Today’s guest is someone I’ve hung out with a few times, but mostly we’ve banged into each other on Twitter over the years. Mike Dudas is a fireball of creativity. He got the nickname ‘Foodas’ because his weight bounces around like Oprah. And I call him the White, Jewish Oprah. I’m an LP in his fund, 6th Man Ventures, which he started with his pal Serge Kassardjian. Before that Mike was the founder of The Block, where I was a small personal investor who tried to talk him out of doing that. He’s been on every side of the field, up and down and around; VC Investor, Founder, Trader, you name it. Mike was the co-founder of Button, a mobile marketing platform. He’s worked at Google, Braintree/Venmo, and PayPal. Mike started his career in corporate M&A at Disney. He’s got a BA from Stanford and an MBA from Kellogg. There’s a lot to learn here, and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. 

Guest - Mike Dudas, Co-founder at 6th Man Ventures 

howardlindzon.com, 6thman.ventures 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @PanicwFriends, @mdudas, @knutjensen 

linkedin.com/in/mdudas 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

Show Notes: 

Introduction (00:38)

Welcome Mike Dudas to Panic with Friends (05:07)

Mike founds The Block around the end of the first crypto bubble and gets Howard’s advice. (06:16)

Being in the right role as a founder versus an operator. (09:31)

The business of Golf and the LinksDAO thesis. (11:16)

Operating and developing a high quality golf experience that’s accessible to everyone. (15:26)

If you don’t know crypto, just pay the 2 and 20. (19:34)

Using bitcoin as a store of value in a really high long-term inflation environment. (21:11)

Tokens allow you to have power in the network by incentivizing certain activities and helps with coordination. (22:21)

The smartest people in the world are not experts on which layer two solution will be dominant in five years time. (23:22)

We can't all be Zuckerbert; the world needs operators. (26:14)

Starting 6th Man Ventures. (26:38)

New York is back baby! (31:23)

Mike’s younger days and starting at Disney. (33:56)

The Vibe bio project. A DAO model for getting drug discovery through clinical trials and into development. (38:41)

Wrapping up. (40:39)

Closing thoughts. (42:19)