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Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show. I'm going to skip my usual Preamble. You guys have heard it before and I'm going to get straight to this guest because we are going to run out of time before we run out of material. My guest today is Catherine that's with an R. YN commonly known as Katie Han Hae un on Twitter at Katie Katie IE underscore on h a un she is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
She spent a decade as a federal prosecutor focusing on fraud cyber and corporate crime alongside agencies, including the SEC FBI and treasury she created the government's first cryptocurrency task force and let investigations into the amount gox hack my talk about what that is and the corrupt agents on the Silk Road task force. I have quite a few questions about that while with the US Department of Justice Katie prosecuted Rico murders will Define that organized crime public corruption gangs and money laundering so lots of good guys and other
Words, she also held senior policy positions at Justice Department headquarters in both the National Security Division and Attorney General's office where her portfolio included antitrust tax and National Security while in the private sector Katie has testified before both the House and Senate on the intersection of technology and regulation Katie serves on the boards of coinbase and hacker one and has invested in an advised tech companies from seed to Series E stage. She teaches a management course at Stanford Business School and previously taught cybercrime at Stanford.
Law school Kitty clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and is an honors graduate of Stanford law school. She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations Katie. Welcome to the show
Tim. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
I am so excited to chat for so many reasons and I thought I would just set the tone for people listening with a few lines from our mutual friend of all ramakant, who is a
Only a crowd and listener favorite here on the podcast. I emailed the Vol to ask if there might be any questions or subjects. It would be interesting to explore with Katie. And of course indicating that I would do my own homework and he replied with the following. I asked him if I could give attribution and he said yes, you can cite me. So here's what he said. This is his very concise response quote. She has a concealed carry.
Group in Cairo can't set foot in Russia dealt with a lot of violent criminals Etc. But she's also a Suburban mom with kids and runs the number one hard-charging VC Fund in crypto. She's quite the character. If I'm down to one phone call instead of calling my lawyer. I'm calling Katie. All right. So on top of that you seem to be the child whisper from another mutual friend Sunnah and she talked about how incredible you are with children. So we are going to run out of material I think very easily and
I want to start if it's okay with you with the Silk Road. So the Silk Road is of great interest to me for a lot of reasons and principal among those is the fact that I used to work many days a week out of Glen Park library in San Francisco. And and so for those who don't know the the founder of the Silk Road you who used the
Handle dread pirate Roberts course an allusion to the character from The Princess Bride was apprehended and Glen Park Library on a day. I happened to just not to be there. So the fact that the media is not to be was not there. I was not there but it makes me assume that I must have been sitting right next to this guy many many many times. So for those who don't know just as an introduction, could you explain what the Silk Road was?
So if you weren't at Glen Park
That day Tim that means you missed the lovers quarrel that the FBI staged in order to NAB dprs computer. And if you read the story, yeah, I
did I did I did actually Nick Bilton who were ended up writing an entire book about this was also just a few blocks away lived in the neighborhood. Yeah. So let's move into this and you can also explain the well, maybe the Silk Road and then the lover's quarrel why that was in in any way tactically important.
So the Silk Road as
Of your listeners probably already know but for those who don't is a Darkness site and it's a site that you can buy anything from fake passports or that you could buy anything from fake passports to heroin to fentanyl to drugs and just all kinds of Contraband right? I was actually not involved in the investigation into Ross ulbricht and DPR a lot of people think. Oh you ran the Silk Road case. I was actually involved in what I'll call the twist of the Silk Road case I was involved in
In some of the agents who were investigating DPR and Ross ulbricht in the Silk Road. I ended up having to prosecute them. So let me back up before we get to that and that by the way that started with a tip that someone in the government was up to no good and moving cryptocurrency. But before I get into that that twist piece just to answer your earlier question about the Silk Road. So there was this as you mentioned DPR and the government the US government for years was trying to find out who is DP
Our where is he or she located are they in the US or they elsewhere and how are they running the Silk Road? And so they spent a number of years trying to find out and one of the kind of secret weapons that the u.s. Government had was an undercover federal agent who I'll call knob and knob is one of the people ended up Prosecuting but this undercover federal agent befriended The Mastermind of the Silk Road dprk
pause for just one second. So usually if someone has a placeholder pseudonym, it's like a chain.
Jane John Doe where is Knob coming from? And is that with an N RK
n with even and it's n OB but if you think knob is a kind of crazy handle the personas that knob invented to actually then extort The Mastermind of the Silk Road were French maid and death from above so we can get into that moment. So knob is just the tip of the iceberg Tim.
Alright. Sorry to interrupt please
continue. Yeah. Well, where were we were so we were at the Silk Road the
Trying to figure out who's the Mastermind and it has a couple different task forces on that job one as I mentioned is outside of Washington DC. That's where knob and others are befriending DPR and getting little Clues into you know, who or where is this person? How do they do that? They do that by having knob who's an undercover federal agent befriend online DPR Ross ulbricht. And so for to about two years knob and DPR are communicating almost.
Most daily and they become actually friends if you read the chats their messages on the Silk Road website, which the government leader sees they become kind of, you know, they engage in Friendly banter back and forth. What did you eat today? Oh, what are you doing? Are you working out? And the reason for that Tim is those kind of little clues in inform the government will where is this person at like are they online during hours in the middle of the day? What kind of workouts are they doing? Are they hiking the hills? What are they eating? Are they eating salmon?
Wait, where is that found? Right? Whereas so just little Clues over two years really can help a government investigation. So knob was getting these Clues by befriending Ross Holbrook and knobs cover story was that he was on had connections to the criminal underworld in Latin America because he was a drug cartel leader and his into Ross ulbricht was I hey, I want to buy your business your Silk Road. I like this business. So that's how the two started communicating and somewhere along the way.
Way knob went bad knob became a double agent playing both sides and extorting Ross ulbricht for hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time of Bitcoin, which today would be hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin or of dollars in Bitcoin, but also selling Russell Brooke secrets into the government's own investigation using that Death from Above moniker.
That's just incredible. So my understanding and please correct me if I'm wrong that one.
The key elements of the story in apprehending DPR was also the fact and I want you to fact-check this understanding that this wasn't where you kind of entered the scene. But instead he used he made a bit of a rookie mistake and he used the same handle that goes something like Altoid or something like that in multiple locations with his email address that ultimately allowed agents and law enforcement to triangulate at least that seems to have been
In a piece of the puzzle, I might be misremembering that but when you became involved, what were the key elements that allowed you to figure out what was going on and then prosecute effectively.
So again, I didn't prosecute Roz but I remember that case well because as you note Tim, he was apprehended in San Francisco. So I actually remember when he came into the Federal Building at the justice department that day and you are right that there were some mistakes he was
Got to apa skating but there were some mistakes and I think there's a New York Times article on this that the IRS agent on the case. Gary Alfred was kind of just on the open web found a reference to his real name on Google somehow. So I think your memory is correct. But of course like you say it's a bigger piece of a puzzle. I mean, it was a multi-year investigation. It involves search warrants from what I understand all over the world and a number of different pieces of the puzzle but one piece indeed was what you said, which is the kind of rookie mistake of
of leaving a few digital breadcrumbs in the form of his real name that ultimately led to his apprehension
and I should have been more specific by prosecution. What I meant was in reference to the two federal agents. Oh, yeah one of which being knob so because in this twist, I mean part I as I understand it part of what makes this pretty fascinating is that the sort of the technology itself some of the technology
Play made it possible or at least facilitated the tracking of these digital breadcrumbs. Yeah, could you speak to that
so actually I'll go step further and I'll say in law we have this concept called before you know, but for this this wouldn't have happened and I can tell you that but for the blockchain we would not have caught by the way you said knob there are actually two federal agents will get into that in a second because it turned out there was another Rogue Federal agent doing all kinds of other things.
Who's on that Silk Road task force and but for the blockchain, we would not have caught these two corrupt agents and I say that if I sound like I say that with certainty it's because I'm certain of it. We would not have caught them otherwise, and in fact, the only reason that we were able to investigate and follow the flow of funds was because of the blockchain technology. And without it we wouldn't have been able to bring these two individuals to Justice. In fact, they'd still be today Federal.
And some quite sure of that and moreover. They probably have over a billion dollars worth of criminal proceeds in form of Bitcoin given how the price has gone up.
Yeah, they would have been highly resource-rich in enabled sort of questionable characters that I mean. Wow, what an alternative universe that would have been in this case if we could pause for a moment you seem to have a superpower
of getting in front of an audience and this is certainly shown up in previous profiles of you CNBC and elsewhere getting in front of an audience of people who come from all walks of life such as the members of a jury and getting them to understand a topic. They might have not heard of before or that might be very complicated possibly complicated. Could you explain for people who have heard the term blockchain but really don't know what it refers to what the blockchain
is. Well, there are numerous blockchains, but let's just use the example of the Bitcoin.
Chain, and it's essentially Tim what it is a massive Ledger that keeps track of kind of who owns what and instead of some Central entity keeping track. It's instead done by what are called nodes all over the world and these nodes in the case of the Bitcoin blockchain are called Miners and the best way to think of them in my mind is think of miners like the workers who are performing Computing work to secure the system that keeps track of this ownership. So it's kind of this decentralized Knott Central
be controlled big huge Ledger that keeps track of who owns. What does that it does paint a picture for you and it's also the key things about the blockchain is it's immutable no one can change it and that turned out to be really important in the case. We're talking about because these agents while I was investigating them were agents the whole time. So they were hot on my trail they could look and see what I was learning. They could peek in our investigation. In other words. The government wasn't able to terminate them just because we thought there was some
His conduct a foot and so the blockchain was actually really necessary because in in several instances, they were actually able to get Banks and financial entities to destroy records to cover up evidence of their crime. They also Forge subpoenas and forged court orders and the like think burn bags and because of flashing the badge. Hey, this is an undercover operation Bank so-and-so delete those records and not surprisingly.
The bank's complied. Here's a federal agent with a subpoena saying delete these records. It's a sensitive undercover operation. So the blockchain was really critical because it was decentralized and immutable meaning it can't be changed. We were able to follow the trail and that's why I say Bots for the blockchain we wouldn't have been able to bring this case or this indictment. In fact, I mentioned knob but I didn't mention the other agent. The crazy thing is they weren't even working together. But another agent on that task force who?
Secret service agent on detailed to the NSA who was one of the US government's experts in encryption technology. It turns out he had stolen Tim 25,000 Bitcoin from Ross ulbricht in the Silk Road, which today that would be worth just over a billion dollars and and and he had staged by the way. He had made it look like the Silk Road Russell Brooks right-hand, man. Who was by the way a
And father in Utah, if you can believe that the right hand of the Silk Road, he had staged the whole thing to make it look like that individual had stolen the 25,000 Bitcoin. So Ross ulbricht says, you know, what is my right-hand man doing stilling 25,000 Bitcoin From My Sight. I know it's him. I've got a take care of this and who does he turn to to do the taking care of Knob the other undercover federal agent who he's befriended over two years. So the details are quite
Crazy, but I will tell you again that without that blockchain technology. We wouldn't have been able to get the records because in the case of the secret service agent, one of the things he did was he transferred those 25,000 Bitcoins to an exchange called Mount gox which was a Japanese exchange that had gone belly-up. Well, we went over to get them out cocks records and they didn't have any they had been, you know, the exchange had kind of gone under and Mark karpeles. I remember meeting with Mark karpeles in Japan and Mark karpeles said you those
Words, we don't have and by the way, you guys did a seizure you guys being the US government did a seizure warrant for Mount gox not just not only were we hacked the the feds seized it well guess who was the affiant on the seizure warrant? It was none other than our secret service agent who had stolen the 25,000 Bitcoin.
I mean really it is just built for screenplay this entire story now it seems like if I'm getting my facts straight that there is one other but for possibly
That is the tip. Could you speak? I don't know how much of this is public record at this point. But who did it come from or what was the tip? How much did you have to go on
I'll tell you what is public record and you know, if listeners want you can go read there's a 97 I think our 90-page criminal complaint that lays out all of the facts of this story online. You can just go Google it Silk Road agents. It's out of San Francisco. But what happened was I was sitting in my office in San Francisco on another crypto investigation and one of the lawyers who used
Has to be an investigative journalist pulls me aside said can I talk to you about something else? And I said what he said, you know, you've got I think you've got a mole or someone up to no good, you know on your payroll they're moving cryptocurrency and I thought oh, here's sounds like a real conspiracy theory, which of course I was in San Francisco. I hear a lot of them right about the government's it's bad. And you know, I thought okay this poor agent. I've got to go clear this person's name because here's this
No, lawyer former journalist spreading rumors, and I thought probably he's moving Bitcoin. It's probably you know on a poorly backstopped undercover operation. So I actually that was the tip I got and I actually was really started to look into it more to clear the name and just you know, then I thought that his information was correct, but I did look into it. Like I said, I got a couple agents and it's not a popular thing to go to agents and say I want to
Investigate some other agents right?
Like I bet not. Yeah crowd pleaser.
No so it but I got a couple agents who knew a thing or two about the blockchain and we hopped on wallet Explorer and started looking at some flow of funds and saw wow. This is a lot of cryptocurrency moving around and then what what flipped in my mind Tim was the moment where I saw emails that this individual had sent to crypto exchanges saying please the delete these records and I thought now if this is
Hover and you're in the government, you don't want to delete evidence you want to preserve evidence. So that's how I knew something was amiss, but we only got a tip about one agent. And of course that one agent once we kind of solved whodunit and we knew he was extorting Ross ulbricht in the Silk Road, and we knew he was selling information in the government's case. We thought oh, that's probably who stole the 25,000, you know Bitcoin as well. So we were just thinking that's that's who did it wasn't the Silk Road administrator, but in fact
Fact I remember on Christmas Eve getting a call from one of those agents and he said Katie. I don't think it's him the patterns the movement of money the kind of services that were they were using to obfuscate. They're not the same person the mo is different and we've got someone else who stole that Bitcoin and so then we launched kind of a separate investigation Tim into who stole a billion dollars worth of bitcoin a billion now.
Yeah if I could pause for a definition, please
Sure, what exactly is a federal prosecutor?
Oh a federal prosecutor is so a lot of people have heard of District Attorney's or DA's right? Hmm that is a local prosecutor a federal prosecutor is another name for it as assistant us attorney and a federal prosecutor takes those kind of crimes that cross state lines or that are of a certain kind of subject matter that the federal government has deemed are also federal crimes now a lot of things
Could be both you could have certain crimes that could be prosecuted at the state level or they could be prosecuted at the federal level. And then you have other crimes that could only be done by one or the other. So my job is a federal prosecutor was to kind of investigate and bring to Justice. We're crimes that occurred. Now another important part of the job of being a prosecutor is knowing when not to bring case. We're even though the facts support a charge because what I always say is the government wasn't hurting for business. Unfortunately, there are a lot more criminals than
Resources to prosecute and so one of the things as a prosecutor that you really want to do is look for what are the worst of the worst. Where are you going to get the most bang for the buck here? What is your theory of punishment? Is it deterrence is it punishment like why are we doing this? And so you really need to look for kind of the most important cases and by important? I don't mean high-profile. I mean important for justice to be served.
I would imagine I mean this is me knowing nothing about this but also
so important possibly as a setting of precedent or otherwise acting as a domino that knocks over or helps to possibly knock over other Domino's. I'm looking at a letter which is online at a 16z. That's the Andreessen Horowitz website a 16z.com and this is the hiring Announcement by Ben Horowitz certainly of the namesake recent Horwitz been has been on the podcast as well. So as Mark for that
And I want to read just a portion of this letter. There's a lot to it including some Nicki Minaj lyrics for people who want to see Sean lyrics Not Gonna. I'm not going to read those but here it is quote as I learn more about her career. I was even more impressed. She stood up to murderous motorcycle gangs and cartels shut down organized crime nailed Rico murderers again that acronym that I wanted to find I've uncovered the largest money laundering and cyber crime rings and stop white collar crime and public corruption through it all her.
Tutorial record not a word I read every day was whatever in zero. She never lost a case. Not once not ever. Okay. So bookmark Rico, we're going to come back to it. But okay what and I'm going to hold a couple of possible answers to my forthcoming question off the table. So the working harder or preparing harder. I understand that you do both meaning you work and focus very intensely and you've had a reputation for that for a long time, but what do
You think you have done differently or how have you approach things differently that has helped you to have this record?
Well, it's a great
question. If it's easier to kind of swap places. How would your friends who really know you and I've seen you over the years how would they explain it? If that's easier to
answer? Well, let me take a stab at both and I will put a pin in Rico will come back to that. I mean one of the jobs I had as a federal prosecutor is going to before a grand jury, right? That's a secret jury presenting evidence and seeking an indictment another.
Other kind of job of a prosecutor is meeting with the Witnesses in a case and trying to maybe get them to flip bringing, you know evidence to Bear developing evidence. It's also working with agents and it's to get agents motivated in some cases to go, you know work nights and weekends to go chase the lead. For example, the other thing that you do as a prosecutor is you go to court just like you see on TV, you know on order like the prosecutor stands up and you know makes arguments to the judge if
Judicial argument or if it's a trial makes an argument to the jury. So that's a little bit about the job of a prosecutor. I think one of the things as I think about it that I did differently was. Well, first of all, I just had an amazing Mentor at the justice department. So put a pin in that and we'll come back to him in a minute. But one of the things I did differently is just I think it's really important to obviously you want to make sure that you're charging the right case and you know, you have all your evidence because even though ninety-five percent of federal
Aces plead guilty at least in those days. They did some go to trial and Tim you never know which ones are going to go to file or which ones are going to plead guilty. The ones you think oh, they'll take a plea they surprise you the ones you think will go to trial surprise you and take the first plea like you just never know. And so one thing I always did is I thought to myself I have to prepare this case as if it's going to go to trial and I have to convince a jury and how am I going to convince a jury that this is the right case to bring that is
Churches and that the law was violated and that what I'm asking for is frankly a no-brainer. One of the things I did was I developed something called. Well, I didn't develop the concept of a reverse proffer, but I'll tell you about what I did. That is sometimes you just felt like maybe there's something Lost in Translation, like maybe this defendant doesn't understand the evidence. I have against them who knows like maybe their lawyers telling them. Maybe they're not telling them. Maybe they're telling them but the
The the defendant doesn't really trust their lawyer and so I did something called a reverse proper, which is I said with the you know permission of Defense counsel and defendant I said, hey, would you let that defendant come into my office Marshalls? And if they did Marshalls, can you bring the defendant to the office if the defendant was in custody they come, you know Shackled if they were out of custody. They just show up in a you know street clothes with their lawyer and I would sit him down in the conference room at my office and I would give them a little.
Snapshot of here is a kind of flavor or sampling of the evidence. I have against you that a jury is going to hear and here's how I'm going to present it. And I want you to be aware like with this evidence during it on the face. Do you want to go to trial or not? And I think a lot of times seeing what would be presented and seeing Oh, we do have they do have all of these Witnesses who will say XY and Z cos the defendants in some cases to say no. I want to change the
ances here. I want to like stop the bleeding so to speak because obviously if you go to trial the sentences tend to be longer the judge pronounces always the judge pronounces the sentences, but when you're in a trial setting you often get a lot longer than if you taken earlier guilty plea, so reverse proper was one thing. I think another thing that comes to mind is just being able to develop a rapport not just with the defendants or defense counsel, but with the witnesses witnesses are some of the most important evidence that you can have in an investigation.
And a number of cases. I was doing particularly gang cases. Why is some witness or some member of the gang like, why are they going to trust you a government prosecutor? What can you do to build that trust and to really talk to them in a way that is relatable. And I think that was something that I spent a lot of time trying to develop is putting myself as I can never put myself in the shoes of some of the folks that I encountered but trying his best I could to think what's motivating them what might they be
Be scared of what's holding them back from wanting to cooperate with us and through doing some of those things. I think we were successful in being able to flip some key Witnesses. I'm so that could contribute to it, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that I had just an amazing Mentor. He was actually my boss at the justice department and he was an incredible prosecutor and just watching him that also I think I counted for a lot of it. So I can't to and also I had incredible case agents and FBI.
I agents and everything so I can't really take credit for all the you know, verdict records. There's a lot that goes into it.
Yeah, I would imagine it's a team effort.
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If we take a closer, look at this meant or what were some of the things if different from those you've just mentioned that stand out as making him an excellent prosecutor.
So or an unusually
good. Yeah. Well, I think the key thing is he did not care. I mean, I'm not suggesting prosecutors. Most career prosecutors are not thinking of their next job. So just to be clear on that but really with him and his name is Will Frandsen, you know, I've worked with a lot of amazing mentors to him and my career Justice Kennedy the Attorney General Tech CEOs and folks in VC, but this guy is not a household name. His name is Will Frandsen and I think one of the things that comes to mind when I think of will
Is he just didn't care about anything other than just in that moment doing the right thing and doing Justice and he didn't care about what his next job was going to be he didn't care about the consequences. He didn't really even care. I'm not endorsing this necessarily, but he I remember some judges moving Court once for a judge said, you know, mr. Frandsen. Why do you shake your head at me like that? Like I'm stupid, you know, no judge would ever usually say that to a prosecutor but he had this yeah.
And we'll head this prosecutorial Swagger that you know was unique to him. He took down MS-13. I mean, that's what I think there was a newspaper article that described was prosecutorial Swagger, but in my case one of the things he did that made him an amazing leader was he first of all threw me into the deep end, but he also had my back when I needed it and he recognized when I was ready to lead, you know, in fact I did a biker murder case involving the Mongols and the Hells Angels and it went to trial that was the one of the
That I thought for sure would plead guilty and instead went to trial and it lasted 2 plus months and you know will became my second chair. He became my Deputy even though he was my boss and you know is a high-profile murder case. He said second chair during that case, but I think he also had my back and when I tell you he doesn't really care about his next job. Can I share a story involving Google?
Sure, that's good. Yeah, well, so there was a murder case we were doing a different one than the one I just mentioned it was a gas station. Robbery gone hard to
keep track of a lot of a lot of
murders. Yeah. It was a really sad circumstance of a guy who was shot over 250 dollars while he was working a second job at night. And actually we had some amazing evidence that we knew was in the defendants Google.
Mailbox, it was like Google Voice records and stuff. And so we issue. We got a search warrant which is you know different than a subpoena. We had to go to the court me to go to a judge prove probable cause and get a search warrant and Google just simply put it in the line and basically told us to get in line and we'll get to it when we get to it. And we said, you know, this was a court order. This is now unsealed so I can say this publicly at this time. It was it was sealed is that this is a court order some murder case, you know, we need these records and they basically told us we're Google. Well, we'll get to it when we can get to it and
You know will said, you know, that's just BS I mean we go around expecting mom and pop stores all the time to comply with search warrants or people right ordinary citizens. Like why should go get a pass and I said, you're right. That's BS. Like let's write a motion to the judge to have them held in contempt will give him a fair chance to comply first. But if they don't like let's go to the court. This is you should comply with the same rule. Everyone else has to and we gave them several chances and we said we're going to go to court and they basically ignored us and we are Google we will crush.
Hu we went to court we got them held in contempt of federal court if they didn't produce these records what ended up happening and this was all under seal. The time was I won't name names but someone at Google high up called the political appointee who was running our office at the time and basically suggested that we should get this on done and you know, we were in the jurisdiction of Google, you know, we're in the Northern District of California and will and I were both like know why should we do that like they didn't this is a murder case where the victim
Family is relying on us to you know, bring the best case in the best case involves those records and we're not going to just stand back because it's Google, you know calling up and suggesting we undo this motion. So we stuck to it and that was a case where well and another boss might have said, you know, let's kind of figure out a way to broker a great settlement here and make this go away and he said I don't care who they are. You know, he really just didn't care. So he was fearless and also he was egoless. Like I said he left.
At me often kind of when he knew I was ready to lead he would let me first chair a case. So that really stands out to
me fearless and egoless is a formidable combination, right? Not until
we're there are
rare and I do not want to fight that person on anything that's going to be very difficult. Now you mentioned fearless and you also mentioned Hells Angels Mongols. This might be a good place to Define Rico.
Left direct
earring it is see you got it right there racketeering. It's the racketeering and organized corrupt. I think institutions are racketeering and corrupt organizations and it's basically a federal statute where it just creates a class of crimes that are more serious. If you've done certain predicate crimes, so for example, in often involves cases, involving conspiracies, and then you allege several product it acts so in furtherance of the conspiracy, maybe there was
some you know gun trafficking maybe there was money laundering maybe there was fraud and so I did a number of Rico. There's also I'm not going to worry with acronyms but there's a fight car those are kind of this class of cases again where you're talking about a corrupt organization. That's the CEO Enrico or Ico and what it means is basically an organized criminal Enterprise and you have to prove they were organized you have to prove they were serving a common goal. You have to prove they did certain things and further in
That organization or conspiracy is basically what Rico is
it? Does that also help you to prosecute people who are in leadership positions who don't necessarily for instance carry out a hit or murder themselves, but they issue the order for that hit does Rico Flay a or the suppose Usher of laws is the right way to put it but does that assist you in any way in?
Eating thinking about these larger groups Hells Angels Mongols, you mentioned MS-13 for
instance. Mhm. Yeah. It's definitely a tool and a prosecutor or an agent's toolkit to kind of wrap up an organization. Like you said if otherwise the individual might not have been on the hook for actually like a murderer. Maybe they just commissioned it for example. Now there are other laws that you can do to him. You don't only need Rico there are conspiracy laws, but Rico is just kind of another tool that
I might use and it also enables you at trial to get in what are known as like imma just mentioned predicate acts. So, you know at the Hells Angels and the Mongols trial we included predicate acts like there's I don't know if you remember the Laughlin River Run Riot and a series of other murders and the whole host of other criminal conduct that than the jury heard and we think you know the not we but the Congress who passed the law because of course prosecutors don't make the law they just enforce the law.
And so Congress passed this law saying that the jury would be able to hear all of these different kind of predicate
Acts.
No standing up to Google is or a company like Google at a tech company with incredible power wide reach shows a level of fearlessness with respect to suppose many aspects of life including possible. Maybe maybe not career advancement career options later who knows like politicking within the office etcetera when you're dealing with say prison gangs, right like moisture Familia, one of the world's largest prison gangs and
And other groups that are associated with intense violence how have you thought about personal safety and I'm struggling to ask a more pointed question. But like what is the self talk bin so that you can operate effectively in a job that entails what I would imagine to have some degree of personal risk, and that's if that's a Meandering question, but I'd love to at least open the door to just hearing your thoughts on that because I don't know if I
Have the courage to do it quite frankly.
I think you know, you might if you see some of the victims families and you might if you kind of saw some of the witnesses that were intimidated or some of the consequences if he didn't I mean I completely hear what you're saying Tim and I don't, you know, just miss it because it's certainly something that I've thought about but I also knew that in those moments there was something really wrong going on in someone had to step in and do something about it. You know, it wasn't just me.
Me it was like I said a lot of really brave men and women law enforcement personnel and other prosecutors and by the way judges and even juries, you know, jury, there are plenty of instances of jury intimidation, but, you know, it's critical for our system to work because obviously we can't just be running amok with no laws and you know violence I think in the case of Nuestra Familia mentioned a prison gang. This is an entire world people don't realize I mean and you think oh they're in prison. So therefore then they're
Stop, but the truth of the matter is and there's actually a great 60 Minutes episode on this. It's called operation Black Widow, by the way running criminal Enterprises from prison is pretty common. You know, there's a whole system that goes into taxing criminal activity on the outside in exchange for protection on the inside and the people who are running these gangs frankly. A lot of them could be running businesses. I sometimes think if circumstances were different they're Hustlers their dedicated, you know, they have a lot
Lot of passion. I'm not trying to make it sound glamorous at all because it is Criminal. I'm just saying that they're very organized. They have a whole system for getting messages outside. I remember once a judge said to me. What do you mean that defendant is, you know under the influence of whatever drug it was there in prison and I thought oh your honor like it's so naive to think that they're not able to get Contraband in prison. They're running the prison sometimes and so this case you mentioned. Mr. Familiar was a was a really large gang it was you.
They affiliate on the outside with the Nortenos on the street. And then like I said, there's a whole tax system. Some of the street gangs will pay into tax essentially into inside the Carnales inside so that if they ever get hooked up,
And put in prison, then they're protected within prison, but one thing I think that you might think oh these dangers you see when you say
large. Just could you give us an idea of what large
means? Well their worldwide. I mean, you know, like if in the case of MS-13 or Nostra family, I mean these it's not just in the US but they're certainly in every city. I mean you're talking about thousands and thousands if not tens of thousands of individuals affiliated with these but I prosecuted Nuestra Familia. I indicted that case this was before that Silk Road case. This is in my
Prime do still and you talk about being scared. I mean the truth of the matter is a lot of the defendants that and we extradited many from all over the country and these were the and of Carnales. These were the big Chiefs these weren't like the street-level gang sees guys had all
been to the Carlos are the
leaders. Yes with him. Hmm. And I think we indicted over a dozen most ended up pleading guilty. Some did go to trial, but you know you think
Oh, oh, well, those are going to be the scariest of the scary. But you know again like I told you earlier it's really a human thing and different people even if they're in a really violent prison gang react differently to things now a lot of and I think a lot of the listeners also myself, I would include myself and probably even this like we think it would be the worst thing in the world to go to prison like we don't want to go to prison. The interesting thing is a lot of the people involved in these prison gangs don't necessarily think that way Tim. It's like it's not real.
A threat to say I'm going to put you in prison that's kind of like where they shine sometimes and so talk about trying to deter criminal activity against that backdrop, but I think a little because of that a lot of those individuals sometimes think this is the cost of doing business like I'm going to get, you know hooked up and out of the game part of the game. So it's not a personal thing. And the thing I tried to injure do is to just treat the defendants with respect treat all the subjects with respect and not make it personal.
And we ended up flipping a kind of key witness in that case a guy who is now in the witness protection program. So I won't say too much about him, but he did end up testifying so I can I can tell you that because it's all public record. He was in West Philly enforcer and he was a hulking huge guy with tattoos who came in and out of my office for weeks and as we tried to flip him and he eventually came around to testify but you know, most of them, I mean it's kind of violates. I think an oath to the
Thing that you would never testify that is the worst thing you could do in The Gangs
eyes.
But see you mentioned earlier that one might imagine that these cases would be the scariest. Is there a moment where case or an incident if you're willing to share where you were actually scared rightly or wrongly,
you know, I I don't really want to get into it because I call it opsec Tim. Let's just say I've taken measures and I won't really say much more than that. You know, you mentioned I have a CCW.
You it's not because I'm a gun not or I'm passionate about guns. It's just because you know, you want to make sure you can always protect yourself and I've taken other measures as well. And I obviously am not going to get into them here, but I think like I said, it's really just in the moment of that case. You just feel like your job and I felt like my job was to actually as cheesy or cliche as it sounds pursue Justice and what kind of message would that send if I just like walked off the case or walked away and certainly a lot of people I worked with
It felt that way to it wasn't just me bringing these cases. There are a whole lot of other people
that in some way reflects. Well, it certainly reflects I think deep aspects of your personality, but also just a few chapters in the the wild varied life of of Katie Hahn, and so I'd like to switch gears in a sense and ask you when you first heard about Bitcoin.
It was right after that.
Mongols biker murder trial I told you about with the Hells Angels and ended and that had been a couple months and you know after that I had just really done a lot of violent crime cases over the course of a decade and I remember thinking I'm ready to switch to something else. Like maybe I'll leave I didn't really know what I would do, but maybe I'll do something else and my boss came to me and said, you know, let's have you put some of these investigative skills. You've brought to use against criminal Enterprises to
Knology and cyber crime and I said, okay great. You know we're here in the Northern District of California seems like sensible to do some cyber crime and he said well, here's what we want you to do. We want you to investigate Bitcoin and you know Bitcoin is this kind of criminal technology and we need to kind of stop it basically and I remember and so that was a round 2012 and I remember going home and talking to my husband who knew we more about Bitcoin the
And I had not heard of it at all. That was the first time I ever heard of it was 2012. So I was I feel like I was kind of late to the party. I mean it was the Satoshi white paper was in 2008. This is four years later and I had never heard of it and my husband told me you might want to you know, learn what it is before you go around talking about how you're going to prosecute it because it sounds a little foolish and I said, well, what do you mean he said well, look at this wiki page and tell me if you think you know, you could prosecute it after and the more I learned about it. I pretty quickly realized that would be like saying
Saying I'm going to prosecute cash or I'm going to prosecute the internet or something like that. Like it's not it's not possible number one and it's also not desirable. But what instead ended up happening was Prosecuting some of the nefarious uses of cryptocurrency just like we prosecuted like I said, like I prosecuted a 25 count indictment for mortgage fraud conspiracy, you know, and they used cash and they used wires. So to hear were some cases like we talked about Mal Cox we talked about this whole crowd.
There is also the btc-e case there there was criminal use of cryptocurrency. So we prosecuted some nefarious use cases of it. Then in the course of that. I ended up starting to get to know some of the early players in the crypto space Tim. I also started realizing more and more what I had kind of realized early on which is this doesn't seem all criminal. It seems like there are actually a lot of people trying to build some really important products and services that can be used for good. And so that was kind of how I frankly
We got into the space early days. Now. I was in the government. I always joke like I bought but coin earlier than anyone. I know unfortunately, it was undercover in the government. So I never kept any and I of course never bought any when I was in the government. She's probably a shame because you know, I don't need to tell you what the price was back then
okay. So in feel free like we can always edit later right? But I'm just curious when you got to know these some of the earlier players in crypto. I mean I did read
One quote that I thought was fantastic from we can mention them by name all of course, but he said he was he was terrified of you and this is Zuko Wilcox and which makes sense. All right. I mean it does make sense on a bunch of levels. But how many of those early contacts do you think played nice because they in their mind had the sort of maximum of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Or through other motivation or for other reasons, right? You are very good at developing rapport, but I have to imagine that a lot of these people were hesitant or tentative or had some misgivings about engaging. I'd love to just hear you speak to that if anything comes to
mind. Well, that's the first I thought of it but you it's an interesting way to think about it, but keep your keep your enemies close. I think what ended up happening though because I did establish the government's first.
Task force back in those days which was comprised of a bunch of different agencies. I think what ended up happening it might have started out that way Tim and I can certainly appreciate why now being in the space. It's like I know encounter people all the time like, oh, we don't want to talk to the government. And you know, I think that's just born of they don't really know that there are a lot of people in the government and not everyone thinks the same thing in the government, right? It's made up of hundreds of thousands of people and some people drink
their organization turn,
right and then once you actually start making the connections in
Meeting people they realize you know, you're not so bad. Like it doesn't seem like you want to you know, close every like we thought that you just wanted to close down everything. You know, it turns out that maybe you just want to keep Bad actors off X Y or Z platform and you know turns out we want that to write a great example of this is you know coinbase and you know, I'm on the board of directors of coinbase now fast forward several years, you know coinbase did a great job of this in the early days. Like I don't think it was about keeping me an enemy away. I think it was more about it's not good for their business to have criminal activity on the
That form I mean they don't you know, it's not like they're cozying up to the government either but I think it's every kind of pragmatic and good business leader. Thanks. Why would you want a bunch of Nefarious activity on your platform, especially if you're trying to build a business to kind of change the world so I think you might be right though in the early days, but fundamentally after they saw some of the bridge building that we in the government in those early days started trying to do and we did things like we hosted a summit where we do is invite only
We but we invited some of the early folks in the space. I did this with a number of different agencies and then the agencies would come in and talk about what their equities were and I think that kind of two-way street and dialogue is really important because what you want is you want, you know, you mentioned Zuko. I want Zuko to hear, you know, what are some of the consequences of privacy coins? And I want people in the government to hear what are some of the real benefits of privacy coins, and I
think it's actually a very very very smart guy. Very very very very
smartly.
Um, I remember meeting him. Actually. I remember exactly what you're talking about because I remember meeting him and I've kept in touch with him since that time but you know, even remember it stamp which was an early crypto exchange, which is in Slovenia. They featured in our Silk Road twist case we talked about earlier and I remember I needed their cooperation for some records and I remember them thinking. Oh this us prosecutors are coming. We think it's a trap, you know, and the I didn't state
apartment tell me you can't violate the sovereignty of Slovenia. We can't have you meet on Slovenian ground unless this this and this are followed and I said what I'm going to lose the evidence to guys are willing to meet with me now and they said well we did just sees a yacht in a DEA case off the coast of Croatia. Maybe we could arrange the meeting their international waters. I said, okay if they didn't think I was coming to if we convince them I was not coming to trap them if I suggest a DEA seized yacht to meet on I'm pretty damn sure they're going to cancel the meeting.
Really drop that one and just
meet me offshore guys. I'm really not trying to set you up. But anyway, long story short we ended up meeting in Slovenia. I hope we didn't violate any sovereignty or anything there, but we ended up meeting and that was early days. And you know, I think they ended up seeing what we were trying to do and realizing it was actually good for the space and ended up providing us with the records. We need it.
So amazing and it's not just bitstamp or coinbase. I think a lot of companies especially over the last several years have tried to proactively engage with Regulators. But I've also like I said, I think just as important. Is that government also for its part keep in touch with the crypto industry and why do I say that one key reason is because this technology is changing so fast and I think like when I talk to my old government colleagues are like God, we just kind of finally had mastered Bitcoin and then we have
And now we have these other, you know doesn't and now of course we have over a thousand crypto sets. It's really hard for government employees with kind of the training available to keep up with this technology. Frankly. It's not just government place. It's hard for any of us even those of us in the space to keep up with how fast moving this is. So I think there's also just like an important Education and Training component that benefits the government to have these more open dialogues. And of course if crypto projects feel like the government's just going to out
to shut them down. They're not going to be willing to provide that to a street. So I think it's really a win-win to have these conversations. I don't want to be naive or pollyannaish about it. I'm not saying like one the crypto industry and the government should team up and you know spend every day together nothing like that, but I do think this kind of ongoing dialogue is really important.
Yeah, I agree also because we're not the only country developing blockchain based Technologies and cryptocurrency. I mean just like artificial intelligence. So it's important to have an informed Global Perspective and geopolitical perspective from thinking about a lot of the these things just for context for people who are interested in Zuko is the keys still CEO of the electric Coin Company ACC, which is a for-profit company leading the development of
Of what is known as Z cash those people who want to look into that now on the pro, let's just focus on crypto not blockchain explicitly for a second. But on the on the pro crypto, let's say Pro PTC Bitcoin side. You have kind of True Believers who can sometimes paint with broad strokes and missed a lot of nuances and details then on the anti crypto side you find similar kind of militant anti-abortion.
Crypto people who have somewhat maybe naive or simplistic arguments, right? My understanding is that you it was in Mexico City of all places that you debated Paul Krugman. Is that right? Yes, that's right who publicly said that you give the best thesis for crypto. He had heard now. He's notoriously anti crypto. What was it about your argument that he found compelling if you
remember well, I don't want to say he said I was
Compelling he just said I had the best friends but I don't want to get some you know angry tweets and I get some angry tweet from Paul Krugman saying, you know, I didn't never said I was compelling Katie.
Right? Right. He said he's like I said, it was the best of the worst. Yes, there are whatever exactly but but to the extent that he said, all right, this is this is some of the better. This is some of the better material I've heard. What was it?
Well, I think one thing was and I'm not let's just even back take a step back and zoom
Out because I've encountered many people who are skeptical like poly not just Paul Krugman, but as you can imagine many many people and I think one thing I always emphasize is this is not just about currency. Well, first of all, it's not just about Bitcoin and speculation and it's also not even just about currency. There's this whole world to crypto and that's one of the reasons I've stayed in crypto is it really is so interesting to me and that it brings together so many different elements Tim of society and different verticals. It brings to other economics.
It's computer science technology. But also as you just referenced geopolitics finance and certainly law and policy. I mean I could go on and on and now even art we'll talk later. I hope about NF TS or non fungible tokens, but really there are so many things that crypto touches and so one of the things I tried to do with Paul Krugman and with others is to illustrate, you know, the good because so much of what I hear is oh, it's for money laundering it's bad and I think that's a really ill informed view. Like I said,
Out cryptocurrency, we would not have solved some of our cases without that blockchain technology. One of the things I try to do is focus on here are a lot of the good things happening with crypto and I think gosh we don't have time I could go on and on for so long telling you about some of the good stuff going on. So I did try to focus him and others away from just thinking it's only about money and it's only about speculation because to me it's about so much more.
And if T is
n of T. So
let's go you said you said you said let's you said let's talk about them. So let's talk
about it. Let's do it. Okay. Well, yeah. Well, yeah, well cos walk us through it. Okay. Well, first of all, I hate calling them by acronyms but and I did it myself. I know so I'm guilty but n of T is let me just break it down what that is because I think one of the problems today in crypto is it feels so inaccessible to people they tell me I don't understand it. I can't like wrap my head around it. And I said, you know.
Okay, if I can learn it, you can learn it and part of it is just I think the industry needs to do an even better job and we've already improved as an industry but we still have work to do on being able to speak plain English in terms that normal people can understand. You know, it's just like there's all this fancy crypto Babble and that's true not just in crypto, by the way that was certainly true in law and in government like each area. Our industry has its words right that make it feel inaccessible to people and I try to break.
That down I did it in law to it's like, you know, you use all these Latin terms in law. Like what does that actually mean? So and if T is like that and N of T stands for non fungible token and it's basically fancy crypto Babble that just means it's a special kind of token and by special I mean unique because you know, of course fungible means not unique in this is a non fungible token. So it's a unique token that lives on a blockchain that tracks something unique like art or a
Electable, but it's different from the usual kinds of tokens like Bitcoin or theorem because like I said an NF T is not fungible. It's Unique. It's one of a kind so it could represent, you know, an image a piece of music a video and in fact him it's a is actually kind of serendipitous were talking about NF t s first of all the spaces, you know, as you know, very active right now, but I actually just Acquired and nft my first one and then someone also
so gave me an n f t so I now actually own to digital works of art that are unique on the blockchain that can't be replicated that if I ever wanted to I could sell they're just like regular art but their digital and their unique and that's one of the things crypto does because people say well wait can't you copy it whatever with cryptographic principles
You have digital scarcity. So whereas you could previously copy a photograph. This is digitally scarce. You can enforce digital scarcity and that's a really big idea to get your head around but the idea is that if I wanted to sell you and I'm not going to because I just acquired it. But if I wanted to sell you my NFC my really cool NFC that I got from an artist in Spain. He created it and minted it the really cool thing. Here. Is he
Gets a cut if I sell it to you so the content creator the artist instead of you know going to a bunch of middlemen actually gets a cut of all future transactions and I think that's really cool.
Hmm. Could you just walk us through a use case because even for me sometimes I have difficulty envisioning this in some concrete respect, right? So, is it a tug? What does it look like to give someone?
And then ft right do you actually see the image its associated with or is it just a yeah. Yeah, something else Hardware wallet that you then later do something with love to just have you give us an example sure. So
it's both so you can display it. And in fact, there's a whole kind of industry that I suspect will grow up. And by the way, one of the interesting things is we know what the use cases are today. What I think is very interesting is we have no idea what they use cases are going to be tomorrow just like when you know, the iPhone came out who
I knew that the camera and GPS in your pocket would spawn things like uber ride-sharing and gig economy. I mean, I don't know what later use cases there might be with NF T's I know that right now there's actually a company think it's in Florida where they sell nft or digital art frames so you can certainly display it but like you said you could also put it on a hardware while at the point is is yours. It's like a bearer instrument, but it's digital and I think so much of our lives today are moving from
Me offline physical world to the online world like think about how much time we all spend online now and connected doesn't it make sense that Goods would also start to move online right? Like and you might say well, what do you mean and I would tell you what you used to have books like the out in your hand, but now there are digital books used to have cassette tapes, but now we have Spotify and streaming and stuff. So I think that art and collectibles and other kinds of pieces of content are
Going to follow a similar trajectory But to answer your question about making it more practical. Do you follow Sports? I don't personally follow a lot of sports. But do you follow sports like NBA
minimally? I am aware of I don't know if this is utilizing the same technology but a company I think it's based might be based in France called sir are a or so rare. It's pronounced so rare which is which is like it's limited edition Collectibles like football.
Meaning football new European sense cards and so on but I don't let's pretend that I follow a sports because a lot of people listening to
okay. Yeah. So so rare you gave an example of one another one that's in our portfolio that's been in the news a lot lately so full disclosure where investors is Dapper labs and through a partnership Dapper has done with the MBA. They've created this thing called NBA top shots. This is kind of like a big going on right now. It's like I said in the news a lot of LeBron James video highlight just sold for
Dollars, you could buy the Steph Curry three-pointer, you know, if you wanted to spend just over 25,000 think of it as like a digital sports collectibles. So an NBA Top Shot basically captures a moment from a big game and it creates this unique virtual asset that has limited Supply and so it can increase in value and I think the best way to think of it Tim is think of it like how people used to collect rare baseball cards so that this is the digital digitally scarce.
20:21 version of a rare collectible and then you can trade them in all kinds of ways that are really neat. So like I say, who knows what is next? I just think that's it. That's another example of an nft that people including many of your listeners might have heard about with this MBA top shots. And you know, I don't know what sports could be next, but presumably if they're in the NBA, you know, you can imagine there are all kinds of Collectibles that one could put on this
the you mentioned, right?
Lie that it's impossible to predict the range of future applications and use cases for these Technologies in the early days. Right? I mean, it would be like trying to Envision some type of immersive virtual reality when you were first on like AOL dial-up and Technologies so much just it would just be so far beyond the scope of imagination for most people for all people really on some level since these.
Can emerge over time? What do you expect some of the probable or possible developments might be and in crypto or blockchain over the next three to five years if you were an obviously this isn't couch does advice of any type of shirts. Oh, no are listening to do that right now. We're not giving any advice. No advice informational entertainment purposes only but as
One who is immersed in this day in day out and really at the bleeding edge right, you're going to see things at the edges first. What are some of the kind of events or developments that you would be unsurprised to see her next handful of years.
Well, I think the two that come to top of mind for me one is just mobile payments and we have a company in our portfolio. So again full disclosure. I'm not trying to plug. I'm just trying to give you an illustrative example, and it's called cellco and they've built their own blockchain and they just launched upset.
ELO see ELO. Yep, and they just launched an app on top called valora and the best way I can describe this is venmo for the developing world or basically venmo for the rest of the world. Also. It's basically a way to exchange value that's pegged to the dollar. Okay, so it's not pegged to other volatile assets that uses an innovation called stable coins, which we can put a pin in if you want come back to so the important thing is it doesn't the value stays the same of this particular.
Cryptocurrency and you don't need a bank account to use it because it's a cryptocurrency. It's distributed and decentralized. So it doesn't rely on a central Authority and all you need is a mobile phone and why this is really powerful is because you know for us sitting here in the US, you know, most of the US has banked, although there's a lot of people who are underbanked, but for 3 billion people in the world and probably more than that, they're unbanked and
They have smart phones and transferring value is like a kind of basic human need right everyone needs to transfer value. Like no matter who you are. You need to transfer value at some point to get something right? Maybe it's to get food or shelter or whatever. You need to transfer value no matter where you are. Well, it's really hard. It turns out for people who don't have bank accounts to do get access to basic Financial products and services like money transfers. So what do they have to do? A lot of them? They have to go pay platforms.
Yes, you know I'm not going to name names but certain incumbents and those incumbents take a lot of fees and so with Venom with like a venmo for the world if you can imagine it on your phone with your cell phone number. In fact Tim if you want after the show, I can send you some send you a couple dollars just so you can see how quick and instant it is, but here's the difference because you might tell me because people do well who cares that's just like venmo I have that. No, here's the difference venmo. Is it digital?
I owe you. This would be like, it's basically replacing you Tim flying from Austin to me here in California and handing me cash. That's the only way we know we have the better instrument right that no one can ever disrupt or screw with and this is how something like mobile payments in the crypto context. So like cellco works is I'm actually when I send you sell. Oh, I am transferring you the bits and bytes. I'm transferring you the bearer instrument and there's no
Central Authority that can like freeze your account or shut it down you actually have basically what's like cash once you get it and again here in the US, you know, we have venmo. We have PayPal we have bank accounts. I think a lot of people in the world don't have those things. And so we forget off and here in our bubble that these products and services are really important to a lot of people in the world and are really societally beneficial. I think of it kind of like long distance from her. I think we're around the same.
It's but like you remember how you used to have to pay a Long Distance Bill like if you called anywhere hmm. Well now you have face time or VoIP and all these things disrupted that so now it's free and that was really beneficial for consumers. I think that's going to happen also with mobile payments where instead of paying, you know, sometimes 20%
in remittance fees and by the way 20% I've actually seen some cross-border payments cost even 30% and they are also slow anyone who's ever send an international wire knows that takes a really long time there. Also, you know, you have to pay tremendous fees the poorest and the people who can least afford them bear the brunt of those fees in my long-distance example, we were all paying the same long distance rates. That's not true with the under banked and unbanked. So I think mobile payments is one area that
We are very excited about interests in Horowitz for crypto. And it's not just sell. Oh there are lots of other projects that are doing that as well. And then the other one I would mention is because I think it's important for Content creators. And now we have you're running your own podcast, but as we have more and more content creators creating content and influencers, there's one of our portfolio projects is called rally and it allows creators and influencers to create an issue their own branded.
Currency and the unique thing here is that I know I can already see your typical Tim Kline
Point Timmy tokens. Yeah, Timmy tokens. I might buy some
of those I'm betting on that one
Tim. It's
not investment advice, but
I'll trade you some Timmy took interfering if T's I really I really hope people are Frank and F teases
nifty's I think they might allows Tim coin it can allow people who
Not directly with their fans and you know, you have a lot of fans and a lot of listeners already, but imagine a content creator just getting started this enables fans who discover that content creator early on to share in the economic upside of that content creator in a way that's really cool. And then, you know, they're economically incentivised to kind of spread the word if you will, but the bottom line is it gives this content creator and the fan the ability to share in the upside instead of just giving a lot of upside to intermediaries. So I think
It's another area that we're starting to see and that we're going to continue to see in the time range you gave me because you gave me I think three to five years so mobile payments us content creators. That's what I'd say.
Thank you. I would love to also ask you to comment on the next three to five years from a different perspective. And that is the government / regulatory perspective. So these Technologies in some cases are poorly understood not just within government, but certainly across the board. I mean, there's so many misconceptions.
Exceptions, there are good uses for let's just call them benevolently uses malevolent uses and sort of gray area uses just as there would be with any instrument. We're talking about currencies right in the case of Nash for instance. ER and I think that the the, you know, the volatility also involved with many aspects of cryptocurrency are both incredibly attractive and alluring but also incredibly terrifying not only to those participants who are in the game so to speak
speak but those who are the rule makers and I would love to know what you would not be surprised to see on that
front. What are we next be surprised to see? Okay. I'm trying to and that's an
awkward question. But like what you think might likely happen. I'm not asking to be Nostradamus but you've just been both you've been on so many different sides of this that you seem like a great person to ask like
What kind of like announcements would you not be surprised to see really? Yep gonna see that coming.
Yep. Well, I think you're going to start seeing more and more countries creating their own versions of their own crypto currency pegged to their currency. So I would not be surprised to see that I think you know, look, I think there is some thought on the part of some and government that you know, oh crypto. It's the wild west. They don't want any regulations. They don't want any laws. I think that's not true. I think most in the crypto.
Space what is not wanted is a regulatory uncertainty. They don't mind regulation. They just want to know what are the rules so that I know how to follow them because that's much easier than like we have no idea what rules apply to us. And therefore we have to like be like you just said Nostradamus. They just want more regulatory certainty tell us what the rules are so we can follow them and I think the risk is that the US starts to Offshore and chill this technology if they continue along the path with kind of regulating by
Or you know and by the way, it's not even speeches sometimes I hear oh, you know, so and so said this and did you hear what the treasury secretary said and then you go actually that's the media reporting the speech right? It's like you go read the actual speech and it doesn't say that the problem is that's what crypto entrepreneurs in the US are hearing and it is I do think starting to Offshore we run the risk of offshoring or chilling some of this activity. I mean if you think about Regulators care about they care about things like
Consumer protection they care about money laundering they care about National Security. And so do I I mean, I dedicated, you know, 12 years to being in National Security and you know against money laundering and consumer protection. I devoted a large part of my career to it, but I do think that misses the forest for the trees because to me Tim the bigger national security threat or consumer protection threat for that matter is offshoring all of this activity and let me tell you why I mean, we already know that China has developed.
Up to a digital version of its cryptocurrency and it wants to export that to you know, South America to Africa. And so that's problematic if we have China starting to control starting to threaten and this is going far. I don't mean to suggest that we're going to have the US dollar being upset as the global Reserve currency overnight, but you could see play this out a couple decades this happens. So that's a terrible national security threat also consumer protection, you know, if
omers can't have access to certain products and services in the u.s. That they want us consumers. Guess what with an internet connection now and certain kinds of vpns. They can just go to overseas platforms. And those are not as good I think by and large at providing consumer protection. So I just hate to see this activity kind of just moving offshore and I think we really need to be careful because I'm starting to see the beginning of it happening already.
I'm trying to of course work to do whatever I can to make sure Regulators understand how powerful this is and how powerful it is to the economy and to National Security and not to lose this opportunity. I mean, can you imagine Tim if in the early days of the internet like we had said the internet's bad we shouldn't have this, you know, and then think of all the entrepreneurs who moved to the u.s. To build kind of companies and services. We now have that was like a huge benefit to the US economy that they came here and it was a huge benefit that we
Weren't passing laws or you know, giving speeches saying that it's bad that they wanted to stay here and build those companies. So
right equally equally Paramount to those people who were us Nationals who developed the technology, right? If they feel it feel like they can better develop it or humans humans. Let's face it. Also if they can more directly profit in building a company outside of the US with technology that for some reason has been
Button or hamstrung in such a way to be less financially feasible in the US then you're going to drive offshoring. Yeah absolutely see that with certainly with different types of Taxation and so on related to royalty is and how different countries treat things. Yeah, very differently and you just see the flow of operations and headquarters of companies. You see that in the United States certainly and
particularly now right with work from home covid with people realize
You know you can have teams remotely. Yeah. Yeah,
it's you know, I pulled my audience at one point on the question of whether or not a developing country and I sort of made an assumption there. But which developing country be the first to embrace Bitcoin or other crypto as a reserve currency, and it was fascinating to see the responses and I put up as the image photograph of a 100 trillion dollar.
Yeah, I was gifted from The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe from I think 2008. I can't recall exactly and the comments were really interesting. I'm very fortunate to have some some really bright followers and also very Global audience. So people spoke to the there were Venezuelans talking about huge underground crypto economy that already exists in Venezuela, but that you know taxes might be paid in the sort of state run.
Currency with it all let's just call it peer to peer or other transactions would begin to take place in crypto. It was very interesting to see the range of responses related to that. Do you have any any Wagers or guesses as to if you had to characterize the type of country or the country that would Embrace digital currencies in a very powerful way you have any thoughts on where that might
land? Yeah. Do you mean the people or the government?
Because I think that's different. I think the populace so interesting most populous. I think it's what you've mentioned. You mentioned Venezuela and Zimbabwe and of course any economy where there's been hyperinflation people are searching for an alternative. I mean, I know exactly the trillion resilient dollar note you're talking
about. I mean, I've seen them before
and Venezuela, you know, I've actually seen videos you can pull this up on YouTube people literally burn bags of cash because there has no value and it takes up too much room. I mean, it's just it's really tragic.
Eric so I think any in the for the populace any economy where there's hyperinflation, I think we're going to see that and then in terms of for governments, I mean you see some small. I think the smaller, you know, Nimble governments will probably possibly beat us to the punch is being the US and I'll come back to that but you know, you talk about digitally first governments like think about Estonia or some of the you know,
yeah Estonia, I'm very interested in following they have to be thinking very deeply.
Tracking this very closely.
Yeah. Well and I think it's also like an Indigent, you know, like Delaware is like the Haven for corporate law in the u.s. You know, every like companies at Delaware, you know what to me. I wonder like what jurisdiction is going to attract a lot of frankly Economic Development by being, you know, welcome and open to this. I think that'll be interesting. I'm curious to ask you your listeners what surprised you most and in the response like you mentioned Venezuela, that's not a surprise and Bob way. Was there anyone Tim that stood out? That's it.
Prized like you.
Well, I think that surprised I mean, I think the response that came in multiple times that I wanted to reflect on and I should say also I am not by any stretch of the imagination. I do not consider myself a cryptocurrency nor blockchain expert in any respect. I mean that would just be laughable if I were to sit down at a group dinner with anyone who is actually on the
Pewter side of this who understands these things in detail like a metallic or there's a long long list right. Now that having been said, I am a student of currency and the concept of money, right just the origins of money. I remember reading a book called. I believe it was the biography of a dollar which was written a long time ago. I'm glad that I found really really to be a helpful one on one education on the emergence of money and the decoupling or unpacking of
the US dollar from the gold standard. So on the response that came up multiple times that I thought was worth contemplating on some level was in effect. Tim. You're asking the wrong question and the so I'm looking at one here, you know, respectfully. I think that perhaps your questions off Point Reserve currencies held by central banks or other monetary authorities is part of Forex reserves. The whole point of Bitcoin is to eliminate the Central Bank eliminate fractional Reserve banking eliminate resource all together to remove that that that that that right so
The rear framing of the question or the pointing out that perhaps my question is off base. I found brain stretching and thought-provoking for me as someone who's really not an expert in global flow of capital and also the separation of as you said support of the populace use of capital and currency from state-mandated policies around money and also control of supply
I of money and the idea I think that those could be very different things right is sort of to me still a pretty novel idea because we're like, okay, we all use dollars in the US and like I just paid for lunch with cash that I got out of an ATM, which is very old-fashioned. Did you really I know I know and very old-fashioned kind of silly also in the days of covid but had some cash and so the idea that what the government talks about as much
Annie and the money I use day to day for my common transactions being different is still pretty unusual and idea to me. Yeah, that's as someone who spends a reasonable amount of time thinking about
cryptocurrency, right? Well, you probably have though like, I mean, it's some levels certain companies become so omnipresent like for like for me, it's Amazon, for example, you know and they give you kind of credit and it's not Amazon dollars, but it's you know, you never get the credit back on your credit card.
You think who cares? It's on the Amazon platform. I'm going to use that currency again. I mean, is that a currency? I think I think that's interesting. I think just going back to your question is you know, one thing I spent a lot of time thinking about is will the US government kind of embrace some of the properties of cryptocurrency and create a u.s. You know dollar that is a cryptocurrency and I think you know, if you here Jerome pallor others talk about it. I think they say they're several years away and I just wonder
If that is too late, I think it is frankly. And I one thing I spend a lot of time thinking about is you could imagine a private cryptocurrency that spectat the dollar you could also Imagine a public crypto currency pegged to the dollar one of the things that the US did well I think in the days of the internet and the internet the government US Government had a head start because they helped develop it. They're much more behind on crypto. I think one thing I spend time thinking about is would there ever be some kind of private public partnership, you know if they said
Okay. Wow, China's really developed this or you know, maybe the European Central Bank or whatever name your Central Bank of Choice. We've really got to get with this and we have some really smart people in the private sector and private companies and these problems of distributed computing are hard problems to solve. I mean, I'm on the board as you might know of DM. I know Facebook and many other council members have devoted Legions of top Engineers to kind of building that blockchain. It's not easy and so do we think we have that already?
Resident at you know the fed or something. I really think that one idea is to have a private-public partnership. But then as you point out there are other decentralized systems that are working already like Bitcoin, I mean Bitcoin is volatile, but now you also have stable coins and you have wrapped Bitcoin. I don't want to talk too much because like you said crypto is like religion at some point you have like maximalists, but I'm a crypto maximalist. I'm not a particular asset maximalist, but I do wonder if
If you know what will win and what is going to have a good go to market first and I think fundamentally what's going to start getting used first and early adopted because it obviously already Bitcoin is the grandfather at being you know developed in 2008, but who will get enough market share earliest because it just there's real Network effects, right? And so if the US government develops a digital crypto Dollar in you know, whatever I'm making up your hair 2028.
Has it already been overtaken? That's some of what I think about
it's a serious question a huge opportunity and a gigantic threat from a geopolitical perspective. Right? I mean, it seems kind of like hard to overstate. Yeah how big that is in the game of Risk that is played around the globe. It's just gigantic. Yeah, you know, another another question is that comes to my mind. I don't have an answer to this but is what factors or events would
Would lead to a decrease in Bitcoin volatility to the extent that larger institutional investors like Pension funds and endowments and Sovereign wealth funds begin to allow Bitcoin to play with in their portfolios in the way that they might treat gold. Alright, so if they if they have certain rules, which of course they tend to which might say enough if X Y and Z as a
A down of more than 20% they get cut like they're out. You know, what point is the curve is smooth enough that a small percentage of assets that are allocated to something like gold or gold like equivalent begin to get shifted to bitcoin because it doesn't take percentage-wise a very large shift to start to have a tremendous impact on bitcoin. I just don't know what those events are. I don't know if you have any
thoughts. Yeah. Well my first thought when you said 20
% shift I thought that's Child's Play Tim 20 percent volatility is nothing.
But yeah, I was actually thinking about some of the recent events with you know, hedge funds and Jamie and all that. Yeah. Oh, right, right. Of
course. Well, I think look here's what I think about Bitcoin. I think it's still early days all those 2008. It's been run since 2008 it is still early days and I think we're going to see adoption in waves. And again, this is not a price prediction no investment advice, etc. Etc. I know of all those disclosures but I do
I think that will see waves of it and we're still in the early days, but you are starting to see I mean you saw I'm sure Elon musk's tweet about or I guess it was in his tweet, but it was the s-1. The Tesla filed that says they're putting some other Treasury and into Bitcoin and and it's not just that right microstrategy and there are a couple other companies. I know that are looking at that and I think those are kind of early examples of companies putting small portions of Treasury into it. And I think we'll see another wave. I suspect we're more
And more companies do that down the road. I don't know when that would be, you know, we could even see at some point a wave where certain governments might put a small fraction. I'm not talking about a lot. I'm talking about very small fraction. You pointed out just like they do with gold. And so I think yes, that would obviously one would think offset volatility but who knows as you know Bitcoins been hugely volatile asset. Yeah, which is which is why we have stable coins and I'm not knocking Bitcoin at all. I'm obviously
A fan of Bitcoin and we've disclosed before we have a sizable portion of our Fund in Bitcoin. So we are Bitcoin fans, but I would just be completely speculating if I said I would know what would happen to the volatility. I think that the best thing I could say would be that I think we are in waves and we will continue to say sea waves of you know, you know, we see some early adopters of Institutions now some early adopters of companies and I think in the next wave will see more and then there will be another way.
If
so, let's come back to you. And I know we have a little bit of time left, hopefully and I'm looking at a bullet here in front of me.
Then I would like to explore and here's how it reads or paraphrasing it. You've spent lots of time saying no to things that your peers thought were must do to pursue other paths people around you thought were the wrong move what of those
Was actually the most challenging. I want to I want to try to humanize you a little bit for folks because I think that it's like Wonder Woman in the bracelets with the case in the old carry with like Cryptid ninja skills. I want to sort of paint a picture of
One of those decisions if it exists. I don't not asking for fiction here. But if you have said no to a lot of things that people thought you should do maybe even insisted that you needed to do at to take the path Less Traveled has there been an example where you're like where it was difficult or are you did it in there like God that this might be a terrible fucking mistake
many times many times. I got it don't only have one example of that. I sadly or happily have several.
Let me think what's comes top of mind. I mean, I'll tell you one from personal because you said you want to humanize me which I appreciate. Thank you. You're welcome. You know there was a time and this is actually a personal thing. I have other professional ones that we can talk about if you want, but well I actually have one top of mine professional one. Okay personal one, you know, I was engaged many many years ago. I was engaged to someone and you know,
I don't think he was excited to be engaged to me and I don't think I was very excited to be engaged to him and fortunately we mutually made the decision that we were not going to get married. It was pretty early on in the engagement, but we had been living together and it felt like the right thing to do on paper, you know, everyone around you is saying oh how perfect but I think both of us in our heart of hearts knew that would be a bad mistake. And so telling our families and friends that there's a sense of like almost a shame, you know, it was embarrassing but we both realized it.
Not right for either of us. And so that felt a bit like a failure at the time not a bit. It felt like a big failure at the time and oh by the way talk about humanizing me. I had to be a bridesmaid in my one of my best college Friend's Wedding about a month and a half after that happened and I just remember being there and just it was like kind of
Really not a great feeling right my own wedding has been called off. And again, it was Mutual but I actually took the opportunity to move back to California. This was when I was in DC I moved back to California and you know right after I moved here, I actually met my future husband like super serendipitously and we this month have our 10-year wedding anniversary. And so, you know, that was a that was something that felt like wow and even in the move here, I was like wow.
Now I may be this was the wrong call, you know, maybe I'm going to just like end up alone forever which would have been okay to but you do question it. That's a personal one
that checks the box. That's great. Welcome to scratch it. But I think this is his paints a fuller picture right here adding. We're adding some some Earth Tones and adding getting a little Sun Sun rise to the painting. I think
it's good. Well, there's a professional always two there are
Yeah, if you want this you want me to tell you about that. I mean Corsa, of course, obviously, you know, I had walked away from different opportunities and law like along the way but I was still always within the realm of law right? I was oh should I go be at this Law Firm cravath or I have an offer. No, I'm going to pursue my passion and go to DC and be a prosecutor and you know, and I also had been doing a clerkship on the ninth circuit when I was told if you want to stay another year, maybe it would increase your chances to go to the Supreme Court which for a lawyer and a young post.
Graduate law student was like a big deal and I said, you know, it's not no it's not worth it to me. Like I want to do other things in life. I don't want to do that for another year, you know people thought that was a mistake and maybe I did at the time too, by the way, I ended up working on this Frame Court anyway, but I didn't know it at the time and then I think the most profound one though was I really kind of left entirely career where I had, you know in the law done things that I had really invested a lot of Myself and Time into whether it was being a prosecutor.
The Justice Department Clark Kent's from Court, you know, I had firmly kind of established my legal career and I completely left that and pivoted and you know, when I was doing that I was actually to join the board of coinbase. And when I did that I remember people around me particularly those of my friends who are lawyers or from DC or like what are you doing? Like are you could go be a partner in this or that firm and you're going to join the board of a crypto company. I mean you have liability and crypto and that's so crazy.
You know, I didn't really look back after I joined. I just jumped in it did it but I do feel like a lot of people have told me in my life. You know, this is your one shot like you can't do that because this is better for your career and I've definitely been someone who cares although it might not sound like it from our conversation because we've talked all mostly professional stuff. I care very much about living along the way and you know, I grew up overseas one of my great passions of spending time in other cultures and with other people and with
My family and friends and I don't really want to sacrifice that just for
work. Let's we're going to talk about two at least two aspects of that and one is the coin based decision. So I would like to sort of turn this into a movie for second and I would love to hear you tell the story of making that decision because I can't imagine you walked in you met them your like sweet. Yeah, I'm gonna
A totally pivot and that's that walked out and I made a phone call and that was it. Now. I doubt it unfolded that way. So, please please tell us yeah story of how you made that decision.
Not at all. Actually. I remember when I first met Brian Armstrong who's the founder of coinbase and I won't talk much about coinbase because that company is now in a quiet period as you know, so I will talk about the company, but I can certainly talk about the circumstances of my affiliating with the company and I remember meeting Brian and by the way, Fred or some who I don't know if you've met him but
Yeah, very very very very smart
guy. Yeah and Brian and I remember telling Brian, you know, he was telling me about cranberries and I said, oh I know about coinbase Brian, you know, I've been to your office and he said this was by the way when I was still in the government, he said what and I said, oh, yeah. I've been with the FBI to your office before you didn't know that he's like no, I didn't know that it was it was a it was a friendly visit the friendly visit. It was an informational Gathering visit their twenties hadn't done anything wrong. It was just, you know part of that. Well I talked about
Laughing but it's genuine. It was no no, but
that is one that is a great way to get undivided attention that it was a friendly visit by the FBI. Hello. Well that kiss totally relax. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, this was fortunately for Brian this it had happened years past or before right? So, right right, right. Anyhow, I said Brian I already know about coinbase. In fact, you know, I told you about some of the bridge building we were doing and some of the summit's we were putting together coinbase and not
And himself but like someone from coinbase just like many early crypto players would come to those. You know, numerous crypto Representatives called them from the industry would come and meet with some of the government folks. I won't I won't say who because I don't know if I have their permission, but the bottom line is like a lot of different folks in the crypto industry. It wasn't just coinbase. So I kind of knew the company already through that work. Well I was at the government, but I definitely never thought I would be
Be working in the crypto industry or in Venture Capital. By the way, I guess I thought I would probably have gone to be a judge or a partner in a firmer. I didn't honestly know what I would do but something in law, right and remember when I joined the crypto industry, it wasn't the cooler fashionable thing to do. It was like I think I joined in what we call the crypto winter and people thought I was just really crazy that I was giving all this, you know law stuff up. But back to the story of Brian he you know, he said, you know, I really think that you ought to consider.
Partnering with us somehow and I said well, you know, I work in the government so I can't partner with you. Which what he meant is do you want to come in and work here? And I thought you know, that's really interesting idea. I had never thought about working full-time for a crypto company believe it or not. And instead I said, you know, I really want to work with a few different companies. You know, I've never been in Tech and I would like to work with a few different companies and Brian and I'm forever grateful. He he had
this kind of innovative thinking said well then why don't you join our board of directors, which is again something. I never thought of and I did jump at that chance now, it was a little bit interesting timing because I was actually under consideration for some high-level government posts at the time, which I won't go into other than to say that I had to withdraw from those in order to serve on the coinbase board and
so to serve just for my clarification to serve on the board right serving on the board.
Time and energy but it's not a full-time job. So the but you to be able to take that board position would have to sort of recuse yourself from government employment is that that's not how it works. That's right separation of church and state absolutely.
Absolutely and I had already actually by that point. I had left the government just to clarify had already left the government when I was having this conversation with Brian, but I was thinking of going back in as a high level of pointy and
In fact, I was already going through an FBI background check and you know interviewing with all kinds of senatorial committees. And so I was already out of the government, but I could not go back into the government as a political appointee or otherwise or a judge and also beyond the coinbase board. Of course, like you said strict separation of church and state which is definitely want to keep it that way. So when I took that coinbase board, I was really saying goodbye I think to a career in the government.
And you know, I did make that decision. I did make it actually pretty quickly by the time I made it and which I do is something I do I can obsess and waste a lot of mental energy on small little decisions to him that aren't that consequential which is a big weakness of mine, but on big huge life decisions, I'm pretty quick and I made it in you know, there it is for years over four years later. I'm still on that board.
What was it that made it a fast? Yes and not a fast know.
Wow, that's a great question. I think in life. Someone told me this one's and I can't remember who but it has always stuck with me and they told me this a long time ago in life. There is either hell. Yes, or there's no and if it's not hell, yes, it's know. Is that a cliche thing? I ain't never heard. No,
that's okay. That's actually that's actually something I believe that was started by Derek severs. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah entrepreneur who founded a company called CD Baby and
Of his rules in his life is hell. Yes or no. Yeah,
and it felt like a yes. I hope that was a right decision. I think it was you know, and from there
it is again. I'm not speculating. I think you'll do I think that's gonna prove to be a pretty good decision. Yes of Leon a bunch of levels.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been certainly, you know, I really one of the things I've always done is follow my passion follow my gut and then do stuff that interests me and by that measure a hundred percent. It was the right decision.
And you know, it's also given me a great flexibility now and then by the way, there's that's how I met Mark and Ben you mentioned they've been on your podcast. I actually met Mark and been the founders of my firm now that I wear. I'm now working full-time through my work on the coin baseboard. So, you know, it was one decision, but then it led to other decisions. So who knows how that's changed my career trajectory that's
exciting.
So exciting what a remarkable right turn, you know, it's just it's just fantastic and I said there were two things. Yeah, I wanted to to explore the other is family or specifically kids. Yeah, and the reason I bring up kids. So we're not going to talk we can talk about your family certainly, but I want to talk about the family of one of our mutual friends her girls who one of which
One of whom the grammarians out there will teach me which way it is is I think 10 or younger. Yeah wanted to be an actress and now wants to be a prosecutor. Thanks to you and she is the mother has told me that she would trade everything that she has for the influence that you have had on her girls and girl in this case.
And that you are just remarkable with children and that they are they gravitate to you. Why is that
God if you get it? Well, I don't know. Can you have a talk with my own kids because they don't gravitate toward
me they to me out.
You know, I thought it would be cool to them. But you know, Mom is not cool. So if you want to have a word with them, that would be appreciated
God. I'm not going to be of any help that's
not a child whispered in my own kids, but let me
You know, I think one of the reasons is, you know, I grew up with a mom who always told me you can do. Of course, you can do anything. You set your mind to of course you can you know, I don't know that that was true. But the fact is I believed her and I thought well she says it is it's my mom and she's you know as a young girl or a young woman, of course, she believe what your mom tells you at least to a certain age and I think there's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that someone was
And you like that that yeah, you could do anything. You set your mind to it might take small little chunks which we can talk about like I set goals but then I you know, if they're audacious I'm not going to achieve them just easily right you break them down into small bite-sized chunks, but I think with kids and I've seen this just even in teaching, you know, I've taught over the years and I have several students. I've seen this with young people and with even younger kids is that really making them feel like they can do anything and that really
They need to do is find what they're passionate about and that is exciting. And that makes you really want to work hard. But also I've always thought as I said you really want to live along the way and find and that's why I think it's so important to find your kind of sounds cliche, but your calling in life for work and I think when I talk about kind of stories or jobs, I just must have you know, I did it out of a passion or a mission or you know some purpose and I would hope that comes
Through it's funny. You say that it was a girl because the amazing thing about being a parent and I know just from listening to your podcast, you know.
In the past that you've said, you don't have you don't yet have children, but the amazing thing about being a parent is that every once in a while, they just say stuff that completely bowls you over and someone asked my son who's in elementary school. Someone has my son a couple years ago. You know, what do you want to be when you grow up and Tim he said well, it's kind of crazy because what I want to be is a girl's job and he said well, what's that and he said either an FBI agent or a prosecutor
that's
Amazing. Wow, and I
don't know if it was just the kind of store and it's not just the stories. It's just like I think he or other kids. I hope see that I've been passionate about my work and it's you know, but as you know from this podcast in your listeners now, you have to find balance in life and it can't be all work and no play but better when it's work that you actually really enjoy and it feels fun. I would
love to know how being passionate manifests itself.
Like what is the passion that your son observes bike? How does he see or feel your passion that then sort of leads him to gravitate or even say like FBI agent right or this other friend's daughter who's now saying prosecutor? Like what is it that they feel in you? Because I can guarantee you there are plenty of investors. I know who if they sat at a dinner and a kid was present the kid would tune them out completely would have if anything the desire to do whatever that person.
The opposite of whatever that person does they just it would not resonate the person nor the content would resonate at all. And so I'm wondering what it is that.
Sort of in chance these kids in a sense, right? What is the passion that gets? How does it
manifest? Well, one thing I learned at I think this is not really from being a prosecutor. I think this just dates back to how I grew up which I don't know if you know this but I grew up moving kind of every couple years at most like the longest. I stayed anywhere I think was three years and from places ranging from, you know, Utah to Texas to then like Cairo Egypt and overseas in Europe in the Middle East and Africa and what that meant was like I was always the
Kid in school and you had to make kind of fast friends if you wanted to have any and you had to really adapt to your surroundings and find some kind of common ground that you could connect with people about right. I mean the people that you're meeting in, you know, Utah are very different than the people you're meeting in symbolic or downtown Cairo as you might imagine particularly when you're a young person like the young friends you're making they have different interests. And so I think one thing is just I'm used to being around.
And people and that's also True by the way from Prosecuting and being around Witnesses and confidential human sources and informants and then switching to venture and being around Tech folks and crypto people to their own class. So I'm just used to being around a really wide variety of very different people and wanting to find a way that connects with those people because I want to have relationships with fundamentally each one of those kind of communities. I just described or constituents that I just described.
Of course children are part of that. Right and you've got to find some common ground and things that interest them and it's not about creating a Persona or being phony it's about being completely authentic but in a way they can relate to you know, and it's also about I think my ability to explain stuff maybe your listeners will disagree maybe I've had explained anything clearly on this podcast him but like explaining things clearly in a way people can understand and what I mean by that is, you know when I had to go in front of juries
We had to talk about all kinds of complicated Concepts, but you need to break them down in a way that 12 different people on that jury can all get no matter their background no matter their education no matter their training no matter what field they're in and I think the same is true with kids. You know, what are they going? Can you explain things in a way that teaches them anything in a way that excites them? I think if the answer there is yes, then the rest comes a little I won't say it's natural, but it's much easier for them to be in.
Interested in the conversation if you can make it on a level they
understand.
Yeah, that definitely makes me think about one of my favorite books. Surely. You must be joking. Mr. Feynman about the physicist Richard Feynman. He talks a lot about his father who is incredibly gifted in that respect. And of course Richard Feynman later went on to become famous for many things including his ability to reduce complex complexity in the world of physics to a simple demonstration, perhaps with an apple and a pencil in front of a class.
And just maybe one or two last questions for you for this round sir. And the next one. I'll make book related since I mentioned a book. Okay, are there any particular books that stand out in your mind or come to mind that you have reread?
Many times or reread it all or gifted often to other
people. Mmm. Not that I've reread many times. I guess it's hard to answer the question because I kind of think of it as through the filters of life experience. Like where were you and your life with the time you read that book right? Like where were you at that moment? Have you have you seen that Ted Talk by the way, the remembering self versus the experiencing self. It's really
good. I haven't but I imagine there's quite a difference between the two. Yeah. Well it's and
this is kind of what I'm
That is like was it the book that was so good or was it like the surroundings where you were when you read it, you know I said, you know the stage in your life. It was like, oh my God, I'm feeling the most fit I've ever felt and I feel great, you know, so it's viewed through the lens of that but I would say with all those caveats and I haven't read it many times but a couple that come to mind one is Memoirs of a Geisha. I just I loved that book. I don't know if you've read it. I always found it. I have it. I
haven't read it, but I know a lot about it. Yeah first few drafts.
Us were completed and thrown out by the author who started a fresh until he got the version that you were head. Just just a mind-boggling to imagine. Yeah members of Acacia. I
never knew that but I the reason I loved it so much as I read that book and I can't believe it was written by a man because you are convinced as you're reading it. It's written by the Geisha why I just have such a great memory of reading that book is I read it while I was studying overseas in a language school and I was studying by myself. And so I'd go to dinner every night alone.
And you know you feel awkward at the restaurant by yourself or you know, you could and so I would always have a book with me and I remember reading that Memoirs of a Geisha book while I was learning a language. So that stands out but the other one that I really love is Palace walk, which is don't know if you're familiar with that but it's written by a Nobel Laureate and to give mahfouz and it's set in the turn of the century or set. Maybe it's a 1920s Cairo Egypt and it just reminds me of Cairo which is a place. I kind of grew up as a kid and so a lot of powerful memories of
The city obviously it was set in a different stage time frame, but that's one that I
love Alice walk. That's fiction.
Yeah, it's fiction find a game of Foosball who I think was the first Arab Nobel Laureate. He certainly a Nobel Laureate. So there's those are some obviously there are a lot of related to my old kinds of work which I love even though I shouldn't but it was like the killing of Pablo Escobar. I thought their the hunting of Pablo Escobar's I think it's called that's by Mark Bowden.
Black Hawk Down. Yeah under and alone is a good read by the way Tim if you want some more True Crime
under and alone. What's that
about? Yeah, it's best selling New York Times book. It's actually remember I told you about the Hells Angels Mongols case. I did. Well the agent went deep cover for three years and they taught there's a lot of quandaries they confront when they're Deep Cover right living among these criminal Enterprises. They have to fit in so like what happens when they're asked to violate the law and they can't because they're fed.
All agents, you know and how do they pass that lie detector test and it's the story of one agents journey of living undercover Deep Cover a double life really in rising up to the top of that gang and that's a true story. That's
interesting God that just seems
It's how I'll have to check it out and it just seems like such a easy way to identify who is a possible plant, right? You just ask everyone to do X Y or Z and then whoever doesn't do it. You're like, alright. Well just to be on the safe side like to take care of you. Well
the good lie detector tests and that came out during that trial I did is how did you pass the lie detector test and the jurors were on their edge of their seats to figure out how how on Earth the
agent that we had embedded past this lie detector tests because they do administer them. So that's a good read. And actually I have gifted that I have gifted that book. It's a quick Beach read or if you're not a beach guy. It's a quick. It's a quick read whatever you might do with your leisure
to Quick tequila on the arteries under it alone. Amazing. Well Katie, it's been so fun to spend time with you Katie Han at Katie underscore Han on Twitter.
And you're doing a lot of exciting things and have many new chapters ahead of you. I'm sure is there anything you would like to talk about or any comments? You'd like to make questions you like to post things you'd like to ask of my audience anything at all that you'd like to add before we bring this around one to a
close. I mean, I guess the only thing I would ask your audience is just take a moment to explore crypto. It's not really a
Plug for an industry I'm involved with that's not why I'm saying it. It's just mostly because there's so much written about the headlines and I'd love to encourage your listeners to just explore a little bit more and realize it's really not all just about one asset or speculation. There's a lot of exciting things happening in the space and the asked I would have of them is also if they're not and I know there are a lot of techies and people very sophisticated and technology and Technical among your listeners Tim, but if they're not
Not to get intimidated by it or think they can't figure it out. I had recently a female CEO who has in times 100 most influential people. I won't say her name but I will say very successful across multiple Dimensions personally professionally and she told me I need a PhD to figure this stuff out and I just can't so I'm just not going to do it and I told her look there is no PhD to be had in crypto. And if there were it would be outdated the year after it was granted because this piece changes so fast.
Fast so just like don't get don't let yourself intimidate is not the right word, but don't let yourself just think. Oh, it's too complex. I don't want to go dive deep in it. You don't need to dive deep in it. Just go learn something about it that you didn't know and I just ask that if your listeners how would you
suggest because there's there are some great resources. There are a lot of terrible resources. There are a lot of scams masquerading or fly-by-night operations masquerading as
How-to content sources. How would you suggest or how might you suggest someone learn more? Yeah, as you're
describing. I mean we have up on our website, which is I believe it's a 16z.com we have what we have call a crypto can and even that just what I'm saying proofs in the pudding is out of date already because we posted it. I don't know when and now, you know, there's all this stuff that's changed in the space. So we need to go update it but we do have this crypto Cannon up that you can learn more on our website. I also think just getting a few.
You folks who know what they're talking about in the space and following their writings on things like medium. I mean one other thing is and I wasn't intending to plug a portfolio company here, but Clubhouse you might have heard which is an increase in Horwitz investment. I've noticed that on clubhouse. There are a number of sessions online everyday happening on crypto and it's a great way to just listen in while you're doing something like I'm doing the laundry or you're drying your hair you're doing something else that you don't need to be fully present in that experience.
Hop on and put your are pause in and like listen because there's I keep seeing all these sessions on are we going to call him Tim? Nifty's on N FTS on on D5, by the way, we didn't even talk about V5, but on defy it's like daily. There's daily sessions on all of these things and you can just listen in and hear what people are talking about and it's kind of a great way to separate like wheat from the chaff. I know it's I think Clubhouse is still invite-only, but I think that will soon change and I know
Number of your listeners are probably already on it. But our website has the crypto Cannon and then there I've Just Seen A number of great medium posts. Honestly are by the way are our Cannon our crypto Cannon pulls not not just us. I mean, we pull some people we've already talked about on here their writings on so it's not just Andreessen Horowitz and it's not even just necessarily our portfolio companies. We kind of search for the content and put it on our website ourselves as well.
Yeah you guys a 16z
Have put together a lot of really good content will link to those in the show notes for people at Tim da blog / podcast to be able to find a really easily link over to that. I hope that nifty's they're not already called nifty's become nifty's I'd be very excited about that. We'll call them that childlike. What lie yeah left is for all your future Keynotes nifty's and they're also as you mentioned there are some some very high at least I would consider very bright people.
All who make an effort to explain some of the Core Concepts within blockchain and certainly comment on bitcoin of all rava Contour mutual friend is one of them. He has interviewed on my body us and this podcast Nick Szabo SZ ABO also incredibly incredibly sharp, and that episode is also a decent place to start
and the great place to start.
Ashley can I tell you that episode was the first episode I ever listened to and it was a while ago that that's an old episode of five remember runs a
few your few years is years
ago. Yeah. Well, actually that's how I learned about smart contracts and I remember Nick talking about a vending machine and I just thought now I can visualize a vending machine. Okay, that makes sense to me. So not all that episode is a must listen.
Thanks for listening. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, we had a blast. I was up a few years ago and
The intent of that episode was to have a conversation that would be Evergreen. They would have some lasting power because like you said if you're covering a latest and greatest developments, you're going to be obsolesce test very quickly. I mean within weeks or months, you will probably have said something that needs revision, but we really started with basic the fundamental concept smart contracts. What a ledger might look like what an hour
Ologies are helpful currency itself forget about cryptocurrency discussing currency and what that represents how it's evolved and different applications. So I'll put that in the show notes for folks as well. So anything else Katie that you'd like to say or ask or Point people towards before we adjourn?
No, thank you so much Tim for having me on this has been great and thanks to your listeners.
Yeah, I really
Appreciate you taking all the time. I know you have a lot on your plate and certainly you have a lot of exciting things going on. So I appreciate you carving the space in your schedule to do this and to everyone listening all the resources everything that was mentioned from the very beginning all the way to Palace walk and the Nick Szabo of all rob got episode will link to in the show notes. Also point to the Andreessen Horowitz resources at Tyndall blog for such podcast and just search Katie Katie. I
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