think the more that we think about what crypto offers specifically that's unique, the better. >> Really excited about zero knowledge proofs. I actually think zero knowledge proofs might be the answer to that because >> okay there's no way to have private money without somebody looking at it right now. >> Yes.

>> And zero knowledge proof is like really incredible. I think the amount of work that's been done on improving like proof size and and kind of cost like all of it has has gone so far and >> it's very necessary if we're going to >> right >> you can't do it with everything being visible. >> No. And honestly, like it it actually creates new products. Like it's not simply like can I send private money? Mhm. >> It's also like can we do certain things that are not possible um you know in Tradfi? Yeah, >> I believe it's called actually I don't remember what it's called anymore, but Ethan Buckman has an app. I think it's called circles. And so I believe they use ZK, but the point is basically what if the market makers and the banks that you know or even people that kind of

owed each other money at the end of the day instead of like me paying you and then you paying Tom and then Tom paying me, what if there was sort of one settlement based on kind of what who owed what? And there's ways that you can use zero knowledge proofs to achieve that that like in Treadfi would be incredibly impossible. Yes. >> Or incredibly expensive. And so that's that's cool. Like that is a real way to use crypto in a unique format that you know even the hedge fun might say hey I've never seen that before. That's kind of interesting. >> Really feel like crypto is the expander of the current financial system. And I think if we look for that right what constitutes what is expander coefficient right? And it's that's what it's doing

and that's what it can do rather instead of like you say just doing let's move this over here. It's like no like move it for further expand it >> right. >> H interesting. All right. Is there anything else that you want to share? This has been a super interesting conversation blending both you know all of the crypto and all of the personal. >> No I I think we covered quite a bit. We have excited for this next cycle. I feel like every cycle comes with a new like advancement in a way whether it's technological or social >> and so unclear what that will be. I mean I think ZK is definitely prime time so we'll probably see a lot more ZK you

know Zcash is having its moment as well. >> But I'm I'm I'm excited to see you like it it just feels like every cycle is like its own beast and I do feel like we are in the bottom area. I don't know if we've bottomed exactly, but I think we are in the bottom. And so I think that the next, you know, two to 24 months should be really interesting for crypto. And I think we'll see a lot of newness. Like I I I think I think that we may not see as much get revived from sort of old cycles, tokens, and projects. I think we're going to see a lot more new implementation and kind of taking some of that realism that we talked about and applying it into, you know, a lean new startup that doesn't need to raise $300 million just to launch a chain.

>> Yes. On that note, and I love the we can end on the note of excitement because to your point, just because it's different, what's coming doesn't mean it's something to fear or shy away from. So, >> absolutely. >> Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Sava.