Overcollateralized Emotions | Packy McCormick

[00:00] I don't think we need to play so dumb with him. Like, I think we know, like, we do know. Like, I just don't want us to, like, have to overplay dumb. [00:10] I'm never playing dumps. I'm never playing dump. So I don't know what you want me to do. You keep saying that to me and I'm like, I don't do that. I'm just honest about what I know. Hello, I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait. [00:28] Is it just boys club? It's just boys club. The boys club podcast. No, no. [00:33] Just boys club. [00:35] Natasha, what's Boys Club? Hi. Boys Club is a... [00:41] Network of builders... [00:44] and creatives [00:47] In Web3. [00:48] Okay. Okay. Network feels a little clinical. Sterile. Yeah. But if you are here, welcome. Listening to the podcast is a great place to start, as is our newsletter. Follow us on, I don't know, all the social channels. All the social channels. Subscribe to our podcast. [01:09] Uh, subscribe to our newsletter. We're, we're a media company. We're a social Dow. [01:15] We're world building in Web3. Indeed. There it is. On today's pod, we had Paki McCormick. [01:23] Okay, I've got to say, I cannot handle. And I've got to say the lineup of podcast guests is absurd. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And I just want to say, shout out to Paki, the kindest man, we just slid right on into his DMs. And he responded and he was like, LFG. And Les was like, okay, let's do it. And then the next week, we're talking to him. We're talking to him. And when the interview started, I was like, oh, this man is a media mogul. Like he had a whole studio. He had a rig.

[01:50] Yeah. And I was just like in my bedroom with like a loose mic. And I was like, oh, um, Paki was great. Uh, we talked about, uh, one of his, one of his, he explained to tweet for us as you do. Um, it had to do with, uh, three AC debacle, um, CFI. He, he's an advocate for, for CFI. So we talked about that. We talked about regulation and finance regulation. It was pretty, yeah, it was, it was a lot of learning. I think you'll, you'll have a lot of learning. Yeah. Um, [02:19] So that was Paki. And then we talked about what's happening in our DAO. [02:24] And we talked about our first DAO vote and proposal. We talked about our high-pitched workshop. Some really good stuff. [02:34] Really good stuff happening. This was a fun podcast. And then we rounded it out. Yeah, feelings. And lots of feelings, actually. [02:40] I mean, not actually, not that that's a surprise. [02:44] People are like, ooh, shocker. [02:47] They never come in with a feeling. And then, of course, we had some draft tweets. We did. Which I'm going to send one. I'm going to send my tweet, so. Yeah, you're going to send it now. Okay, I'll send it. Okay, enjoy. Bye. [03:05] Okay, so Paki McCormick is the founder of Not Boring, a business and startup newsletter [03:10] Thank you.

[03:29] Great to be here. Yeah, generalist means that I'm not very good at anything. So we'll see how I do explaining my tweet. I feel that. I feel that. Okay, as is tradition with our guests, we'd like to do something called explain the tweet, where we ask one of our guests to explain either one of their iconic or totally inscrutable tweets. And the one that we've chosen for you, you tweeted a couple weeks ago. [03:51] Multi-billion dollar startup idea, see Fi, but simply don't lend to 3IC. [03:57] Now, Natasha, what's your level of comprehension on this tweet? Okay. I'm feeling like, as always, it's layered. I'm getting the top layer. So I know 3AC was like a big firm that went insolvent, like total degens, and then went insolvent and had all these ripple effects that we're still seeing today. So I think the tweet is something around [04:27] of the CeFi businesses. But take it away. I want to hear from you. What's going on here? Yeah, I think that was a pretty good description. So as the crypto markets were crashing different, CeFi or centralized finance institutions, so essentially [04:45] They kind of act like banks. They're not really banks. But the point is, deposit your crypto or your dollars with us. We'll lend it out in the back end to somebody who needs that money to crypto trade. And so they're able to pay us 15%, 20% because they're making a bunch of money on those trades. And so we can give you something crazy like 10% on your money when your regular bank account is.

[05:10] would only give you 0.1% or whatever the rate is on a savings account these days. [05:17] As these stories were coming out of all of these CIFI institutions going under, [05:23] Each one was like, and... [05:25] This one lent $2 billion to Three Arrows Capital, which was a hedge fund that got blown up. I think it was just overly long. Generally, there was this whole kind of meme that throughout the bull market, they would say that they're super, super bullish on stuff. And then people thought that they were just, it was a psyop, that they were just tricking them and they actually had sold out of their positions. And it turns out that they were just really long and bullish, a lot of stuff, including [05:55] And so that's, I think, kind of what caused them to blow up ultimately is that they were super long in this algorithmic stablecoin Terra and also the governance token for the blockchain Luna. And so when they blew up, they had uncollateralized loans from all of these other institutions who had all of a sudden these big holes that they couldn't fill. And so companies like Celsius and Voyager ended up... [06:21] having to stop letting customers take their money out. All of that's being worked out right now. Hopefully, people are able to get their money back. But the joke was, it seemed like even though the market was crashing, like the real kind of sin and the thing that that took these CFI companies down was just lending to three hours capital.

[06:41] Okay, I have a few questions for you in this. [06:44] Um, okay. So my first question is what is the difference between. [06:49] CeFi and TradFi. [06:52] Ooh, that's a good question. I think TradFi is just a normal bank or investment bank or lender, just a traditional financial institution. I think the difference with CeFi is that it's geared towards crypto. So it's almost more of a positioning thing and I guess based on what assets they have. [07:13] typically work with. So a normal bank would work with US dollars or whatever local currency, whereas a CPI institution [07:19] uses crypto and interacts with crypto, but isn't fully on chain, transparent, all the things that you'd get out of a DeFi protocol. Is there also a difference around regulation? [07:31] I would imagine. [07:32] So these institutions are not FDIC insured, for example. They can't say that they're a bank. They're not a bank. But I would imagine they're regulated differently and not regulated within the, I guess in our case here, the U.S. banking system in the way that a traditional bank would be. [07:51] Okay, that's super helpful. Natasha, do we have a groundwork? Do we have a foundation laid? Totally, foundation is laid. The foundation is laid. Okay, so a question for you, Paki. Our friends at Bankless would say that anything CeFi is suspect, right? Like there's some purists out there in the world that think like –

[08:11] you know, not your keys, not your coin, but in this tweet, you're sort of [08:15] you're sort of pointing to a world where [08:17] we can maybe have a little of both. And that like, there's, there are aspects of CeFi that like, maybe are okay. And so like, I'd love for you to say more about sort of, [08:25] that worldview, which is so different than what I think a lot of the purists sort of bring in their [08:30] in their arguments. [08:32] Yeah, I'm definitely not a purist. I think that DeFi and fully decentralized finance held up really, really well in the crash. And it was really a good test, I think, for DeFi protocols generally. And all of them, not all of them, all of the big ones held up very, very well. [09:02] There's no people on the other end who are able to say, like, come on, just like lend us a little bit more this one time. [09:08] It's just pure cold math and that held up really, really well. I mean, I think one of the issues with Three R's Capital was there were text chats that came out and it was like, yeah, we have we have three billion dollars. Like, just, you know, keep us keep us good. Like, don't don't liquidate us. We have the money. Don't worry about it. [09:27] Whereas a smart contract would never be able to fall for that. And so there are certainly benefits to, I think, full DeFi. [09:34] I'm also not a purist in that there are banks out there that are not fully transparent second to second with all of their depositors on what they're lending to in the background. But there's regulation and there's all sorts of things that make that safe. There's FDIC insurance.

[09:49] I don't think that we should replace all financial institutions overnight with DeFi protocols. I think over time things will move more and more that way. But I think as with any [10:00] financial institution, risk management is really, really, really important. And regulation is really important. I had a podcast conversation this morning with a founder in our portfolio, runs a [10:12] called Meow, which does, it's a CeFi institution, they do crypto lending. [10:16] but they only deal with accredited institutions as their customer base. And throughout this whole kind of bull run, they had depositors coming to them and saying, why are you only giving us 4%? These other guys are giving us 10%. Why don't you just put our money in Anchor? Anchor is paying out 20% and Anchor is the yield protocol for Lunaterra. Why don't you do that and give us 10% and you keep some of that and we're all making more money? [10:46] kind of compliance first, all about risk management. Like that was their approach. I had an old podcast episode with him where... [10:52] It almost sounded like overkill at the time in the midst of a bull market. And then now you're like, oh, that makes sense. They actually... [10:59] pulled everything into cash, [11:02] And they actually were, I guess, the billion-dollar idea of doing this without lending to three-ounce capital. They had good counterparty exposure. And still, they just said, look, we're not 100% certain right now. We don't want to lose a single dollar. So we're just pulling everything to either cash or over-collateralized right now. So I think that there can be CFI institutions –

[11:24] as long as they have good risk management in place or as transparent as possible, that can work. And certainly not every person who wants crypto exposure is going to set up a wallet, plug into a DeFi protocol, all of that right away. And so I think there is certainly a role there. [11:37] But, [11:39] And all of the same things that you would do if you're running a financial institution should still apply if you're going to do that. [11:45] Yeah, I think as a consumer, I find the idea of C-Fi [11:49] really attractive, right? Like it's, there's, there's some centralization for the sake of convenience, which, um, for a lot of people would be a totally appropriate trade-off, um, [11:59] And so I totally get that. But yeah, I think that there's like, you know, the sort of the [12:06] again, like the purists, [12:09] do as purists do and would take issue with that. But I, I sort of get it where it's like, man, um, [12:16] I like if I can just sort of have, yeah, have exposure to crypto as I would, um, I'm going [12:22] like with the same level of ease as I'm dealing with my credit card or my bank, like that, that would be nice in many ways. But let's talk about the relationship between yield and risk. So speaking about this portfolio company that you have, like, [12:37] there was sort of a conversation about like, can Cefi give interesting yields if it's not doing like DGEN stuff, right? Like, and at what point is it like, is it one or two percentage points that's better than your bank? Like, is it possible to have the type of growth that you'd really want to see that'd be really attractive with like this really vanilla approach? I guess you're saying yes. But like, how does that, how does that work if it's sort of in this like,

[13:01] hybrid environment. Yeah, I think it's [13:04] I mean, just 101 is if you're getting more yield, you're probably taking on more risk, whether it seems like it or not. And so I think... [13:14] Yes, you can get higher yields in C5 than you might from a bank account. And I think some of it just comes down to supply and demand and the kind of makeup of who's involved. So a bank knows, for example, a bank could if they're giving out mortgages at 5%. [13:30] and they're doing it eight times on the same dollar because of the fractional reserve banking system, [13:37] They could give you higher than 0.1%, but they've studied and learned over many, many, many years that people aren't really going to switch banks over 10 basis points of extra yield. And so they could probably be giving you a little bit more yield and still get away with it. I mean, I think the biggest four banks... [13:57] in the U.S. in the last year made somewhere between $140 and $170 billion in net interest income, which is the difference between what they make on loans and what they pay out to depositors. I'd say there's definitely some more. There's some room. There's a little bit of room. There's some room. I mean, I wrote a piece on Circle and then I used that stat in it. And to me, that's kind of the DeFi opportunity. That's the promise of this whole thing is that you take

[14:27] And it's not going to be all pure profit going to the borrower or the lender in that case. But there's, again, some room in that $170 billion to play with. But I think... [14:40] Here, there are just fewer... [14:42] lenders who are willing to give money to people to put on crypto trading strategies. So I think it's just a supply and demand of dollars thing where a borrower is willing to pay a higher rate because there are fewer people willing to lend them the money. And so that goes through. And certainly that means more risk. And now Meow and other companies offer over collateralized products. [15:06] They'll take... [15:08] $150 worth of Bitcoin from the borrower for every $100 that they lend out, and then they'll make the margin call if... [15:18] the price of Bitcoin falls. [15:20] below acceptable levels, for example, that will, because it has less risk, offer a lower yield. But if you ever, ever, ever, if you listen to this and you ever see something that says that it's not giving you any more risk and is giving you more yield, that's probably not true. [15:36] So that was going to be my next question as a consumer. And a lot of our listeners are totally new to this space. How do they. [15:45] sort of navigate, what are some best practices to navigate? Okay, these are responsible places to be, to be utilizing, these are some red flags, like just top level, what would you say? Like, these are some watch outs, and these are some...

[15:58] um, things that would be encouraging as you're, as you're checking out different protocols or, or firms or whatever. Yeah. [16:05] Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it probably comes down to track record. And so, you know, and maybe, frankly, my advice right now, and this is why I pull people to cash. And I think my advice right now would just be. [16:20] Don't try to get a couple extra percentage points of yield for the moment until things kind of shake out, until the dust settles. [16:29] Maybe after the next bull and the next bear and you see who's kind of survived and been strong, who has a really strong balance sheet, I would imagine that institutions are going to start getting more transparent with their risk management practices and procedures and even maybe putting some of their data about what they hold and who they have exposure to on chain or at least somewhere kind of more public and audited. [16:53] But for right now, I don't think for a few extra percentage points, it's worth the risk. You're almost, I mean... [17:00] and rather make an equity investment personally if I'm taking on that much risk anyway. [17:06] Thank you. [17:07] Cool. [17:08] Do you think that, just in terms of where we go from here, obviously it's been a crazy few months, a lot of people got burned. [17:17] Yeah, it's been tough. It's been tough out there. Do you? [17:21] Sort of speaking to this idea that like, [17:24] you know, in the future, maybe we'll see, like, firms being audited and having that, like, data available in some public way or on chain, maybe. Do you think that that sort of regulation, and I'm using that, like, just loosely, that sort of oversight, maybe, is needed to, like, mature as an industry? Or, like, where do you think...

[17:45] Yeah, I'm curious where you think sort of that... [17:47] Um, [17:49] that like change will come from to sort of, [17:53] have yeah like level up in the industry [17:55] Yeah, I mean, 100%, I think that C5 should be... [17:59] more regulated and more clearly regulated than it is right now. Like right now, [18:04] What's happening essentially is called regulation by enforcement, where instead of saying, here are the rules, [18:10] People kind of do stuff. They try to talk to the SEC or whichever regulatory body might be their regulator. They try to say like, hey, what are we allowed to do? And they don't really get an answer until they've done something wrong and then they get sued. And that's kind of what happened to BlockFi and they took on what was like a $100 million fine. [18:28] And that's a really expensive and murky and just kind of crappy way to deal with it. And so I think a lot of people would love, even people who are running some of these organizations would love more clear regulation and figure out where they fit in to the whole kind of picture. [18:44] So yeah, I think for Zify to... [18:47] take off and to just be something that people trust. And I mean, I think probably what happens is in many cases, it just gets embedded into other kind of financial products, whether that's [18:56] banking and banks start lending more to crypto, although that's probably going to take a while after these recent incidents or some fintech companies will start embedding this into some of their products and just being very, very clear on the risk. But yeah, it needs to fit within kind of a regulatory framework and structure, I think, to be trusted. DeFi is different. I don't think CeFi and DeFi should be

[19:16] regulated in the same way. I think it's really hard to regulate [19:20] particularly when it is actually fully decentralized. But in those cases, at least there's very clear... [19:28] on-chain rules and transactions that happen. And so while it's less efficient to have over-collateralized lending, it is at least so far proven to be safer when it's done right. And so I think that's less of an immediate concern. But for CeFi, certainly, I think more regulation is better. [19:47] Well, I can just speak for DAOs and say, I would love a rule book. I would love somebody to say this is what's needed. I mean, that's the first place where I was a little bit involved in the Constitution DAO thing and have invested in some DAOs and other things. And I've met someone in that whole space who said, like, no, no, no, we love the current regulatory landscape. No rules. This is great. People are like, what are we allowed to say? What are we not allowed to say? [20:17] guys. [20:18] too soon because it helps fit within the regulatory framework. There's a lot of other areas where they're just not sure what to say, and it makes things that aren't shady seem shadier. So yeah, I would love for Dow certainly to have more clear regulation as well. Especially when you have a podcast where every week the feedback we get is, wow, I can't believe how transparent you guys are being. I'm like, that is probably not great. We're like, wait, what did we say? I was like, should I listen to it again? Yeah. That's great. The regulation shouldn't make you want to be less transparent. Right.

[20:48] - The conversation shouldn't make you want to be less transparent. [20:50] - Yeah, someone told us at one point, they were like, [20:53] as we were sort of setting up the entity for Boys Club and thinking about sort of that whole design space, we were like, they're like, you know that DAOs are illegal. [21:03] Like they're not illegal, but they sort of operate outside of the spectrum of the current legal like code or whatever law. And we're like, cool, cool, cool, cool. We were like six months in at that point, too. We were like, oh, OK, nice. Good to know. That's why all those dudes are like anon on this Zoom call that we have in this like DAO accelerator. We're like, OK, now I get it. And so but we were like too far in at that point to turn back. It's such a it just makes the whole space. [21:33] - It's a little shadier than it has to. [21:35] When, yeah, I would love, we'd all love. Yeah, we'd love. I mean, we just saw Coinbase get cracked down on by the SEC for... [21:43] listing tokens that should have been securities, and there's going to be a big battle there. And I think that's going to be a really important one to see how that plays out. But it's just a bummer that you kind of are doing things as best as you possibly can. [21:55] And then the SEC comes in and says that, you know, that wasn't how they interpreted the thing that they never said. So, yeah. Okay. This is quite a somber. This is quite a somber conversation. Very, very. Are you not jazzed by talking about regulation enforcement? I'm so jazzed. But just tonally, it was very serious. And we've never talked about regulation before. Natasha, this is the first for the pod. No. No, first for the pod. Okay. So let's just end on a high note, Paki. Tell us some things that you're excited about in Web3.

[22:25] or startups or just ideas that you're jazzed about in this world? [22:30] He's like the SEC Coinbase. Yeah, were we not just talking about regulation? [22:37] No, there's a bunch of different categories that I'm jazzed about. I think data ownership is going to be one of the big ones coming out of this. There's so much financialization in this last bull cycle that I think one of the magical things is data composability. A portfolio company, Ceramic, put out a blog post about the dataverse today that everybody should check out. [23:00] in one place, that software creation is getting kind of pushed to the edges. And while that means that there probably won't be a million, $10 billion companies, there will be [23:11] a billion or 10 million very small software projects that people are making for their own unique needs. And being able to just tap into kind of one shared kind of data structure, I think, is really useful in that kind of world. So data ownership, them, Vana is another company that I invested in, loved in that category that we'll be saying more in September. So data ownership is a big one. [23:35] My friend Mario Gabriel just wrote a piece on Helium, and I love just all of the ideas of networks that are connecting kind of physical things and giving people ownership over both their data and the output of whatever that physical thing is. A company called Demo Network that is doing that for cars. So instead of plugging in your device that the insurance company gives you, you plug in the Demo one, and then people can build apps on top of it.

[24:05] I mean, I still think refi, I mean, we wrote about it a bunch in the cello. Shout out to refi. Shout out to refi. [24:15] just [24:16] That whole area of things touching the physical world and actually making the world better. And I guess my weird out there meta one is just this idea of like, and I'm probably writing about this a little bit on Monday with a couple of friends, but... [24:30] This idea that like speed running things and like, you know, speed running finance, speed running governance is just like this really messy process where you do make a bunch of the same mistakes. But then at some point, I think you hit a spot where we come up with new business models for the internet, new governance models for the internet and a new financial system. And so I'm excited just to see like... [24:49] us get the mistakes out of our system and then move towards a better, a bunch of better kind of internet native systems. We are too. We're, I feel like we're, Boyd's Club is fully in the mistakes making phase of this. I think the whole space is, so you're not allowed. [25:03] Okay, awesome. Paki, so fun. Thank you so much for all of this. So great to have you on. And we'll see you soon. [25:14] Thanks for having me. Okay. [25:21] Okay, Natasha, what happened in Boys Club DAO this week? [25:26] Okay, so we had a few big things happen. The first that we're going to talk about is our first DAO voting. So first proposal voting. So we'll get into that. And then the second thing is we did a high pitched workshop and we have

[25:40] some thoughts, some packing, some feelings, some... [25:43] takeaways that we want top line note was that it was so fun so fun it was so fun it was okay let's talk about um the proposal vote so [25:52] What went down? [25:54] Well, we talked last week or the last podcast about... [25:58] our minimum viable community, give it a listen. It's some good stuff in there. But what that meant for this week is basically like, first... [26:07] live voting. [26:09] in discord for [26:11] proposal of use of some of the funds from our zaddy cell so we have this proposal coming for this project we want to work on you and i worked on the proposal [26:22] And who can vote in our community is contributors, core team members, and us and founding team. So it's like probably 40-ish people who can vote. [26:32] I just want to pause and just do a quick note that... [26:37] I am... [26:39] that you really don't know exactly, [26:42] what it is like to be in a DAO until you've actually shipped something in a DAO. And I just want to give a really big shout out [26:51] to Parker and Amy, who put so much time and thoughtfulness into designing how this first season of the Boys Club DAO came together. And like, they just was like, they were kept wanting to talk about like governance, weighted voting and like all this stuff. And I was like, guys, just, I like, I really, they, I had so little patience for it. Like with, with all the love, I was like, yeah, just like figure it out. Just whatever you want to put is totally fine. I don't

[27:21] Now that we're on the other side of this vote, I'm so grateful for them putting the thoughtfulness into that and not just being like, whatever, just like, who cares? I remember when we were in Nashville, we had a call with them about it. [27:33] And you and I were like on, like for some reason laying on the floor with the, uh, zoom call on and like listening and talking. We were like, totally great. That sounds good. That sounds good too. Let's try that. And like really very little pushback. Not invested. They get it. They know what's up. And now I was like, um, should have been deeply engaged in those conversations. I know. I know. They're so, they're so good to us and they, they really designed it well. And, and all that to say that like, [28:02] It's really important who you give advice. [28:08] sort of that, I guess, power is a weird responsibility. Yeah. Who you give the responsibility to, to really weigh in on, on stuff. So, um, yeah, just a quick shout out to them. So we had the Dow vote and then we had our core team call. So vote went out on Sunday, had a core team call on Tuesday and on the core team call, it was like feelings check in on the agendas, like feelings check in on the vote. Like how's, how are people feeling about it? And yeah, [28:33] I went last and I shared my feelings and Parker was like, I'm so proud of you. It was the sweetest thing. [28:40] I was like, this is really hard. Like this is really hard. Yeah. Um, I feel like I've had to come to terms with the fact that I have, uh, issues with authority and that's why I make a great founder. I'm like, I'll figure it out. Um, but no, it was, it was hard, but it was, we've learned a lot.

[28:58] I think that... [29:00] We have learned a lot about how we want to like adjust the way that we do proposals and voting. And I think we've learned a lot about, um, [29:09] Just being a down and what you need to be thinking about. [29:13] Totally. Let's dig into what happened. Honestly, it was, it was totally fine. And like, it was, it wasn't contentious. And it was just a very healthy expression of sort of what a DAO is. But basically, yeah, we submitted a proposal. [29:26] Some people, there was a lot of conversation about it, and there was then some voting around it. Ultimately, the proposal has passed. [29:35] But within that, we sort of... [29:38] really became present to what happens when you, yeah, just, I guess, distribute the responsibility of [29:46] voting and giving feedback to a proposal to people that don't have the context for it. So if you're not setting up your DAO members for success by giving them like full visibility of everything that's going on and like... [30:01] And maybe that's an impossible task, by the way. Like that may or may not be possible. Like because we did the best we could and people were still asking a ton of questions. But like that context sharing is so important. And to ask people to vote, [30:16] on something where they don't have the full context, like, yes, it's frustrating for the person who put that proposal in, but it's also, like, not fair to them. And so I think that that's, like, the biggest thing that we learned. That was the biggest takeaway for me. Yeah. I was just, like, the hardest thing about...

[30:31] having a job, I think. I find this in my day job. [30:35] in a normal web two job with like no flat org whatsoever. It's like, [30:41] Contact sharing and like how the work is evolving and how the thinking is evolving and how that will trickle down to whatever everybody is working on on a day to day is really. [30:50] Truly one of the most difficult things of an operation and like an organization, I think. And in a DAO, that's like 10 X because you're working asynchronously. You're working at different like, um, [31:02] speeds and knowledge of what's happening across the DAO, your siloed to different aspects of your guild. [31:09] Um, and so it's really, yeah, like you said, like, it's not actually fair and setting up people for success when you say, Hey, this is a thing that we want to do with no context for how it feeds into this larger, um, um, [31:22] like, [31:23] our larger thinking of how we want to build out boys club, the risks and like, and experimentation that we want to do. And, [31:31] Really thinking like, I think the, so that was one thing, like context sharing really difficult in normal jobs, very, very hard in DAOs. And then you're giving people responsibility without that context and that doesn't actually work. And so how do you adjust for that? [31:44] Really practically, like, is that a Zoom call that you have to attend to hear about the proposal before you can vote? Like, there's things that I think really practically we will adjust based on how this went. Just to honestly... [31:56] be more efficient in the way that, [31:58] people learn about what's going on. And so that's one thing. The other thing for me,

[32:03] is like... [32:05] I have found in my work that in any work that I feel like startup, [32:11] Web3, wherever... [32:13] that I... [32:16] The work becomes clear in doing the work. Like, you have an idea of, like, a thing you want to do, a risk you want to take, a bet you want to make, and... [32:25] What that thing ends up being at the end of the day is so different from what the original thought was. And that's, [32:32] what's fun and inspiring and exciting about, [32:36] work to me. And this... [32:40] sort of structure that DAOs have where you put together a proposal, you put it out, it's voted on, it's passed or it's not passed. [32:48] like doesn't really allow for like the evolution of whatever that thing is. [32:53] Because, I mean, it will eventually, but like so many of the questions were like, well, what about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? And I'm like, yeah, totally. But like. [33:01] All of that will get... [33:03] is part of the work. Like figuring all these things out is what needs to happen next. So that – I don't know how to solve for that. And like something you've said is like, oh, this is part of the overengineering that is really difficult about a DAO structure is like – [33:18] the flexibility to, and like this vote passed with like flying colors. There was no, there was one abstain and there was no nose against it. So it's not like there was like contentious whether it was going to pass, but like, I think the reason for that is people trust us. But if I was like,

[33:33] a new person to a DAO who had a proposal and was submitting it, there would be, I would feel a lot less ability to be like, I'm going to be flexible about what this thing becomes because I want it to be the best version of what it can be, as opposed to being like really true to what the original idea was just because that's what was voted on. Because that's what their proposal is. Yeah. Totally. The proposal is like this static document, literally. And an idea is like the best [34:03] changed like so many times like throughout that process and like and as it should as it should and and it made it stronger and better every time that it did yeah and like more sort of adapting to different needs that came up or different ideas or different opportunities that sort of presented themselves and so yeah sort of mapping like [34:24] Mapping an idea into a proposal makes it this thing in this moment in time when actually for the stage that we're at, which is very early stage startup, essentially, trying to sniff out different opportunities, trying to pull on... [34:41] threads that we see to like [34:44] make something happen. Um, [34:46] I don't know that... [34:48] Like, or rather like, [34:51] Yeah, there just needs to be a lot of grace in sort of... [34:55] how people are thinking about that proposal to like allow for it to evolve and change. Like even, even a week later after putting in that proposal, we've had like 10 conversations and the project has moved on like considerably. Like we've like changed this thing and that thing about it. And, um, we're being sort of cagey, but like, well, we'll reveal some details soon about like what it is that we're talking about. But, um, yeah.

[35:19] Yeah, I think that that's the biggest sort of thing that I'm coming up against is like, [35:26] Right now, we're trying to like... [35:31] just trying to find where the opportunity is. And we're looking under every rock and in every corner and like, just really need the space to be able to like explore and the Dow structure is [35:43] It's tough to do that within those confines. It's sort of like in conflict of that. Yeah, it is a little bit in conflict. [35:49] But something Rachel said to me... Oh, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. That was actually really... [35:55] helpful is she was like because I got coffee with her the next morning and I was just like oh my god this is really hard and she was like I was like this just feels so inefficient and [36:04] Like such an inefficient use of everybody's time. And she was like, yeah, that's not the point. [36:08] Like, [36:09] The point is not for it to be efficient. The point is that people feel... [36:13] Um, [36:14] a part of the decision. They feel like they can put their... [36:18] expertise and thinking and be owners in what this thing becomes. And that's actually a really inefficient process at this time. Maybe that'll get more efficient over time. But I was like, wow, that's actually really... [36:30] That was really helpful for me because I was like, oh, the point is not efficiency. [36:34] And when you remove that from it, it all feels a lot less loaded because you're like, oh, that's fine. It's fine. Shout out to Rachel. Shout out to Rachel. Okay. What's the second? High pitched. [36:44] High Pitched. Yeah. Okay. So High Pitched is our pitch workshop where we get a bunch of startups from the Boys Club ecosystem into a room, a virtual room. Into a Discord stage. Into a Discord stage and have them pitch. And basically we...

[37:03] Did our first one last week and we invited, yeah, a bunch of people. Well, 30 people applied. [37:11] 30 startups applied, yeah, which was huge. Which was amazing. Yeah, because literally you sent one tweet out, so it was pretty awesome. I know. It was amazing to see. [37:20] Yeah, we got like a panel of... [37:23] sort of people from the boys of course team and then also invited a couple of our VC friends and, uh, [37:29] and some marketers and basically to sort of give feedback on the pitch. So the founder comes up, they do it for 25 minutes and then like that. Five founders, yeah. Then the panel sort of gives feedback and we're sort of helping them shape the story and helping them sort of. [37:45] get in front of some questions that come up and whatever. This idea evolved from... [37:51] Basically, like, a realization that I think we had a couple weeks ago, which is, like, man, we've been really successful at, like, onboarding women to Web3, in a way. Like, there's now, like, a bunch of people in our Discord, and they've... [38:07] come in from various corners of different industries, all different types of women doing all different types of things. And now we're like, okay, we're here. Here we are. We're ready to do something. What do we do next? And so I think that this has come really naturally out of this idea that, okay, actually what it seems like there's a lot of energy for is to build stuff together and to really be a part of the,

[38:36] like be a meaningful part of the design phase of this next era of the internet. Like not just like saying that, but like actually meaning it. And I really get that, that sense of energy from, from the community. And so, yeah, this, this sort of idea that we're, [38:50] really nurturing builders and ideas is something that was like a very deliberate step that came from that. Um, yeah, that's, I feel like it, it, it twofold nurtured that builder community. And [39:01] we've had like all these VCs sliding into the DMs and, and, [39:07] We've been like, this is really cool. This is great. And we're not raising. And how can we nurture that community of investors as well to really bring value and benefit our community? And how do you match those values? [39:23] How do you match both of those sort of expertise on the builder side and on the VC side to bring value and also opportunity for people who are a part of our community? So it was, I feel like, very successful, very fun. We had a great time. What I also found super cool was that, and totally unexpected, so we had like a chat. We had a Discord stage, which is basically all audio for people who don't know. [39:53] listening could write in and ask questions and stuff like that. And one of the things that [39:58] came out of that feedback was people, so many people were like, wow, listeners were like, I'm learning so much by just listening to this conversation. Like I'm learning about the space. I'm learning about pitching. I'm learning about like how investors think. And I, I,

[40:13] Like didn't anticipate that that would be part of it, but just that like casual listeners were like, wow, this has been really informative was so great. [40:20] Yeah. Really, really great. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I'm – [40:25] For the record, manifesting a boys club demo day. [40:28] Maybe it's this year, maybe it's early next year, but I am envisioning some moment in time where we do... [40:37] Um, just speaking to sort of the VC sort of conversation and how we're leveraging those relationships. Um, what was another surprising learning coming out of high pitched? Um, yeah. [40:47] Oh, one thing that like I felt like was really valuable, just value, value creation. Here we go. But so like, I don't know if you had I mean, we've talked about this. So I know you've had this experience. But like when I [41:02] my for the first pitches I did like first entrepreneurial like okay I'm gonna go try to pitch some VCs in a past life and we're with a past company [41:10] Oh, not yet. Not boys. Yeah. Past company like other stuff. [41:14] I put this deck together, felt great about my deck, practiced this pitch like over and over and over and over again, like had my slides down, like whatever. And like my first... [41:24] Like... [41:25] conversation with a VC, like my first pitch. [41:29] Like we get on the call, it's a 30 minute call, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to get through the slides. And they're like, so tell me about your project. [41:35] And I'm like, oh, so do you want to go through the slides? And they're like, no, just like-- and I was just like shitting myself, because I was like, I do not know how to talk about this in a casual way.

[41:43] Yeah. No, no, no. Like I have slide one. Then we're going to talk about the problem. Then we're going to talk about the solution. And like, I, it was like, [41:50] really a different way [41:52] a completely different way of talking. And as a young person, [41:58] idiot new entrepreneur. I was just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not. And like, it was so traumatizing and like, yeah, [42:06] And I felt so stupid because I was like, oh, of course they just want to like talk to me. Like, what's going on? How are you thinking about this? Who are you? Yeah, there's humans. There's human humans. Yes. Yeah. And so what I liked about this structure was putting – there were no slides. Like you could drop your deck in, but like it was much more that. Like, hey, you have five minutes to tell me about like your project and why you want to do this and what the opportunity is and stuff like that. And I think that's actually – [42:32] There's a lot feels like there's less space for that type of thing. [42:36] And I, so there's talk about like, how is this going to evolve? How's the structure going to evolve? And I personally feel like it's sort of important to give space to that type of. Yeah. That's, there's a debate. There was definitely a lot of love for like doing side formats, but I think you're right that there's like a muscle around off the cuff pitching or like being able to sort of show the strength of the idea and bring through your credibility and show like how big your vision is without like having the crutch of sides. [43:06] here's the tam you know um anyway yeah so loved it [43:11] loved it it was so fun anyway next one yeah yeah it was so fun next one is august 19th

[43:16] So apply if you want to take part. [43:20] I link in show notes. I will drop in the link to apply in the show notes and show notes. Definitely, definitely apply. And then it, but also if you're, if you don't have a startup, if you're not ready, whatever, just come hang out and listen in. Okay. And that's, that's that. [43:50] Thank you. [43:51] Like, I actually have some feelings I need to, like, work through with you. Let's go. LFG. [43:55] Before we get into those feelings, I have other feelings. Oh, no. A feeling layer cake. A feelings chicken on the feelings chicken. [44:04] I'm exhausted. [44:08] I... [44:09] Okay, we have gotten continuous feedback. I love your podcast. I cannot believe how vulnerable you guys are, which is like, like scary. Every time we're like, what do we say? And why do people feel this way? And I'm just like, ah, and for clarification, where why do we feel this? Why do people think we're being so vulnerable? [44:28] vulnerable [44:30] - Yeah. - When we get that feedback, it's just as immediately like, "Oh, I didn't realize I was being..." - So vulnerable. - I mean, we're just like sort of... So, like, what did we say that people are like shocked by it, that we could possibly be saying those things because... [44:42] I know that we talk very candidly, but...

[44:46] Right. [44:47] When you hear that feed... [44:50] Yeah, when you hear that feedback, it's like, oh, wait, what are we saying that people are, like, finding so, like, odd? Authentic. [44:57] so anyway all that's like just a quick note we're not changing our we're not changing anything we're going to continue being i guess as vulnerable as we've been but like it's funny feedback to get because it's funny feedback and yeah [45:10] I have my first regret. [45:12] my first regret of how vulnerability hangover i last i think it was last podcast talked about [45:20] That... No, maybe two podcasts ago. Anyway, having the... [45:24] videos, you have to go listen to it if you don't know, because I'm not going to explain again, but like [45:28] I did some video work for some, I don't even know if you can call that, testimonial work for an NFT platform. I was really insecure. I brought so much personal, my own baggage to it and talked about it on the podcast. That was an error. I should not have done that because... [45:47] the wonderful and the angel human being who coordinate everything. I've made me think was a producer on this thing, like was so great. So great in those in that day as well. Like, [46:01] Send me an email and like... [46:03] Had this really thoughtful response because she listened to the podcast episode and she felt bad. And I was like, I feel like such a piece of shit because this has nothing to do with her. It has everything to do with my own. Hurt people hurt people, Dina. Hurt people hurt people.

[46:17] Anyway, I'm feeling so much regret and I don't know what to do besides. I mean, I obviously responded to her email and but... [46:25] all I can do is like call it out on this podcast that like don't call her out don't call it no no no no no I can call myself out on this podcast yes yes and say like I that was about me and not about anybody it was 100 about you it was I mean I've I felt like that was obvious in our conversation where you were like I am so I am an exposed raw nerve in this situation and it like this every I am just triggered because of all my existing insecurities and in this space yeah [46:55] listening in that that maybe sounded like a criticism. [46:58] I mean, there definitely was some criticism. So, like... Anyway. Anyway. So, I'm feeling that that happened. I got the email and I was like, I... [47:07] I hate myself. And then I was like, I need to stop being so vulnerable on this podcast. And then following up with saying, I have some things that I want to talk about with you that I feel insecure about. That I have some feelings about. Okay. Okay. [47:22] We're doing it live. I don't know what these are. I just like, I'm feeling... [47:28] very... [47:29] Useless. [47:31] as a co-founder of this thing. [47:35] And like, I don't feel like I'm bringing value. I'm feeling super insecure about that. And like, [47:41] Just... [47:44] There are... [47:46] I feel like we have a rhythm of how we talk to each other. I call you on my way to the office in the morning.

[47:52] And I call you when I leave. And then usually we have boys club calls after work. And then I call you. [47:59] Wow, I'm going to bed. So we're in communication. And usually those calls are like, hey, I have this insight or hey, I had this meeting or hey, I had this thought and like for both of us. And like, I'm feeling this thing about this and I think we should make this move or this email come in, whatever. [48:15] And that's shared. [48:17] And I feel like the past few weeks, it's just been like, [48:21] You having all of that and me just being a sounding board and not providing a lot of like insider value or like – [48:31] work to the table and I feel really bad. And it makes me feel like everybody, the, what I do, [48:38] I feel like you resent me for it. These are the feelings that you resent me. Okay, the laughter is a good sign, I think. No, I'm dying to hear what comes next. Yeah. That the whole team knows and feels it. And thinks like, wow, this woman is a dud. And like, what is this? And it makes me feel like... [48:58] sad [49:00] Because the reason that I'm feeling that way is because, like, I'm just giving a lot to my day job. And I'm coming and showing up to the work with two brain cells to rub together. [49:12] And... [49:13] you [49:13] I... [49:14] I don't enjoy that feeling at all. And that's the feelings check-in. [49:19] Um, well, I mean, I think that there's like,

[49:25] a season that we're in. I just need to know right off the bat though if you're feeling resentful. I'm not feeling resentful. I'm not feeling resentful. You promise? [49:32] Yeah, I am feeling a little bit resentful to have to do the emotional labor to make you feel, to make sure you know. [49:40] that I'm not resentful. You know what? Does it help that I really appreciate it? And it really means a lot to me. [49:45] Does that help at all? Yeah, no, it helps. It helps. Okay. It helps. I, it helps. But I, I just... [49:52] I don't need you to tell me that I'm valuable and that I'm good at my job. I just need to know that you know... [49:58] That you're not upset at me. I'm not upset at you. I'm not upset at you. And that you know that I am aware that I'm not bringing a lot to the table right now. [50:05] Yes. Okay. I know that. I get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get that. [50:10] My request to you would be to trust in our relationship that if I were upset with you, I would say it. [50:18] I would say something. [50:19] Great. So that's my request. [50:21] Wow, I feel a thousand times better. Do you? I do. I feel myself resisting to sort of... [50:30] to doing a lot of like nurturing around you feeling insecure, uh, [50:34] About your role because I feel like I'm enabling you. I feel like I enable it when I do that. Obviously, I'm not. [50:42] I don't resent you at all. And like, and you bring so much value to the table every day. That's, that's kind. Thank you. Every single day. I don't want you to have to do emotional labor. But like, [50:51] When I'm doing this emotional labor, I feel like I'm...

[50:55] I feel like I'm enabling a part, like something in you that, okay. Okay. That like, I don't see, I don't see that getting fixed. [51:02] By me saying it, that's actually what it is. I can continue to say that. And like once every couple months, this type of thing comes up and like we have this conversation and it's totally fine. We'll continue to do it for the rest of our lives while we're having Peking Duck as 80-year-old women in Vegas together. Like this will probably continue to happen. But – [51:20] I... [51:22] Don't, I know, like the frustration is that I know me saying it doesn't change anything. [51:27] Yeah, I know. It's the same as me asking Matt all the time, am I fat? Do I look fat? [51:32] no matter what he says. Yeah. And we're going to have that conversation two weeks later. Right. No matter what he says. And so there's that. But I think for you, what you should, what you can hear from it is... [51:45] You are so smart and so thoughtful and so good at your job. [51:51] that and i am so aware of that and i think everybody around who works with you is aware of that and [51:59] in my worst self [52:02] it makes me feel bad about myself in my life. And that's where it comes from. I don't like that. I don't like that. Well, I mean, that's just, we're being honest here. So yeah, we are. And so that's where it's coming from. And I think that's actually a really great thing. Like for you, you're so, thank you. I mean, I, I, I, [52:22] I wish that syndrome was felt by people at my day job. It's so nice to have that here. I don't feel like that's all the case at my actual job. I hate that for you. I hate that for you. Yeah, it's okay. Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me about it, as you've done many times before. I will continue to do that. I will continue to do that. Thank you. I will continue to be a totally open space for those feelings. Also, there's a thing that you do, which I totally get, where when someone wants something from you, you want to give it to them less.

[52:49] Like you will be like, I know this is what you want, but I don't really want to give it to you because you don't really want. I'm just like, okay. And there's a little bit of that as well. Yeah. No, definitely. Definitely. That's not, that's not fair. Um, okay. What, what's your feeling? What's going on with you? [53:04] I'm feeling antsy. [53:06] I'm feeling antsy. I'm feeling like... Okay. I'm feeling... Yeah. Like, I want to make some moves. I... Like... [53:16] I'm feeling like... With Boys Club or with other things? With Boys Club, yeah. Okay. I'm feeling like I want to make some moves with Boys Club. I'm feeling like... [53:25] I don't know, like sort of [53:26] Thank you. [53:27] I can like see the ceiling of Boys Club and its current iteration. Mm-hmm. [53:32] And I, yeah, I'm feeling sort of like antsy by that. And I want it to... [53:39] I want boys club to be a big thing. And I'm like, I'm spending like pretty much all my waking hours, like trying to like, [53:45] unlock what [53:47] that is and like what how like what deals to make with who like what are the moves like there's like a chess board in front of us right now and I'm like what's like where are the moves and like also recognizing that like [54:02] We have like a really... [54:05] rare... [54:06] incredibly rare and incredibly valuable and precious asset in this community. And like, just, yeah, I just wanted to do justice by it. And like, [54:13] And I think the next couple of moves that we make are going to be really important. So I'm just feeling like... [54:18] Um...

[54:19] you [54:20] Yeah, like I'm just spending a lot of time like [54:23] in like a... [54:27] like a wanting person. [54:28] mode, which is, I think, probably pretty tiring for my husband. [54:33] What do you think... [54:35] Thank you. [54:36] would, what would need to happen [54:40] for that feeling to go away. [54:42] I think the problem is that I don't think it ever goes away. No, no, no. But like, I know that there's like an always pushing that is... [54:50] a requirement [54:52] of a business, a founder. [54:54] Like you, you never stop that. Like, yeah. And I see that in great founders all the time. And [55:01] Like... [55:02] I work for one now and I'm like, oh, it's never enough. We're always on to the next. And I'm like, oh, this is what it feels like to work with me. Where I'm like, that was great, but like where are we going next? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always. And I think that's like your... [55:14] mode, but I do think there's times where it spikes, where you're like, there's something here. [55:20] that needs to happen? Yeah. And what would, to get you to like a, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's... [55:29] It's unlocking... [55:33] The... [55:34] sort of business model around boys club. And like, I'm going to say the word monetization. That's not exactly right. Cause it's not about monetizing boys club or monetizing the community, but like figuring out what the path is to, um, [55:46] Have it. [55:48] Sustainability. Yeah. And to become a sustainable thing. And I know that that path exists. I'm sure it does.

[55:56] It's just like... [55:57] I'm just spending all my time like trying to... [56:00] Game out. [56:01] where and how. And then like when I sort of get a sense of like, oh, it can be maybe over here. It could be maybe over here. Maybe it's a combination of all these things. Then I'm like antsy to start like, [56:11] doing some deals and like shipping stuff out to try testing it and like feeling... [56:16] Yeah, just like I'm always feeling like sort of behind the ball. I'm feeling like – and I don't want to like get left behind and like have – [56:23] So just that. That's my feelings. [56:26] Yeah. I think my guess of what would make that antsy feeling go away is... [56:33] that [56:35] There are some ideas in motion that we're working on right now, but they aren't like... [56:42] on a track. They're sort of like, "ee," like floating around. And I think like, [56:47] I feel that too of like, what is the thing that's like that we're still... [56:55] going to be figuring it out. We're still going to be working on it. But like, it's at least like, there's a movement in on something. And like, [57:03] I think that's what you're sort of feeling and I'm sympathetic to that and I like see it as well where I'm like, okay, we do that together. Like, [57:11] Get them. [57:12] momentum up on this stuff. [57:14] cool another day another dollar another day another feeling all right okay

[57:29] Time for draft tweets. It's time for draft tweets. Do you have any? [57:34] I have one, but it's visual. [57:36] It's a visual gag. Perfect for the pod. Go first. You go first. Okay. [57:43] I don't know whether, like, it's... [57:46] I don't know whether or not to tell sort of about the picture first or to tell the tweet first. I will tell the tweet first and then I'll show you the picture. Great. Okay, me. I'll grab a salad for lunch. It's so hot. I just want something light. [57:59] France, here's a whole wheel of camembert. Bon appétit. And the photo is literally a lunch that I got served, which was like a roasted, I literally thought I was ordering a salad. [58:09] And like an entire world of grilled camembert showed up. [58:16] That sounds perfect, honestly. I had a great time. What a great surprise. Yeah. That's great. Okay. I have a few. [58:27] I think I'm going to go with this one first because it's apropos for this pod. [58:33] First proposal voting going down in the discord looks like I'm going to need to explain to my therapist what a DAO is. [58:42] There's that. And then that's great. That's really good. Thank you. That was that was a co-presenter. [58:52] authored with Rachel because we were talking it through and she's like, oh my gosh. Um, and then the next one also sort of visual. Um,

[59:00] The tweet is... You know when you make some things uppercase, some things lowercase, so it looks really chaotic? Okay, that's what's happening through this whole thing. And it says... [59:09] It's Leo season, she says, with no knowledge of what this means. [59:14] Those are mine. Oh, I think you should send out the therapist one. [59:20] Okay, great. Great, great, great. Yeah, just fire it off. Fire it off. Okay. Great. All right. Great. Okay. Bye. [59:27] *outro music*