0:00 and I'll say by the way Bart is very humble you know I went to that event out of everyone there I was like yo I want to talk to this ████ the dumbest one there no the coolest guy there what what was he doing that made him look so cool he he was just sort of being an introvert I hope no one talks to [Music] me welcome to another episode of careful boys where today we have a special guest with us Mr Eric way thank you Jen thank you thank you for the Applause it's I like to start my day excited to feel good yeah I feels I feel validated you know what's pretty funny is um I had no idea you guys knew each other right and then last minute we get the call she and he goes hey uh prepare questions for like crypto Finance whatever I got my buddy air coming and I'm all like oh okay and I see you and I'm like I watched a video
0:50 with you about a month ago where you were talking about man I forgot exactly what it was but the setting was like a very bright room there was like a glass behind you it was like a podcast it was like um and then you're with another Asian dude I think right of course I try yeah not the Asian you were talking about um oh this is J J hooie yes yeah yeah and we super Overexposed backgrounds or our podcast but it was super bright yeah it was super we looked Angelic like you you don't actually want to shoot like that tons of natural light yeah he's a buddy of mine he like me comes from a finance background and then both of us realized I hate this and became entrepreneurs yes okay yeah that was cool that was cool yeah cuz um I was getting into m&a at the time and I'm working on a deal so I was just searching for like you know people out
1:40 there that aren't just Finance gurus that are motivating you but give you real ████ and then you're video popped up and I was like that was freaking cool and I think it was about how to get financing and stuff like that right I forgot exactly or might they're been a couple maybe one of them was um but wow that's super wild I'm I'm glad like so I walked in like this this guy what's he doing here but I wanted to save it for the camera so people you know yeah so I met him at a Vegas YouTube event as you guys know Vegas is popping off with YouTube it's like that's what shut the ████ up so cool so I met him there and then I was like oh like what are you doing he was explaining to me about all like you went to Harvard right yes I did like all this ████ like you know when like you talk to someone you literally just start getting Dumber cuz you're like yeah this guy's a ████ genius and I don't know ████ ████ and told
2:30 me about the company carrot that he started and so we connected from there and then because of all the crazy like crypto um stuff that's going on right now I thought it'd be cool to have him on to maybe explain some of those things but before we get into that could you explain a little bit about your own personal Journey cuz really cool too and I'll say by the way Bart is very humble you know I went to that event out of everyone there I was like yo I want to talk to this ████ the dumbest one there no the coolest guy there what what was he doing that made him look so cool he he was just sort of just vibing on the chair like yeah being an introvert I hope no one talks to me everyone El like gathered around they like oh oh hey hey are you I see he's just like I see that look I'm like that's that's my gu so you didn't see that as unapproachable no see the thing I've learned in the room any room you you want to go to unapproachable ████ and you find out either
3:20 he's dumb as ████ or he's super cool it's got to be one of those know maybe maybe sometimes you get lucky started I started talking with him and we got a little bit we had like five solid minutes before they're like yo someone's talking but we got into life story a bit you know it says really good vibes so for a background for you guys I was originally born in Canada because I had Chinese parents who came over to the states they couldn't stay here they went to Canada and I grew up next to a nuclear power plant my dad used to work there as a scientist and he was poor as ████ he made like $20,000 a year so he switched jobs brought me to the states 20,000 Canada too Canada like 15 10K yeah yeah as a scientist that's crazy let me make my stop story even worse it was Canadian down that's like 15K yeah they they got
4:11 like the Moose pennies and everything you know they're cute but so he brought me over to the states I grew up in Indiana New Jersey and he got a job in finance and eventually by the end of high school we weren't poor anymore so I was like yo I got to do what my dad did you know the whole journey of the Immigrant story I got to represent I got to get a job in finance plus my dad he never talked to me about anything around girls or how to grow as a man it was always about economics about Wall Street about discount cash flow models I knew what a discount cash flow model was before I ever learned the Brits in the beach I don't even know what the ████ you don't need you don't need to know you should definitely learn about women instead if you found out what we did you'd have a heart attack on how much we spent on degenerate ████ but you were probably way cooler because what happened was I didn't know any of that
5:01 wait until we buy that Sizzlers yeah so I worked super hard in school I was like yo my goal I got to get into Harvard I'll be real with you is that the number one business school or Finance school you know little town in camb Cambridge Boston Massachusetts you know my parents like you go there you do good the the sad thing was I I took that upon myself and I was like yo it's do this or bust like if I don't make it a har I'm going kill myself because of how important that was in my life because how trained I was as that kid growing up to be like this is the meaning of why you have been brought onto this Earth to make your parents proud to make everyone else proud so dude it ████ sucked I got depressed as hell cuz I finally got in and guess what anytime you set you up for a milestone like that as soon as you hit it you find out it lasts like for 15 seconds you feel good when you open the the letter yeah and then you get there
5:53 yeah you have to yeah and then and then it's the come down then you're just like and the ████ are ugly yeah I know exactly you have 15 seconds of pure joy and then long minutes of regret so I I was there and I said I worked my whole life to get here but that was my meaning what am I supposed to do now now a smarter man would have had some self-reflection figured out you know I should figure out self validation what I actually care about the things I like to do even if nobody else cares I was dumb so I just said what's the next Harvard I said all right time to go into Wall Street so I did that for another 3 years oh ████ I worked at Black Stone and I had the same stupid thing happen I got there I was working there I was like this is ████ too so I got what were you doing at uh Blackstone so I worked in this group it's called restructuring and reorganization that meant when companies
6:43 went bankrupt our job was to help carve up the pieces and make sure that everyone felt happy again cuz like say you run I'm going to make this up say you run like a beef jerky company and I actually did look at a beef let's say let's say you run a fitness brand yeah yeah hypothetical let's say you run a fitness you know yeah ex we call it like I don't know dumbbell gang or something that's a was sicker name yeah yeah I you pass on that and say that you took out let's make this out say you took a million dollars out in loans to fund this business and you took a million dollars out in equity so at the end of say 5 years you're just like yo I can't do this anymore and the company's assets are only worth $500,000 so you got a million dollar in obligations from debt hold ERS got a million you gave to equity holders only 500k how's it split up so that's where
7:35 they bring us in first of all everyone who invested in the equity you get ████ you got nothing because there's not even enough money to pay back the debt holders and cuz the debt holders get paid back first yes exactly there's a seniority structure but even the debt holders you go to them and it's like hey like you know I could just sell off my assets and get you 500,000 or 50 cents on the dollar or I'll give you 20 cents on the dollar now right so I'll give you even less I only give you 500,000 I'll give you 200,000 but with that remaining 300,000 I think I can still operate the business and I got a shot and I'll convert the rest of your debt into Equity so we can keep going so it's all these sorts of negotiations when hey you know you owe someone money and you're trying to figure out who gets what or like can I still run my company convince them to change that into Equity another great example is one of the clients we
8:25 worked there it was like a Native American casino and like that's that's really tricky because like if a Native American Casino goes bankrupt all the debt holders you try and go after them in court Native Americans on their own country they're Sovereign so they can be like sure according to United States law I'm supposed to honor your debts but according to Nave American law we are our own nation and we don't need to We Dance our Debs away yeah well you know it's the sort of thing where you got to respect me man my people came here before you I ain't going to pay you ████ and then and then it becomes a negotiation because if every Native American cas did this no one would ever lend them money so they have to give something they can't just say ████ off they got to be like look I don't have to honor anything but you know in respect of the fact that I want you one day to give me money again I'll give you something so it's our job to come in and
9:16 figure out this negotiations interesting that was Blackstone yeah EXA exactly so the clients I worked with um it was all it's funny cuz it's all situations that you see the 10 15 different ways companies can go bankrupt so like I worked on for example an ambulance provider that went bankrupt because guess what when you stabbed in the street and you die in con ambulance you're not allowed as the ambulance provider to be like you don't got money I can't take you yeah they all have to take yeah they have to take you but what if you can't get paid which a lot of the times no yeah exact there's Medicare there's Medicaid but like sometimes it's ambulance PR you're always chasing late payments because people need you and they can't pay another example I worked with this company they bought us on the Spectrum so spectrum is what you have to buy bands of frequencies where you can transmit radio waves or television well not the company Spectrum not the company
10:06 Spectrum it's a different company they bought up all the spectrum they thought one day could be used for like you know cell phone cellular internet and things like that and then one day FCC came in and said nah this spectrum it's too close to what we use for emergency distress bands so the rights to this band of frequency that you paid millions of dollars for that your entire company was founded around you don't get to use just one single regulatory ruling like that and then the company's like well ████ damn now we go bankrupt so it's up to you guys to try to restructure somehow yeah because they've raised lots of equity they've raised lots of debt and you're trying to figure out is there a way that the company can still remain a going concern that they can still operate that we can negotiate with the debt holders and be like look you don't want to force this company to liquidate because then you get nothing you get this much versus if you're willing to dance with us a bit you got this much
10:56 but do you guys already have interest in these companies and and your or shareholder that's why you need to help restructure and all that stuff or are they coming to you guys for help yes they're coming to us for help so in the restructuring business you're either helping the debtor the company that went bankrupt or you're on the side of the Creditor you're on the side of the people who gave the bankrupt company money trying to get you know as much as you can exactly so why was how come Blackstone was such a bad experience cuz you're making it sound pretty sick right now so so intellectually it was actually fascinating but for me I was like like I don't feel like I'm doing anything tangible I'm looking at spreadsheets I'm moving numbers around and the ████ weren't hot well you know then they talk about in the banking business they say bottles and models well they don't tell you the bottles are just sparkling water the models are just
11:46 Excel that's all you're going to end up doing let's be very very clear the funny thing though actually there's a certain culture certain machismo where you know the first time I ever drank alcohol in my entire life was on that black intership because the managing director the vice president they took us out to the club because you know you're in New York that's what you do to be cool right and the vice president gave us all tequila shots and I was so scared of losing that job offer that was the first time I ever drank alcohol I was in a club did you get wasted oh no I had I mean you know I'm a lightweight but I can do one shot right I had that one shot it was 15 other guys and it was because I felt like I had to do it or and they didn't even know how special that was I like you this is a big moment for you guys I want you to know so at least do
12:36 the arm thing yeah yeah because guys I was trying to be cool I pretended oh yeah I I do these all the time like oh God why bur so much I so many people so many of you guys probably have good memories of drinking for your first time may maybe I don't know right with friends with women with family with me no no it's terrible that'd be great if all 12 of you guys it was your first time and you're all faking it oh my that that would have you know I'll tell you this the analyst class above me were these incredibly goodlooking 6'3 super jacked guys and then my analyst class we're a bunch of nerds and we literally were like is this diversity in hiring where they're like we bring in like the super sharp like
13:27 presidential Paul bunions right and then we bring in like the win and then you bring in you got Winkle Voss and you bring in like you know essentially the tiny like Asian guy I don't know how to throw a cash of full like B balance that out so that's what I felt like and I realized for me I wanted to do something that's more tangible I want to do something that was more of my own I didn't like the culture of the machismo because I spent so much time you know learning to feed off the validation of others it's a really toxic environment where that validation of others is leading you down a path that's really different from you but I was still scared because you know my dad was proud of me I want my dad to be proud of me so I actually verbally said yes I never sign anything but verbally I said yeah I'll take the offer to return and I thought about it and at the end of summer break I said no I don't want to go back and I had to call them be like you know I know I told you guys yes and
14:18 I appreciate it and look on the whole they were they were good to me you know they were it just wasn't the right fit for me but they they did good stuff and I call him me like I'm not coming back and they were just like what the ████ man and I was like look I just I can't do this and so I graduate I switched jobs I worked in management consulting for a bit which is like 90% the same stuff as I just said it's like companies bring you in to help them figure out how do I make more profit how do I decrease my losses how do I hire more people let go of people and I spent a couple years it's all sorts of companies I helped a makeup company in New York City that's my first Project Help a company doing security systems and about 3 months in though I actually got an offer from Facebook to go join them as a product manager because even even there I knew pretty quickly this was still too far removed from actually making stuff but when I got that offer I was still scared so I went and talk to all my mentors and
15:08 advisers and I didn't realize when you ask people for advice they tell you what they did or what they wish they had done it's never based on you it's based on them so everyone I was talking to they were in the Consulting Finance Industries so they're like well of course you got to stay you look like a dumb ████ if you leave McKenzie after 3 months to go work at Facebook so I stayed I did my full two years and I went to Facebook anyways I did the exact same job I went back to them like guys I'm sorry I said no will you still take me they said yeah but I came into the same role I would have been but probably like $100,000 poorer because at a company like Facebook was growing so fast this like 2014 coming in two years later makes a huge difference yeah for sure but I liked it there and I ended up at Instagram and I helped build Instagram live I was working with creators and businesses and you know for
15:59 me honestly one of the reasons why I'm so excited to be here it is a crazy concept to me that anyone thinks that I am now worth listening to or watching that I get to sit here and be on camera because you know growing up I didn't see anybody on camera you guys were very early but a lot of Asians weren't so much as present and I always wanted to do creative stuff Media stuff but I never recognized that need in myself so I was working with creators at Instagram and when I left I was like and I love to be a part of this world I'm not nearly smart or clever enough or cool enough not like this guy pry cool let's make sure he was putting a BK not this guy not the same not the guy wearing the same thing I mean you guys are literally you guys are literally dressed together yeah it's cute I'm wearing his brand he's not even wearing his brand why are you even reing
16:50 your own clothes I'm on a three sweater rotation what's your ex that's so funny I'm living on my motherinlaw where you at bro you have a FL why are you wearing we in car heart when you have it's just to show how much cooler this one is oh smart oh that's that's business thinking that's hilarious dude I don't know the guy who owns car heart I'm not going to wear it dude it's cuz he knows it's like it's like the before and after you're the after you're the smart guy that's why you're repping the barber smart guy said I'm a smart guy that's pretty hey can you clip that can you put that on Instagram live can you clip that no we're clipping that out so how'd you end up at coinbase so in between all the stuff figure out what I want to do I knew I wanted to work with creators so I left Instagram to do something in the creative world but before that I still was afraid not having a steady paycheck so then I went to coinbase because I said to myself look I want to do
17:40 something with creators I want to do something in the fintech world I'm not sure what let me get another job while I figure out what the next thing is and I'm like hey coinbase the entire Financial system is broken everything in this world is based on someone else deciding do you get to have money like if you think about it my company now gives creators money well the way it works is there's some really really rich people who then give money to a fund who then gives money to a venture capital firm who then gives money to me so that I can give money to creators and every single step of that process someone is extracting a fee that's why the people in this world who need the money the most have the most trouble getting it because it's so expensive for it to trickle there and I was like fascinated because there's so many demographic that run into this problem creators if you're
18:31 a solo entrepreneur if you're an immigrant coming to the country the whole promise of crypto the whole promise of the blockchain is there's a decentralized ledger and all that means is there's not a single Central institution deciding whether to float you that payment to process money coming through into you whether to give you credit instead it's a sort of free-for-all where everyone can just decide look actually I want to send him 15 bucks I don't have to or you know $15 worth of BTC I don't have to send that through a central bank that has to decide whether they want to float that payment or if there's risk of charge back they're just going to do it and for me the fundamental promise of crypto was hey someone anywhere in this world if they can't get access to bank account they can still set up a wallet get access to crypto and I was like okay let me go to a company that's building the pixs and shovels the infrastructure there so I went and worked at coinbase and I learned a ton and eventually I was
19:22 like hey this still isn't the same as doing my own thing so when I finally started my current company which yeah helps creator with finances with money I did it with my co-founder who was running a crypto hedge fund at the time initially we were considering like oh we should do something around crypto and then we found and I think this is one of the reasons why crypto adoption is not 100% yet in financial infrastructure anything around money sometimes the real thing is just getting people to learn and trust you and the thing is creators they barely even trust normal Banks they barely even understand Finance 101 so to go to them and be like ah but this is crypto this is we're like that's too much so let's start with the basics so what we've been doing we've been building our own underwriting model how do you solve the problem where there's 15 layers before money gets to the people that need it the first way is yeah you flip over the entire table you
20:13 reinvent the system you do crypto there's no centralized Authority the second way is doing what we're doing we're working with an existing Financial ecosystem but we're using our own underwriting model so we have money from investors from lenders and we give that money out to creators to float them on credit or one day to do other things and if they default that's on us we're eating it cuz we're operating with this existing system but we are building this really cool underwriting model that hey one day in a crypto blockchain World maybe that becomes useful again so that's sort of the high level how I ended up doing what I'm doing now and when I mentioned to you like hey this is some of the stuff I do this is why I was interested in crypto in the first place I think I saw a video of you explaining FICO or something you're talking about how like there's institutions that are deciding whether or not you should be a able to borrow and totally so as you know FICO refers to your credit history which everyone
21:03 uses to figure out whether you get money people don't realize FICO it used to be an acronym because in the 1950s there were two guys one dude named Fair the other guy named Isaac they just made the fair and Isaac company and said hey we'll just develop this is a way for the next 500 years to determine people can pay you back internet didn't even exist at that point if you guys wed walked up to them and said what you do for a living they'd be so confused wow wow Banks still use that to underwrite all of you and all of us and so it's like well why has anyone developed a better underwriting model hey when you're a trillion dooll bank and you're that you know midlevel gen Z new Banker you really want to come in and be like guys I have a new idea it could be really risky but if it works I'll move your
21:55 balance sheet 0 1% and if it doesn't work we all look like ████ idiots let's do it let's change the way the underwriting system works no that doesn't happen which is why ends up being startups like ours to come in and kind of be like yeah let's try and innovate let's try and do something a little bit different than FICO yeah yeah I feel like Carr's super visible now because like most people I saw it based on everybody posting their Time Square build oh I was like saw that Rec everybody I know is like doing this thing and I'm like what is this what is this thing I wish knew about credit and leverage and all that cuz everything that we've got into we literally just saved up and dumped our own Capital you got you guys bootstrapped everything that is so ████
22:45 hard look at the trauma the pain I didn't know a lot of these Financial like Basics yeah everything is Mom and Pop everything is if you don't have the money then don't do the venture so we would just pile up and in just Angel style call of all all of our friends you want a piece of this you want to do this let's get let's let's create this venture or whatever and like we just dump money and go and so now I'm learning about getting funded getting credit but see that's the Immigrant story in a way it's not just oh the financial system doesn't understand what we're doing it's also we don't know like we didn't grow up with the same knowledge and priv and context that say generational wealth has here so it's harder for People Like Us lacking that
23:35 cont to start new businesses because you literally just put in your own money right and the time is the biggest part of it is like after a few businesses you know you can do it right so then at that point it makes more sense to leverage meaning getting credit or whatever cuz you just now you just want to scale you got a good model and it's like now I need 10 more of the same shop but I need to get that money but I ran out so the time in between of opening and scaling and all that stuff that's when I had to learn like the hard way picking up books reading all this ████ I'm just like sounding it out like fincial it takes me forever but then everything you say like if I knew this 10 years ago then I would have been like maybe a couple thousand dollars more richer dude a couple STS what was the very first business
24:26 venture that you went to uh me and my buddies got together and we started selling um diecast cars on eBay and then that from there we started getting into the airsoft game and then like you know it was pretty crazy cuz we just wanted to see where this this would go we would you know go to yard sales and sell stuff and this was like I was like 17 or 18 and then we would make a couple hundred bucks and in one day we were making like 4,000 6,000 10,000 even and we're like What the hell these numbers are crazy right cuz like like you my you know my mom was making like 20 grand a year like those num though us making Canadian remember your privilege yeah yeah but that was when I was hooked
25:16 uh about business yeah you were like ████ like I can just go and make money yeah ████ yeah I don't have to have a job you don't have to pay tax yeah you don't that's a bit right kid that's right that's a whole another time wait I actually I'm curious for all of you one was the moment when you realized that same thing it's a super powerful thing I didn't get until 5 years ago it's like wait I don't have to work a normal job I can do my own thing like this whole thing here and part two we will discuss [Music] that
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