Episode Details

(0:00) Intro.

(1:42) Start of interview.

(3:11) Joe's take on the rise of IPOs and SPACs since 2020. "There is a level where it is all entirely rational."

(4:16) Staying private vs going public in this environment. "In today's world, companies have three alternatives: do another VC round, a SPAC or an IPO."

(6:43) On the fundraising environment: "This is historically unprecedented... due to fiscal and monetary stimulus throughout the U.S. and global economies." "But you have to combine that with the observation that we really do have some fundamental technological and economic changes going on."

(8:47) Are you bullish or bearish on the economy and markets? "I'm confused-ish"

(10:46) On Bitcoin, and the new Bitcoin Law from El Salvador (making it legal tender in that country): It has serious repercussions for US law (currency vs security, money transmission, tax implications, etc).

(12:56) On US public corporations adding Bitcoin to the corporate treasuries. On bitcoin mining ("dirty, dirty, dirty") and the distinctions between "proof of work" and "proof of stake" cryptos. On Elon's decision to not accept Bitcoin to purchase Teslas.

(16:12) On DeFi: "Once regulators figure out what's going on here, they are going to try to crush it." "You know, the SEC has no idea what to do with crypto. The SEC is asking for legislation, they're actually begging for legislation, because if you get legislation, then it's not their job. Unless (the SEC's nightmare) Congress gives the SEC all the authority it needs to regulate crypto and says to the SEC: here you go, do it."

(19:30) On DAOs: "They can lead to chaos. I mean, what is the governance structure? Each one of these has a very different governance structure. And one of the things that we know is that there's no perfect governance structure, right? If you want to over intellectualize this, go back to Ken Arrow's Impossibility Theorem where he demonstrated that there are lots of criteria we would like to see in a society and you can't simultaneously have them all. Well, you know, that's a super brainiac way of saying that governments are always going to fail to one degree or another. Putting the problem of social organization on the blockchain does not solve the problem of social organization. It simply replicates the problem on the blockchain, right? So why do people think that putting an insoluble problem on the blockchain solves the insoluble problem is an insoluble problem to me."

(21:13) On the different approach to blockchain by computer scientists and lawyers. The Stanford Center for Blockchain Research. "What can I say? The computer science people don't get sued 25 times... you know, in computer science, your equations are generally fairly well behaved. And if you write a system, you know how it's going to operate. We're lawyers, we deal with people. Not only deal with people, we deal with plaintiffs. It's a very different problem. I mean look, in engineering you're often dealing with fairly well behaved systems. If systems were well-behaved, you wouldn't need lawyers. So what can I say? I only go where there's chaos and mayhem."

(22:57) On SB-826 (gender) board diversity quota in CA: "the data suggests pretty strongly, almost conclusively, that SB-