In this episode, we sit down with Andy Ellwood, Founder and CEO of Stretch, entrepreneur and technologist building at the intersection of money, data, and everyday decision-making, to explore how trust shows up in one of the most ordinary and consequential parts of life: grocery shopping.

Andy’s perspective on trust was shaped early, growing up in a household where a single grocery trip had to last an entire month. Those checkout lines became lessons in math, tradeoffs, and accountability – lessons that stayed with him as his career moved from selling private jets to helping build early-stage companies like Gowalla and Waze.

The conversation traces Andy’s journey from founding Basket, a crowdsourced grocery pricing app that exposed how dramatically prices can vary within the same city, to his current work at Stretch, where AI and structured data are being used to give families a clearer picture of what their weekly shopping should cost.

Along the way, we explore trust and transparency in everyday systems, how invisible incentives shape consumer behavior, why price opacity persists, and what it means to design technology that genuinely serves families rather than exploits confusion.

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In this episode, we sit down with Monique Jeanne Marrow, technology strategist, startup advisor, and advocate for ethical innovation, to explore how trust shapes the digital age. Drawing from her work with refugees, homelessness, and blockchain governance, Monique shares how technology can serve people, not just systems.

We dive into decentralized networks, the critical role of security and ethical design in AI and Web3, and the human side of innovation – leadership, vulnerability, and values-driven decision making. Monique reflects on embedding trust across fields – from digital identity to cyber psychology and the ethics of extended reality. Through stories of integration, resilience, and innovation, we learn how empathy, foresight, and careful governance can create technology that endures and empowers.

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In this episode, we sit down with Ceren Zeytinoglu of the Turkish Informatics Foundation, a strategist building bridges between AI researchers and climate innovators to strengthen global resilience. Drawing on her work co-creating the Global AI Alliance for Climate Action, Ceren shares how she connects Canada’s AI expertise with frontline climate needs across Istanbul, the EU, and Kyrgyzstan.

From developing early-warning systems for floods in the Third Pole to designing AI-powered microgrids, Ceren’s work demonstrates how research can move from lab to community. Along the way, she explores the practical challenges of aligning technology, policy, and human behavior, highlighting the need for explicit intent, presence, and adaptable solutions when systems are messy or resources are limited.

The conversation delves into how trust is built in practice, the alliances that make climate AI effective, and the playbook for taking innovations from prototype to deployment. If you enjoy the episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.

In this episode, Adam Flinter joins Mat to explore how trust shapes the worlds of venture, scale-ups, and cross-regional growth. Adam’s journey from BBC journalism to advising governments, VCs, and founders across the UK, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia gives him a rare perspective on how trust is formed long before deals are signed.
They discuss what founders often overlook when approaching different types of investors, why relationship-driven markets operate differently from transactional ones, and how defining an exit early can guide every upstream decision. The conversation also examines major trust failures – from FTX to eFishery – and what these moments reveal about fragility, accountability, and the slow rebuilding that follows.

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In this episode, we sit down with Gabriela Chang, co-founder of EthicHub, a blockchain-based platform connecting unbanked coffee farmers to global finance. Her journey from industrial designer to impact entrepreneur reveals how creativity can become a tool for inclusion and resilience.

Born in Chiapas, Mexico – a region rich in both biodiversity and cultural roots – Gabriela grew up believing that diversity and trust go hand in hand. That belief now drives her mission to redesign financial systems for those left out of them.

Together, Gabriela and Mat explore how trust can be measured, why transparency outperforms credit scores, and how farmers producing 80% of the world’s coffee can lead the next generation of sustainable finance. The conversation also touches on biodiversity, community resilience, and the possibility of a more responsible capitalism.

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In this episode, we sit down with Teodor Petricevic, Digital Partnerships and Accelerator Lead at UNDP’s Alternative Finance Lab and Community Manager for the UN Blockchain Community of Practice. From organizing punk shows in war-torn Croatia to building over 20 social enterprises across Europe, Teodor’s journey shows how trust is forged in unlikely places, and how those lessons now shape global blockchain initiatives.

We explore Teodor’s work building digital identity solutions for 800 million people excluded from civic life, scaling humanitarian payment systems, and uniting 25 blockchain ecosystems. He speaks candidly about the challenges of changing a legacy institution, the role of empathy and cooperation, and why scaling technology is about people, not just code.

His story reminds us that trust grows through solidarity, authenticity, and shared purpose – whether in a basement concert or a UN conference room.

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In this episode, we sat down with Bill Laboon, the Vice President of Ecosystem at the Web3 Foundation, part of the Polkadot Ecosystem. It’s one of the most ambitious blockchain networks ever built, focused on connecting independent blockchains through shared security and interoperability. But it’s not just infrastructure. It’s an evolving experiment in how governance, funding, and innovation can be decentralized and still work.

This conversation cuts deeper than buzzwords. We explore how Bill thinks about software ethics, what happens when AI and blockchain collide, and why truth, mathematically proven truth, may be the most important public good of the 21st century.

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In this episode, we sit down with Glenn Tan, Director of Global Affairs at Bybit’s Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA), to explore his journey from managing construction projects to building Web3 initiatives with global impact. Glenn shares how his early career in real estate and construction shaped his perspective on trust, resilience, and infrastructure, principles that now guide his work in blockchain and tokenization.

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In this episode, we sit down with Jose Manuel, digital identity and blockchain lead at the European Commission’s Digital Services Directorate, where he guides the evolution of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). From his roots in Spain to his role at the epicenter of one of the world’s most ambitious digital trust projects, Jose shares how culture, history, and policy shape Europe’s unique approach to trust.

The conversation explores how EBSI’s public–permissioned blockchain is bridging trust between member states, why Europe’s cultural lenses, from Estonia’s digital-first mindset to Germany’s caution on centralized data, matter for infrastructure design, and how real-world use cases like verifiable diplomas, supply chain traceability, and organizational credentials are redefining cross-border services. We also dive into the balance between privacy and digitization, the role of decentralization in EU policy, and the future impact on both companies and citizens.

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In this episode, we sat down with Gladstone Arantes Jr, Senior Advisor at Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES) and the driving force behind the Brazil Blockchain Network (RBB). From his upbringing in the suburbs of Rio to his vision for “trustless trust,” Gladstone shares how personal experiences, cultural insights, and even the unspoken rules of a mosh pit shaped his approach to transparent, accountable governance. The conversation explores why trustless systems may be the most radical idea in modern governance, how blockchain can rebuild social capital in trust-scarce environments, the idea of “crypto enlightenment” in democracy’s future, and the potential of blockchain and AI in areas like climate action and carbon markets. It’s a grounded look at building trust where it’s needed most—the heart of the state.

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Resources 

https://github.com/gladsjr