Podcast

Omar Yehia is the Head of Investments at Matter Labs, creators of zkSync. Backed by a16z, Variant, Dragonfly, & more, Matter Labs is scaling Ethereum with zero-knowledge proofs to accelerate public blockchain adoption. In this episode we discuss zkSync’s evolution from testnet to mainnet alpha, the breadth of the ecosystem (and Omar’s opinion on most exciting directions), how he thinks about capital allocation on behalf of Matter Labs, and his predictions for the various possible futures of the crypto space.

Jason Li is Co-Founder at Solayer. Solayer is building the restaking network, a decentralized cloud platform that provisions network security and performance for applications on demand, natively on Solana. In this episode, Jason unpacks why (re)staking is one of the strongest narratives in crypto today, it's importance to the development of crypto, and how Solayer is leveraging the economic principles of staking with its unique innovative network bandwidth optimization approach, and how it can extend security beyond Solana.

Mike Hanono is the Founder & CEO at Talus. Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Polychain, dao5, & more, Talus is building at the intersection of crypto & AI. In this episode we discuss the current state of AI and blockchain technology, smart agents (and the corresponding usefulness of blockchains), Mike’s perspective on what wastes time during the early stages of a startup, what future possible trajectories could look like, & much more.

Elena Nadolinski is the Founder & CEO of Iron Fish. Backed by Sequoia, a16z, Electric Capital, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Iron Fish encrypts every transaction, shielding your sensitive asset information from public view. With read-only view keys, you remain compliant and in control. In this episode, we discuss Elena’s journey up to the creation of Iron Fish, the use cases and second-order possibilities of Iron Fish, the biggest early surprises and challenges (and how their team navigated those), advice to crypto founders about productive dialogue with regulators, and why the future is bright for crypto.

Dillon Rosenblatt is the Co-Founder & CEO of Autograph (co-founded alongside Tom Brady). Backed by Kleiner Perkins and a16z, and partnered with icons like Simon Biles, Derek Jeter, and Tiger Woods, Autograph is an NFT platform that brings together the iconic brands in sports and culture to create unique digital collections. In this episode we discuss the possibilities and future of NFTs, the unique opportunity of building through the bear market, how to co-create alongside your community, and (of course) what it’s like building a company with Tom Brady.