Wild User Interviews Podcast (Wuipod)

Mike Purvis is an engineer, builders, and awesome human being. Early NEAR Core, co-founder at Croncats, and current contributor to Cosmos.

Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation with Mike:

• Origins Story - Mike joining NEAR early days (2020) - working alongside founding team, hustle beast mode on.
• Serendipity - magic happens when people are bored together. Importance of IRL event - we are getting a castle in Burgundy!
• Founder’s Journey - difference between being a salaried employee and a founder.
• Product Market Fit v Value Creation at an early stage ecosystem. 
• Importance of User Experience - deconstructing what needs to be true for mass adoption to occur. 
• Market Trends - group think, follow the leader: everyone giving out grants, rise of the multi-chain raidooors (Scammers). Now everyone is too tight with grants - how can we support the builders?!
• Extinction events - setting a deadline for differentiation. 
• Community and culture - in search for a tribe. Soft skills that matter.
• Origins Story of Croncats!
• Automation and Long Running Smart Contracts 
• AVB shills a few product ideas as bait - #getMikeBack 
• Governance - decentralising tech v decentralising human structures. The return of the benevolent king?!

Follow on Socials -

Mike - https://twitter.com/mikedotexe
Croncats - https://twitter.com/croncats

AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

PlayEmber is a mobile games studio with over 100 million downloads. 

PlayEmber is making web3 easy & rewarding for players, developers & creators. Their web3 team are building the infrastructure and games to mass onboard web2 games into web3. they are already Top20 Blockchain Game and still in private beta.

On this wide ranging conversation with PlayEmber cofounders Jon and Hugo, we cover:

* On being a data driven organisation: how games are born and killed.
* Games as art of commodities? Balancing the creative nature of creating a game (Passion project) with the commercial realities of running a business.
* Inception: choosing to build a web2 to web3 onboarding engine that leverages their existing games over a fully web3 native game.
* Different typed of games and what it takes to build them (cost, demographics, game design).
* How the sausage is made: ad-revenue, and other privacy considerations when deploying on-chain.
* A vision to grow the NEAR ecosystem: 
* And more!

Resources 
PlayEmber Website - https://playember.com
Crystals of Naramunz - https://twitter.com/naramunz
NEAR Gaming DAO - https://twitter.com/NearGamesDAO
NEAR Foundation Q2 Transparency Report - https://near.org/blog/near-foundation-transparency-report-q2-2023
Ignas Defi - Endgame of NEAR Protocol (Blog Post about Data Availability) - https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-endgame-for-near-protocol-an

Follow on Socials
PlayEmber - https://twitter.com/play_ember
Jon - https://twitter.com/JonHook
Hugo - https://twitter.com/https://twitter.com/hugofurn
AVB - https://twitter.com/avbnear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Web3 Plug is the mastermind behind many great projects on the NEAR ecosystem and beyond. Plug agreed to come on the Wild User Interviews podcast as long as he could remain anonymous. Masked up and constantly moving in the middle of the night at an undisclosed location, we do DEEP...

Some of Plug's publicly disclosed affiliations include: co-founder at Minority Programmers, Chief Decentralisation Officer @ Banyan Collective, & Blunt DAO.

Some of the topics we cover:

• Origins of Minority Programmers: started as a joke...
• History and Evolution of Dev Hub: scope creep, parallel governance?
• All things NDC - feedback to AVB, Joe's Tweet, Illia dropping into chats, candidacy announcements, fighting for culture and more!
• Public funding - lessons and collaboration with Gitcoin.

Follow on Social Media

AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Plug - https://twitter.com/plugrel
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Banyan Collective - https://twitter.com/BanyanUS
NEAR Dev Hub - https://twitter.com/neardevhub
Minority Programmers -https://twitter.com/minorityprogram
Blunt DAO - https://twitter.com/BluntDAO
NEAR Digital Collective - https://twitter.com/neardc

Some of the things we cover:

* State of the NDC - airing and listing grievances from a Builder's perspective (Diving deeper into The Viral Tweet).
* Anatomy of a Revolution: AVB got sacrificed first for speaking out, now moderates are coming forward with a silent majority behind us.
* What happens when a chain's main product become's governance? Incentive design. Admins overpowering the will of Builder's in what was once a Builder's Blockchain.
* Ideological Battles: the Socialists versus the Meritocrats (UBI takeover of NDC, Builder's)
* NDC Shift from token holder voting to Any Human voting - questionable measures put in place that results in lack of confidence from OGs to run.
* Many ways in which contributors that are critical of NDC are ignored, written off and increasingly targeted. Scope creep ('misconduct' now a common threat to anyone who dares to dissent).
* Technology winning *despite* governance - similarities between Venezuela and NEAR governance.
* Key differences between building a Product - must solve a problem for people, be validated or die -, and Governance - the product is to build moats to stay in power.
* Jared & Joe's life before NEAR - learning about the value of money by hustling and grinding in the real world: past businesses, startup ventures (both successful and unsuccessful), and more!
* On creating a culture of self-improvement and excellent. Mentoring builders and developers.
* and more!

Resources:
The Viral Tweet: https://twitter.com/joespano_/status/1690406276113563648?s=20

NEAR Digital Collective: https://www.neardc.org/

Follow on Socials

Jared - https://twitter.com/jarednotjerry1
Joe - https://twitter.com/joespano_
Ready Layer One - https://twitter.com/ready_layer_one
Shard Dog - https://twitter.com/sharddog

Wide ranging conversation with Carolin Geier, co-founder at Mintbase and one of the five NEAR Community Treasury Trustees. This podcast is a short one but packed with goodies where we come, among other things:

* The beginning: from German Parliament researching 'Distributed Ledger Technology' to meeting Nate working on Blockchain and NFTs.
* Changing landscape from lots of talks and unfulfilled promises in 2018 to today 
* Role of Mintbase in NEAR - infra enabling many other projects to build on top.
* Challenges of Decentralisation: from Createbase to Community Treasury
* and more...! 

Resources

Mintbase Website - https://www.mintbase.xyz

Mintbase Demo Day (Youtube) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Eoy9YP86A
Mintbase Demo Day (Medium) - https://medium.com/mintbase/wrapping-up-mintbases-demo-day-f13fd192c8fc

Follow on Socials

Carolin - https://twitter.com/carolinwend
Mintbase - https://twitter.com/mintbase
AVB - https://twitter.com/avbnear

Alex Chiocchi is the Chief Product Officer at Pagoda. Prior to joining Pagoda, Alex was en early LinkedIn employee, founded and exited an AI startup (that used one of Illia's open source libraries), and worked at Kraken. On this wide ranging conversation we cover many things, including:

* What makes a good product - frameworks for building successful applications.
* Tension between Product and Engineering.
* Challenges of building towards a long term vision while also trying to survive in short term.
* How to recruit top talent at a grassroots level
* Current limitations of Javascript SDK and upcoming VM 2.0.
* Beyond Words. Pagoda needs to show real use cases and 'show the tech under the hood' (open source).
* Communicating through code. Creating an inviting environment, NEAR as the Builder's Blockchain
* Pragmatic Decentralisation - the case for smaller teams of top contributors.
* Insight into Pagoda future Pricing model (Open Source, Paid for Hosted, Innovative Ways to capture value)
* Tokenomics for the Attention Economy
* and more...!

Resources
* Pagoda Website - https://www.pagoda.co/
* Alex Personal Website - https://www.alexchiocchi.com/

* Building NEAR Protocol SuperApps (Banyan Collective) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n7uhqAqsQo&t=3s
* Onboarding Millions of Users to NEAR. Alex Presentation @ ETH Denver 2023 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aLifgUujAY
* The Upcoming Renaissance of SuperApps. Alex Presentation @ ETH Denver 2023 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n7uhqAqsQo&t=3s
* What NEAR's BOS can do for Enterprise and Builder, Consensus 2023 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR2QlP79Tcg

Follow on Social

https://twitter.com/AlexChiocchi
https://near.org/near/widget/ProfilePage?accountId=keyokey.near

https://twitter.com/PagodaPlatform

Podcast Recorded July 3, 2023

Illuminfti is the co-founder of Anti-social Labs and a core contributor to the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) Governance Working Group (GWG).

This is a wide ranging, unfiltered, and at times spicy conversation where we cover:

* Illuminfti Journey: from College in US to startup ecosystem in UK
* Crypto Counterculture. 
* Insights into NFTS on NEAR - Post Mortem.
* Complex relationship between Governance, Culture & Economics 
* How to attract and retain the best talent (while keeping grifters and scammers away).
* Compensation - how to align long term incentives?
* NDC Governance Structure Overview: House of Merit, Transparency Commission & Advisory Council.

Resources

* I-am-Human - https://near.org/sking.near/widget/IAH.Invite?referrer=wuipod.near
* I-am-Human Docs - https://i-am-human.gitbook.io/i-am-human-docs/
* Governance Working Group - https://near.social/#/mob.near/widget/ProfilePage?accountId=govworkinggroup.near
* NEAR Digital Collective - https://near.org/near/widget/ProfilePage?accountId=neardigitalcollective.near

RC DAO Election Report - https://courageous-camelotia-2ec.notion.site/RC-DAO-Investigation-00ed9f8d80b440bfb6f6fb06af51ca90#16df22ba9d344420867e61337170b948

Follow on Socials

Illuminfti - https://twitter.com/illuminfti
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
NDC - https://twitter.com/neardc
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod

Didier Pironi îs an OG of NEAR ecosystem. Previously served as Product Manager at REF Finance, the leading DEX on NEAR. Current he is co-founder at PikeSpeak, advanced analytics tool.

Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation:

* Journey from Consultant at PWC to becoming a web3 Builder
* The impact that working at Techstars and being surrounded by other founders had on him. Importance of role models.
* Differences in business environment and culture between UK and France
* The Origins of Pikespeak
* Product development cycle
* and more...!

References

https://pikespeak.ai 

Follow on Social

https://twitter.com/pironidi
https://twitter.com/pikespeak_ai

Podcast recorded live in Seoul as part of the ETH Seoul and Asia Buidl 2023 tour.

Discover the untold potential of Web3 as we navigate the world of blockchain technology with Agwn, the founder of Lidium – a Web3 education venture in Korea – and co-organizer of ETH Seoul. Together, we'll examine the unique aspects of Korea's history and culture that make it a fertile ground for crypto adoption, while also delving into the importance of education in this new era of decentralization.

Join our thought-provoking conversation as Agwn shares his passion for education and enlightens us on the power of self-sovereignty, the role of technology in learning, and the potential of blockchain to revolutionize society. From exploring the cultural phenomenon of MySpace to discussing the key players and impact of the Luna Collapse, we'll uncover the current landscape of Web3 in Korea and the challenges faced by its burgeoning ecosystem.

Don't miss this captivating dialogue, where we also dive into the technical aspects of the Ethereum ecosystem. Learn about Egon's experiences with educational initiatives in the local Korean blockchain community, and the importance of translations and international outreach for projects. Be a part of this enlightening journey as we unlock the possibilities of Web3 and its potential to transform education and our world.

Resources

* History of Korea - https://www.history.com/news/north-south-korea-divided-reasons-facts
* ETH Seoul, 2023 - https://2023.ethseoul.org/
* Ludium Website - https://ludium.oopy.io/

Follow on Social Media

https://twitter.com/Ludium_Agwn
https://twitter.com/eth_seoul_
https://twitter.com/ludium_official

https://agwn.medium.com/ 

Alina Tustanovska is the COO at INC4, CEO of Spaceport Labs, DAO Council member at AirDAO, friend with Open Forest Protocol. Most recently, Alina has been appointed as one of the five NEAR Community Trust Trustees.

This is the second instalment of the 'Get to Know the Trustees' Series, episodes where we dive deep to uncover who the stewards of the ecosystem are and what makes them a good candidate. On this wide ranging conversation we cover:

* Alina's journey into crypto
* How her company started developing custom crypto mining software in 2017
* The evolution from having in-house products to a Web3 Development Agency
* Different types of consulting. Ways in which value accrues at different service layers.
* Growing up and living in Ukraine
* How adversity driver excellence
* Taking ownership of your work. Being proud of output.
* Dealing with Trolls and other decentralised governance challenges
* How OFP requested INC4 to develop specifically on NEAR
* Experience from developing on NEAR since the very early days
* and more!

Resources

NEAR Foundation Launches Community Treasury - https://medium.com/near-digital-collective/near-launches-the-near-community-treasury-c14207c03c28

INC4 - https://inc4.net/
Pembrock Finance - https://pembrock.finance/
Open Forest Protocol - https://www.openforestprotocol.org/

Startup Nation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-up_Nation

Follow on Socials
https://twitter.com/ATustanovska 
https://twitter.com/INC_4_
https://twitter.com/PembrockFi
https://twitter.com/PembrockFi
https://twitter.com/OpenForest_