Alon Goren on early-stage venture, crypto market structure, stablecoins, tokenization, founder obsession, why regulation is not the finish line, and the human experience building stuff
Thanks for the shoutout! I think I mentioned in there that a lot of the things resonated with me while you were talking - both the hopes and challenges of being in this space. (I've been in crypto since 2013 so I've seen a lot of a lot.)
The markets lately has made a lot of things uncertain but we're still doubling down because my gut tells me that we're still getting started and there's still lots of opportunity to be had. Is it rational? It is logical? Uh well...in the short term, no. But nothing else makes sense to me at this point, even when the markets going down. Both me and my co-founder have founder-itis, for sure, lol.
Everything is relative even when it’s bad. Capital and talent and networks migrate to the least bad space (shout to Brent @santiagocapital for that lesson) so the inevitability of crypto and stable coin rails in a tokenomic economy. However the walking wounded zombies projects in crypto that will survive but not die are more numerous than those few relatively stronger and more entrenched networks that will consolidate the space before it grows.
Long BTC and ETH and maybe one or two others for that reason over the next ten years.
Founders need to find ways to bring their solutions to the rails that will be here and not be religious about it. Beta was better tech than VHS but VHS won for example.
Overall the layers that get built above might be exclusively be used by agentic beings not humans but humans can still own the supply and and collateral they will need so that’s the vantage point an investor should take and founders should just keep solving real problems for the customers that need and want it and be rigorous in their re assessment of whether human adoption matters at all.
Yeah I agree - the industry got caught up in memecoins this last cycle and didn't emphasize the solutions part enough. A lot of people who I knew were working on real products got overlooked and the industry as a whole is struggling as a whole now.
Right now investment money is heavily focused on AI and stocks right now but there are signs that the growth is unsustainable - when that happens, crypto is likely to be part of people's diversification strategy. (Even Ray Dalio said he has about 1% in Bitcoin just as a hedge, and he looks at *everything*.) But we're preparing for the day to have something ready when that happens.
I suppose there's a logic behind what we're doing, but it doesn't *feel* that way a lot of the times, lol. Most people don't even begin to think about the macro stuff.
Good interview. Alon understands the business of VC. 👏
Thanks for tuning in and yes I agree on @alon
Thanks for the shoutout! I think I mentioned in there that a lot of the things resonated with me while you were talking - both the hopes and challenges of being in this space. (I've been in crypto since 2013 so I've seen a lot of a lot.)
The markets lately has made a lot of things uncertain but we're still doubling down because my gut tells me that we're still getting started and there's still lots of opportunity to be had. Is it rational? It is logical? Uh well...in the short term, no. But nothing else makes sense to me at this point, even when the markets going down. Both me and my co-founder have founder-itis, for sure, lol.
https://ryangtanaka.substack.com/p/teia-cafe-a-dao-powered-blueprint
Everything is relative even when it’s bad. Capital and talent and networks migrate to the least bad space (shout to Brent @santiagocapital for that lesson) so the inevitability of crypto and stable coin rails in a tokenomic economy. However the walking wounded zombies projects in crypto that will survive but not die are more numerous than those few relatively stronger and more entrenched networks that will consolidate the space before it grows.
Long BTC and ETH and maybe one or two others for that reason over the next ten years.
Founders need to find ways to bring their solutions to the rails that will be here and not be religious about it. Beta was better tech than VHS but VHS won for example.
Overall the layers that get built above might be exclusively be used by agentic beings not humans but humans can still own the supply and and collateral they will need so that’s the vantage point an investor should take and founders should just keep solving real problems for the customers that need and want it and be rigorous in their re assessment of whether human adoption matters at all.
Yeah I agree - the industry got caught up in memecoins this last cycle and didn't emphasize the solutions part enough. A lot of people who I knew were working on real products got overlooked and the industry as a whole is struggling as a whole now.
Right now investment money is heavily focused on AI and stocks right now but there are signs that the growth is unsustainable - when that happens, crypto is likely to be part of people's diversification strategy. (Even Ray Dalio said he has about 1% in Bitcoin just as a hedge, and he looks at *everything*.) But we're preparing for the day to have something ready when that happens.
I suppose there's a logic behind what we're doing, but it doesn't *feel* that way a lot of the times, lol. Most people don't even begin to think about the macro stuff.