Michael Shaulov is the co-founder and CEO of Fireblocks, the leading infrastructure platform powering digital asset operations for institutions. In this episode, we trace Michael’s journey from growing up in Israel and serving in Unit 8200 to building and selling his first company, and ultimately founding Fireblocks after uncovering critical security flaws in early crypto markets. We also dive into how Fireblocks found product-market fit by obsessing over a narrow set of customers, and how the company scaled through DeFi, market crashes, and hypergrowth.
-----
Altitude – the global business account with stablecoin and fiat bank transfers, free on-and off-ramps, 5% APY, corporate cards, bill pay, and more.
------
Questions or feedback? Email us at [email protected]
Website: https://thearchivepod.com
Twitter: https://x.com/Archive_Pod
------
Timestamps
(0:00) Intro
(0:34) Altitude
(1:31) Growing up in Israel, learning programming, and starting internet businesses
(7:49) Unit 8200 and the mindset it teaches
(16:05) First startup, mentorship, and early lessons
(20:20) Discovering crypto through exchange hacks
(28:18) Finding product-market fit with Fireblocks
(37:11) Enterprise-first vs bottom-up GTM strategy
(42:53) DeFi moment and catching the Compound wave
(51:24) Surviving Terra, 3AC, FTX
(1:08:44) What is fireblocks doing today
“At the end of the day as a small startup your goal is not to actually boil the ocean, your goal is not to promise everything to everyone, your goal is find the narrowest MVP that will appeal for a systematically well defined category of customers”