Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies - Preethi Kasireddy: DappCamp – Becoming a Web3 Developer

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

DappCamp is a 21-day cohort-based course for Web2 developers making the shift to Web3. It offers hands-on experience on how to architect, develop, and scale a Web 3.0 app on Ethereum. Participants are given the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded peers to learn and build together, and also meet world-class founders who built some of the most successful apps on Ethereum to understand best practices and common pitfalls.Preethi Kasireddy, Founder of DappCamp, started her crypto journey while at a16z and later joined Coinbase as a software engineer. After teaching herself Ethereum Dapp development during the 2017 ICO boom she built smart contracts for various crypto projects and created TruStory where she and her team built a blockchain on Cosmos. She also writes a great blog which often see her posts go viral. Preethi joined us to chat about how her journey in crypto has evolved, her love of writing, learning and teaching, why she created DappCamp, and being a woman in the crypto space.Topics covered in this episode:Preethi's background and how she got into cryptoHer early days with Coinbase and TruStoryPreethi's love of writing which led to her blogDappCampWhat are the major struggles people face with learning web3 development?Opportunities for DappCamp graduatesHow DappCamp will evolve in the futureBeing a woman in cryptoKeeping up to date with the crypto industryEpisode links: DappCampPreethi’s BlogDappCamp TwitterPreethi’s TwitterSponsors: Tally Ho: Tally Ho is a new wallet for Web3 and DeFi that sees the wallet as a public good. Think of it like a community-owned alternative to MetaMask. - https://epicenter.rocks/tallycashThis episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/459

This is Episner, episode 458 with guest, Pretee Cassarelli. Welcome to Episand, the show which talks about the technologies, projects, and people driving decentralization and the blockchain revolution. My name is Brian Crane, and today I'm going to speak with Prety Cassiretti. She has been in the crypto space for a long time. She writes an excellent newsletter that I've been reading for a while and has done a bunch of different stuff. I guess most significantly at the moment is Dabcamp, which is a school for Web3 developers. But before we get into the episode, just a quick announcement. So we are hiring.

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And that's spelled stake like the meat. So yeah, with that, pretty, thanks so much for coming on. excited to be here brian yeah i know you've you've had like intense hectic time we had to rescheduled a whole bunch of times congratulations thank you yeah having a newborn it's like oh wait i think i want to be free that hour and it's like never mind

he needs me right now so yeah but thanks for your patience appreciate it yeah not at all not at all i have now had Quite a few friends have babies and I think sort of witnessed from afar a little bit the unique challenges that come with that. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. So, well, let's maybe we can start just share us a bit.

Like how did you get into crypto and like what is your and what was your kind of initial journey into this space? space yeah i would say if i mean i kind of came into the space dabbled into the space on and off in the beginning um so i was working at andrewson harlitz um on the i was on the deal team there we didn't really have a crypto team back then because this was like way back in 2013 2014 um but i witnessed uh christen making the investment in coin base and i remember him being super excited about Coinbase and him and Mark kind of like, you know, like kind of selling the firm on why Coinbase is a great investment. And I didn't really understand it at that time. I was like, what is this crypto thing? It's like a big, because Coinbase was like a Bitcoin wallet and I had

no idea what the hell they were, what that even meant and why that's a big deal. And then Bologi joined A16Z. And then he was also very crypto, you know, enthusiast. And I remember him telling me to read the Bitcoin white paper because it's going to change the world. And, you know, like, I read it and it was interesting, but it didn't really catch my attention at the time. So I got some exposure at A16V, but I wouldn't say, like, that's when I got into the space. And then after I left A16 Z, I taught myself how to code. And then I was trying to figure out what I want to do afterwards. And I remember asking Chris Dixon for advice. And he's like, you should join an industry that's growing. And the two industries that are really growing right now are like machine learning and crypto, although machine

learning was very saturated at the time. And so crypto felt very nascent. And I was like, okay. And then I looked at sort of like what crypto companies are even available. And Coinbase was like one of them. And so I got in touch with them and did a few interviews and long story story. I got an offer there. And so I was, and then I got an offer at several other tech companies that were doing really cool things and I was trying to decide what I want to do. And ultimately, I chose Coinbase. And the reason I chose Coinbase was not because it was a crypto company. It wasn't because I was like sold on crypto yet. It was because I just really liked Brian. I liked Fred. I liked the team, the engineering team at Coinbase. I felt like they were very like quirky and weird and doing something

different that no one else was doing. So like for you to be in crypto in 2013, 2014, I think you had to be kind of weird. Like you weren't like a normal person that was going to join Queenbase and be excited about it, right? So it was like a bunch of like really cool, quirky people who were like together and they were very, very, very, very mission oriented from day one. And Ryan kind of did that very intentionally where he hired people who were like super, super passionate about crypto. Like if you weren't passionate about crypto, you weren't joining Coinbase. So I joined and I honestly loved it. I learned so much from the people there. And I was not even doing crypto engineering. I was doing like React development. So I was doing like web development at

Coinbase. Because obviously Coinbase is not a, you know, decentralized company. But still, like I was learning a lot. And I still wouldn't say like I wasn't like, I wasn't like deep into the space because again, I was doing web development at Coinbase. It wasn't until like after Love Coinbase that I started to like dabble into. Ethereum development. So I learned like solidity smart contract development and then I had worked for like a small ICO company which went bust, which was embarrassing. And like I thought like I was like working out something super cool. And like, you know, everyone at the time was like super optimistic about all these different projects and so was I. And I ended up joining one and

ended up being a complete failure. But I learned a lot in the process. I learned about smart contract development. I learned about the space. I learned really, really deeply about Ethereum. I decided to go really deep into the Ethereum rabbit hole because the main reason was because I just really love the community. I'm sure you can attest to this. In the early days, the Ethereum community was so strong, so passionate. I mean, they still are. It was one of the most entrenched, passionate global communities. And I just really liked that. So I decided to just learn about Ethereum. And that's how I got into the space. I got really obsessed with Ethereum.

I just really found it super interesting how the whole blockchain worked, how their consensus worked, how state management worked, how solidity worked. Like, I actually liked programming and solidity. And that's kind of how I got into it. And then I just kept going and learning about different things, learning about things like Cosmos, and I met Zaki and people like that. And so I kept going deeper down into the space. And then eventually, obviously, I started my own company in crypto. So, yeah, that was kind of my entry. Yeah, yeah.

I remember, I think one of your articles, you were this long article about Ethereum, no, sort of like... Yeah, how to stay and work, yeah, yeah, yeah. That I think was, like, widely read and I kind of skimmed it. I think I never, like, fully read it, but at least I remember the article. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a very viral article that just explained how Ethereum worked in a very, like, detailed and intricate way. So, yep. Yeah. And so true story. I remember a true story because I was working on cosmos. And I was sort of, you know, like, I guess you were one of the, you know, early projects that started building on cosmos.

I think one of the especially early projects that raised, like, from like venture capitalists. what was kind of the impetus for you back then to say okay i want to start my own company or my you know my own crypto network honestly like if i'd be totally honest i would say someone else actually decided for me and what i mean by that is after i love coinbase i was just kind of doing random smart contract work for different companies and then my seed investor she found out i'm you know kind of a free bird and i was exploring thing and she reached out and she was like, hey, like, if you want to start a company, like, I'll fund you.

And that's how it started. I didn't even have a company name. I didn't have a company formed, like nothing. It was just like me. And actually, the company name was like Preeti Cassidy-L-L-Chi when she gave me the seat check. Because I just, I didn't know what I was going to even build. She just thought I was a smart person and she wanted to fund me to go do something interesting. that's kind of how it started and then I just started exploring different things that I

have problem spaces that I was interested in I couldn't imagine doing something outside of crypto because I've already spent so much time invested in crypto by that point that I was just mostly focused on doing something in in the crypto space I just wasn't sure where I would what I wanted to do and then the things I start I start to really gravitate towards where like identity and reputation type things, like using, like using tokens to kind of build some kind of identity or reputation layer on the blockchain. So I started going deep into that rabbit hole and then, you know, true story kind of emerged out of that where we were trying to build a social network where you can use a token to basically curate the truth, quote unquote, and you kind of

build your reputation identity based on how good you are at curating truth as well as like stating, making truthful statements. So yeah, that's kind of how it started. And then we hired a bunch of people and we worked on it for two years. It didn't work out in the end. We shut the company down in 2020, but it was definitely a really, really fun and important learning experience. I think we were one of the early people who actually went pretty far deep into the rabbit hole of trying to use this token to build a social network and a reputation system. Most people kind of just shrugged it off as an impossible problem. But we actually spent two years really, really going deep. And so I would say we learned a lot.

And the takeaway from that was I felt like we were a little bit too early to the market. I felt that there were so many things that we want to test with the market, but the market wasn't ready for it, meaning like, you know, tokens weren't mainstream. Like if we had built something like that today, maybe people would be more willing to even try using the product. But back then in 2018,

the idea of downloading a wallet to use the social network app with a token. Like, you know, building a social network on its own is hard. So building a social network with a token was like, a hundred times hard. There were just like a lot of things that I felt like were too early. So I think tokens weren't mainstream yet. And then secondly, the infrastructure was not there yet.

Like we were using Cosmos and trying to build on Cosmos because it's more scalable than Ethereum. But even still, like, there were just so many bottlenecks to that. And like the idea that users have to go through a worse experience and they're used to in Web 2 was not like, acceptable or accepted yet because again like this is before defy even started this is before NFTs and people started to accept this poor ux as a way uh as a way to do things because they can make money on the other end like at that time like if you had a poor ux it's like why would people even

use you um so yeah we just ran into a lot of different challenges that I felt like timing timing is definitely everything for a startup and we were definitely not the right to time for it. Yeah. So I guess you mentioned a whole bunch of like issues that came up and maybe I'm curious. Like if you sort of think in terms of, you know, what are the lessons and learnings for it that you would like try to generalize and they're like going forward, you know, in other contexts and other situations, you know, they would sort of shape in how you would approach

things. What are those? Is that this timing one? And can you go a little bit deeper there or not? And what else is there? I think in hindsight, as a first-time entrepreneur, I think someone had a tweet on this. I forget who.

I think it was Justin Kahn. He's had a tweet along the lines of like first-time founders focus on products, second-time founders focus on market. And I think that's very, very true. Like, as a first-time founder, I probably spent six months to a year trying to build, like, the right product. But in hindsight, now that I'm building, other companies.

Like the first thing I do is test the market. Like, I can, we can build, I can hire great engineers and build a great product if I, if I can validate the market. So that's one huge learning for me. It's like flip the, flip the order of how you do things. Like, make sure there's a market for you building and then build something. And, you know, like the other thing is,

I thought I was doing internet development and building an MVP, but I think I, as a first-time founder, we spent way too much time. getting that first product out the door and not like really scoping down to a true MVP. There's like founder-ish entrepreneur type first-time founder lessons kind of that I can go into, but those are the two big ones. It's like not validating the market and not having fast iteration cycles. In terms of like just crypto-related learnings, I would say 2018, again, the infrastructure was just too early to build any kind of user-facing app.

we needed we were in that cycle like Fred Wilson talks about the app infrastructure cycle right like first a lot of people build infrastructure and then once that infrastructure is built entrepreneurs go in and build applications on top of that and then those applications reach a limit and then we realize we have to build infrastructure to to meet those requirements so we go back to building infrastructure and then we build more apps and then we hit limits and then we build infrastructure we kind of go through these loops I would say 2018, 2019 was probably more of an infrastructure timeframe where people were really focused on building more scalable blockchains, better, but cheaper blockchains and things

like that so that they can be more user-friendly. And that's why you saw the wave of like defy NFTs happen in the last like in the last type cycle. And then we hit limits on that as well. And now people are continuing to build infrastructure. So, yeah, I would say timing was not the best in 2018. Another learning about crypto is that, like, I think in terms of my team, because it was 2018, because it was a bear market, like, the people I hired, they,

I wouldn't say they were, I don't think they were like 100% crypto native. And in some ways, it was a good thing. It was a good thing because they challenged me and they were like, why would people use this or like, why would people do things this way? But the con of it was that it was really hard to get them to like truly embrace a crypto-native product. And so in hindsight, I wonder if we had like everyone on the team who was like truly crypto-native, would we have built something more different, something that was actually usable, et cetera. Yeah, I'll think of more, but those are coming at some of the things that come to mind. But yeah, like, I mean, I think as a second time founder, you just do things so much differently. I just, I feel like if I had the knowledge that I have now, like, maybe we could have been successful.

I wanted to talk a little bit about your, so your newsletter, right? So I've been, I think on subscribe to your newsletter for quite a long time. Probably a lot of listeners, you know, are aware of it as well. but tell us a little bit like how did you end up starting a newsletter and what's what's kind of the role of the newsletter and writing in general in sort of your own journey and especially around learning because i think that's that feels to me like this big recurring theme that like kind of weave through uh what you're doing and what you're writing yeah i mean i i've always just been a good writer and i don't mean to like But like, I do, I just enjoy writing because I find writing is a very, um, a very powerful way to articulate and, and form your own thought patterns and, um, and sort of crystallize what you think you know. Um, I find that if I try to learn something and I don't write about it, I actually don't learn

anything. Like, I haven't really truly learned it. It's only when I've written something, um, about it that I feel like I've really tested, um, all the gaps in my knowledge because as soon as I put pen to paper, and you start to realize what you actually don't know. So that's kind of why I started writing is because, like, as I was learning programming, so when I was teaching myself programming, writing goes away to kind of test what I knew and test what I was learning.

And I just started writing blogs every week and writing about different technologies that related to JavaScript and stuff. And it kind of continued doing that in my early days of crypto. And that's how I built an audience and so forth. And so the newsletter now is just honestly just a fun way to interact with my audience. And my audience is kind of pretty broad. I have people in crypto, but I also have people on my newsletter who follow me from my, like, JavaScript days or from my Instagram or just like, you know, different things I'm interested in, like fitness, food, like all these different interests that I've kind of built up over time. people kind of follow me for different reasons.

So my list is kind of diverse. And I don't write just about crypto. I write if I feel like writing about my life or something related to something completely outside of crypto, I'll write about it. And I think people do find that interesting because even though it's not a crypto topic, most people can relate to what I write about. But yeah, like I don't like, I know nowadays like having a newsletter and a paid newsletter. the subscription-based newsletter is like a huge thing now. But personally, the only reason I have that newsletter is just more of a hobby. It's like I write when I feel like it to that newsletter.

But I also definitely use it for marketing for Daft Camp as well, which you know about. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you've probably write some of my newsletter. I think I've like, I used to write, I was writing like a weekly newsletter before the baby was born. I'll continue it. But I was kind of writing about just different things I do. in a week. You know, like I dance.

I've been learning how to dance and I have a dog and now I have a kid. So there's a lot of interesting things that come out of that and it's fun to write about it. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I feel like this, what you said, you know, if I learn something and don't write about it, I don't actually learn it, that like really. Yeah, I really struck with me because I was like writing a bit on a blog, especially at some point I was getting into the rhythm of like, I was like different from you. I wouldn't write these like long posts, but we would try to write something short and just put it out. And I find it so enormously satisfying. But then I kind of get stuck again and like not write for a while. But I feel like this, the way you face it of this kind of connection between expressing, you know, expressing ideas about. something you learned and actually the act of learning,

I feel like that's a really nice way of thinking about it. Yeah, and I think, like, I mean, you do podcast, so that's kind of your, I guess, mode of expression. Speaking is also one way to, if you're trying to explain something through voice, that's also another way to, I guess, crystallize your thoughts. But everyone has a reform, right?

Like, some people like to write, some people like to talk. Some people like to do both. But there has to be some way that you're, I think you have to force yourself to articulate what you think you know. And that's the only way to test your knowledge, whether it's written or voice. Yeah. No, I do think actually writing is very powerful in this way.

I mean, podcast is an amazing tool to learn. It's amazing to have, you know, conversations with different people and, like, learn about lots of different topics. But I think there's, like, something a bit different and a bit harder. in having to condense it in like a written form. Especially when you when you sort of publish it, right? I think, I think like putting your ideas out in the world is a scary thing. And not many people are willing to do it.

So if you're willing to do it, I think you get a lot of, that's why you get a lot of, you reap a lot of benefits from it. You can build an audience. You can make friends by writing publicly. you can make, you know, have like really strong connections. Like my husband is an example of someone who basically wrote his way to, to, like, fame them, I guess. Like, he has connections now all over the world based on his interests and he has followers from all over the world. And anywhere we go, people start to recognize him.

So, like, there's really cool benefits to writing and publishing things online. definitely encourage more people to do it. The thing you said about publishing, I think that that's absolutely right, right? Because like there's just a huge, there's like a world of a difference between like writing some kind of draft of a blog post or a blog post because it always feels like a draft

of a blog post if you don't publish it, right? It's like the actual act of like putting it out like changes something. Yeah, it's kind of like an artist, right? I have a lot of respect for artists who are willing to put their art out. Because there's a lot of people who paint or dance or, you know, do stuff, but they actually don't publish it. Whereas, like, it takes a lot of guts to put that out because you know you're going to be critiqued.

There's going to be someone out there who doesn't like what you're doing or what you're saying or what you're writing. And it takes a strong-willed person to be able to be able to put that out and receive that kind of criticism. But you also receive positive responses as well. So it balances out. Yeah, I mean, that was the amazing thing. When I was like, right, I mean, I wrote, I don't know, like maybe 30 blog posts last year. And really, my goal was I didn't really publish it. I didn't really promote it much at all.

The only thing it did was they retweeted it automatically through my account. That's the only thing I did. And my only goal was basically just to publish stuff. So I get sort of in the habit of like putting something. out and not not sort of censoring myself and and getting into some sort of writing habit. And especially like also sort of told myself, okay, I'm happy to publish like really bad blog posts, right? And I'm not going to promote them.

I just want to publish stuff, right? So I'm kind of, I'm okay with publishing bad posts. And then I was still amazed at like how many people somehow found it and gave feedback about and said, oh, this is really great. and they really like it. It was very interesting to see that. Even though I'm like, you know, definitely nowhere near like your level of like writing. And, you know, a lot of it was like very quickly put out.

But yeah, it's such a powerful thing. It is. It really is. And like you said, even though like boy, podcast and other forms exist, I still think written form is one of the most powerful. because it can like, like once you write something, it's out in the world forever, right? Like you read written stuff from hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of years ago.

And I think people, what you write today, who knows if people from 100 years or 200 years or 300 years could read your writing? Like, I think that's a very powerful thing. And so you have a way to like kind of make your mark in the world by putting your thoughts out there. Let's talk about Dab Camp. So how did you decide to start DapCamp?

How did that come up? So honestly, it was a side project. I was, it took some time off from work just to focus on help, life, all different things. And then I kind of missed doing crypto stuff. And I was like, how can I get into crypto without like going full time and do it? And I was like, let me just do a little course where I teach people how to do smart contract development because that's something I already know. So I was like, I'm just going to leverage a skill I already have and do a course on it. And Maven, I started that camp on Maven.

Actually, Maven's like a cohort-based online platform where you can run cohort-based courses. And so I use Maven as a platform to launch this course. And we had like 60 people join the first cohort. And someone in my network had reached out to me and he was like, hey, can I help you with the course? I'd love to work with you on it. And so me and him, we were co-instructors on the course. And lo and behold, like, it turned out to be like a really, really successful course. The people, the students loved it.

We loved teaching it. Like, we got so much, it was so exciting. Like, we walked away with so much energy. We were just, like, so energized by teaching these students. And we just, like, felt like there's so much we can do beyond what we had done in that first cohort. Like, so much potential for. what we can do in cohorts two, three, four, and so forth. And that's when we were like, okay, like, let's keep doing more cohorts.

And so we did the second one and then we did a third one. And then, like, every single time, I feel like we get better and better and better. And we just, like, we find so many cool things that we can do beyond just what we just did in that cohort. And both me and my co-instructor, we both love teaching. And we loved, like, the experience of having to sit down and teach that live course. because it's different from what you see out there in the market, right? Like most of the online courses today are kind of asynchronous, and you're kind of having to passively read on your own

and complete the things on your own. Like, very few people are doing, like, live courses. And for us, like, creating that live course was very unique. Like, we got to have a room full of 60 developers who were asking us, like, really, really deep intellectual questions, and we were answering them live, and everyone was getting to hear the answers and learn from their peers. So it was really cool in that way.

Yeah, so we kind of started it and it just blew up and we just kept doing it. And now we're going to be on our fourth cohort at the end of the year. And we are making some pretty big improvements for what we're going to do going forward. In a nutshell, we're going to make a lot of the course, a lot more web three native, meaning we're going to experiment with things like, you know, sign with, so everything that, as a student, you're represented as an Ethereum address. So you basically apply with your metamask address and everything is tied to your metamask address. We give you badges for completing certain milestones in the course. We have like a reputation score for each student based on like the different milestones they reach.

Different cool things that we're doing just to explore. Like can we use some of the primitives that have been built in the local? last cycle like NFD badges and and identity and things like that to build like a Web3 native experience for the for the cohort but yeah it's been fun I'm curious like you speak so much like enthusiasm you know about like this experience of teaching this course what do you think it is that makes it such a wonderful experience for you it's seeing the students kind of thrive um on the other end So, like, you know, this is knowledge I already know. It's like there's no point of me holding on to that knowledge, right?

Like, if I pass it down, then it's super interesting to see how other people use that knowledge to then do really, really cool things that I would never do in my lifetime. And then just seeing people who maybe never had an opportunity to come into the space to get that knowledge and now be a full-time Web 3 engineer. Like, I think the best part is seeing the outcome of what happens. with these students after they graduate. Not everyone is successful, of course, and people just end up going back to their current jobs,

but a lot of people do make strides towards becoming full-time Web3 engineers. And, you know, you guys, I think, hired a couple people from our grad list. And so those women, like, they, it was hard to find them, but it was cool to see them go from, like, it's my dream to be a Web 3 engineer

to them taking the course, and then a few weeks later, them having a job offer to be a Web3 engineer or just an engineer at a Web3 company. So that's probably the most rewarding thing. Yeah, yeah. So just the explanation here. So with course, I guess we, I think I saw at some point in your newsletter, I think there was, you know, some company that did some scholarships for DAPCamp.

And then we were like, oh, this is cool. Like, we want to do this too. And I think the company was. and so we also focused the scholarships on women, right? So we have been doing these scholarships for a few cohorts. I think we did three cohorts, right? I guess not the first one, but I think the ones, all the ones after that. And yeah, we ended up hiring two people out of it.

So to like Maria and Tolita, you know, that joined this full time. It was very cool. I mean, first of all, they're both amazing. So I'm like really happy that we hired them. But they're also like very different like backgrounds, very different. Yeah, just very different from our sort of normal applicant pool and like bringing like very different perspective and approach to it. And you know, very deep enthusiasm for crypto,

which is definitely something we look for a lot. And so it's been like really great for us to like work with Dabcamp on that. They're so eager to learn and so eager to contribute. So it was cool to have them be part of the co-hold. and then go on to do like really cool things like join chorus one. And it's also like good motivation for other women too, right? Because then they see Toledo, they see Maria and they're like, oh, like, you know, I'm just like them.

Like I could do what they could do. And so more people come in and just kind of follow their lead. So it's cool to see you guys open doors like that for them. So when it comes to like learning web 3 development, is there what's hard? hard about this? Like, what do people struggle with? I would say the engineering part of it is actually not that difficult. Like learning similarity and that part, that piece is not that challenging. The challenging part is like, like, obviously crypto is very multi-discipline, meaning like you have to understand a lot of

different things to truly understand like the right use cases for it. Like you have to understand economics, like no, crypto, like blockchain engineering, obviously. You have to understand, like, politics in some way. There's a lot of different subject areas that crypto kind of touches. And I think as an engineer, the challenging part for them is, like, being able to see that bigger picture and think about product from that angle and not just thinking about product from an engineering side, because just building, just engineering a product is not going to make useful. You have to think about how you're going to get aligned, how you're going to use like

incentives to basically align the different people in that network. These are all just like very, very big and thorny problems that engineers are not really used to thinking about. And so a lot of people that take the course, they kind of tell us that blockchain engineering feels a lot more entrepreneurial compared to other engineering because other engineering, you're just kind of like engineering. Whereas with crypto, you're kind of thinking about. about the bigger picture and thinking about a lot more different things. And so you are being a lot more entrepreneurial in that way. And some people are not that good at that.

So that's also the other challenge, I would say. Like, there's people that come in thinking that, you know, because they're really good engineers, they're going to like it or are they going to be successful, but sometimes they're not. Like, we had a really strong engineer who we thought, like, would crush it. but like it was pretty clear that like he just like he was just too stuck in the engineering side of things and not able to see like the bigger picture of like how to build how to build a good product that people can actually use yeah I think that's right I think this sort of like

political and philosophical dimension of like crypto is like something that's like very crucial and a lot of people like really get it right and they kind of like understand it on some deep level but then like other people really struggle with it and they can even work in crypto but just somehow don't you know they don't quite they don't quite get it yeah yeah and i think it's an acquired skill what i want to say is i think it has also to do something with kind of maybe a fundamental you know values in the way of looking at the world i think you know especially people who maybe don't like authority so much or look for freedom in some way or like more sovereignty and autonomy. I think they kind of, well, often they become interest in crypto because of that.

But then I think that also gives you, like, I mean, for example, if you think about, you know, the keys and who controls the keys and the trust assumptions and like all of that stuff, I think that's like very deeply intervowing with that. And I mean, I remember in the 2017 or 18 bull market, there was a lot of these people who came and they do these ICOs, but like clearly just like didn't really, it was maybe an opportunity for them to raise a bunch of money, but it missed the point of what it was all about.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And the other thing that I would add to that is people, I think, like, it takes a really, it's not easy to figure out where a token is useful and where a token is not useful. And that's like, I would say, a skill that you only learn by seeing a lot, a lot of different projects and really trying to understand, like, what is the purpose of that token? And I would say, no one's really truly an expert on this still. Like, there's still debates about whether certain projects should have a token or not. So that seems to be something that I think the engineers sometimes struggle with because they'll put a token into something that probably maybe doesn't need a token

and could be done without. And it might be a good engineering experience for them, but it's not like a really good use case for a token, you know? So from the people who came through Dabcamp, what do the people who made it successfully and, you know, they're like working crypto, what do they have in common? I would say they're, I mean, number one is they're strong engineers because we do do a pretty strong screening on them before they take the cohort.

So they're strong engineers. So they have like a strong fundamental baseline set of engineering skills. Secondly, they're really eager to learn and they're like super passionate because, you know, crypto, it's like if you're coming into the space, you have. have to just be willing to just drink through the fire hose. And if you're just kind of slow and trying to take your time, this is not going to work, we'd give to be very, very on top of things and eager to learn.

I would say most of the people, the people that are most successful are the ones that, like, are very eager to learn and then, and they learn fast too. And third, I would say they kind of like the point we're trying to make. It's like they have a more, they have a pretty good grasp on like the whole, the bigger picture of things.

And they're not just like a code monkey, for lack of better words. Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. I think one thing that also I have stood out to me a bit that I see sometimes people struggle with a lot. It's I guess if you're in another industry, then you want to like work in this industry, then you know you maybe research a bunch of companies and then like you apply there and you try to get a job of those companies you know i guess

that's kind of like the standard way but in crypto because things are so like the information's all open and a lot of this more kind of community driven like that's not the best way right like it's a better way to sort of figure out like what do you actually find interesting And then learn about that and then kind of get involved in that community and maybe like, you know, go through conference, like write about it, write blog posts or like contribute in some way. And then things will happen, right? So I think this sort of, I'm going to start with trying to get a job isn't if it can be a big obstacle. Also, because people don't want to speak with you if you don't, if you could just go ahead and get started, but you don't. and you just want to do calls with people.

That's a good point. That's the way to put it. Yeah. And I guess that's, I mean, that's in any, I mean, I guess we're still quite at the beginning of that. But I think this whole, you know, working for a doll is, you know, is another thing that, you know, there's probably, maybe right now, I don't know how well those stuff. Maybe some of the dollars work pretty well. But it's probably still like a better option for most people, I think. might be to go for like work for a normal web three company but it's definitely becoming something

where it's just an entirely different way of working yeah and I think I mean I think whether you should join a Dow or whether you should join a regular Web 3 company just depends on your personality like if you're entrepreneurial to begin with then you have a high risk tolerance I think you can join a Dow and and you have like I guess the financial cushion you can join a DAO and be very exploratory that way, maybe be have a few different DAO's that you're part of where you have different roles in those DAWs. But if you're more like employee mindseted, then I think joining a web three company and going, spending maybe a year or two years there to truly understand the space and have the time to build your confidence before you go to the DAO route

is probably what makes sense for you. Because like if I tried to come in to, you know, to crypto and go join a Dow right away. I think I was pretty confused. And maybe, depending on what Tao I joined or what Tao's I joined, I might even be discouraged or have false starts or whatnot. But because I joined Coinbase, for example, it gave me a really strong foundation and time to really spend time, like learning about crypto before deciding to like go out and explore and do my own thing,

whether I start a company or join a Dow or whatever. And I actually, like, when people graduate DAP camp, I tell the same thing to them. I'm like, if I were in your shoes, like the first thing I would do after graduating of boot camp is joining a Web3 company, even if it's boring, spend like a year or two years there, and then go do my own thing, go be more entrepreneurial,

join a Dow, start my own company, whatnot. There's some people who are ready to start a company right after graduating, and usually those are people who, either started companies in the past or they're just naturally more entrepreneurial-minded. So there's exceptions, but I would say for the most part, yeah, join a Web3 company. And for DapCamp, you talked a little bit about the fourth cohort and like, you know, building in more of these crypto elements. Like, what's your, what's beyond that? I mean, there's so much we can do. I mean, right now the cohorts are like less than 100 in size and

mostly in the U.S. and some parts of Asia markets. So, like, one thing, I mean, I think, like, we can scale this to a lot, to be a lot bigger and to reach a lot more people, for one. Especially people in, like, emerging markets. You know, I continue to hear how about how people, countries like, certain countries in Africa, like Nigeria and so forth, are apparently very, very crypto-friendly and have really, really smart people. people. They just don't have access to the best education and the best platforms to learn and

go off of. So I think the bigger version is just to like scale it to a lot bigger of an audience and be able to bring this to people like that who can use it as a as a tool to jumpstart their career in crypto. Basically what we want to be is like the bridge for people who want to get into crypto. So if you're an engineer and you're kind of lurking in the back, background, we want to be that bridge so that you don't have to go on it on your own. Just like, you know, when I started learning how to code, I could done it on my own, but it would probably take like two years. But instead, I did a coding boot camp, which was a really powerful way for me to learn

in a very structured way, meet other people who are also learning to code, and then go do my own thing. Yeah, no, I think that's very true. Like, this kind of like learning with others is a key thing. I was also once spent time learning to code on my own. And I was pretty consistent for maybe two years. I would spend most days, like, spend a bunch of time coding. But it was actually a very slow progress.

And in the end, I was kind of like, oh, I also need to do some kind of coding boot camp. But then I discovered crypto and kind of just focused on crypto instead. But I felt very much just kind of lack of working a load. makes it very hard. And I think working with other developers, right, it's like clearly such a powerful thing. It's just like dramatically accelerates. It is.

Makes a huge difference. Makes a huge difference. Yep. Maybe we can talk a little bit about, you know, the sort of aspect of like, you know, this is a topic, right, in the industry a lot, like spending a course one in many different contexts, but like, you know, being a woman in crypto,

what are your thoughts on that? And what has your experience been kind of seeing that the unique challenges of women through Dabcamp? I think compared to when I was joining crypto and there was like zero, I think it's gotten a lot better. There's definitely a lot of diversity now, a lot more female in the space, especially with NFTs, which are more related to art and culture. So it brought a much more diverse audience into the space. But in terms of engineers, female engineers, there's still a huge lack of them. And I didn't realize that until you guys gave us the opportunity to give scholarships to women to join the cohort. And we were like, okay, awesome.

Like we have five or ten scholarships to give to women. And we realized like there's actually very few female engineers who are, one, interested and two who are qualified. We did have people who were interested, but they didn't know how to code. so we couldn't really accept them. And so there's very few, like, it's really hard to find female engineers who are qualified and who want to do crypto. That's kind of a big challenge that we continue to be forced to meet and deal with every cohort with the scholarships that you give us.

And it's been a great thing because it's forced us to go outside of our networks and reach out to networks where there are female engineers and try to get, and try to see if they are interested in doing the cohort. And just try to reach a broader audience beyond what my following, because it seems like most of my following is male or female who don't know how to code yet. Yeah, and I think the funny thing is like the people who do end up, the female engineers who do end up joining are actually very, very capable. They're sometimes strong or as strong or stronger than the male.

So it's not like they're not capable. It's just that sometimes they either don't have the resources to do something like this with scholarships help. Or sometimes it's just that they don't have the, they don't even, they don't have, they're almost intimidated to do something like this. And so some of our marketing efforts have to kind of show that like, hey, like you can do it too. And we we kind of encourage them to apply. Yeah. Is there something specific about crypto, do you think, that like stops women from, you know, applying the Dab Campo in general, like female developers of, like, wanting to work in the industry? Well, some of them just don't feel like, some of them don't feel like they're qualified, even though they are.

So there's a little bit of an intimidation factor. And this is just like a female thing sometimes where we have, we're not like as confident as the men are about our skills. we can sometimes underestimate ourselves and be a little bit more reserved or shy about our skills and we, I think there's like a lot of studies that prove that like men will apply for a job even if they don't meet all the qualifications whereas women, they'll want to meet every single qualification before they apply. So we have some of that, a little bit of that dynamic going on.

And secondly, I think just the nature of a lot of, like if you, you're, there's not that many women who are like mid-level senior engineers to begin with, because most people, by the time they're in their late 20s, right, they might start families or they might have kids. And so there's just a lot less female to begin with in the market. So there's kind of both factors playing into it. And so our goal is never to, I don't believe that we're going to have like equal 50-50 ratio. And that's not our goal because that's not realistic. Like, women and men, like, you know, they just play different roles in society, and sometimes women don't want to be engineers. But our goal is at least, like, for the women who are engineers to give them access and how do we reach them, how do we find them as kind of our goal, each cohort.

And we're slowly trying to discover different networks where these women exist and trying to get. and trying to get to them as efficiently as possible. Cool. Well, let's do one last question before we wrap up, because I was like asking, I think Maria and Toledo, I was like, oh, should I ask Petion? And both mentioned one question, which is not a question that I expected, but I was like, how do you stay up to date with all that's going on in the crypto industry?

Yeah, I think everyone has their own way. personally I don't find that I like I will listen to podcasts but it's more just like to pass time than to truly learn it's kind of like passing knowledge um passive knowledge I mean um the best way I learn is by reading and um and so for me the way I keep up with things is if I'll have friends or or Twitter whenever the interesting whenever like some of the big blog post drop I'll read those um And I'll just read stuff that like people I trust or that I like their writing. I read their writing. So that's how I keep up with things. It's I like to read. Other people like to use podcasts as a way to keep up with things. That's totally a fair way.

It's just that for me, I know I get distracted easily. And like I'm listening, but I'm half listening because I'm doing five other things while listening to a podcast. So it's not really the best way to learn for me. And I can't sit there and just like listen to a podcast and take no. It's like that just, it doesn't work as well. It's just like reading. In terms of what sources, how I find the sources, mostly, I don't really read like mainstream sources like coin market, coin gecko or whatever, like all these like different

platforms that exist that proliferate news. It's mostly individuals that I follow that I like and that I trust. So I read their newsletters and everyone will be different. Like who you resonate with, who's writing you resonate with will be different from mine. So, you know, just go down the rabbit hole and find people whose writings you really like and read that and just follow their writing. Cool. Well, thanks so much, Pety.

Thanks for coming on, taking the time. Thanks for all the cool work you're doing with DaphCamp. I'm excited to see, you know, where it goes and, you know, all the new developers that are going to come into the industry. And also, of course, to follow along and see where your journey will. will take you next. I'm sure you'll go on to do lots of lots more cool things in crypto and beyond. Yeah. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Brian. So yeah, thanks again for a listener for tuning in. If you want to support the show,

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