This Week in Startups - Teenage hacking phenom allegedly caught, Molly's Hall of Fame induction & OK Boomer | E1418

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

Another Friday variety show! First up, Jason and Molly break down the 16-year old hacking phenom who was allegedly behind the recent hacks at Microsoft, Nvidia and Okta, and might have just been caught (1:13). Then, the duo covers Molly's induction into LIBSYN's Podcasting Hall of Fame (6:46) and reminisces on the early days of podcasting including their first podcast together over 16 years ago (11:19). Finally, Producer Rachel is back with another edition of OK Boomer, this time with Miami Hack Week founder Ja’dan Johnson (20:19).

Okay, everybody, we have a great, fun-filled action-packed Friday show for you today. First of all, we are developing a new narrative podcast story based on the true crime story of a 16-year-old hacking phenom who allegedly just got caught. And then we're going to talk about a little podcasting history, my first appearance on Buzz Out Loud. And this was 16 years ago when I met Molly Wood. and we'll talk about Molly's incredible induction into Lipson's podcasting Hall of Fame. And a little bit of history. You're going to get some good Molly and J-Cal, some J-Mo history here. And then finally, we have another great OK boomer segment from producer Rachel,

who had a live in-person interview in Miami. It's going to be a great show. Stick with us. This weekend startups is brought to by Bubble. Bubble empowers people to design and launch their own apps, marketplaces or tools without needing coding skills or pricey engineers. The first 500 listeners will get one month free on any of Bubbles paid plans from $29 a month up to $529 a month at bubble.io slash twist.

Cota is the all-on-one dock for teams. If you've got a stack of niche workflow tools or if you're buried in docs and spreadsheets, Cota is the dock that brings it all together. Startups can get a $1,000 credit at coda.io slash twist and Mercury. Question. How much time have you wasted managing your cost? company's money. Answer, too much. Switch to Mercury at Mercury.com. Okay, Molly, there was this really crazy story about a 16-year-old hacker. Tied up for us. We pretty much just have this one new story that we cannot ignore. Because if you're unfamiliar, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OkTA, OKTA were all hacked over

the past few months. Full disclosure that earlier this week, I was like, I don't know if we need to talk about that Okta hack. It seems like kind of a small story. But it turns out that. that the same hacking group, Lapsus dollar sign, so LAPSUS dollar sign, claimed to be responsible for all of these hacks, which made it a bigger hacking story. And then the mastermind behind Lapsus dollar sign, I don't know how we're supposed to say that Lapsus. Russian, Chinese group, what is it? Tell me. Yeah, totally. Yeah, super criminal. It's a 16-year-old boy from the UK who goes by. by the moniker White, like Mr. White. He goes by either White or breach base.

Love it. He is 16. I'm going to reiterate that again. 60 years old. Evidently so skilled, so fast at hacking. His fingers are flying over the keyboard so much so that the investigators looking into this thought it must be automated. Like they thought it was software. But instead, it was this bananas kid whose sweet father evidently is like,

I don't know. I mean, we knew he was into computers, but I didn't know he was doing all this hack games. Supposedly, he amassed 14 million from hacking and has been identified by other hackers, I guess who have docks him and revealed his age address, all this kind of stuff.

And they operated a telegram group with 47,000 subscribers. The last message was sent last Wednesday. A few of our members has a vacation until 3.30, 2022. I guess he's got to get his, I guess he's got a test or something or whatever. Maybe he's got to get a paper in or something. He's a sophomore in high school. We might be quiet for some times.

Maybe mom punished him and took the laptop away. Thanks for understanding us. We will try to leak stuff as soon as possible when we get back from Springbank. I guess dad's taking us somewhere, skiing or something. And then it's so, he was hacked. He was doxed after falling out with these other hackers because he's 16. They probably had hell of teenage drama. Right.

And then they outed this guy who, again, had amassed $14 million while his dad was like, I don't know. We just thought he was really into video games. Can you imagine being 16 years old with $14 million in what? Crypto money in a PayPal account? Where was this money? What was he doing with the money? What was he going to do with the money? We need this show.

We need to immediately make this podcast and turn it into a show on Hulu because it is the most remarkable story. It's also sort of the plot of one of my favorite movies, hackers with Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie. This kid's going to hack the Gibson any day now. You know, you always got to think what should happen. And if I'm the UK government, I am taking this kid to the MI6 building. I'm assuming that exists, not just in the James Bond films. And I'm going to show him his new desk and his new laboratory and be like, okay, we got these seven Russian oligarchs. We need their crypto money. We need to find Putin's crypto money and any assets get everything that these oligracks have and can you just put it on

a thumb drive for us? Or here's a juvenile detention center with really ice cold showers and bad food and no internet. Choose wisely. And then I would give him a DoorDash and an Uber Eats account and an Amazon account and say, buy whatever you want. You work for us now. And I would tell us parents like, yeah, you don't need to send him to school anymore. We're going to have a car pick them up and bring them over here. And the end. When you find hackers like this, they obviously have, you know, they're misguided. They're typically, you know, playing and it's like a video game for them, a 16 year old's frontal lobes are not fully developed. So don't do, you know, tragically what we've done here in the United States, which is arrest these folks and

prosecute them. I know it's an easy thing to do to be vindictive about this and to think this person is a criminal. Obviously, they are doing criminal behaviors, but you, this is a level of talent that if you could channel it could be, you know, really great for, you know, the CIA FBI, MI6, or any other three-letter acronym agency. So do the right thing here. Let's flip this person and get them working on, you know,

China and Russia and fight the real enemies. 100%. Yeah. All right, we got to come up with a name for this. We're starting a new podcast about this kid. We definitely are. Hollywood, you have to buy our version of the story. Yeah, exactly.

Producers at this week and startups.com, email us. What do you think should be the title of our now in development? Yes, podcast. narrative podcast. Any submissions we own, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, about Lapsus. All right, let's talk a little bit about Molly becoming a member of the Podcasting Hall of Fame. Hey, everybody, I'm super excited to announce that Molly is being inducted into Libson's Podcasting Hall of Fame this weekend. Molly was, of course, the co-host of one of the first podcasts ever created. It was called Buzz Out Loud. She did it when she was at CNN. It also was live streamed.

And I was on the show back in October of 2005, 16 years ago. right after weblogs, Inc. was acquired by AOL. And this was a very funny moment because we re-recorded the interview. And this was the early days of podcasting, Molly. I remember this moment now. It's coming back to me. Oh, my God. They lost the audio file.

Yes. And as you may recall, this was our big peace summit. Oh, right. Because I had gone after you for something. I can't remember. Jason had come after me because I referred to Engadget, I think, is a rumor blog. Oh. Yeah.

Right? You're at CNN being 800-pound gorilla. Even now, he's like a little mad about it. I know I wrote this glancing aside in a column about Apple and how Apple treats the media. And I talked about rumor blogs and Jason was like,

oh, hell no. And find me rumors about Molly Wood. And it was a whole thing. And, you know, I emailed. We were like, we put it back together. And so then we were like, we're going to have Jason on the show and this is going to be the big, like it's going to be okay.

I'm cringing already. I don't even know what we're going to. hit the play button what this is going to be. We record the whole thing and it's great. It's like great. It's a lovely conversation. Okay, let's see.

Let's see. Let's play. Because I did brigade you, I think. Oh, yeah, you did. You definitely did. I'm like offering people money. Yeah, he was like, I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can come up with a rumor about Molly Wood.

It was a whole. I did not do that. You did. You might do. Okay. Here we go. It's fine. We're fine now.

We're fine now. The original apology. Totally. Apology. So then, so the clips we have, the first clip is this 43 second clip of you being introduced on Buzz Out Loud 16 years ago and breaking the fourth wall a little bit. All right. Here we go. Let's go.

All right. We have Jason Calcanus, CEO of Weblogs, Inc. Now an AOL property with us. Thanks for joining us, Jason. Thanks for having me. And I guess I'm not supposed to mention that we had to re-record the entire podcast. That is right. Absolutely.

do not mention that this is our second take. This is live. Doesn't everyone know? Yeah. It never happens to the very much. Hey, you know what? Live on our reader, our users' iPods. That kind of stuff makes people feel better about their own podcasts and their own technical

problems because everybody has the stuff. The mighty been that lost the entire podcast. We're doing it again. It happens to everybody. So we apologize to our listeners because the first interview was awesome. Oh, yeah. My energy is much lower. We got all the good dish.

Yeah. Oh my God, it's hilarious. Now we know why we send a podcasting kit to everybody. This is why podcasting didn't take off. You couldn't do a remote. Sounded horrible. Even the mighty C-Net. Sounded totally horrible, the mighty C-net.

But what was so amazing is that, I mean, I cannot tell you the nausea that occurred when we realized we had lost the interview. But Jason, despite, you know, playing with it. And that clip was so nice. He was like, that's fine. We'll just do it again. Yeah. Second take. Better than the first.

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to action. Bubble is offering you one month free on any of their paid plans. just from $29 a month, up to $529 a month. But act fast because they're only offering this deal for the first 500 redemptions. Head to bubble.io slash twist and snag one of those 500 coupons today. Yes, that was the second take. And then we actually have a 47 second clip of you talking about the AOL acquisition. Yeah. And then chiding our producer, and this sets up even more lore.

So we're going to play the clip first and then tell the history. Oh, God, here we go. We weren't looking to do a deal. We weren't looking to be acquired. But, you know, we were in the process of raising money from, you know, some Internet gurus, you know, people who had done incredibly well on the Internet business. We already had one as our angel investor, Mark Cuban, of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet and, you know, Ice Rocket and a bunch of other interesting sites and companies, formerly at Broadcast.com, which you felt, Yahoo. So now AOL has become the investor. Well, AOL is now the investor.

That's right. And you know, that joke is better the second time around. Burn. There'd be like a reoccurring theme. We just keep talking about how Veronica lost the tape. Anyway. It's Groundhog Bay. Oh, watch it, Jason.

Watch it. Yeah, Veronica's in charge, you know. And she has an army of fans on our podcast. I don't. I know. Veronica's great. We love Veronica. Anyway.

God, I sound like Trump. Veronica's great. Okay, we all love Veronica. You know, I was not going to say it, but I was thinking it, too. I was like, man, when you're on the phone, Hocking, you really do sound a little like John. It's so bad. It's so bad.

But the double lore there for people who are listening is that then Jason went on to poach Veronica for Mahalo and make her a star. We did actually do that. But we gave her a vehicle Mahalo Daily. We just started a YouTube channel and we did Mahalo Daily. She would just do funny bits with Lon Harrison was producing that. It was very funny. And it went viral.

So good times. She is hilarious. I want to shout out too, by the way, this is. like the power of podcasting community. We have this audio thanks to a group of Buzz Out Loud fans who over the last year, like now,

all these years later, have recreated what they're calling the BuzzTown Archive, which you can find a BuzzTown Archive.com. They like combed the internet. They have a whole community on Discord. They went to CNET and we're like, do you still have links to these?

And they're recreating all, six years of this daily podcast that started in 2005 and reposting them online. And that's how I was able to find this episode. It was phenomenal. It is phenomenal. It's amazing. The fandom, that podcasting community, I mean, the Nodis know it perfectly well. Like, it's not just the show.

It's the fact that they planned an entire party during, you know, in the chat during our episode. It's incredible. And you just think about those early days of podcasting, streaming, blog, you know, and what it's become now. Back then, we were just trying to get the tools right. We were trying to get the audio file uploaded to not lose the audio file. You know, like that moment, I'm joking about it, but the reason I didn't make it such a big deal. Yeah.

Was because it happened all the time. We would lose shows. It was totally not true. It had never happened to us. And I don't know if it ever happened again. Well, it was pirate radio days. The early days was like we were doing something that was underground. It was kind of like the zine movement, the blog movement, this podcasting movement.

And now it's become a huge business. And it's a lesson for everybody. You know, Malina, I give you a lot of credit here. You deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, whichever versions of it there are and will be in the future, because you took a sincere chance with your career to go all in on a nascent medium. And this is great advice for anybody who wants to do great things in their life. You find a nascent medium.

Nobody's doing it. and you just double down and double down and you make it your craft and you become the best at it. And Molly, you are, you know, in the top, you know, five to 10 people to ever do this and you deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, obviously.

And a lot of people are standing on your shoulders because you were figuring all this out in the other days, including me. I came right after you guys. I think you guys were doing this actually before it was called podcasting. I think you were just streaming. I think so.

They were, well, they were starting to call it podcasts. I mean, I remember when we got the pitch at CNA. Like there was, you know, some forward thinking executive was like,

I'm hearing about this thing called podcasts. Yeah. And I think you should do one. Like, you know, she said that to Tom and I, because Tom and I just like to have funny conversations at lunch. Yeah.

Which is how, you know, podcast. Shout out Tom Merritt, yeah. Shout out Tom Merritt is the other voice you heard there. But it was, I mean,

that's how early it was. It literally had just become a technology. It had just become a rapper. The, you know, the RSS speed, the idea that you could embed audio. And that is,

you know, thanks to Dave Weiner and Adam Curry. And it was sort of this parallel development. And we developed what was, I think, arguably the first commercially successful podcast. And then, but ironically, and I was just saying this, you're the guy who kept it going. Then CNET gave up on the media, right? Everybody gave up on the medium, which I still think is one of the biggest crimes that company has ever committed. And all that time, Jason, by God, was still doing it. Like, still podcasting. I think, you know, that's the other big lesson.

learned that from Peter Rojas, who was the founded Gizmodo, and then I poached him to doing gadget. And that was one of the great poachings I ever did. And I think you'll be on that list as well, Molly, of just me finding great talent and saying, let me, let me bring these people in and help them build a platform around him is don't stop. Don't stop. You know, I asked Peter, what's the secret to blogging? He said, showing up every day. And I think other people have used that quote for acting, basketball, you know, in any number of pursuits. But just keep going. Don't stop.

Because if you don't stop, then eventually luck happens, you know? And, you know, that's basically the story of my career, which is opportunities just emerged because I hadn't stopped doing stuff. I just kept doing stuff in the world. And when people see you consistently do something over a decade, over two decades, it's undeniable. And people will not, can't ignore you. And so congratulations.

It's an incredible thing to be inducted or to be thought of in this way. And we're still here in the early days. So I think, you know, we're in the second decade of podcasting. I think it's still very early days. And if you look at these podcasts, the fact that this one is six days a week, that I've got you as the co-host, that we have 10 people working on it. You're just trying to think of the scale of this, and we were having a chat today. And we were not joking about, well, maybe we should do some, you know, documentary style

spin-offs of this show, or, you know, by the team that produced this show, we could do our own documentary, we could do a Netflix show, we could do a scripted show, we could do a reality show. we know how to do it because we're here every day on air and we can make other projects right so I think this is becoming the foundation of media I think podcasting is becoming where great ideas start so the dropout which we talked about on the show is a podcast it's built off a podcast and so podcasts are we're intelligent people um you know have important discussions and I think that is you know quite a legacy we crashed also like there was the John Carrey book or sorry, there was the book about

We Work, but this is based on the ABC podcast. The show that we talked about with Lon. So it's, yeah, I mean, it is really, there's an interesting moment where podcasting is, has been like talk radio for a long time. That's what Buzz Out Loud was. That's kind of what this show is. Then it started to become narrative.

And now it's like feedstock. It's IP. It's like the plays that become the movie. Unbelievable. So yeah. Well, enjoy your time. getting inducted and hopefully they have a clip we can play next week. Yep. It's live streamed so we'll be able to, we can record it.

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Once again, coda.com.i.o slash twist to get $1,000 in credits. All right. We are back with everybody's favorite segment. Producer Rachel doing OK Boomer. This week, she's talking with Judon Johnson, who is the creator of Miami Hathaway. Basically, she's just living the dream in Miami and talking to all the interesting people who are building that tech scene. Let's not sugarcoat it. It's a real thing.

It's a real thing. She is just hustling her butt off, finding all of them, putting them on the show. Well done. Rachel reporting. OK, Boomer. Up next. OK, Boomer. I understood the assignment.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another in-person. recording of OK Boomer. This is only my second one. So hopefully this one turns out even better than the last. My first in person recording was actually also in Miami during Miami Hack Week. I'm in Miami again during some other work for Jason. And I decided that I would love to have on the creator of Miami Hack Week because my first time here was so great. So with me today, I have to Don Johnson, the founder of Miami Hack Week. Hello. Welcome back to Miami. Glad to have you here. Thank you. So for everybody. Also wrapping Miami Hackwick. Yeah. I love the

T-shirt, I'm roughing a tank top. It is freaking hot out here. So I guess for everybody listening, can you just describe what Miami Hac Week is before we dive into that? Yeah, I think Miami Hacquake is unlike any other hackathon anywhere else in the world. We, we like started off like trying to figure out like a dope way to bring engineers to Miami. And we're like, how do we make Miami attractive? So we took all the best things of Miami beyond our dope ecosystem, which is like the parties, the mansions. And kind of like that lifestyle everybody has, just like, you know, work hard, play hard, and we morphed it into a hackathon. So what, I guess in essence, Miami Hackweek is a one week hackathon where basically

companies run hacker houses all across the entire city. And then we just like fill a calendar with a bunch of events. It's an amazing time. We brought over like 2,000 engineers from across the world to Miami so far and we're less than a year old. So it's pretty dope. That's awesome. And this last one that I attended was the second Miami Hackweek.

It was the second station of Miami Hacquake. So the first one was August 2021. Second one was January 2020. Quick turnaround. And then we're doing that next one in August again of this year. So are you going to try to have one like each season or each quarter or something like that? You know, like honestly, we're just like riding the momentum for now. There's an appetite for it.

Miami's ecosystem is definitely like like growing and and we want talent here. Yeah. So Miami Hacquick is just like, you know, like we don't have a formula for it for when we're or in it, like if the vibe feels right, we're turning on exactly. Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. I think what was so interesting to me about Miami as a whole and being a Gen Z in Miami is I've noticed that there's been a lot of events, not just Miami Hackweek, that have really called towards young people flocking to the city.

So there was Art Basel, there was Miami Hack Week. I know Tech Week or Tech Month, Miami's coming up soon. Why do you think so many Gen Zs in particular are heading down to Miami? Yeah, you know, honestly, I feel like one of the cool things about Miami is that they're like the, the rank order of like, you know, where you fall within like the ladder of your career. Like it doesn't really stand here. So like even if you're like just entering the startup world for the first time, you could just like tweet or through like your mutual connection go like connect with somebody who is, you know, seen as like the top of the ladder or more established in their in their career. unlike a lot of other ecosystems where it's just like, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm a senior at some company or whatever, like, don't, don't bother me.

Yeah. That's actually great advice. It's going to a city that's not necessarily as saturated in the tech ecosystem early on in your career. So you have access to people that are higher up and getting firsthand experience. So that's a really good idea, especially coming from you who lives in Miami. I live in New York. I haven't, I guess, necessarily reached out to anybody like super high up.

any companies. But I wonder if I was based in Miami, if I'd have more access to people that are more established in their careers. Yeah, honestly, I, you know, I remember one of my, my first experiences, like, right before I decided to move to Miami last year, a friend just invited me to a bike ride. It was like about, like, December. And, like, basically on Saturday mornings, they do, like, there's like a Miami Tech cycling group. And I, like, pull up and they, there was like John Arringer there. It was like the CEO of Shutterstock who had just like moved to Miami. Wow.

And I've just had like so many like random runnings with with people that you probably just like see on Twitter. Or you just like hear about in in the in the either and the Twitterverse. And you just like run into them here in Miami. And it's just like so random. Like even one day I think like Andrew Chen came to Miami. Oh, what the heck? It was just like who should I connect with? Yeah.

And somebody tagged me and he like sent me a DM and we like had lunch with a couple of people like the next day. So I mean like there's also sort of like very random and fun stuff happening in Miami. And I think that access is very critical, especially if you're just like starting in your career. And it's one of the reasons Miami Hacquick has been like so incredibly successful is because that standing order doesn't exist in our event. And we bring people across all different levels of seniority and they're spending the same the same week in like a very similar environment. Everybody's just like having a great time. Do you have recommendations for people that are really early on in their careers that don't necessarily know where to settle down? Is Miami like just a place that you think you can come to during these events or do you think

Miami's like a permanent spot? I, for example, work remotely. I chose New York because it was a cool city to live in, not necessarily because my job was located there. A ton of other technical people, especially in the startup world, are facing that. Do you think that they should be coming to Miami for the events or do you think this is a place that people should be living? Yeah, I mean, Miami is definitely a place to be living and it's always, it's always hard to, it's always hard to talk about Miami as a place to live, especially I know like rent is like shooting through the roof. But there is like a quality of life that can be enjoyed here. You know, if you have access to that type of opportunities, I've personally like really enjoyed living here.

I ultimately made the decision to move from up north a year ago. And I've just been, like, loving this city. And I've made so many friends. I just, like, I'm always having, like, a fun time. And then, you know, even with what's happening with the tech ecosystem, we have, like, mayors between Mayor Dane-Covar, who's the mayor of the county, Mayor Suarez, you know, everybody knows. There's just a refreshed commitment to actually helping to build and scale the tech ecosystem.

So if you're like very fresh in your tech career, there are like startups for you to join. There are companies who are deciding to build here. There's an abundance of capital in like just like all over the ecosystem with all the big firms who have decided to move to move here. And then the movements like Miami Hakuke are like breeding, you know, like a new class of talent of entrepreneurs who are building companies here who are hiring locally. So yeah, I think it's almost a no-brainer if you're if you're a, if you're a considering a place to go.

I love that. And why, like, what's the main purpose of Miami Hacquake? Why would people go? Well, so, I mean, Miami Hacquick's true purpose is actually, like, convincing engineers to explore Miami as an ecosystem. You know, if you're a software engineer, you're probably, like, living somewhere like California or some of the other, like, major tech hubs. Miami has probably never been on your radar because probably the only thing you've heard about

is just, like, the beaches and the parties here. So we wanted to provide a place where they could access community and they could, work with actually like incredible local companies. So as an engineer, it's almost like a no-brainer. Like, you know, come for a week, explore what the city has to offer. And then you just might decide to stay. So far, you've had a bunch of people who have decided to stay. And that's like, you know, very early.

And then on the second part is we're waiting for the local ecosystem to catch up in terms of the supply of talent. There's been some investment by local institutions into colleges, into local universities. but the results of that will probably take like four to five years before it gets to like a meaningful point. So this is almost like a stopgap in terms of getting talent into the ecosystem so that companies can actually flourish and they don't need to look outside Miami or at least they can look here first when they decide to hire. Gotcha. And you're one of the first hires at a company. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you do outside of Miami Hacquit? Yes. I mean, I was super lucky to be a part of the. I was like employee number six at an organization called Upstream. So we're basically building infrastructure for communities or groups of people to have a shared wallet on the blockchain.

For a lot of people, they'll hear this refer to as like DAOs. So if you're wondering what a DAO is, it's a decentralized autonomous organization. And you know, what upstream has done is just like make it super easy for the average person to start to Doe, to have access to the tools they need to successfully run those DAO's. And yeah, and, you know, like being a part of that journey was incredible. Joining Michael and Alex right after they, like, sold a company and like, and started a new company in like the social networking space to us now eventually. You know, we just like raised our series A at 12.5 a couple, a couple like two weeks ago.

Oh, congratulations. And now we're like growing pretty quickly as a company. So being part of that journey has been like super incredible. And my job is I'm the head of business development and partnerships. So I'm like working very closely with all the dows that are being sprung up. And as somebody who's like very passionate about community, you know, I love my job because it's like really, it forces me to think about what the, what's the future, what does the future of community look like?

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So I saw upstream. I really like their tagline saying Dow in a box with no code. I think that's really interesting. If you were going to have the most perfect use case for Dow, what would that be? Why should people even consider? Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons I like DAWs is obviously in like how communities get to to is like at a place where everybody wants to like participate.

And actually I think a very like useful example is that we're actually thinking of turning Miami Hacquick into it now because there's a couple things we want to do is that we believe that community should benefit in the upside of their like participation, right? So it like let's think of like Miami Hacquake as being a part of a larger ecosystem. How do we ensure that like engineers engineers, companies, investors, like all the people in our ecosystem can actually be rewarded for participating at like the best level in that ecosystem. So I mean, that's that's probably like a great use case where a DAO is like where you have like a very like mission driven organization trying to get to a specific outcome, which for us is to

get 5,000 engineers to Miami, creating no incentive structures for all the different stakeholders in that ecosystem to participate. That's that's one use case that I personally just like buying like to be very enticing. But through my job, I've seen people like do things like start DAUS to buy plane tickets with, playing tickets with their friends, you know, like democratizing, choosing the destination to go to. And then they're, they're crypto-native people. So they're like, hey, we're going to be spending money, spending this money or this ETH anyways. So why not just like do it through a method that's like very like friendly or crypto-native, you know? It's funny because the first time DOWs really, really sprung up, I think, in Mean Street.

was probably the Constitution Dow. I think that's probably when most people heard of it. It's been thrown on Twitter a lot before then. So we do have some podcast episodes, if anybody was interesting, on the Constitution Dow if you want to go look. But I've even noticed people that were at Miami Hack Week, create their own DAWS.

The first one that comes to mind is drop out Dow. That's one I know that was started by people that attended Miami Hack Week. Why do you think so many young people are choosing to create those rather than just kind of like facilitate their communities on like Discord or something? Yeah, because as I say, it goes back to that core essential part of a DAO, which is a democratization of like the decision making and being able to like gain upside in like your participation from the community. So I mean, I don't want to like make it complex.

But like, you know, when we talk about like tokenomics and being able to earn rewards are proportional to the level you participate, that just gives that that equally incentivizes people across the board to participate. And, you know, we've seen traditionally where communities tend to. to have, like, if we have a community of 100 persons, they're usually like 10 core contributors in that community, right? And what does do is that they create, they now create like a way to wait like that kind of like

participation. So the more you, the more you're in it, the higher, like, people can actually like see, people can actually see, um, that the outcomes or the rewards of, of that. So I mean, these, these groups are just like mobilizing around, um, they're mobilizing around ideas around

things that they're passionate about. And, you know, We can't ignore that the blockchain is definitely going to be a technology of the future. And I'm sure these people are just riding that wave. Yeah. Again, another Miami startup that I have to plug, Bit Basel, who you introduced me to, I believe, the founder of Bit Basel. It is entire, there's an education portion. So if you don't know a ton about the blockchain, I would highly recommend Googling what Bit Basel is. They break it down really well for you.

So for a Dow, this is just coming from somebody. I've never been in a Dow. So is there a certain amount of people that you think would be ideal for one to start? Like this doesn't sound like something that if it was only like me and one other person, we would create a Dow. Like what amount of people in a community do you think you need to start it? I mean, that completely depends on what your Dow is going to be doing. Maybe you're just an next person might not be the ideal case.

So let's say like maybe three plus people, right? It kind of like depends on like what the goal is the level of trust that exists between those, um, those persons because the doubt helps to like reestablish the trust. Yeah.

Trust. There's like mutual agreement in like our order of operations and we're all like figuring it out as a, as a group. Um, so you know, like whether you're talking like, I've seen there are groups of just like five people who are

trying to like move resources around to do specific things. Um, this creates the accountability of the transparency. Um, and incentivizes the participation. Or we're talking about like, 100 people, 200, 300 people trying to buy the constitution. Yeah, it's all varied.

So can upstream help facilitate investment DAOs as well or no? Yeah. So, I mean, like, do have investment DAWs on upstream. Okay. And why would somebody choose to do an investment DAO over like a syndicate then? Well, I mean, as I say, it's. Because they have more say? You have more say.

Your access to the upside is also very different. And whereas a syndicate is just like, hey, like me and let's say I'm running a syndicate. I'm like, hey, I'll lead this syndicate. I also get carry on all the capital that's contributed to that syndicate. So therefore, like any persons whose participation in that venture deal, their contribution is already being like, you know, watered down a bit. Whereas with a doll, if you decide to invest through a dollar, unless like the terms is like, hey, somebody's getting carried, like, but more time than not, there's actually like equal access to participation. Gotcha. Okay.

In a stronger incentive structure, you know. Okay. That totally makes sense. And also, like, you know, a lot of times we talk about like investment. That is not only like related to like the investment in venture. Yeah. Like we, there are people who are just like pulling money together to do things like buy NFTs or buy other assets on the blockchain or like even buy, buy a sports team.

So, you know, I guess they're more like varied uses. for a lot, DAUS can help to facilitate versus like a traditional syndicate. I want to back up now because you said you were one of the first hires at Upstream. How would you go about hiring somebody that's even younger than us? So at Miami Hacwick, I noticed that I was actually probably like on the older side. There was people that as young as 19 there. And I think the oldest person that I met was probably 30. They were few and far between.

25 was probably like I'm 24. 25 was another one, few and far between people, 25. a lot of 19 year old because those kids either went to college or took a gap here and dropped out or never went back and realized that you can make really good money in tech. And how do you think would be the best way for startups to go hire those 19 year olds that are insanely smart? I mean, Miami Hacquick is a great model, right? And I think the future of hiring is changing as like if you're like a founder. So I think you actually observed with Miami Hacquick 2.0 is a lot of those, a lot of the companies that were running hacker houses were actually started by people

who attended Miami Hackweek. Really? The first version of Miami Hackwick and then launched a company and then recognize like the value of just like, hey, like we should like create these like interesting experiences and have people come and like learn about our companies. So I mean, Miami Hackwick gives us startups like a super unfair advantage. Basically if a startup is able to share their value proposition with with these like engineers, with these young business,

their professionals, like all sorts of, like, talents. Yeah. If they're able to, like, communicate their value proposition very well, or they're able to show, like,

the best event, then they immediately become, like, top of mind in terms of, hey, I'd love to work with this company. So, I mean,

I'd use one example, right? Like, Michael, Michael and Matthew Vega San's and Lula brothers, they've been sponsored for the last two Miami HAC week. They're, like,

24-year-old founders for, it's called Lula. So it's like a venue. back company. I know they were back like soft bank and a couple other like major VC firms. So they participated in the first one. Literally, someone decided to join like this, one of their employees, Henry, he's like, yeah, Miami's not that great. I'm definitely like moving back to New York. He spent a week with them. Literally the week after left New York and moved to Miami just because he like really loved the company, loved the team. So, you know,

like, like, I guess, I guess, kind of answer your question. If you're like a young founder looking, thinking, or if you're a founder thinking how to attract some of like this new generation of talent, who are just like very willing, like, setting themselves a bar above the rest, it's just like thinking about what, what unconventional, untraditional way you can like get in front of them. And really, it's a lot more than just the salary for, for a lot of these, like, young people. They're looking for mission or causes that really aligns with their own personal values. And just like giving them,

giving and provide an environment where they can learn about some of those things. It's pretty dope. So a lot more companies are like participating in conferences. I'm going to like hackathons like Eat Denver, Miami Hack Week, coming to things like, yeah, South by, things like Miami Tech Month. Everybody's just trying to put their like best foot forward and attract like the really attract the best. I totally, I see what you're saying too, because the reason I said 19 in particular is because I don't think we have as a society, as a society, totally focused on that age group,

that age group being younger than like 23, 1823, into highly professional atmospheres. Because before these kids were in college or they were doing trade work or just not doing things like becoming software engineers at this rate at such a young age because I think the pandemic showed a lot of people that they didn't have to go to college or that college wasn't the only option. So a lot of people took time off. A lot of people are noticing like the startup world a little more, which is cool. But now the people that are a little older than us, the millennials that have these companies or even other Gen Zs that are around our age are really struggling to cater to these people that are just a few years younger than us because it's such

unknown territory. But I think you're right with capturing culture. You can't have culture a lot of times just over Zoom. Like that's incredibly difficult. I think our podcast does a really good job at it. We do a live stream every day. We really try to push culture in our company with how much like we communicate. But at most companies, you're not talking to somebody. You're not live streaming a podcast. You're not talking to your boss or hearing your boss talk all day every day. So by doing things like conferences and events, you're giving these kids that are of college age, that same. like cultural socialization feeling, I think, that they would have gotten if they didn't jump right into the workforce. Yeah. And, you know, like, for me personally, at least, it's, it's like I started,

I got into the space of business when I was pretty young, like 15, you know, and I, I, like, age, age has never been the defining factor for me in terms of just like my ability. And I, it's easy, Like I easily recognize and resonates so much with some of these like upcoming talent. Yeah. And they're definitely like a huge value added in in companies because we're first of all, like a lot of us are like very like digital natives, right? So we've been like honing crafts or skills ever since we're like 16, 15. And we're entering the workforce is a lot more like professional, like developed professional

skills than maybe some of our peers who relied solely on like school. to get access to that, but with the internet. Yeah, then we're sad. That's so true. I also see, when you were talking about before, like, it's not just, like, a salary anymore that's driving these kids because we've learned so much on the internet. We have these digital native skills. I feel like they're so easily monetizable.

So becoming, like, a contractor, a freelancer, and independent is completely an option. And you could make such, so much money doing that. So it's so difficult, I find to, like, retain this young, talent, especially in the tech space, because they're not, like, financially motivated from their company anymore. Like, they have to have loyalty. They have to have culture. Because if it's just, like, a check that they're trying to, like, run after, you can really find that now, not anywhere. I don't want to say anywhere, but if you're, like, a really, really good software engineer, or if you actually noticed, people that are coding, what are those called? Like, these contracts,

smart contracts. If you're a software engineer that understands smart contracts, become a freelancer. Like, that is the most crazy thing. In order to have, like, somebody that programs and, like, knows the front and back of a smart contract and keep them in-house must be so freaking hard. So, so, so, so hard. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, I mean, if you're that person comes to next Miami Hacquy. Yeah.

And, you know, like, like, one thing I was super proud of for the last Miami Hacker because we actually did something called HACA campus. Okay. And I was focused on getting more locals involved with Miami HACWI. Okay. So we partnered with two of the largest, like, institutions here, which is my FIU and Miami-Dade College. And we did a hackathon specifically for students and had that track running all week. So, I mean, the students got training, which is the thing they needed. And then, you know, it got exposed to the tech work because they were able to come to any Miami Hackweek event.

They were part of the Miami Hackweek experience. And I just remember, like on, I think it was a Friday last week, I just saw like an article come out in one of our local. local publications about like a 19 year old who like literally like is now like starting his career in software engineering just from like being involved in in Miami Hac Week and someone like the programs being offered by the local institutions. So yeah, like definitely take a bet on the young talent that you're seeing that you're seeing out there. They're they're hungry for opportunities, hungry for a chance to put their skills to use. They're coming in with with a lot of talent. And we can put some respect on their names and really like give them a space.

Give them a space to actually shine, but also to like be invested and committed in their success and acting as mentors and supporting their development. And you know, like I've seen, I've seen a lot of like or Miami Hacquit team. I don't think there was anybody. I think there are probably like just a few people on our team who are like a bit older than like 25. Yeah. So, you know, like even a big project like Miami Hacquick is being like led by. a very similar demographic and we're working with all all sorts of people. So yeah, some pretty incredible stuff.

Awesome. So are you guys going to do anything then for Miami? What is that, Miami Tech Month? So we're kicking, we're actually hosting a Miami Tech Month kickoff party on April 3rd. Okay. Coming up fast. Yeah. So we like drop some tickets for those and they all like sold out today.

Wow. Yeah, we and then, you know, we have, I mean, just follow at Miami Hack Creek on, on Twitter because we will be sharing some of the stuff that we're working on. We have an exciting collaboration that we're going to be doing with three or five, three or five ventures focused on supporting founders. Obviously, like, you know, Emerge America's is going to be a pretty big deal. So really, really impressed with all that, you know, Melissa Medina and Felice Gordon, the whole like, Emergers America's team, what they've been doing and they've been the biggest

champions of like Miami's tech ecosystem year after year, and they've been doing this for many years. They're actually like the OG like Miami Tech Week was. Oh, I love that. was born through like Emerge America. So, you know, like super like, that's definitely a can't miss event. And with some of like the fresh energy coming into Miami, you know, founders fund is also doing their

their Miami Tech Week. They have like a conference that's going on. Also, that should be pretty incredible. But yeah, like just follow Miami Hat Creek. We'll kind of share anything we know. Awesome. And you're 24 too, right? Yeah. One more year until you're like one of the older people attended it is. But where can people find you? If people had any questions.

Yeah. I mean, I'm at JDA. Johnson on on Twitter. And honestly, if you hit up Miami Hack Week, you'll probably find me anyway. Well, thank you so much for being on. This was super exciting. Thank you for having. I hope I can make it down in the month of April because this city is just, I actually didn't know too much about Miami until Miami Hack Week.

So your event did make me fall in love with the space. Everybody's been wonderful. So thank you so much again. And I hope it to see you again soon. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Hi, everyone. Producer Nick here.

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