>> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's The Cube covering Blockchain Unbound, brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (rhythmic salsa music) >> Hello, everyone, welcome back to our exclusive coverage here in Puerto Rico, Blockchain Unbound Global Conference where the leaders in the industry from entrepreneurs to investors and everything in between, from San Francisco to New York, Miami, South Africa, Russia, all over the world are here in Puerto Rico, The Cube's coverage. Our next guest is Naomi Brockwell who is hosting the event here on stage. She's emceeing it all. You go to her YouTube channels /naomibrockwell, check out her videos, hosts events all over the industry, Blockchain, celebrity, thought leader, futurist. What else are you? >> You're very, very kind. It's all not true, but I have been in the space for awhile and I love Blockchain text, so it's exciting to be here. >> I'm really impressed by your stamina and passion on stage. What a line up today, so give us the quick highlights What happened today, we were here filming. What happened inside the venue? We saw some great talks come through there. >> Yeah, we saw some great ones. A probably a highlight for me was seeing Alena. She was the former CEO of SatoshiLabs, which created Trezor, one of mt favorite hard wallets, by the way, and it was just great listening to her talk about security because that is something that is so important and people do not take seriously enough. I have people telling me, "Oh, Naomi, I started up this wallet, and I stood my public in the..." I was like, "So did you write down your private key and all that, it's in a safe place?" He's like "Yup, it's in my DropBox." I'm like, "No, what are you doing, this is not good!" Hearing her basically say anything that has touched the internet ever, any device that has been on the internet ever is not secure. Do not trust it, you need to use offline things. >> There's a lot of wallet grabbing going on digitally. >> Absolutely. >> That's come up. I saw some stuff on Telegram, people that we know, be like, "Hey, beware, a lot of hacking out there. "Got to watch your coins." >> And also, I mean there's just huge gains to be made, right, so it makes sense, especially we expect the price of Bitcoin to go up. You have hackers just targeting at specific wallets, and specific vulnerabilities, and they just keep going until they get through, so you've got to be vigilant and you got to take every precaution possible. Got to take it seriously. >> Is there a best practice that you observed? >> Absolutely. Don't store anything online. And another thing, people are telling me, "Yeah, you know, I have my private key written down." I'm like, "Great, you wrote it down twice?" They're like, "Yeah, I just printed that out twice." I'm like, "No, your printer stores an image "of everything you've ever printed out "and it's connected to wifi at all times. "That is going to be hacked. "Do not print out your private key, "your paper wallet, anything. "You've got to write this down." Paper and pen is the best practice you can use and-- >> Going old school analog, big time. >> Absolutely. And isn't that funny? You have this amazing new tech that's fantastic, cutting edge, and what are we doing to keep it safe? Pen and paper. >> Yeah, turn off all wifi, put on some vinyl records, eight-track recorder, going old school. Okay, I got to get-- >> But holding your own coins, holding your own money, having control of your own money, no one said that's the easiest practice. They just said it was the most secure and is going to give you the most power over your funds, and so if you want to do that, there's a price to pay and that is being vigilant about your security. >> One of the things about that I'm interested in talking to you about is being someone who's present at creation of a big movement like this. You've seen the evolution. What's the growing pains in the industry 'cause we're seeing a lot of people who are the pioneers, now that people, I won't call them tourists because they're still young and emerging, but you have a lot of get-rich-quick schemes. Those are obviously being filtered out pretty quickly by the community, but you're seeing new entrants come in. You have financing, got big numbers coming in, big money. How has it evolved, I mean, what's your observation? How is it maturing? What's some of the vibe? You've got some factions over here, you've got some factions over there. People are still getting along. What's the overall sentiment? >> I've been in this space for about five years, so in this industry, it's like being an absolute veteran, and what you've seen is it started out as this very libertarian space. People were interested in taking their money out of the control of government and having more autonomy over their finds, having more control over their funds. Blockchain was invented as a tool for giving people more freedom, and what you're seeing now is a bunch of people who entered the space who don't necessarily share that ethos, but what I love about Blockchain is that they're taking this technology that is inherently taking people towards a more decentralized free society, and they're applying it to all different industries. So my point of view, it doesn't bother me at all that the new entrants don't necessarily share this passion for freedom that the people who've been here since the beginning have, but the fact that they are taking this and making the world a more free place regardless is really exciting to me. >> And that's the real opportunity 'cause inherently the ethos is Blockchain, so it's not so much a political orientation or this or that. It's how you apply it. >> Exactly, and so Blockchain, being a decentralized ledger is great because when you decentralize any power structure, no matter what industry it is, I mean, you're really making people more free, you're giving them more responsibility, and I like seeing things become decentralized. >> Certainly we're a media company, we're kind of a new car, we don't believe in a central gatekeeper, so I got to ask you the question. As a YouTuber who has a big fan base and in the community, it's really disheartening for me to see John Oliver take down Brock Pierce, although it was a hilarious video up until the point where he maliciously went after Brock in a very vicious way. How does one person have that power. I mean, it shouldn't be that way, or the New York Times or a certain publication that, they're the gatekeeper still. That was an example I looked at and said, "That's where Blockchain can disrupt the media." I mean, it's great comedy, but it kind of went over the top. >> For me, I mean-- >> He got fired by the Eagles project. They wiped his name off everything. I mean, that's just, I just see that as a problem. You, what's your thoughts? >> When you say how do these people get there, John Oliver is a funny guy. I see how he got there, he's very talented, he has a great team, great writing, but that section, I thought it was pretty spot on for most of the Bitcoin segment. It got to that section, I was like, "Oh, this is kind of sloppy research." so that was disappointing. I saw that Brendan Bloomer had a nice response that he posted. He's the head of EOS. >> What did he say? >> He was just very funny and playful with John, so that was nice to see. He set him straight in terms of saying like, "What does this technology enable?" He was basically arguing Blockchain doesn't go far enough. It doesn't fulfill the needs that I see in society so I created this other thing which does XYZ. He was authoritative in stating that, "no, you just don't understand the tech." He basically clarified the Brock situation and said, "No, actually having him involved was really great." He's not involved for various reasons. Yeah, it was an interesting segment that the-- >> It was so funny after that one point. I'm like, "Oh, boy." >> I was enjoying it up til then. I was like, "Okay, this makes sense, you know. >> It's funny. >> And then it gets up to that and I'm like, "Okay, this just became an at home and I'm going to tag. This is a cheap throw, and people do that with Bitcoin. Since it's inception, you've seen people in media and mainstream media in particular target Bitcoin and they're just adopting the government narrative saying, "Oh, everyone in this industry is corrupt," or "Everyone in this industry is an ICO scammer," or "Everyone in this industry is a drug runner "and they're all selling drugs on the dark web." It's like, you know what, you can do some research and do a bit better than that, so to see John Oliver perpetuating those at-home and I'm going to attack was disappointing, but at the same time, we are seeing that narrative shift, and you're seeing more news outlets become more positive about Bitcoin. >> Also the data is the self-government and the community has the data. The truth is going to get out there. That's the purpose of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Crypto. You've got consensus, you've got algorithms, you've got machine learning. Okay, cool. What are you up to? You've got an exciting couple things going on. You've got a lot going on, so take a quick minute to explain your big project. You've got some exciting, cool things, share it. >> Got some fun things going on at the moment. While I'm not emceeing 20 to 40 Blockchain conferences a year, which is exciting, but takes up a lot of my time, I am a television producer. I have my own show. It's Bitcoin, Blockchain-tech based. Then on top of that, I'm a film producer, television producer. We're working on a really exciting series right now. It's called The HardFork Series. It's this dystopian future, it's a sci-fi thriller. $18 million, or it's a large budget, and we have one of the guys from Ozark, on Netflix originally. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. It's a great show. Christopher James Baker is our lead and the community support we have garnered for this project is great because we have not only Hollywood types, our director is a Sundance alumni. We've also got people in the Crypto Space who have a huge amount of credibility. We've got Bruce Fenton, Jason King on our Board of Advisors. People who understand the space, so the community is excited about for the first time having a mainstream production that is being created with a large budget where people in the industry have control of the narrative. We haven't had control of the narrative yet. >> That's true. >> The government's still controlling it, mainstream media's still controlling it, and so to create a series that could potentially expose people to this technology for the first time and to have control of that narrative is exciting. >> Is it going to be inspirational, it going to be a comedy? >> It's going to be gritty, it's a sci-fi thriller. We call it a crypto-thriller noir. Is that not the best genre you've ever heard? It's pretty cool. It's this idea that in the future the government has their own Blockchain and there's Crypto Coins that they have. It's all centralized and they control the populous with this augmented reality where everything is gamified. Basically the idea is the government's trying to distract people from important issues, like gamifying everything. You have this group of renegades who comes in. They're like, "No, we're going to decentralize this." They come and work their magic. >> It's Mr. Robot meets Black Mirror. >> Oh, yeah, no, it's pretty great. >> Kind of thing goin' on? It basically is a tale about the power of decentralization and how it can disrupt all authoritarian role, which I think is just a great topic for right now. >> What's your background? Where are you, out of LA, New York? >> I'm based in New York. My background actually. >> How'd you get here? >> I was an opera singer. That's how I got here. I moved to New York as an opera singer and then pivoted into movie production, and from there went on to television production. I got into the Crypto Space because I'm really interested in Australian economics and love the philosophy that Bitcoin was created on. It's been an interesting journey. >> You got addicted. >> Yeah, now I kind of-- >> You went to the light. >> Yeah, I'm bringing everything together now with my Bitcoin, economics-based, Crypto-thriller noir, so it's pretty exciting. >> I'm super impressed. Congratulations on all your continued success. Great job emceeing the Blockchain Unbound. >> Thank you. >> Great energy, great mind, great to have you on The Cube. Thanks for sharing >> It's wonderful to be here. >> your story. Thanks for everything. It's The Cube, I'm John Furrier here. Breaking down, we've got all the action in Puerto Rico. Thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, people in the industry sharing their story. Sharing the data with you, that's our mission. Thanks for watching. Day two tomorrow, we'll see you then. (engaging tones)

>> From Phoenix, Arizona, theCUBE. At Catalyst Conference, here's your host Jeff Frick. (soft music) >> Hey Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. About 400 people. The fourth year of the conference. Really getting together, talking about women in tech issues. Something in the water, here in Phoenix. We were here two years ago at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing, also just down the road. So we're happy to be here and really get a feel. And bring to you some of the leaders here, that are making things happen. We're really excited by our next guest, Coco Brown, the founder and CEO of the Alena Alliance, or Athena Alliance, excuse me, welcome. >> Thank you. >> So the Athena Alliance, what's it all about? >> Well so the Athena Alliance is an organization of executive women who've achieved great success in their careers. And they have vision collectively of women operating at their highest level of impact. And within the context of a business leadership realm, that highest level really is the boardroom. And so our mission is to help women obtain board seats and be successful in the role. >> So there's a lot of conversations about board. It seems to be kind of the new hot button topic about inequality. There's certainly ton of conversations about inequality and pay highlighted recently by the women's national soccer team, which got a lot of buzz. And I think everyone knows that conversation that's been going on for a while. But the boardroom conversation is kind of new. It's kind of bubbling up. Or at least that's my sense of it, that barely have cracked the surface in terms of historical numbers in getting women representation on boards. >> Yeah. >> Why does that continue to be a problem? Is it a pipeline issue? Is it a match making issue? Is it a networking issue? Is it just, I just don't know? What is the issue? >> It's not a pipeline issue. And so what's happened in this discussion is there were some, sort of, pretty notable examples of situations where women raised their hands and said, hey where are the women on these boards. And the response was, well where are the women? Which kind of created this energy around the topic a lot more strongly more recently. Which is to say, there are a lot of qualified women out there who would be great board directors. And yet the positions of board director are gate kept by largely men. This is just the circumstance. Men are the ones who back companies. They're their VCs, they're the founders, they're the CEOs. And within their networks, they don't have a lot of women. Executive women. Likewise, executive women tend to seek each other out too. So we're not in each other's realms. So a lot of the conversation has been around raising awareness to the issue. There's been great tracking of exactly where is the issue. And how are we making progress. And then there's been a lot of great organizations that have been helping women get ready for board positions, training them. And thirdly, there's a lot of great organizations out there who are, essentially, identifying qualified women, and cataloging them, putting them in data bases and saying, hey no excuses, here they are. But the key missing element and my feeling as to why the problem continues to persist, part of it is just time. It's just going to take time. But part of it is also, really networking, what you said. It is about networking. It is that the women who want these positions and who are qualified for these positions need to know the men who are looking for board directors. And when you actually connect, make those two connections happen, you get incredible success. And we're seeing it already. >> Or as the age old advice, it's not who you know, but who knows you. >> Yes! >> It used to always be the other way around. But it's really who knows you. And we live in such a time of personal branding and external communication via LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, medium, however you choose to externalize your professional position. And it kind of gets intermingled with your personal position. There really is not much excuse, at least, to make the attempt, to get yourself out there. >> Exactly, it's why. So there's 16 of the speakers here at this conference, are Athena Alliance women. And part of the reason we're here, we're here because this is such a noble and important and fantastic event for us to participate in. The other reason we're here is because this is apart of our way of getting known too, right. Of becoming more visible. Of making our brand, personal brand known. So this is one of those key things about who knows you that we should and need to be doing. >> So how many Athena foundation women are in executive boards now? >> So Athena Alliance is relatively new. So we're just getting started. About 50% of, 47% of the women associated with Athena Alliance are already on boards. >> That's pretty good, 47%. >> Yes, largely those are non-profit boards. >> Okay. >> They also are on a fair number of advisory boards. And they're now looking for the private boards and corporate boards and they're looking for public boards as well. >> And do you see that as kind of a logical stepping stone between an advisory board, a non-profit board, potentially a private company board, a VC company and then to a larger public entity. Is that kind of? >> Yeah I see it two ways. On the one hand, it's stepping stones and on the other, we have a variety of careers. So let's take me for example. I ran and was an owner of a privately held company. We reached about 50 million dollars in revenue before I sold my ownership, moved on. I'm qualified for a certain kind of a board. I'm qualified for a private board of a certain type of growth, sort of trajectory or stage. Others like Yvonne, who you spoke with, she's qualified for public boards of a different size. So some of it is what we're qualified for and what we can really contribute to and some of it is stepping stones. So for example, advisory boards are a great stepping stone. You get absolutely zero board credit for being on an advisory board, 'cause it doesn't have fiduciary responsibilities. >> No fiduciary responsibility. >> Right. But it's incredible network experience. It's a great way to get to know CEOs, to get to know VCs, to make yourself known as a candidate for other aspects of that company. >> Where do you see the natural networking opportunities? 'Cause clearly there's networks that exist around where you went to school. There's networks around, increasingly alumni groups, within companies, especially a big company like an Intel or an HP, where you got these huge alumni groups, 'cause they've been around for so long. Where are some of the other natural alumni groups that then cross over that are going to allow rubbing of shoulders with the old school guy board members with some of these women that are trying to break through? >> Yeah it's interesting. I think that is a really good opportunity space because I do see that mostly, the networking pods, if you will, are within school alumni groups, or corporate alumni groups, or organizations that women belong to. But that are largely then just women organizations. Or maybe some industry organizations. And industry boards are a great way to make that connection point. But I don't think that women do have opportunities of overlap with men in those organizations and those networking communities. So the way it has to happen is, I think we have to make it happen. So it's almost like, creating mixers. We need some mixers, right? Male VCs mixed with Athena Alliance women. Let's get together. We actually have an event coming up like that. Where you can have some men and women in the same room. They get to get a sense of each other. Those you do start seeing more of that going on and it's kind of essential. >> 'Cause you really need that right? I mean, they are networks. And everything going on today is all about networks, whether it's IOT or social media or whatever. It's networks and they're all naturally bound by something but how do you get that overlap from one network to the other when there's not enough overlap to really make the activity that you're seeking. Of course, there's always CUBE alumni, which is a terrific network. So we'll use that as a founding point. >> Absolutely. Well and Dan Scholnick, who is a general partner with Trinity, he's on a number of boards. He's speaking at an event for the Athena Alliance on a panel coming up. And he's got board openings in the variety of boards that he's on. Those are the kinds of connections. Make opportunities for Dan to be in the same room as a number of these great women. I think we just have to create it. >> It's interesting, interesting. 'Cause it is all about the connection, right. You got to know people and you got to put the word out. Nobody ever got a board seat sending out a resume. I don't know. How many come from executive head hunters? I never got a job from executive head hunters. It's really more about who you know. >> And executive recruiters only actually fill about one to two percent of board seats. It's only the top companies with the deepest pockets or the greatest pressure that can do that. >> Okay so what are your priorities for the next six months, nine months, what are your top things your guys are working on at the Alliance? >> So we're relatively new, so big, big priority for us is funding. We're also scaling. So scaling is one of the important things. In other words, scaling our relationships with those VCs, with CEOs, and starting to create great linkages through these networking events. >> All right, well Coco, thank you for taking a few minutes. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely and good luck with the Alliance. It sounds like you guys are on your way. We see increasingly, we did a show at SAP in conjunction with MAKERS and they got a great movie about some of the women who just broke down barriers in advertising, fashion, finance, tech, et cetera. Meg Whitman, among many women highlighted there. And it's tough to break down that door. When the first one gets through, hopefully they leave a little space for somebody else to scooch in behind them. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Absolutely. All right, Jeff Frick here with Coco Brown. We are the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, Phoenix, Arizona. You're watching theCUBE. See you next time. (soft music)