Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder and CEO of Solana, talks about the incredible speed and potential of his blockchain platform, citing over 6,000 transactions per second. He shares insights into Solana's rise, struggles, and innovations, including their new mobile phone, Saga. The discussion explores the NFT boom, decentralization, and how Solana could transform into a public good like Linux. Anatoly emphasizes the importance of collective action in blockchain's future, leaving listeners with a sense of excitement for what's to come.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eileen Burbidge is the founding partner of Passion Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund  that has backed FinTech giants including the likes of Monzo, Tide and GoCardless among  others. As part of Mana Search’s event presenting their State of Diversity report, Eileen joins  Lloyd to walk through the homogeneity and inequality within the current Tech and Venture  Capital industries. From the intrinsic gendering of children’s toys, to how to build a team, to the astronomic rise but also war stories with Monzo, and even to fashion trends within VC, this episode has it all. 00:00 - An Introduction to Eileen & to Mana Search’s Diversity Report 1:43 - Marquee investments made by Eileen 4:23 - How to build a diverse team 5:35 - What more recent trends are we seeing within diversity 9:20 - Heroes and role models for young people 13:38 - Monzo and Startup CEOs vs Bank Executives 16:39 - Regulatory scrutiny whilst maintaining creativity 18:20 - Eileen’s background 20:15 - Eileen’s Mana 22:41 - Influences on Eileen’s career 25:38 - Sexist Cultures and historic workplace misogyny 27:40 - Gendered children’s clothes & ingrained societal sexism 32:53 - Diversity within Crypto & Blockchain 37:15 - Clothing trends and homogeneity within VC 40:55 - Eileen’s heroes and dream guest

Arik Shtilman heads up global payments solution Rapyd – one of Europe’s most highly valued fintechs.  Arik’s first rung on the career ladder was the Israeli army, which taught him a ‘carpe diem’ approach to business that has since helped him win over investors and turn Rapyd into  Israel’s most valuable private company (it recently achieved a 15bn dollar valuation).Arik explains that the genesis for Rapyd lies in a fellow founder being stung on FX charges on a stag do to the Czech Republic.  It was a steep learning curve where they encountered ‘every single problem on planet earth’ before pivoting and establishing a B2B product rather than B2C.  The company continues to go from strength to strength, undaunted by the pandemic (Arik kept everyone working in the office believing working from home hinders productivity) and the potential of a recession (‘I love a recession’).This is a great episode and a great example of true entrepreneurship with many career and life lessons highlighted. 1:49 – the story of Rapyd and its move into venture capitalism3:43 – Getting ready for a macro turndown6:19 – ‘I love recessions’8:13 – Investing in clients10:05 – SME trends11:39 – Becoming an entrepreneur14:01 – Understanding the early potential of computers15:12 – The potential of blockchain16:22 – The next big trend in tech18:10 – Starting out in the military and learning ‘anything is possible’19:46 – What push ups and tennis camp can teach you21:43 – Starting his first company23:00 – The first big mistake24:19 – Lessons learned25:34 – The birth of Rapyd (after an expensive stag do to the Czech Republic)30:00 – The importance of failure31:38 – How Arik’s role has changed as the company has grown34:16 – Rapyd’s culture35:40 – Calling BS on working from home38:05 – Future goal for Rapyd41:54 – Greatest achievement – and being fearless