On the second episode of my educational podcast, I interview the CEO of the largest cryptocurrency company in the world, Brian Armstrong. I knew Brian years ago when Coinbase was a relatively humble startup and it's been mind blowing to see how far they've come in such a short period of time, managing the equivalent of billions of dollars in wealth in cryptocurrency. I admire Brian because he wakes up everyday determined to solve the 'meta-problem' of financial freedom using cryptocurrency, which he believes can indirectly alleviate poverty, increase entrepeneurship, and help reduce corruption in governments around the world. The President of the USA tweeted about Bitcoin and Facebook released it's "Libra" cryptocurrency, so it's an extremely exciting time in the space. I also ask him about his most ambitious ideas regarding the future of payments, and was pleasantly shocked by his answers. Enjoy! 

• On space exploration:
  • “I think it’s a thing that people need to do because they want to do it as opposed to there being a sound business argument for it”
• We’re currently living through the worst-case scenario of how social media might play out
• Good storytellers are capable of developing a sense of empathy and putting themselves in the shoes of the reader
• “Dystopia is an interesting idea because a lot of times, what science fiction writers are really doing is writing a kind of metaphorical story about the present. I think that we’re in a dystopia now in a lot of ways. A lot of things have gotten better, but what’s happening politically right now, what’s happening socially, is definitely trending in a dystopian way. That’s what we should be concerned about right now.”

If you want to speculate on the development of tech, no one has a better brain to pick than Neal Stephenson. Across more than a dozen books, he’s created vast story worlds driven by futuristic technologies that have both prophesied and even provoked real-world progress in crypto, social networks, and the creation of the web itself. Though Stephenson insists he’s more often wrong than right, his technical sharpness has even led to a half-joking suggestion that he might be Satoshi Nakamoto, the shadowy creator of bitcoin. His latest novel, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, involves a more literal sort of brain-picking, exploring what might happen when digitized brains can find a second existence in a virtual afterlife.

So what’s the implicit theology of a simulated world? Might we be living in one, and does it even matter? Stephenson joins Tyler to discuss the book and more, including the future of physical surveillance, how clothing will evolve, the kind of freedom you could expect on a Mars colony, whether today’s media fragmentation is trending us towards dystopia, why the Apollo moon landings were communism’s greatest triumph, whether we’re in a permanent secular innovation starvation, Leibniz as a philosopher, Dickens and Heinlein as writers, and what storytelling has to do with giving good driving directions.

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Erik Torenberg is a general partner at Village Global, a founder of OnDeck, the host of Venture Stories podcast and just an overall swell guy. 

In this episode, we talk about building career moats, building positive loops, finding asymmetric career bets, using twitter to your advantage, and a whole lot more.

It was a real joy to have Erik on the show. I loved this conversation and think you will too. 

I highly recommend following Erik on twitter at:  https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg 

And check out his excellent podcast Venture Stories:  https://www.villageglobal.vc/podcast/