Digital Social Hour - Why EVERY Startup Needs Cloud Computing in 2024 | Kenny Li DSH #726

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

🌟 Why does EVERY startup absolutely NEED cloud computing in 2024? Dive into this electrifying episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly as we unravel the transformative power of cloud computing, featuring the brilliant Kenny Li from Manta Network! 🚀 Discover how what was once a mere developer's playground has become essential for scaling businesses globally. 🌐 From the rise of crypto to the pivotal role of Ethereum and Bitcoin in today's financial landscape, this episode is PACKED with valuable insights you don't want to miss! 📈 Join the conversation as we explore the future of blockchain, the challenges of scalability, and the exciting intersection of AI and politics. 💡 Don't miss out on Kenny's unique journey from selling blood to building a global tech brand! Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 #BitcoinPricePrediction #Bitcoin #TechWithLucy #CryptoTrading #BitcoinCrash #DecentralizedApplications #PublicCloudVsPrivateCloudVsHybrid #CloudComputingTutorial #BitcoinPricePrediction #CloudEngineerRoadmap CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 01:10 - Investing in Bitcoin 05:03 - Understanding Matic Network 07:38 - Bitcoin Mining Experience 11:09 - Experience with Gary Gensler 15:18 - Selling Blood for Cash 17:05 - Astrology Insights 22:40 - Working at a Major AI Company 28:37 - Parents' Meeting Story 29:57 - Growing Up in China and the US 30:49 - Archery Skills 33:03 - Future Plans for Manta 33:40 - Finding Orin APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Kenny Li  https://x.com/superanonymousk SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

of like a sandbox, a toy that only developers used in their spare time for little sort of experiments, right? But now you fast forward to 2024, and I don't think you can find any business that's launching today at scale that doesn't use cloud computing seriously. Yeah, and so I think like that inflection point shifted the mindset from like, oh, this is just a toy, some sandbox environment to we really got to seriously look at this. All right, guys, got Kenny Lee here from Manta Network. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for having me, Sean. Yeah. Good timing as crypto is making a little surge right now.

Yeah. There's some exciting stuff coming up. Yeah. You guys have been building this whole time though. I'd love to hear more about what Manta's up to. Yeah. It's been quite a wild ride. We actually started building about like three-ish plus years ago. Started off just as a pure research team. And we've expanded since then to about 65 people all around the world. Huge community always contributing to the project. And yeah, we've just built a lot. Happy to talk about it, going into any sort of details, but also happy to talk about just crypto and the space in general right now, because there's a lot. Happy to talk about it, going into any sort of details, but also happy to talk about

just crypto and the space in general right now because there's a lot of exciting stuff going on. Yeah. So let's talk crypto. For Bitcoin, do you see that as something that people should be looking into as an investment? I think so. Yeah. So I'll give a little bit of background on myself. So I started off just as a tech entrepreneur. I've been building stuff in the space for quite a while now. And my first company was in the cloud computing space. And this was specifically servicing enterprises. So helping businesses migrate over to cloud, take on newer technologies and all that stuff.

And I saw this really interesting inflection point in cloud computing because before this inflection point, people always viewed cloud computing as something that's kind of like a sandbox, a toy that only developers used in their spare time for little sort of experiments. Right. But now you fast forward to 2024 and I don't think you can find any business that's launching today at scale that doesn't use cloud computing seriously. Wow. Yeah. that's launching today at scale that doesn't use cloud computing seriously. Yeah, and so I think like that inflection point shifted the mindset from like, oh, this is just a toy, some sandbox environment to we really got to seriously look at this.

And as silly of an example as it is, social media is something similar, right? Like you see when the MySpaces of the world and the Facebooks of the world first came out and or metas, I guess now.aces of the world and the Facebooks of the world first came out, and, or metas, I guess now. But at the time, right, like, it was sort of a silly thing that teenagers and like, you know, young adults used. And even when Twitter first came out, X now, you know, I remember hearing about, oh, like, who would, who would ever want to listen to someone talk about their day, right?

Like that was the headline at that time, making fun of X. And now you see, you know, like people's tweets can make or break publicly traded companies, right? It can build or ruin international relations. And so there was that inflection point in taking social media seriously as well. I think in crypto and blockchain, we've also hit that inflection point, right? Like when Bitcoin first started, it was this cypherpunk movement. It's used for online gambling and like black markets and the dark web and all this stuff. And it wasn't really taken seriously. But now we're at a point where you see traditional large financial institutions

seriously look at this and include these into their portfolios that they deliver to their own clients. And so, yeah, I think like we're in the middle of that inflection point right now. So for me, I think that's a super exciting opportunity. Absolutely. So even though it's at an all time high, you see you still see potential in it. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think the you know, I'm not good at

predicting the prices or else I'd be a trader instead. But I do think that the trend is definitely in that direction. Got it. Any other coins you have your eye on right now? I mean, apart from Bitcoin, I think, you know, especially with the recent news, definitely Ethereum. And, you know, for people that I guess don't really know, the main difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum is that Bitcoin is purely for payments or store of value, people may say. But Ethereum, you can actually build applications on top of it. So the way you can think about Ethereum is like your iPhone, where on an app store, you can download an app and then all of a sudden you can use this app on your iPhone, right? Bitcoin doesn't allow you to actually put apps on it, but Ethereum does.

And so Ethereum is more so for this concept that people refer to as Web3, which is a decentralized network for computing and applications rather than a decentralized network for purely payments, which is Bitcoin. So I think both of those offer very distinct value propositions, both coming in like a decentralized fashion, right? So like if you're looking at Bitcoin and you're interested in decentralized payments, right? If you're looking at Ethereum, you're interested in decentralized compute. And I think both of them have their sort of space and their role in the industry. Got it. And you build Manta on the Ethereum network, right? Exactly. Yeah. So one of the issues with Ethereum right now, and I guess blockchain in general, is scalability, right? So basically, it is very expensive and slow. And so, you know, like if I went to a Starbucks right now

and tried to buy a coffee, if I tried to pay in Bitcoin, we're going to stand there for like 30 minutes. And even with Ethereum, right? Like if you pay using Ethereum on the Ethereum blockchain, we're going to stand there for like an awkward 30 seconds to a minute or so. And so, you know, how do we eliminate that awkwardness, that time friction, right? Because when people go to a website, and I'm sure this statistic hasn't been updated recently, but, you know, last time I read if kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down. The sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sports book partner of the NFL,

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Right? So people can't even wait two seconds for a website to load. People can't even finish a one minute long video. So how can you wait for your coffee for like a minute long, right? And so the question here is, how do we eliminate that minute long wait. And so a lot of teams, including Manta, are building sort of these scalability solutions to address that problem, make transactions faster, make transactions cheaper on the blockchain. Yeah, yeah. Because when you use a credit card, it's

instant. Yeah, exactly. Now you can even tap it on the yeah it's beautiful right yeah yeah yeah and and i think like that's that's kind of one of the issues with crypto as well because it's very complicated you know like you're in the crypto space i'm in the crypto space right like we've both transacted using cryptocurrencies in the past and you know i've been transacting with cryptocurrency for a really long time now. And every time I do it, I'm still very nervous. Yeah, same. Exactly, right? Like, is this the right wallet address? Double check, triple check.

Did I put in the right amount? Is it the right network? All this stuff. It's extremely complicated, right? And so even for people that have been in the space for years, if we can't even get past that fear, then how can we expect other people to? So I think that's a huge sort of barrier in usability. Absolutely. Yeah. can't even get past that fear then how can we expect other people to yeah right so i think that's a huge sort of barrier in usability absolutely yeah the worst anxiety i've had is sending crypto because i'm like oh my gosh i'm literally reading each letter yeah it's long it's

like 30 letters so and it's random so yeah so there's no there's no like rhyme or reason to it you know yeah and then the network some people don't know like there's usdt on ethereum network and also buying exactly so you can screw that up and then also like especially if you send on like a slower network like bitcoin you send it and you got to wait an hour in order to make sure that it did it or not yeah yeah oh man it's used to do bitcoin mining oh yeah yeah so that's how i started off actually it was in um it was in the cloud computing business that i was working on because in cloud computing right like you've just got to have your servers up 24 7 whether you're using them or not and so uh we just started experimenting with bitcoin mining using the servers that we already had um and so that's kind of how i like

got into the space wow so you so you were early. Relatively. Yeah, Bitcoin was probably like hundreds back then, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, some people got in even earlier, but that's super early. And it's really interesting that you mentioned that because back then, I remember when Bitcoin was like a couple of hundred bucks and I was thinking to myself like,

oh my gosh, this is it. There's no more, right? And so we're at the peak, guys. And then you see it go up and then you see it crash. And then, like, eventually you see it go up and you crash enough that you desensitize yourself to the entire price. And, like, you're not really holding on to one specific sort of market cycle. But I do think you start seeing the bigger picture here. Because you see this pattern of going up, going down, going up, going down,

and every single time, right? Not just the price, but also the adoption. And I think that's the most exciting part. And that's why we're heading in the same trajectory that I think, you know, it's only beginning. Crypto has to be the most volatile industry of all time, right? I don't know. The swings are nasty. The swings are definitely very nasty.

I think, I guess I don't know. I'm not really that literate in finance, especially not like financial history. I'm assuming that like penny stocks are also pretty volatile, but they probably don't reach as big of a market because it's not like, you know, global. So yeah. Yeah. I meant for like large market cap industries. Oh yeah. Real estate's pretty, pretty steady, I'd say. Yeah. Fiat's pretty steady for the most part. Yeah. I think so. I think so. Yeah. Crypto is definitely a beast of its own. Yeah. It's a mental game, but it looks like hopefully we're coming out of this bear soon. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, we're already at like another all-time high, right? Or close to

it. I think Bitcoin might've just hit it, yeah. I think so. 71. Yeah, yeah. Which is crazy because it doesn't feel like a bull right now. I know. Yeah. Right now it's, and I think it's a really interesting cycle, this market, because in the past, right, by this time at an all time high of Bitcoin, you would have seen so much liquidity and interest starting to flow into other crypto markets. Right. Right. All these other cryptocurrencies that are available out there. But I think this cycle, what you're seeing is all the liquidity and all the interest is highly concentrated on the Bitcoin and Ethereum side. I think one of the reasons there is because we're getting such serious institutional interest now.

You've got a small volume of big players that can bring in a ton of cash. And so you actually see these really heavy swings in Bitcoin as well. This volatility that you didn't really actually see in the bear market, right? I mean, like I think if you look in there over the past month,

you'll see like sudden dips in Bitcoin that you would kind of only expect from like the smaller cap cryptocurrencies. Yeah, so I think like it's a good indication that larger institutions are coming in, but the larger institutions also aren't going to be looking at all the meme coins and stuff on day one.

I stay out of the meme coins, man. I've lost way too much. I feel you. So you were the teaching assistant for Gary Gensler at MIT at one point? Yeah. Yeah. So I was his TA for his crypto courses. And so we met back in 2018.

That's when I went to go pursue my MBA. And I was in one of crypto courses. And so we met back in 2018. That's when I went to go pursue my MBA. And I was in one of his courses. And then afterwards, he asked if I would like to be his TA. And so I said, yeah, sure, why not? And we got along really well. And then later on, he asked me, oh, I've got this other crypto course too. Do you want to be my TA there? I'm like, yeah, sure, why not?

Nice. Yeah, yeah. So it helped him with a lot of the crypto courses. I'd say that, um, you know, Gary, from my experience, I remember when he first came into the scene on the SEC side, um, you know, like the, the market was definitely very bullish on Gary being the chairman because he was teaching these crypto courses at MIT. And I think eventually the market sentiments sort of shifted there.

Massively. Yeah. So what was his take back then on crypto? Do you think it's changed? No, actually. I don't think it's really changed much at all. In fact, I think he's, I would say at the time, and I'd still argue now, he's also one of the guys that I think is the most knowledgeable about the industry.

He definitely, at least at the time I remember, he read more white papers than anyone I've ever met, even in the crypto space. And way more than a lot of VCs that I've met. So definitely, he knows his stuff. space okay yeah and way more than a lot of bcs that i've met and so so definitely right like he knows his stuff um i think he's always uh taking it from like a lens of like how how do you how do you prove that this is not a security right and i think like you know anyone in his position would also have that same sort of responsibility to ask and decide from there got it yeah yeah they're going icc is going after Ethereum again, right? I think so.

Yeah, yeah. After the switch to proof of stake. Yeah, because they already fought that years ago, I thought. But I guess the proof of stake is a new thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Damn, that's rough. And they go after all the American exchanges, too. I think even beyond America. Oh, beyond. Right? I mean, they just finished up with Binance. Right. Which was quite an industry stir. Yeah, that's crazy.

It seems like people say on crypto Twitter, at least, that the SEC is pretty anti-crypto. Yeah. I think generally that's the sentiment that the market sees. I feel like even outside of the crypto space, right? Like general financial markets are feeling like the SEC is, you know, at times overreaching. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Must make your job tough too. I think in general, right? Like it's really interesting that you mentioned that because the interesting thing about crypto is that the space moves extremely quickly on the technical innovation, on the markets, on everything. And what I'm actually seeing right now is that because of this lack of regulatory clarity, a lot of the innovation, a lot of the talent, and a lot of the opportunity

is actually moving out of the West and heading into the East, right? Like when you go into parts of Asia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, right? Especially the developing countries. They're actually extremely educated and very forward thinking about crypto and its adoption. Wow. Right? Like in Vietnam, they're exploring policy that I think is probably going to be enacted sometime this summer around actually using cryptocurrency in the real world over there. So brick and mortar stores being able to accept cryptocurrency as payment and all this other stuff. It's unheard of in the US, especially not at scale

and especially not with government support. It's so controversial right in the U.S., especially not at scale and especially not with like government support. Right. It's so controversial right now. But you see these smaller nations really trying to embrace that. And as a result, you see this talent flow into those areas that also sort of present that opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah. You used to sell your blood. We got to talk about this. Yeah, sure. I didn't even know you could sell your blood. Oh yeah. Yes. I didn't know either actually. In fact, like, you know, throughout this whole entrepreneurial journey, I've learned a lot of things that I didn't know before. Another thing is actually astrology. I can get into that in a second. I'd love to. Yeah. So blood is really

interesting because, you know, most people, myself included, right? Like think, okay, you donate blood to the Red Cross and you get cookies and ice cream and water and stuff, right? But if you sell your blood to scientific research, they have to pay you for it. But it's not heavily advertised. The way I found out about it was through Craigslist. No way. That's sketchy, bro. There might be a clone of you somewhere. Could be. Could be. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is very interesting. They could have used my blood to test COVID. Who knows? Wow. But I'm just kidding. But so when I started my company in the cloud computing space, like I really didn't know how to run a business, right?

Like I didn't know how to scale. I didn't know how to sell. I didn't know how to run a business, right? Like I didn't know how to scale. I didn't know how to sell. I didn't know all the basics of like, you know, building a business. And so at the same time, right, like I needed to make ends meet financially. And so selling my blood was one of those ways. And I found the ad through Craigslist, desperate enough to go try it. And so once every six weeks, you get to go in and donate your, or not donate, but sell your blood. And I think they gave me about like a hundred bucks each time. Okay. And that's kind of one of the weird little things that I did in order to make ends meet as I continued to scale out the business.

Wow. That is crazy. We all start somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And then the astrology side. So I, after the cloud computing business, I tried my hand at building a, an app for consumers. And actually it was targeted to content creators. And so, you know, I'll pitch you the idea and you tell me if this is interesting for you. So the idea was, you're a content creator. You probably get tons of questions and tons of audience members that want to interact with you all the time. You can't sort through all the comments.

You can't sort through all the questions. And so as a result, right, like you don't have that engagement that you might necessarily want. So the app that we created allows content creators to set a price for, you know, responding, answering questions and all that stuff. And so one of the value propositions of this was, okay, if Kenny is a serious enough fan that really wants to interact with you, then he might not mind paying like three bucks, five bucks

in order to show you that this is a serious question or a serious like comment that he wants an interaction with right rather than just some random comment on youtube um so that's the value proposition first what do you think about that so it exists already did you know that it probably exists now yeah yeah so patrick bett david launched this oh really it's called my neck when you when did it launch a couple years ago so it sounds like you had the idea first. Yeah, I did. Yeah. So I'm actually on there.

Oh, perfect. And I've made thousands. So it works. That's great. Congratulations. And I met some cool people on there, too. That's great. Yeah, that really makes me feel good because it validates the idea.

So my idea went actually another route. Okay. Because when I pitched it, I think I went to the wrong audience because my my whole hypothesis here was these content creators that are doing like um like DIY stuff or like Python tutorials or programming tutorials in general and all this stuff like they get tons of questions and so my idea was I'm going to go to them and they're going to be the first people that you know try go to them and they're going to be the first people that, you know, try out this product. And they were like, I convinced a lot of them to

try it out. And then when I talked to them, their feedback was very negative because their, their audience, and I'm sure that, you know, like this other product might've experienced the same thing. I'm not sure. Um, for them, they have this conundrum, right? Like they, they don't want to seem like they're trying to just like, you know, suck money from their audience, right? Which is a fair problem. And so they can charge maybe three to five bucks, right? Without looking too greedy.

At the same time, when someone asks you a question and then they pay three to five bucks, they feel like they can ask you any question they want. And so they ask you this like PhD level programming question that the YouTuber doesn't necessarily know how to answer. And so then they have to go out there and spend three hours to research it to respond and get five bucks. But then if they don't respond, then the audience member is even more upset because they're like, I paid this money, which by the way, they get

refunded if it doesn't get answered in a certain amount of time. But the whole idea is like, you know, like I paid this money, you're still not going to answer me, all this other stuff, blah, blah, blah, right? So it's put them into this like cage where they can't charge a lot, but they have to answer. And so they didn't like that. And so that was also around the time when I started pursuing my MBA. And the app, I just let it run by itself. And then it started picking up steam. And it was really interesting because there was no marketing behind this. It was purely a fluke, accidental.

Someone stumbled upon it. It was in the astrology market. So astrologers started using it um which was really interesting because the astrologers right like they traditionally were using youtube just like do general radiant readings to like get a massive audience yeah but they couldn't find a way to do like tailored audience readings and for their audience like those people were extremely devoted to the astrologers they follow. Right.

It's one of those things where it's like, oh, you're my astrologer, you're real and everyone else, I can't trust them, but I can trust you. Got it. So as a result, the astrologers were able to use my platform and charge like 300, 500, a thousand bucks per question. Holy crap. Yeah. And so like I was extremely surprised because i didn't even know

that there was a market for astrology at the time right but like now fast forward to you know today i think it's it's more apparent because everyone talks about astrology massive but back then in like 2017 2018 like no one really talked about it right and so that's when i really learned how massive astrology was um but yeah so, so that was kind of an interesting experience. So did you find out your zodiac sign? Oh yeah. I'm a Gemini. What about you? I'm an Aquarius. Okay. I don't know what, you know. I don't know shit about it. I know Aquarius are thinkers, but. Gotcha. That's about it. I was told that Gemini are bipolar. Really? Are you bipolar? I don't think so.

You don't seem bipolar. Oh, thanks. It's hard to tell. I mean, we just met, but- That's true. I'd have to see you in a tricky situation to determine it. Am I bipolar? No?

No? Okay. I think you find out when you get tested, how you react, you know what I mean? Like, what do you mean? Like an official test, like at Myers-Briggs? No, like someone comes to you with stressful news and you see how you react from there. I think I handle stressful news pretty well.

That's good. But that's only because like, you know, life has thrown me lemons with like selling blood and stuff. Yeah, yeah. And crypto bear markets. Yeah. Also, you worked for one of the largest AI companies in 2019. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So that was a very interesting time. This is actually an internship that I did while I was doing my MBA. And it actually opened my eyes to politics. And what's really interesting here was, so this company, it's called SenseTime. It's now publicly traded. But at the time, it was still private. It was, when I went to do my internship, it was like 2,000 employees. And the reason I did it is because I've never worked outside of the U.S. before.

I wanted to understand what it's like to work in other cultures. And also the AI space at the time was booming for different reasons, right? Now it's for like AGI, so chatbots and all that stuff right well I mean definitely way more than chatbots I'm not giving this space enough credit but but back then right like the hot topic was facial recognition and image detection right so I think like that was a few years after iPhones started doing the facial recognition thing. And before that, it was fingerprints, right? And so I worked for this company who had the highest level of accuracy for facial recognition, which is really interesting when you think about it.

Because the level of accuracy, people don't actually think about how important that is, right? When you want to scale it up, because when you have a country like China, which is a billion plus people, right? The level of accuracy is extremely important. They look very similar. 99.9% accuracy is not enough. You need like 99.99999999% accuracy. And so that's what that business specialized in right facial recognition and in 2019 it was an extremely sensitive time i don't know if you were following

the space or not i wasn't like trump was elected and he was fighting or the u.s in general and china were fighting in this like ai race to supremacy um And it was this battle of basically image detection, right? Like facial recognition being the prime use case. And, you know, on the politics side, this is what was really interesting for me. You know, the US through a New York Times article accused China of using the technology for monitoring the Muslim minority, the Uyghurs,

right? Which is true. Yeah, China did that. And the prime target of that was SenseTime, the company I was working at. And so that was really interesting because then it's like, OK, China is using AI for really bad things. Right. And, you know, like definitely the Muslim minority is what the Chinese government was using the AI for from a facial recognition. But actually, China is using it for everyone. But the really interesting part about this story is that, you know, SenseTime at the time was an AI company, meaning that they built the software for facial detection and all this other stuff. And so in order to use that technology, you yourself had to buy like the cameras, the CPUs and the servers and all this other stuff. And so there are these services, people called system

integrators that did exactly that. Like, so you tell me you want a facial recognition thing for your front door. And I, as a system integrator say, okay, I'll build that for you and I'll charge you X amount. And so, you know, I buy the cameras from Samsung and then the chips from Intel and then the AI software from SenseTime and all this stuff. And I combine it into one package for you and sell it back to you. And China did the same thing. They went to system integrators to help them with building this technology. Interestingly enough, the system integrator that built this is a New Jersey company.

And so it was actually a U.S. company buying Chinese technology to build something that China was looking for. Wow. Yeah. And so it really opened my eyes to the politics of the situation, right? Because it wasn't really mentioned that, oh, yeah, by the way, you know, Americans are supplying this technology to China to do this, right? It was just, oh, look at this Chinese technology and all this stuff right and then in the China side I was reading the news on the China side as well which was saying like you know oh yeah you know Americans are supplying these technologies to China and all this stuff

and generally the trade war between the U.S. and China was at an all-time high and I remember the other component of this was the rare earth minerals. And so these are all components like metal, or sorry, rare earth metals, which are all components that are used to build like chips. And so this was like the biggest negotiating point between the US and China. Because the US was saying like, oh yeah, you don't have to worry about China

because China needs to listen to us because we have the uh the supply the global supply of rare earth metals um as a chokehold and china in chinese media would say we don't need to worry about that because we have such a large reserve of rare earth metals that even if america decides to stop working with us we've got more than enough to build chips right so it's like so weird because then your eyes are opened and you're like, what's the truth?

Both sides are so enamored by their own subjective version of reality. And they truly, I believe, they believe what they're saying. But both of them are so conflicted against each other right and so like that was that was really interesting on the politics side that's fascinating yeah it seems like they use the media as a tool oh yeah definitely definitely um but but i i do think like they they really believe what they're saying um which is also you know like kind of scary because you know this uh i feel like that's what leads to these sort of conflicts right there's always

been issues with china man i'm half chinese oh wow really i've been in beijing oh nice nice nice um mom or dad oh mom yeah her whole family was born there and raised there. Wow. So how did your mom and dad meet? Dude, newspaper ad. What? Yeah. People used to date on newspapers. Did you know that? Yeah. Yeah. I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah. So before the apps, there was newspaper ads. Okay. So you put a photo of yourself and then your number and then that's how they met in the US. That's crazy. Yeah. She came here from China, 20 bucks, and didn't speak English. What was she here for? College.

Okay, gotcha. She went to the best school in China. I forget the name. Beijing University? Probably, yeah. She was a huge nerd. So she just put her ad on there? Yeah, and it worked.

I don't know who put the ad on there. It might have been my dad. Oh, okay, gotcha. One of them put an ad on a newspaper and one of them reached out that's romantic yeah wow more romantic than tinder i'd say do you do you guys did do they keep the clip of that newspaper oh that'd be legendary yeah yeah that's something you keep for life for real yeah but i know you were born in china right oh yeah yeah i was born in beijing oh nice but i came to the u.s when i was two and a half. Oh, that's early. Yeah.

So I guess I'm also half Chinese by that origin. What do you like more, China or the U.S.? Oof, that's a very political question. All right, in terms of... I'm just kidding. Food. Oh. You know what's really interesting is that with food and everything, I feel like I have this curse of like the grass is always greener. And so when I spend time in Asia, I'm just like, you know, I really miss a really nice steak.

And then when I spend time in the U.S., I'm just like, you know, I really miss like actually spicy food. And so, yeah, like, you know, ebbs and flows of the world. I don't think I have like a clear winner there. You are an archer. Oh, yeah. I do it in my spare time. That is very interesting. Oh, really?

I've never met an archer. Oh, really? Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of people that are archers. Really? Probably in your circle. Maybe. Maybe.

It's a lot of people that are archers. Really? Probably in your circle. Maybe. Maybe. It's a selection bias. Because actually, what's really funny is, and I found this out in California, that a lot of California residents are actually gun holders as well. But no one talks about it. Interesting. Because California is such a blue state, and guns are very red. And so I found this out after visiting gun stores and talking to the gun store owners and understanding like, oh, they're always so short on supply of guns because every time they have new stock and people just flock in and buy them. Wow.

Yeah. Cali? Yeah, exactly. I never would have thought that. Yeah. So I always assumed archery is the same way. Everyone does it. No one just talks about it. Yeah.

But I guess it's not like golf. Interesting. So do you need a license or can you just buy a bow? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No license. No license? Yeah. Wow.

Because it's considered a sport, you know? Okay. And actually, that's the interesting thing about guns as well. I think in most states, you can buy rifles and shotguns without a license. Definitely California. Really? Yeah. You don't need a license to buy one.

You need one to be able to buy a handgun and carry it with you. But I think also if you just buy a handgun and keep it in your safe at home or something, I don't think you need a license either. Wow. That's kind of weird because a shotgun does more more damage i feel like right and a handgun but i guess like there i think the license the main concern of the license is like we need to make sure that you're mentally stable to carry the gun around with you right right but like i feel like it's very hard to conceal carry a shotgun oh yeah very hard yeah do you are do you hunt with the bow or is it more target? Like a target? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I've never hunted with a circle thing. Always been interested in doing it, but never actually did it. You got to hit up Joe Rogan, man. Hunt some elk with him. Oh, I didn't know. See, he's an archer too. Yeah. Yeah. See, like I didn't know that, right? That's why I'm thinking like people are archers. They just don't talk about it. I love it, dude. Well, uh well uh man what's next for manta and where can people learn more about you and manta yeah um like i said right like we've been building for the past three plus years um and we're really starting to catch a lot of momentum in this space because one of the core issues is that scalability stuff i was talking about right

with the simple example of buying a coffee and so we've been out to kind of solve that problem. I wouldn't say we've completely solved it. I don't think the industry has at all. But I think that's where the opportunity is. And so that's where we're going to continue exploring. And so that's what we're going to be doing for the rest of this year and probably the next five years. And so I think that's really interesting about, you. For myself, if people want to reach out to me, I'm there on Twitter, crypto Twitter mostly, as superanonymousk. That's my handle. What a name.

Yeah. I don't think you're anonymous now, though. That's the irony. That's funny. We'll link it below. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks a lot, Sean.

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