In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Alex Watts (ThogardPvP), Co-founder and CEO of Fastlane. We start by breaking down Fastlane's recent deal with Chainlink for their product Atlas—ThogardPvP walks through how it was structured and who actually got paid (spoiler: no one got rich). From there, we get into the emerging trend of acquihires and licensing deals in crypto and why they might be setting venture investing back. That leads us into a broader conversation about the two types of founders in tech: those who are genuinely mission-driven versus those treating "founder" as a career path for status and quick extraction. We also talk about why right now might be the best time for VCs to allocate to crypto, before closing out with a tour through Silicon Valley history—military-industrial spending, the case for a DARPA for crypto, and what it means to be a gardener in Ethereum's infinite garden.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Founder and CEO of Fastlane
(01:27) - Chainlink acquires Atlas
(06:32) - The way the deal was structured
(12:12) - No one got rich off the deal
(16:39) - Oppose the license and aquihire model
(21:53) - This is what regulations are for
(26:03) - Focused on Monad
(27:50) - Founders make a choice
(29:30) - A little bit of a tangent
(31:10) - Things startup founders say
(34:57) - Not all VCs are the same
(39:15) - The sociopaths are scamming in AI right now
(42:15) - Best time to allocate capital to crypto is now
(45:18) - It's difficult to not be dumb
(46:33) - Piero Scaruffi's "A History of Silicon Valley"
(49:00) - Internet Capital Markets
(51:31) - Garden Curator to King Maker

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice. The host does contract work for Heliax, a public goods laboratory, focusing on Anoma.