>> Narrator: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto and Boston connecting with thought leaders all around the world. This is theCUBE conversation. >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are here in our Palo Alto studios today. We got through March, this is some really crazy time. So we're taking advantage of the opportunity to reach out to some of the community leaders that we have in our community to get some good tips and tricks as to know how to kind of deal with this current situation. All the working from home, school from home. And we're really excited to have one of the experts. One of my favorite CUBE guests. We haven't had her around since October 2017, which I find crazy. And we'd love to welcome into theCUBE via the remote dial-in, Rachel Tobac. She is the CEO of SocialProof Security. Rachel, great to see you and I cannot believe that we have not sat down since 2017. >> I know, I can't believe it, it's been so much time. Thanks for having me back. >> Absolutely, but we are good Twitter friends. >> Oh yeah >> Exchanging stuff all the time. So, first of, great to see you. Just a kind of of introduction, tell us a little bit about SocialProof Security and your very unique specialty. >> Yes. SocialProof Security is all about social engineering and protecting you from the those types of attackers. So, basically we help you understand how folks manipulate you and try and gain access to your information. I am an attacker myself so I basically go out, try it, learn what we can learn about how we do our attacks and then go on and train you to protect your organization. So, training and testing. >> Alright. Well, I am going to toot your horn a little bit louder than that because I think it's amazing. I think that you are basically 100% undefeated in hacking people during contests at conventions, live. And it's fascinating to me and why I think it's so important it's not a technical hack at all. It's a human hack, and your success is amazing. And I've seen you do it. There's tons of videos out there with you doing it. So, what are kind of just the quick and dirty takeaways that people need to think about knowing that there are social hackers, not necessarily machine hackers out there, trying to take advantage of them. What are some of these inherit weaknesses that we just have built into the system? >> Yeah, thanks for your kind words too, I appreciate that. The challenge with social engineering is that it leverages your principles of persuasion. The parts of you that you cannot switch off. And so, I might pretend to be similar to you so that I can build rapport with you. And it's really hard for you to switch that off because you want to be a kind person, you want to be nice and trusting. But it's hard, it's a tough world out there and unfortunately criminals will leverage elements of your personality and your preferences against you. So, for instance if I know you have a dog, then I might play a YouTube video of a dog barking and try and gain access to information about your systems and your data, while pretending to be IT support, for example. And that's really tough because, you know three minutes into the conversation we are already talking about our dog breeds and now you want to trust me more. But unfortunately just because we have something in common, it doesn't mean that I am who I say I am. And so, I always recommend people are politely paranoid. It just basically means that you use two methods of communication to confirm that people are who they say they are. And if they are trying to get you to divulge sensitive information or go through with a wire transfer, for instance, you want to make sure that you check that first. We just saw an example of this with Barbara Corcoran. Famously on Shark Tank. Where she has many investments in real estate. And unfortunately a cyber criminal was able to take advantage and get almost $400,000 wired over to them and they did lose that money because they were able to take advantage of the bookkeeper, the accountant and the assistant and folks just were not checking back and forth that people are who they say they were with multiple methods of communication. >> It's crazy. A friend of mine actually is in the real estate business. And we were talking earlier this year and he got a note from his banker. Looked like his banker's email. It was the guy's name that he works with all the time. Was talking about a transfer. It didn't have a bunch of weird misspelling and bad grammar. And all kind of the old school things that kind of would expose it as a hack. And he picked up the phone and called the guy, and said "we don't have a transaction happening right now. "Why did you send this to me?" So it gets really really really good. But lets dive into just a little vocabulary 101. When people talk about "fishing" and "spearphishing" what does that exactly mean for people that aren't really familiar with those terms? >> Sure. Most likely you are going to see it happen over email. In fact, with COVID-19 right now we've seen through Google's Transparency Report on fishing that there's been a 350% increase in fishing attacks. And I believe Brisk had this huge research that said that there were 300,000 plus suspicious COVID 19 fishing websites that were just spun up in the past couple of weeks. It's pretty scary but basically what they are trying to do is get you to input your credentials. They are trying to get access to your machine or your credentials so that they can use them on other high value sites, gain access to your information, your data, points, your sensitive data basically. And use that against you. It's really tough. Unfortunately, criminals don't take a break even in crisis. >> Yeah they are not self-isolating unfortunately, I guess they are sitting there with their computers. So that's interesting. So, I was going to ask you, kind of what is the change in the landscape now. So you answered a little bit there but then the other huge thing that's happening now is everybody is working from home. They are all on Zoom, they are all on Skype, WebEx. And you've actually had some really timely post just recently about little things that people should think about in terms on just settings on Zoom to avoid some of the really unfortunate things that are popping in kind of randomly on Zoom meetings. So, I wonder if you could share some of those tips and tricks with the audience. >> Yeah, absolutely. Some of the big issues that we are seeing recently is what people have coined as Zoombombing. It's all over the news. So you've probably heard about it before but in case you are wondering exactly what that is. It's whenever an attacker either guesses your Zoom ID code and you don't have a password on your Zoom call that you are in the middle of. Or they might gain access to your Zoom ID code because maybe your took a screenshot of your Zoom and posted that to social media. And now if you don't have password protection or your waiting room is on they can just join your call and sometimes you might not notice that they are on the call, which could lead to privacy issues, data breach for instance or just a sensitive data leak. If they join via the phone you might not even notice that they are on the call. And so it's really important to make sure that you have password protection on for your Zoom and you have waiting rooms enabled. And you don't want to take pictures of your workstation. I know that's really tough for folks. because they want to showcase how connected they are during these difficult times I do understand that. But realize that when you take those screenshots of your workstation, this is something that we just saw in the news with Boris Johnson just a few days ago. He posted an image of his zoom call and it included some of the software they used. And so, you just mentioned spearphishing, right? I can look at some of that software get an idea for maybe the version of his operating system the version of some of the software he may be using on his machine and craft a very specific spearfish just for him that I know will likely work on his machine, with his software installed because I understand the version and the known vulnerabilities in that software. So, there's a lot of problems with posting those types of pictures. As a blanket rule you are not going to want to take pictures of your workstation. Especially not now. >> Okay, so, I remember that lesson that you taught me when we're in Houston at Grace Hopper. Do not take selfies in front of your pics, in front of your work laptop. 'Cause as you said, you can identify all types of OS information. Information that gives you incredible advantage when you are trying to hack into my machine. >> Yeah, that's true. And I think a lot of people don't realize they are like, "everybody uses the browser, everybody uses Power Point", for example. But sometimes, the icons and logos that you have on your machine, really give me good information about the exact version and potentially the versions that might be out of data in your machine. When I can look up those non-vulnerabilities pretty easily that's a pretty big risk. The other things that we see is people take screenshots and I can see their desktop and when I can see your desktop, I might know the naming convention that you use for your files which I can name drop with you or talk about on the phone or over email to convince you that I really do have access to your machine like I am IT support or something. >> Yeah, it's great stuff. So for people who want more of this great stuff go to Rachel's Twitter handle. I'm sure we have it here on the lower third. You've got the great piece with. Last week with John Oliver hacking the voting machines like a week before the elections last year which was phenomenal. Now I just saw your in this new HBO piece where you actually just sit down at the desk with the guy running the show and hacker disciplines systems. Really good stuff. Really simple stuff. Let's shift gears one more time, really in terms of what you are doing now. You said you are doing some help in the community to directly help those in need as we go through this crisis. People are trying to find a way to help. Tell us a little bit more about what you are doing. >> Yeah, as soon as I started noticing how intense COVID-19 was wreaking havoc on the hospital and healthcare systems in the world I decided to just make my services available for free. And so I put out a call on my social medias and let folks know "Hey if you need training ,if you need support if you just want to walk through some of your protocols and how I might gain access to your systems or your sensitive data through those protocols, let me know and I'll chat with you" And, I've had an amazing response. Being able to work with hospitals all over the world for free to make sure that they have the support that they need during COVID-19 it really does mean a lot to me because it's tough I feel kind of powerless in this situation there's not a lot that I can personally do there are many brave folks who are out there risking it all every single day to be able to do the work to keep folks safe. So, just trying to do something to help support the healthcare industry as they save lives. >> Well, that's great. I mean, it is great 'cause if you are helping the people that are helping ,you know, you are helping maybe not directly with patients but that's really important work and there's a lot of stuff now that's coming out in terms of, kind of of this tunnel vision on COVID-19 and letting everything else kind of fall by the wayside including other medical procedures and there is going to be a lot of collateral damage that we don't necessarily see because the COVID situation has kind of displaced everything out and kind of blown it out. Anything that you can do to help people get more out of the resources, protect their vulnerability is nothing but goodness. So, thank you for doing that. So, I will give you a last word. What's your favorite, kind of closing line when you are at Black Hat or RSA to these people to give them the last little bit "Come on, don't do stupid things. There is some simple steps you can take to be a little bit less vulnerable" >> Yeah, I think something that we hear a lot is that people kind of give a blanket piece of advice. Like, don't click links. And, that's not really actionable advice. Because a lot of times you are required to click links or download that PDF attachment from HR. And, many times it is legitimate for work. And so, that type of advice isn't really the type of advice I like to give. Instead, I like to say just be politely paranoid and use two methods of communication to confirm if it is legitimate before you go ahead and do that. And, it will take a little bit of time I'm not going to lie it'll take you an extra 30 seconds to 60 seconds to just chat somebody and say "Hey quick question about that thing you sent over" But it can start to change the security consciousness of your culture. And maybe they'll put out a chat while they send out an email from HR to let you know that it is legitimate and then you are kind of starting this cycle at the beginning. Not every single person has to ask individually you can start getting that security consciousness going where people are politely paranoid and they know that you are going to be too so they are going to preempt it and make sure that you understand something is legitimate with a second form of communication. >> Great tip, I am a little taken aback, everybody now wants to get their score so high their customer satisfaction score so after like every transaction you get this silly surveys "How was your time at SafeWay? "Or Bank of America?" All these things Survey Monkey. I don't really know how those businesses stay in anymore. I am not clicking on any Bank of America customer satisfaction or Safeway customer satisfaction link. But I will be politely paranoid and look for the right ones to click on. (giggle) >> That's good and use two methods of communication to confirm they are real. >> That's right,two-factor authentication. Alright,well Rachel, thank you for taking a few minutes of your time. Thank you for your good work with hospitals in the community and really enjoyed catching up. As always, love your work and I'm sure we'll be talking you more on Twitter. >> Thanks for having me on again and I'll see you on the Internet. >> All right, be safe. >> Rachel: Thank you >> All right, that was Rachel. I am Jeff. You are watching theCUBE. We are coming to you from our Palo Alto Studios. Thanks for watching. Stay safe and we'll see you next time. (instrumental music)

>> Live from Orlando, Florida. It's the Cube. Covering Enterprise Connect 2019, brought to you by Five9. >> Hello from Orlando, Florida. I'm Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman on the Cube, at Enterprise Connect 2019. Stu and I are joined by a guest from Ribbon Communications. We've got Sacha Gera, the SVP of Cloud. Sacha welcome to the Cube. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> So we've had the opportunity to talk to one of your colleagues from Ribbon before but let's give our audience an opportunity to learn more about Ribbon, who you guys are, what you do and then of course we'll talk about some of the great new exciting announcements that you'll make here this week. >> Absolutely, so Ribbon Communications is a global leader in providing real-time communications. We provide piece parse technology to over a thousand carriers around the world and increasingly to independent software vendors and enterprise. So we came into existence about 18 months ago with the amalgamation of Sonus and GENBAND coming together and about 18 months old and doing some big things now so. >> And a lot of news coming out this week. Talk to us about some of the key announcements that Ribbon is making with some of your partners, AT&T for example. >> Absolutely, so our Kandy cloud communications business which is our SaaS brand, we're a white label platform as a service providing UCaaS and CPaaS services to independent software vendors and carriers around the world. And we're really excited about AT&T's announcement ahead of the conference here and AT&T, you know a lot of people have been saying, "We're waiting for the big tier one service providers to fire back at some of the more well-known CPaaS players out there." And so what we do is we helped AT&T with an end-to-end platform as a service play to help them launch their marketplace. And the key word there is marketplace. There is a lot of folks providing APIs and SDKs as you look around the conference here but when you think about the Fortune thousand looking for those low code, no code-type digital solutions that can have the easy button to launch and transform into the digital evolution that's going on, that's what we are helping AT&T to do. So it's been quite they announcement for us. >> Sacha, I love that. We've been saying for years you know, the enterprise really needs an upmarket place, just like we have on our phones, it'd be great to have that, you know when I came into the show. my first time coming here it was like okay, how much is it just API compatibility? And we were working amongst each other but as I walk around the show floor it's like, "Oh well yeah that (mumbles) makes sense." And then these kind of pieces, which ones come together and which ones would I, as an enterprise or service provider just be able to, you know, plug into. So can you speak a little a little of that maturation of the marketplace and what the reality out there is there today. >> Absolutely and think about that large enterprise that has an existing procurement vehicle with the large carriers. They're getting their data services, their telephony, their collaboration. It's an actual extension to want to sell use cases and digital solutions. And so with the carrier, you've got an existing bill. One bill. Now your adding APIs and SDKs, turn key digital solutions and an easy button that's more E-commerce centric. And that's really what we've been able to help AT&T do, to really move up the value chain, so. >> So when you're out talking with customers and I know one of your customers, Hertz was on the customer panel this morning during the general session. When you're out talking with customers, talk to us about real-time communication. It's this huge opportunity for customers. It's almost an imperative that they'll be able to have real-time communications with whoever they are transacting business with. How are you guys helping customers embrace and deliver real-time communications? >> Absolutely, so we were really pleased to hear Hertz give us the shout out this morning and you know our end customer is actually not Hertz. Hertz is a customer of IBM and we are helping IBM with their white label platform as a service for their UCaaS and collaboration services. And of course Hertz is transforming all of their rental car branches around the world into the cloud, using our hosted voice over IP and UCaaS services. So we're really pleased about the announcement. So when it comes to real-time communications, I mean this is, you got to think about the customer journey and we've heard this from a lot of folks. The consumer is more empowered than ever when it comes to the customer journey. Gone are the days of necessarily walking into a bricks and mortar shop, taking an hour to kind of learn about what's going on. People are making decisions like this because all the information is at the touch of their fingertips. And today it's about customer engagement and it's about making the best informed decisions as possible and customer engagement in especially the contact center is increasingly playing an important role. So we're helping customer like IBM transform their portfolios, fill in portfolio gaps where they can provide new hosting services but at the same time transform that contact center experience and really help drive new sales with engagement tools and new technologies like WebRTC and CPaaS are playing a really important role there. >> So Sacha, it's interesting you have for the most part a degree of separation between yourself and the end consumer. There's one of the press releases that caught my eye though, the scourge to the consumer today is robocalls. It's like most of all, I want to turn off my phone number because most of the calls that come through, even when it says it's somebody you think you know, often times it isn't. Can you talk about, there's an engagement that Ribbon has with a number of service providers, helping to attack this big challenge today. >> Absolutely. So we recently hosted a forum with a number of carriers coming down because there's some studies that show that upwards of 50% of calls in the next couple of years are going to be robocalls and they're annoying as heck, depending on the geography and where you live. So with our new kind of end-to-end portfolio which kind of mixes both analytics and our strategic positioning in the core and the edge. The enterprise edge as well as the core of the carrier. We're in a very strategic place to get that information, data mine it and proactively identify where we're not only getting robocalling but fraud and helping carriers and others to monetize that business and do proactive things with that data. So we have a new kind of solution coming out STIR-SHAKEN, you'll hear a little bit more about that and don't ask me to spell out that acronym. It does actually stand for something that's more technical but we're really excited about what's going on there. The robocalling industry is becoming quite annoying for a lot of folks. It's a big opportunity for us. >> Heck, John Oliver did a segment on it a couple of weeks ago. So, hopefully, your company can help solve that issue because that definitely holds us back today. >> Absolutely. >> So in terms of industry adoption, we mentioned Hertz as a customer of yours through IBM but talk to us about some of the verticals maybe that you're seeing as leading-edge. I think governments, health care, financial services. Are you really seeing those industries kind of lead in this real-time communications opportunity area? >> Absolutely, likes we like to think of ourselves more as of a horizontal player and specifically all verticals are kind of going towards frictionless real-time communications. And you know we have a great thing going on with Five 9s for example. Five 9s is a well-known Cloud contact, it's a center it's a service player and one of the things we're doing with Five 9s is they've got a bunch of end customers who are revolutionizing their contact center and so one of the things we were able to do with Five 9s for example is enable them with WebRTC services. And it was about this time last year, maybe a little bit before when WebRTC ubiquitously kind of got standardized in all the major web browsers. And what we're able to help do with Five 9s is introduce a new frictionless in context way of communicating into the contact center over WebRTC which is great for customers who want to save on the toll-free minutes. It's kind of over the top web toll-free but it's kind of in browser in context like again, contact center agents have that full contextual toolkit of engagement to be able to preserve customers and upsell and cross-sell and provide great customer service. And we're not really seeing any particular vertical that is necessarily adopting that more than the other. We like to think of ourselves as horizontal but certainly governments, financials, retails, telemedicine, we're seeing tremendous traction across all of those. >> See, oh go ahead Stu. >> Yeah I was just being in the cloud, can you talk about some of the relationships with the public cloud. No, no, there were some announcements with Microsoft, believe with Amazon also. How are you seeing, that the hyper-scale public clouds impacting your space? >> Absolutely. So you know in this day and age, you've got to be able to fire up new micro-services and new cloud services instantly and practically anywhere. And there's reasons for that. Some of that is data privacy, some of it's security, some of it's just latency and so on And you know AWS, Azure we're kind of agnostic to the public cloud infrastructure but we're pretty excited about some of their announcements. We've been working with Amazon and Microsoft Azure for some time and increasingly with IBM SoftLayer as well. And so the ability to fire up some of our piece parts or Session Border Controllers. Our WebRTC gateways up in the public cloud and able to facilitate our channel partners to go to market in rapid time. It's an important part of our strategy. With Microsoft, obviously we're one of two certified vendors and with Microsoft and Teams, you know a lot of enterprises are going towards the Teams. We're able to help carriers play in that by having those interconnects to the carriers to provide the voice services and the carrier services and fire up practically instantly in the public cloud. So we're pretty excited about some of those announcements here as well. >> And what can some folks find out and learn about in your booth here at Enterprise Connect? >> Yeah, so I think at our booth you'll see a number of key topics being highlighted. Obviously the public cloud and the Microsoft as well as some of the other public cloud announcements we've had. In addition to that, we recently acquired a company called Edgewater and so our heritage, we've been known very much as kind of a carrier SBC player of choice but we've kind of extended that to the enterprise edge with the acquisition of Edgewater. And what Edgewater provides us is kind of that Enterprise SBC, but with SD-WANs. So SD-WANs, a growing part of our story, having that end-to-end quality of service, over the top with analytics and all the protection of security and all that kind of stuff. So it's a perfect fit into our portfolio and that's another area that you'd be able to see at our booth here this year at Enterprise Connect. >> Excellent last-- >> So if I understand that, I'm sorry. So you have an SD-WAN offering, is it something we've been watching quite a bit in the multi-cloud space and a lot of movement high growth in that area? >> Absolutely. So the SD-WAN offering with the Edgewater product offers a number of key services. Obviously the disaster recovery, having multiple broadband inputs and being able to switch from an LTE to another broadband input is part of that but the analytics in the end-to-end quality of service are equally important and you know for somebody who helps run our cloud communications business, when we go deploy to folks like Hertz, putting that Edgewater CPE box on the prem is an important part of our solution to have that end-to-end visibility for things like SD-WAN but also the analytics and inevitably security and protection as well. >> As we talk about at this event the evolution of communication, the evolution of this event and collaboration, I know we're only kind of halfway through day two here but I'm just curious, any key takeaways that you have gleaned so far from the event that you're looking forward to bringing back to HQ after this event is over? >> Absolutely. You know, every year is a little bit different. There's always a buzz word or two. I think this year what I'm starting to see is there's a lot more focus on the use cases as opposed to the technology. You know in the past, you come here, you talk a lot about the three-letter acronyms, SIP and UCaaS and CPaaS and WebRTC. This year, you're seeing a lot more about how can we actually monetize the business? What are the use cases? And you know as opposed to APIs being a big part of how you get there and the focus on the how, it's more about the what, like APIs are just kind of de-facto and you need them to help mask the complexity of the network and monetize and do things like creating new digital solutions and use cases. So you know it's just an example of how people are trying to talk about things this year as well as analytics and BI. People aren't just talking about how they're doing it, they're showing you what they can do with sentiment analysis. They're showing you how proactive policy can be applied. So that's pretty cool because we're now getting into the fun part of monetizing all of this great technology investment we've made for 10 years. >> And actually showing the business outcomes that it should be delivering, >> Absolutely. >> Right? That's the need, right? >> That's right, yeah. >> Well Sacha thank you so much for stopping by the Cube and chatting with Stu and me. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Our pleasure. >> All right. >> Thank you for watching the Cube, Lisa Martin for Stu Miniman, you're watching the Cube. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's The Cube. Covering BlockChain Unbound. Brought to you by BlockChain Industries. (upbeat music) >> Hello everyone. Welcome back to our exclusive coverage here in Puerto Rico. This is The Cube covering BlockChain Unbound, two days of wall to wall coverage. Got videos flying all over the internet. We're here with Patrick Moynihan, who is with BlockChain Unbound, but conference producer, BlockChain Industry CEO. Thanks for coming on The Cube. >> Thanks for having me John. >> And thank you for producing this conference. It is actually a big event, headlining all the top news stories on Wall Street Journal, CNBC's here, The Cube is here, but more impressive is this rebound in Puerto Rico. This event kind of turned into a flash mob of global players, investors, Bitcoin billionaires, Wales they call 'em, entrepreneurs, a real movement. You even had some folks here from the government in Puerto Rico. A real, not just insider event, this is like a bridging the insider world, and the global community. Congratulations. >> Well thank you. It's been an amazing turn out. I really commend the Puerto Rican government officials for stepping up and there are, you know, the department of economic development is our partner in this and they wanted to really promote this. And as you know, there's many crypto currency holders who are migrating to the island for tax purposes, and the seas and their tax based, which is all fully compliant, and have been in the laws for awhile. But the governor, you know, has really stepped up with his team. We've got Secretary Manuel Laboy who spoke yesterday, and had marvelous words to say. Really supportive of the overall industry. He's an engineer by training. So he's not a politician. So he gets kind of business and structure, if you will, and logic. He's great and also George Joyner, the banking commissioner was here and spoke lovely. So the banking commissioner is also forming a formal working group, as is Manuel Laboy. >> So this is actually a really big movement. I'm reporting here, yesterday and today, that it's not a culture clash. The local island residents, and now governments absolutely are on board with bringing together new a new ecosystem for a lot of reasons. One, they are motivated, there's a rebound going on, the hurricane hit. But now you have a new opportunity to be a digital nation. Digital island, probably in the U.S. I mean really be a player in an economic revitalization. Not only the island, but as an epicenter for all this money movement, all this opportunity with BlockChain. So talk a little bit about that dynamic because I think a lot of mainstream people don't understand actually what's going on in Puerto Rico and how it intersects with this global phenomenon. >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, I think think the people of the crypto currency world believe that the technology is so robust, they want to use Puerto Rico as a test bed for infrastructure, for, you know, internet, for all sorts of different things in terms of building the best infrastructure, the newest best in class. And there's real energy here because there's a social movement underneath the entire crypto currency movement. And that's to basically help your fellow man, or women. That's what this is all about. And leveling the playing field. Taking, you know, big brother largely out of it. And just making it fair and transparent. So, I mean, that movement is huge. If people, if people want to understand crypto currency, they kind of need to understand the social impacts and the ability to really improve people's lives. >> I mean, this is not a tech conference. We do hundreds of tech conferences a year, and in our 10th year with The Cube, and you know what a tech conference looks like. This is not a tech conference. This feels like a tech conference, a developer conference, and the world economic forum kind of rolled in to one. Talk about a little bit about the stats. I mean, you guys sold out early. You weren't expecting this kind of a response here. Give some color into, behind the scenes around the event, BlockChain Unbound. >> Yeah, thank you. So we had an idea to kind of bring the dialogue onto Puerto Rico and really build a prepotency of information. An you know, through the process, and this has been a five an a half week process, we had over 800 attendees here today. It's been sold out for several weeks. We're getting calls from everybody. So you can imagine to get a ticket. But at the end of the day, there's a great mix of finance years, technologists, government people, just regular citizens who want to understand this space and how they can get involved in it. And one thing that we're trying to do is bring an education piece here because the BlockChain is about the next generation, and developing the skills and software for them to prosper and understand, and frankly, just you know, grow the space. Because they're the ones that's going to grow it is the next generation. >> Patrick, I want to get your reaction because one of the things I've observed, I've seen many ways in my day, my age, but this one is massive. And everyone compares to the dot com bubble, which there is some comparisons, more accelerated, obviously, more community that the dot com bubble didn't have, but in those big early days of those major inflection points, the business development, the ecosystem is so early, the nurturing is really important and you see a pattern, you see some emerging entrepreneurs. Boom, lucky strike or good hustling. Do something great. Then you see the PR firms come in, promoting it. You had this kind of promotion, entrepreneur, kind of euphoria, and then you got service providers come in, and then you got investors come in. That then takes to the next step. We've seen that. So we got a lot of PR out there. You see PR firms out there, you know, just pumping a lot of ICO's. The service providers are coming in helping entrepreneurs. Now the institutional investors are coming in with hedge funds. Then it goes to the next level. Real industry leadership, which takes that to the next level That's money, that's connecting different ecosystems. What is your reaction to that? Do you see it the same way and if so, what is that next level growth look like from an architecture standpoint? There's also some government participation. But there's competitions, I mean, Estonia wants to be, I heard France wants to be the ICO city I hear Armenia, you've got Bahrain. I mean, every country wants to be that country. >> They do, and we work closely. >> So what's the leader require to go to that next level? >> That's a great question. You know, we're actually in touch and working with many sovereign governments who have a deep interest in this and want to bring either sovereign wealth coin, or some type of crypto currency play, some type of virtual currency asset into their own system. I mean, what I'm seeing is nothing short of remarkable. The speed of technology and energy into this market is frankly just breathtaking. So what we're looking for next is that netscape moment. That implementation where everyone says, oh my goodness, yes this makes perfect sense. And that largely could be around being on a BlockChain application and having no idea it's BlockChain. And part of that is a technological leap because it is complicated. It's going to take some time to build out and create the speed necessary to make the eubicous behind everything that we do online. And that moments coming, in my opinion. >> You know, one of the things that I'm observing as well, and I think that you're right, I think that there's a new level of leadership. Again, that next level requires new constituents, new stakeholders. I was not happy with the John Oliver greasing of Brock Peters. I thought that was unacceptable. But what that sentiment is about, put that little opinion in there, but I didn't like what he did. I thought that was horrible, but. >> There's no reason to be nasty. >> I mean, they just took him down >> You don't have to be nasty >> Just horrible, John Oliver. I'm coming after you. Only kidding, by the way, he's great, he's funny. But that's kind of a cultural thing. We're hearing conversations in the hallway as, hey, I don't mind the burning man culture. But you can't run an industry like burning man. Although, burning man technically looks like a BlockChain if you look at it from the aerial view. But, you got capital markets coming. You got global governments coming in. So you have that naturation dynamic. So a lot of these early guys are feeling, this is my opinion, I'm seeing this, okay, I don't want to get drowned out. At the same time, we want to go the next level. What is the dynamic, in your opinion, you know, you run a really big firm, you're a senior leader. What is that dynamic? How does everyone win? What are the stakeholders? And what's the formula in your mind? >> You know, I mean, now that's an interesting question because you know, the burning man crew has done incredible things in this space. I think that they're largely viewed as potential anarchists to some government officials and there's a fear factor there So you've got that aspect, and then you've got just straight business people that just simply want to economize and efficiencize and just, you know, be smarter, faster, stronger in their business operation, so, somewhere in the middle, there'll be a blending, and I think, we're all going to have to work together. Competitors, colleagues, everyone working together, with government officials. And again, the regulations are still under flux. The regulators been very clear just saying we think self regulation is a good idea. Step it up. And that's one thing that BlockChain Industries, we're taking extremely seriously. We have our own internal initiatives, as well as several external initiatives. So you're going to be hearing a lot more about our own self regulatory issues in the next several months. >> Well, great point. That's the number one thing we hear is the regulatory issues are what scares people. Because they're out on a limb right now, innovating. >> Yeah. >> They don't want the regulatory regimes and or pressures and signaling stunt the growth of the market. >> Yeah, you know I heard something yesterday that really rung a bell for me. It says, we can accomplish the same thing in the KYCAML does, but just in a different way. In fact, we can use technology to make it easier and more transparent and provide that back to the government officials to keep the bad actors out where needed. And so we're all about that, and we're all about working through a transparent system with full AML. >> So are you guys going to do a lot, you guys in the conference business now? >> Well, you know, I think by mistake we are. We're looking to Tokyo, early October. We'll do a BlockChain Unbound in Tokyo. Very exciting, we've got a great presence in Japan with our local partners, Global Fintech Advisors. They placed a billion six and ICO's in the asian market over the last two an a half years. And so they're very plugged, and they're excited to bring BlockChain Unbound to Tokyo. >> Final question for you. BlockChain Industries, take a minute to explain what you do. What you guys do, obviously you have another business. The conference thing just kind of fell in your lap, lightning in a bottle, congratulations. But, good compliment. What is BlockChain Industries do? >> Thank you. We are a diversified financial holding company. And we invest across the ecosystem BlockChain companies. And that includes, you know, attempted developed crypto bank forming long term mining operations. We do ICO consulting. We invest our own capital in certain deals. And we also have a median education component that really is the brand building globally for us. Because without the education piece, it's very difficult for people to kind of get caught up to speed 'cause there's some technical things you need to understand to really apply this technology into the business world. >> So are people investing in your fund, your company? Is that how it works? >> Yeah, we offer a public vehicle to allow investors access to the private virtual currency markets. In a nutshell, that's what we do. >> It's early days, final observation. What did you learn this week that is going to change your world? >> I learned that average business people and senior business people who have typically been shut off to the idea of BlockChain are now seeing this as very real and here to stay. And I mean, across the board, really technical and sophisticated people across the board, plus even normal citizens. They're hearing about, they're seeing it. It's hear to stay. And the momentum is just beginning. >> And it's a social movement, I agree. Congratulations, you guys did a great job. I know, you know, only a couple weeks to prepare. You pulled it off, congratulations. >> Thanks Boomer, appreciate that man. Good stuff. >> These guys could go all the way. Watch BlockChain Industries of course. BlockChain Unbound is the event. It's The Cube, exclusive coverage here in Puerto Rico. I'm John Furrier. Back with more after the short break. (upbeat music)

Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's the Cube. Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by, Blockchain Industries. >> Welcome back everyone. This is the Cube's exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico. I'm John Furrier, the co-host of the Cube, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media. In Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound, this is a global conference. Going to the next level in industry migration up and growth, and blockchain, decentralized internet and obviously cryptocurrency, changing the world up and down the stack. I have an industry veteran here. My next guest Salim is founding CEO, Singularity University and author of the best-selling book, Exponential Organizations. He's seen many waves, friend, known him for years. Haven't seen you in a while, you look great. You haven't changed. >> (laughs) The hair has changed a lot. >> (laughs) I've still got mine. Hey great to see you. Bumping into you in Puerto Rico is really compelling because you have a nose for the future, and I've always respected that about you. You have the ability to understand at the root level what's going on but also pull back and see the big picture. Puerto Rico is the center of all the action because the killer wrap in this is money. So money is driving a lot of change, but there's some fundamental infrastructure, stack upgrades going on. Blockchain has been highly discussed, crypto is highly hyped, ICO's are-- Scammers out there but now some legits. What's your take? What's your view right now on the current situation? >> Well I think what's happening with a place like Puerto Rico is. When you get kind of wiped out of the old, you have the chance to leap-frog. When you think about any of our traditional environments, laying down Blockchain technologies, et cetera. It's really, really hard because you have to get the Supreme Court, the Constitution to approve blockchain based land titles, and then you build a stack there from a legal perspective. Here they can basically start from scratch and do it completely from the ground up. Which is what's exciting for everybody here. >> The top story that we've been reporting here is that Puerto Rico is rebooting. The hurricane obviously, I won't say a forcing function, but in general when you get wiped out, that is certainly an opportunity to rebuild. If there's any kind of silver lining in that. >> There's a long history of that. Japan got wiped out during World War II, so did Germany and they rebounded incredibly. We've seen that recently with Rwanda. We do a lot of work in Medillin, in Colombia, and that's just been one of the worst cities in the world, is now the most innovative city in the world. So this is the transition that we've seen a pattern for. >> One of the things I'm really excited about decentralization and blockchain is all the conversations have the same pattern. Efficiency is getting wired into things. So if you see slack in the system or inefficiencies, entrepreneurs are feeling the void. The entrepreneurial eye of the tiger goes that to that opportunity to reset, reduce steps, save time and make things easier. Classic value proposition in these new markets. You run a great university but also author of Exponential Organizations. A lot of people are scared, they're like, "Whoa, hold on. Slow down, this is bullshit, "we're not going to prove it." And then the other half saying, "No this is the future." So you have two competing forces colliding. You have the new guard saying, "We got to do this, this is the future." Old guard saying, "Blocks, Road blocks, blockers" You covered this in your book in a way, so how do you win, who wins? How do you create a win win? >> You can create a win win. What you have to do is leap-frog to the newest, fast as possible. The only question is, how can you get to the new? And the problem that you have is, as you rightly pointed out is. When you try disruptive innovation in any large organization or institution, the immune system attacks. I saw this at Yahoo running Brickhouse. Yahoo is supposedly a super advanced organization, and yet the minute you try to do something really radical, you spend all your time fighting the mother ship. So I've been focusing a lot of time the last few years focused on that particular problem, and we're pretty excited, we believe we've cracked it. >> How does someone crack that code? If I'm Puerto Rico, obviously the government officials are here at Blockchain Unbound. This is not just a tech conference. It's like a tech conference, investor conference, kind of world economic form rolled into one. >> Sure >> There's some serious players here. What's your advice to them? >> So what we do, and let me describe what we do in the private sector and what we do in the public sector. A couple of years ago, the global CI of Procter & Gamble came to me and said, "Hey, we'd like to work with you." And what we typically see is, some executive from a big company will come to Singularity. They'll go back headquarters with their hair on fire going, "Oh my god!" If they're from BMW for example. They go back going, "Drones, autonomous cars, hyperloop, VR." Back in Munich, they'll be given a white coat and some medicine and be put in a corner. "You're too crazy, now stand over there." And that's the tension that you are talking about. And then somebody else will come six months later then they'll do the Silicon Valley tour, then they'll have one of our people go over there, and it takes about three years for the big company to get up to speed, just the C-Suite to get up to speed. Forget transmitting that down. So I was talking to Linda Clement-Holmes and I said, "Look we're about to start this three year dance "I've been thinking about this, "let's shrink it to 10 weeks." So we designed what we now call an ExO Sprint. Which is how you get a leadership, culture and management thinking of a legacy organization, three years ahead in a 10 week process. And the way we do it is, we're in an opening workshop, that's really shock and awe. Freaks out all the incumbent management. And then young leaders and future lieutenants of the business do the thinking of what should come next. And they report back. Some thing about that opening workshop suppresses the immune system, and when the new ideas arrive they don't attack them in the same way. >> It's like a transplant if you will. >> It's like when you do a kidney transplant. You suppress the immune system, right? It's that same idea. So we've now run that like a dozen times. We just finished TD Ameritrade, HP, Visa, Black & Decker, et cetera. We're open-sourcing it. We're writing a manual on how to do it so that anybody can self-provision that process and run it. Because, every one of the Global 5000 has to go through that process with or without us. So then we said, "Okay, could we apply it to the public sector?" Where the existing policy is the immune system. You try and update transportation and you're fighting the taxis. Or education and you're fighting the teacher's unions. We have a 16 week process that we run in cities. We do it through a non-profit called the Fastrack Institute based out of Miami. We've run it four times in Medillin, in Colombia and we just finished four months with the mayor of Miami on the future of transportation. We're talking to the officials here about running a similar process here in Puerto Rico. >> Are they serious about that? Because they throw money at projects, it kind of sits on the vine, dies on the vine. Because there is an accelerated movement right now. I mean, exponential change is here. I'll give you an example. We're seeing and reporting that this digital nation trend is on fire. Suddenly everyone wants digital cities, IoT is out there. But now what cryptocurrency, the money being the killer app. It's flowing everywhere, out of Colombia, out of everywhere. Every country is moving money around with crypto it's easier, faster. So everyone is trying to be the crypto, ICO city. Saw it on Telegram today, France wants to be, Paris wants to be the ICO city. Puerto Rico, Bahrain, Armenia, Estonia. U.K. just signed a deal with Coinbase. What the hell is going on? How do you rationalize this and what do you see as a future of state here? >> Well I think, couple of thoughts. And you're hitting into some of the things I've been thinking about a lot recently. Number one is, that when you have a regulatory blockage, it's a huge economic developing opportunity for anybody that can leap-frog it. Nevada authorized autonomous cars early and now a lot of testing is done there. So the cities that have appreciated-- >> So you're saying regulatory is an opportunity to have a competitive advantage? >> Huge, because look at Zug in Switzerland. Nobody had ever heard of the place. You pass through there on the way to Zermatt. But now it's like a destination that everybody needs to get to because they were earlier. This is the traditional advantage of places like Hong Kong or Dubai or whatever. They're open and they're hungry. So we're going to see a lot of that going on. I think there's a bigger trend though, which is that we're seeing more and more action happen at the city level and very, very little happen at the national or global level. The world is moving too fast today for a big country to keep up. It's all going to happen this next century at the city level. >> Or smaller countries. >> Or small countries. >> So what's going on here at Blockchain Unbound for you? Why are you here? What are you doing? What's your story? >> I have this kind of sprint that we run in the private sector and in the public sector and then a community of about 200 consultants. And I have to pay 200 people in 40 countries and it's and unholy mess. Withholding taxes and concerns around money transfer costs-- >> It's a hassle. >> It's a nightmare. And so I've been thinking about an internal cryptocurrency just to pay our network. All of a sudden now, three or four countries have said, "Hey we want to buy that thing, "to have access to your network." So I've got all this demand over here, and I need to figure out how to design this thing properly. So I've been working with some of the folks like Brock and DNA and others to help think through it. But what I'm really excited about here is that, there's a-- You know what I love is the spectrum of dress. You got the radical, Burning Man, hippie guy, all the way to a three-piece suit. And that diversity is very, very rich and really, real creativity comes from it. This feels like the web in '96, '95. It's just starting, people know there's something really magical. They don't quite know what to do. >> Well what I'm impressed about is that there's no real bad vibe from either sets of groups. There's definitely some posturing, I've noticed some things. Obviously I'm wearing a jacket, so those guys aren't giving me hugs like they're giving Brock a hug. I get that, but the thing is, the coexistence is impressive. I'm not seeing any real mud-slinging, again I didn't like how Brock got handled with John Oliver. I thought that was unacceptable because he's done a lot of good work. I don't know him personally, I've never met him, but I like what he's doing, I like his message. His keynote here, at d10e, was awesome. Really the right messaging, I thought. That's something that I want to get behind and I think everyone should. But he just got trashed. Outside of that, welcoming culture. And they're like, "Hey if you don't like it, "just go somewhere else." They're not giving people a lot of shit for what they do. It's really accepting on all sides. >> Here's my take on the whole decentralization thing. We run the world today on a series of very top down hierarchical structures. The corporation, the military industrial complex, Judeo-Christian religions, et cetera. That are very hierarchical-- Designed for managing scarcity, right? We're moving the world very, very quickly to abundance. We now have an abundance of information, we'll soon have an abundance of energy, we'll soon have an abundance of money, et cetera. And when you do these new structures, you need very decentralized structures. Burning Man, the maker movement, the open-source movement, et cetera. It's a very nurturing, participatory, female type of archetype and we're moving very quickly to that. What we're seeing in the world today is the tension going from A to B. >> And also when you have that next level, you usually have entrepreneurs and sponsorships. People who sponsor entrepreneurs the promotion side of it, PR and that starts the industry. Then when it hits that level it's like, "Wow it's going to the next level." Then it gets capital markets to come in. Then you have new stake holders coming in now with government officials. This thing is just rocket-shipping big time. >> Yes >> And so, that's going to change the dynamics. Your thoughts and reaction to that dynamic. >> Completely, for example... When we do these public sprints we end up usually with a decentralized architecture that needs to built. For example, we're working with the justice system in Colombia. And the Supreme Court has asked us to come in and re-do the entire justice system. Now you think about all the court filings and court dates, and briefs, and papers all should be digitized and put on a blockchain type structure because it's all public filing. We have an opportunity to completely re-do that stack and then make that available to the rest of the world. I think that trend is irreversible for anything that previously had centered-- I mean, most government services are yes, ratifying this and ratifying that. They all disappear. >> Well Salim, I want to tap your brain for a second. Since you're here, get it out there, I want to throw a problem at you, quick real time riff with you. So one of the things that I've been thinking about is obviously look at what cloud computing did, no one saw Amazon web services early, except some of the insiders like us. Who saw it's easy to host and build a data center. "I have no money, I'm a start-up or whatever." You use AWS, EC2 and S3... They were misunderstood, now it's clear what they're doing. But that generated the DevOps movement. So question for you is, I want to riff with you on is, "Okay that created programmable infrastructure, "the notion of server-less now going mainstream." Meaning, I don't have to talk about the server, I need resource so I can just make software, make it happen. That's flipped around the old model, where it used to be the network would dictate to the applications what they could do. How is that DevOps ethos, certainly it's driven by open-source, get applied to this cryptocurrency? Because now you have blockchain, cryptocurrency, ICO is kind of an application if you will, capital market. How does that model get flipped? Is there a DevOps model, a blockchain ops model, where the decentralized apps are programming the blockchain? Because the plumbing is the moving chain right now. You got, Hashgraph's got traction, then you got Etherium, Lightning's just got 2.5 million dollars. I mean, anyone who's technical knows it's a moving train in the plumbing. But the business logic is pretty well-defined. I'm like, "I want to innovate this process. "I'm going to eliminate the efficiency." So this dynamic. Does the business model drive infrastructure? Does the plumbing drive the business model? Your thoughts on this new dynamic and how that plays out. >> I suspect you and in violent agreement here. It's always going to be lead by the business model because you need something to act as the power of pull to pull the thing along, right? The real reason for the success of Etherium right now is all the ICOs and it was a money driven thing. Today we're going to see these new stacks, now we're on version three of these new types of stacks coming along, and I think they're all looking for a business model. Once we find some new killer ops for this decentralized structure, then you'll see things happen. But the business model is where it's at. >> So basically I agree with you. I think we're on the same page here. But then advice would be to the entrepreneurs, don't fret about the infrastructure, just nail your business model because the switching cost might not be as high as you think. Where in the old days, when we grew up, you made a bad technical assess and you're out of business. So it's kind of flipped around. >> Yeah, just hearing about this term, atomic swaps. Where you can just, essentially once you have a tokenized structure, you can just move it to something else pretty quickly. Therefore, all the effort should be on that. I think finding the really compelling use cases for this world is going to be fascinating to see. >> So software-defined money, software-defined business, software defined society is coming. >> Yes >> Okay, software defined, that's the world Salim thanks for coming on, sharing your awesome expert opinon. Congratulations on your awesome book. How many countries is your book, Exponential Organizations-- >> It's now about a quarter of a million copies in 15 languages. >> Required reading in all MBA programs, and the C-Suite. Congratulations, it's like the TANEx Engineering that Mark Dandriso put out. A whole new paradigm of management is happening. Digital transformation. >> We now have the ability to scale an organization structure as fast as we can scale technology. >> Blockchain you know, the nature of the firm was all about having people in one spot. So centralized, you can manage stuff. Now with blockchain you have a decentralized organization. That's your new book, the Decentralized Organization. >> Although, I'm not sure I have another book in me. >> There's a book out there for somebody, Decentralized Organizations. Salim, thank you for joining us. The Cube here, I'm John Furrier the co-host. Day two coverage of Blockchain Unbound more coverage after this short break. (electronic music)

>> 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)

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's the CUBE, covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (upbeat Spanish-style music) >> Hey, welcome back everyone. We're here in Puerto Rico for exclusive CUBE coverage, I'm John Furry, you're host. Here, with Blockchain Unbound, this is a global event. From everyone from Silicon Valley, New York, Miami, Russia, Eastern Europe, all over the world, and Puerto Rico coming together, talk about the future of the economy, Blockchain decentralized apps, and more. Our next guest is CUBE alumni, and part of our inaugural crypto currency coverage, from Polycon 18, back to give a command performance, Nithin Eapen Chief Investment Officer at Arcadia Crypto Ventures, good to see you. >> Good to see you too John. >> So, you had a great showing at our first crypto event, PolyCon, great to see you back in the trenches, you're out, hard-working, pounding the pavement, doing deals. What's your analysis here, I mean, you're here networking, you checked out the sessions. What's your take? >> We've met some really good founders, really good projects, so that's the key thing that we are looking for. The main idea as our tagline says, "We back Blockchain's best." We are looking for the best founders. We are looking for the teams, then for the idea. Anything that's decentralized, we are backing them. >> So, network effect has been a big part of the conference I've been having. We talked about security tokens, utility tokens. A lot of interesting things going on here, but there's a backdrop. You've got multiple events going on. You've have Blockchain Unbound, run by Blockchain Industries, great team, which put this event together in five weeks. So, shout out to those guys. >> (laughs) You have Coin Agenda, >> That's coming! going on, another event going next door, which is after this event. And then you have a lot of series of little events, meet-ups, the local community had a great crypto mixer, Puerto Rico, a lot of action. >> Too much action, and it's like at the same time, look at it, TokenFest in San Francisco, another 2,000 people over there, here people are on the waiting list, so much action. >> And that's going on this week, as well. You have anyone going to that event? >> I know, I've got a lot of friends going over there. For me, it made sense, this is closer. I thought I would meet a lot of them. Puerto Rico is better I found, you know? >> A lot of big money here, a lot of smart money. >> A lot of smart money, a lot of big money. >> John: Global? >> Global, and the greatest part of Puerto Rico is, it's bringing this concept like, they have reduced taxes for US people to zero percent for individuals, for the next, until 2036. Now that's a big difference. If you want to change your domicile to Puerto Rico, for your business it's 4% corporate taxes, and individual it's 0% now, that's... >> John: But you got to move here. >> You got to move here, okay. But you don't have to give up your US citizenship. Now, I think what's going to happen right now is they're going to be other states maybe going to compete for this, or other countries are going to compete for the capital to flow, where does capitol flow to? Capital will flow to cheaper places, or lesser taxes. >> So, I got to ask you, I was talking to you earlier this morning, here on the CUBE I said, "There's two killer apps, one of them is money." Money is the killer app. >> No doubt! >> Your reaction to that? >> It is, okay all of our lives, let's say for your son, or my kid, or for me, what my parents, when we went to school, why did they make us go to school or learn, they tell us, "Okay you got to go to college!" Why, they want us to have a better life, they want to have a better car. How do you get them, you want money for them. But in none of those years did somebody teach you, how does money originate? What is money, is it something you should buy the Garmin? So in everything that we go for, unless we're the Buddha or Jesus himself, we do it for money. >> Well you bring up a good point. I mean I have a immigrant background from my family, my wife's family as well. >> Where did you come from? >> Well I'm actually Native American, I mean American. >> Okay But two, three generations back they, Ireland, >> Ireland, okay! French Canadian, a little bit of Armenian in me but that's okay, all kind of blended. I'm in the melting pot, I'm not 1st generation but, in Boston where my parents were from, very much an immigrant town, and they didn't have any money. So if you look at now, what's gone through the financial dot-com bubble, which had some impact, but the financial crisis is 2018, if you look at what's happened since then, the generation of millennials there in more debt. They're not realizing college, it might not be the thing. So we went to school so that we can have a better life than our parents did. Now it's like everyone's realizing that, shit we're screwed. So watching as a path, of freedom. >> It is! A new way to create wealth, capture the value, but in a new way. >> Yes, because you have a chance to be a part of an economy without, a permission of a centralized organization. So, earlier if you wanted to work somewhere, you needed an organization to work. This is making it much easier to be a part of the economy. to contribute, to help people to get help, all this is happening and you don't have to go to school. Maybe school is overrated, our colleges overrated. It is too expensive, you spend 200 thousand dollars on college. What is your ROI, when is your ROI? Maybe some disciplines have it. But this is your chance to.. >> Well, you you know that we love media and our disruptive media at the CUBE is to do things differently, but lets talk about some current events that's been happening. So this week, John Oliver created a video trashing crypto currency, it was actually funny. But it got to the Brock Pierce part, and he really had it out for Brock Pierce. He absolutely destroyed him. >> He did! And since then, he lost his place EOS. They wiped away all his DNA of evidence with the company. This is a comedian, at John Oliver, you're a freaking comedian. What gives him the right to I have that kind of influence on someone's job when he's just telling a joke. There's no actually substance of any facts of any kind at what he's doing, So that's a central authority figure that took an editorial comedic routine, and put it out there, but people think that's news. >> See, >> That's not The power of media, that the power of all the old traditional media, is that they had a bigger reach. I think it's going to change, it is going to be the YouTube's. And it's going to become a decentralized YouTube equivalent, or a decentralized media equivalents. Like, a lot of people have made memes and you know, fun videos that go viral and they'll take things down. The same, John Oliver obviously, he has us laugh. >> He's funny as hell though. He is funny as hell! >> You got to admit, >> He's pretty funny! The bit was really good, >> But end of the day, but he really went after Brock Pierce. Something was going on there, he took him down. >> See the traditional industries or traditional media they want to take down everybody that they don't consider, the birds of a same feather, this is somebody weird, like Trump, they try to take down Trump. They will try to take down anything which doesn't fit their globalist, elitist agenda. End of the day, like Brock Pierce sitting on a billion, and John over with his comedy, who has the bigger laugh? I don't know, if you ask me. >> When you have F U money like Brock Pierce does, I'm sure it rolls off his shoulders. But it does impact the ecosystem a bit. Basically EOS has erased his name in any capacity. So, obviously this impacts to public opinion. So these comedians and news rep, they have an obligation to share the data. Editorializing, I mean I do it all the time, don't get me wrong. >> (laughs) But, there's a point, consensus is part of the algorithm now in these Blockchain and Crypto communities where you have Blockchain as a store, against him. >> Okay! But consensus and transparency is a huge deal. >> Nithin: Yes! >> This is part of the formula. >> I know but see, the whole thing... When John Oliver does something, it's not about consensus. He can do it, okay, it's going to change! It's like this, when Bitcoin came in 2009, the traditionalists were coming up at the story that, "it is fake money, it's not going to go anywhere." Then it became one dollar, they were just laughing at it. Then became 10 dollars, they said it's going to go down. Then it became hundred dollars, they did the same thing. And it's only after long time they will realize, "Oh my God, it's changed." The rock has been pulled under my leg. It's like when Amazon came, all the traditional retail guys said, "Nobody's going to go and buy a book without touching it." Now we have Toys "R" Us that just went bankrupt. There's no more Toys" R" Us, you know, you have to buy your toys pretty much from Amazon at this point. >> Well everything in the model of future will be all contexual so, videos, comedian, news articles, reports, editorial, all will roll into one thing. That's going to be a great thing. >> Yes! >> And media is going to take a lot of, natural language processing, it's going to get transcript link. I think you're already doing it right, you're going to take a transcript of what I speak, you're going to attach the words, you're going to attach it to brands, you can sell that, and that is going to be the future. >> Well lets get some of that intellectual property out of your head and into the camera, and for the audience. What are you hearing in the hallways here, obviously this is a great networking event here. Lot's of agendas, phenomenal, as well as we had over sold almost by double. There's people out in the hallways, it's sold out, so there's a lot of Lobby Con going on. There's a conference within the conference going on. >> Nithin: It is! We call it Lobby Con! >> (laughs) What are you hearing in the hallways, what is some of the cool things that's new to you, that you're discovering? >> So lot of people are now telling me they are very excited about security tokens. They're telling me they're buying security tokens. I asked them, which security tokens? It's not there yet, okay. See, that's where I tend to differ. If security tokens are going to be the big thing, I'm going to be buying it because we are informed. >> John: Buy everything that moves. >> We buy it as it moves, but, security token, my question is, so you're trying to make something that is a utility, now you're going to make it security? So that is equity markets, there is a CC for that. And you're going to fit this in over there, I'm like, I don't know, what are people trying achieve? This is a free market and they're trying to bring it into regulation. >> What's a red flag for you as a, security token implies directly that you're securing something. What are they, >> You're pretty much What are people securing, equity, future cash flows, dividends, what are some of the vehicles you've seen? >> At that time they are pretty much secure, or securing future cash flows as dividends. They're going to give dividends, they're saying if you're a token holder, you're going to get dividends. My question at that time is, then why do you want a token, why can't it be in equity? Oh, you think you can come with their argument that it's more liquid, but equity's a liquid. I don't think it isn't a liquid. But it is a great way to go around and secularize a lot of things. You can have a small business, think of it, you and me we have a small business, let's say we have a partnership We have a small... >> We have a small business, We have a small business, we have a partnership. It's very hard to exit out of a small business. If we can fractionalize the ownership of a business thru tokens, and there might be people are willing to buy, put thousand dollars in, and maybe I can exit at some point. Otherwise there's no exit for me. It's very hard to exit out of a small business. Now then, what's the difference between that and equity? I don't know you know, those lines are blurred but, I'm happy for the fact that something like that will give liquidity to a lot of small business owners. America is a country of small business owners. Across the globe it supports small business owners. If it brings liquidity, okay I'm happy with that. But it's really beating the purpose that we don't want a centralized power controlling us. Because now that you have Google and Facebook that banned crypto-currency ads. Why, Women's Day, all our data, they give us a free access but they hold a lot of our personal data. I'm thinking, the guy who brings in the, a decentralized search or a decentralized social media, I'm going to invest in them. I don't care if their a success or if the success will come later. There are going to be multiple libertarian investors like me that's going to invest in them. >> What I learned was that money is a killer app, and I'll stand by that. I think marketplaces are also the killer app. You ever think, >> Perfectly true! that this conference, that kind of validates where I was thinking was, the people who nailed a business model, that's the critical, critical pacing item. If you screw the business model up, you go sideways. The technology risk isn't as bad as the business model decision risk. So I'm seeing the successful ICOs, or plays, have a lock in on the structural value proposition and to be directionally correct, with an understanding of what the hedge is on the technology. >> Yep! >> So they can manage it. So it's like programmable plumbing. They're recognizing that dynamic. The other thing that I'm learning is that the money flow from other countries is massive. If you want a money launderer from Colombia, it's coming in from Metadine Narcos. It's coming in from Japan, and China. Bitcoin and Blockchain is a money transfer opportunity so, I'm seeing a massive amount of money, flowing in >> Capital is flowing, in massive waves. >> it's flowing in. >> And it's good, and even if these projects fail, it's a good thing because, you had all this money that was stuck somewhere, that flowed in, and as I said, many of those projects are going to fail. Let them fail, because this money has flowed in, you will have a lot of people come and work on these projects, and eventually the correct solution will emerge. >> And new structural dynamics are at play. And new investors are coming in. >> New investors, so many new investors. You know the funny thing John, after we met at Polycon, I think that 99% of the people I meet here are totally new. All the guys we met at Polycon in Bahamas, totally different. I only know very few people that I met over there. So that means a whole set of investors, or common people, who just want to learn about it, totally new. That's really good! And who wins here, the average citizen entrepreneur, the average citizen player that wants to start something whether it's a banking, a service provider of some sort, a entrepreneur, or a new financial instrument or firm, all have greenfield opportunity here. >> Because, see earlier when you wanted to raise money, I was talking to a founder the other day, I asked him, how hard it was for you to raise your first raise, like 10 years ago? He was telling me that he walked the doors across multiple VCs, to kind of scrap in one and a half million dollars. And then he did his second loan after eight years. >> He'd have to crawl on his knees to get that. >> And that too, you won't get the attention, you need to know reference, now you have a chance to go to the world, and monies were, so easy money coming in is a bad thing in a way that most entrepreneurs will feel the investors will lose their money. but that's different, but it at least you have access and you can try to think that you had any in mind earlier. You had no option, they would take a big stake. Now there's no dilution, this is pretty much cloud funding on steroids. You have a chance to go to market, you get the go to market money and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, let's fix it after that. >> Nithin, I got to get your thoughts on building a company, 'cause obviously, you're also not only in this as an investor, you're also doing strategic advisory work for people building the venture architecture and then the actual build up plans for their venture. So you've talked about this in the past, you have a relationship with some protocol guys, you can check with them, there's some good network there. But there's also a dynamic with this industry where the business development aspect of it is really important. People are partnering, >> Very very important. And there's a way to partner and a way not a partner. There's a way to do token economics and there's a way not to do token economics. What is your advice, to companies that have a good thing going on, they have a tail wind at their back, they got wind in their sails, but have to make some hot partnering decisions. Looking for fellows, fellowship in that ecosystem. How do you advise folks in this partnerships and then talk about token economics after? >> So the first thing I would tell founders is to reach out. This community is very very supportive. Like you can reach out to me, you can reach out to other guys, LinkedIn, Facebook, or come to these events, and in the hallways. Say your idea and you need help, because you will need help, you cannot run this alone. You are running a company, you are running your team. Have a good team, that's a first thing. Have a great team, great founders, vision, execution, you need that. The next key thing is, you have to think about marketing and how do you market, you need to get some big names on your board who can reach out to their network and tell them about your idea. And they reach out of the rest for you. >> So networks are super important. >> Super super important, like... >> So advisor, that their advisor selection should be based on their network that they bring to the table. >> Right, so the first advisor selection is the guy who will help you flush out your idea properly as tokens. The next advisor set is a marketing advisor or a technical advisor. The marketing advisers also very important because you need to market the product, get the money in, because end of the day, you need money to build it. You need to pay your employees, whether it's in Bitcoins or in fear, It doesn't matter, one of these is required. So you have these three things, then you need to build strategic partnerships in your business. Say, let's see your a loyalty points guy, like Al is doing, You know Al right? >> Al Burgio, >> From FuZe Chain now doing DigitalBits. Hot deal, hot deal! >> Hot deal, hot deal. >> Look at what Al did, he went out, he got his strategic partnerships with the loyalty guys, now he's got the brand, the strategic partnerships, he's built a product already. The money he needs is only for go to market so that he can push it to multiple companies and get them on the chain. Brilliant idea so, strategic partnerships, advisors, founding team, and then, show the idea to the people. Go out there, let them know that this is what you're doing, why this idea is great, how big is the market, there was a problem that you're solving, what is your solution. Explain yourself frankly and honestly, and I think the community will reward you, to go and find your dream. >> Great point, be honest, ask for help. Again, I can't reiterate my experience of, I'll share, is during the computer revolution, Internet revolution, Web.1.o, and now partnering in the early days when it's forming, can make or break a company. Make or break a company. >> Very True! So, note to that, okay now, token economics. >> Nithin: Sure! >> Sounds easy, but you really got to make sure that you have a good economic framework that matches the value proposition. Talk about what you advise there. >> So last day of the one founder restart to me, ICO is going on for our seventh day into the ICO. He's raised less than 300 thousand dollars. I meet him, and he needs help. After what, seven days into the ICO, all I could tell him is, shut off your ICO, it's not going to raise money. He's like, "Why," and I'm like, he said, "read this paper." I'm like, "There's nothing in this paper "I can put money into." And he's like, "Why is that?" So I asked him, so how many companies has he put his money into, how many points has he bought? Four years, he has not bought a single coin. And he's flustered something by himself. So he's never bought a coin, and he's expecting people to buy coins at his price. So I tell people, either you should notice, you should be an investor yourself. So there are different kinds of investors, there are institutional investors that are funds, family offices, and then are retail investors. If you're not any one of these, or any one of in this group, how do you know what these guys are buying it for? So reach out to them! >> That's where the advisory comes in, Know your customer! >> Know your customer! And not the KYC in a different way, but know 'em from a marketing standpoint. Know how the retail, >> Exactly! purchase is made. >> Because if... >> If you yourself are a buyer, at least you have some idea. If you've never bought a token, and if you're, I had another founder tell me that, my tokens are worth hundred million. I'm like, you don't have a user, you just have a product. You're tokens are worth shite, if you ask me. It's worth zero, I can tell my house is worth hundred million dollars. It's only worth as much as the top buyer. How much is he willing to pay for me? So I told the founder, I'll pay so much for this price because I think, if it's about that, there's a huge risk as the main investor coming in. He doesn't agree! >> So lets talk about some, how rounds are being done now. So one trend that I'm seeing, not, I shouldn't say trend, a few deals I've seen done, but it seems like a trend, I'm trying to get validation on this, Where people are avoiding the public ICO altogether, doing all privates. >> Yes! Basically over subscribed round. Trend, dynamic, real deal, what's your thoughts on reaction to that? >> It's just that the founders are adapting. Because if you go to the public, the moment you're going to the public, what's happening is, there's the SEZ component. Whether it's a utility and they can come after you, so they have made it private. And then they went after, and even further, a lot of the founders that I know, they just stopped accepting money from US entities or US individuals. Well it's a bad deal for a small investor. See the big investors are wealthy investors. They all have an external entity where they can invest into it. What about the small investor who was investing thousand dollars or 5,000 dollars? Now you have pretty much shut out his chance of getting into a great ICO. So the founder is going to raise his money from maybe Korea, Japan, China, and Singapore. He's going to form a company or a foundation in Cayman, or Lichtenstein, or Gibraltar. The small investor is a loser. The large institutional investor has no loss in this process, so, that is the founder adapting because he does not want, >> They want to manage, >> They don't want it to become lawsuits, basically. >> Compliance, audits, SEZ problems, they don't end fencing problems. >> So now let's compare, in contrast, different kind of companies. US based company, wants to raise money in the US, they do accredited. But they want to go outside, say Asia, or an Asia company wants to raise money in the US, what's that dynamic like, what are the issues? >> I think what's going to happen is they going to, some of them are going to register themselves as a security token, some of them are going to do just a reg D for very high net worth individuals. And the common, the the public round, they going to raise it from the China, the Korea, Japan, or is lobbying them. And that's what I think, multiple small countries are going to come into the space, which they know now, they can get the capital flowing into their company, and they going to allow their rules to be lax. They going to let capitol flow through. And then US will have to change, or maybe UK will have to change, whoever is against this will have to change. Capital means money, belt capital, and resource capital, like humans, we tend to move to places that are freer. Why did I move from India to US, or why did your parents or the earlier generation move to US? >> John: For a better life. >> It's a better life, the real better life is, you have the freedom over your property, the fruits of your labor. If the fruits of your labor are taxed at 50% or thirty, the more it goes up, you just don't want to work anymore, or you're going to to search for that place that will tax you less. >> Like Puerto Rico! >> Nithan: Puerto Rico! >> Are you bullish on Puerto Rico? >> I am bullish on Puerto Rico because, these, if they can sustain this, and have the rule of law, means they can protect people's wealth, like from crime and all those things, crime or being kidnapped. These two things happen, I'm telling you, most people will move or some of state will have to change their laws. >> They got to get >> the security up. Nithan, thanks so much for coming on the CUBE. Really appreciate your insight. Thanks for sharing! >> Thank you very much. This is the CUBEs exclusive coverage from Puerto Rico where we're getting on the ground here. Getting all the data from the Blockchain Unbound Conference. Part of restart week. I'm John Furry here, we've got more coverage after this break, thanks for watching! (upbeat electronic music)

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. >> Hello and welcome back to theCUBE's exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound. This is where global event from Silicon Valley, New York, all around the world, investors, entrepreneurs, all coming together to build this industry. A lot of great conversations, a lot of conversations around Puerto Rico as a place to domicile all these great investments and companies. Obviously post-hurricane, lot of action here, lot of interest. Blockchain for good, crypto for good, also for money making. Our next guest is Scott Mize, who's with Network Society Labs. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Scott: Thank you. >> John: Good to see you again. >> You, too. >> You have a knack for being in real inflection-point markets. When we first met, almost 15 years ago in Silicon Valley, nanotech was a field that was a great track, it's doing great work, has great impact. We see each other around. Hey birds of a feather flock together. You're doing crypto, doing some work. Take a minute to talk about what you're doing Scott. What's the work? Network Society Lab, what's that about? >> Right. I guess we're both living on the bleeding edge. I'm the C.E.O. of Network Society Lab, and we're a venture development firm, so we provide the same services as an incubator or accelerator, but primarily for the portfolio companies of Network Society Ventures, which is another company that's in the Network Society keiretsu, which is headed by David Orban, who's speaking here today. >> Is that a investment group? Or is that more of an advisory service? >> The fund is a seed stage venture capital fund. >> John: The deploy capital. >> Yeah, that focuses on exponential technologies in decentralized networks, companies that are driven by that. We work with those companies to help them be successful. >> Great, so two different groups. >> Scott: Two different-- >> The lab team is get down and dirty help advisory, accelerate the mission? >> Right. And in that same keiretsu there's also Network Society Research, which is a think tank, and Network Society Media, which is a media company. >> All right so what are the things you're working on? Give us a taste of the kind of ventures and projects you're working on right now. Most of the work we're doing right now is what we call token sale management, and that's basically taking responsibility for executing a token sale from beginning to end, all of the activities, and bringing together service providers that are world-class in each one of the responsibilities that you need to be executed, in order to have a successful token event. We manage them the same way a general contractor in a construction environment manages subcontractors. >> Is that because there's too many moving parts? There's a lot of lawyerly going on, you got tax advice. Is that the reason? Or-- >> Why we structure it that way? >> Well we want to keep a lean internal staff, so we don't want to have a huge head count, and also this allows us to work with world-class people, like for instance, on two of the projects we're doing now, Michael Turpin's the P.R. guy, so that automatically means that among the team, there's over 50 ICO's under the belt, and it's the same for every service provider. They've done some significant number of these, and the combined experience, the combined capability, is really the best team you could get together in the world. >> So talk about the global impact of this, cause we were talking last night, we were saying, "Hey, you know, killer app is money." And that's what Blockchain, cryptocurrency, essentially decentralized apps are all going to have flowing through them. >> Scott: Right. >> Value creation, value capture with money is the killer app. What kind of projects you working on that go outside the U.S? And is it a global phenomenon? And what's your take on that? >> I'll give you a specific example, one example, which is called Wealth Migrate, and they have a coin called the WealthE coin, wealth with a capital E on the end, and what they are is a fractional real estate ownership company. So if you're someone who's in the emerging developing world, and you want to begin to build wealth, and you'd like to own a piece of first-world real estate in the U.S. or Australia or UK, you can go to this website, and today the minimum is about $1,000, but by implementing the Blockchain further, they want to eventually get down to $1, you can buy a piece of real estate and enjoy the returns on that. So this is closing the wealth gap, it's giving people who are just getting into the middle class the ability to own real estate and build wealth. >> What's going on in Puerto Rico here? If folks couldn't make it here, what's the dynamic here? Obviously the hurricane pretty much crushed the island. It's well documented, but the entrepreneurial culture here is coming together with outside ecosystem communities. What are you seeing here in Puerto Rico? What's your observation? >> Well it's actually a pretty fascinating experiment. Michael Turpin of the Transform Group has been living in Puerto Rico for quite some time, and he was kind of the Pied Piper, evangelizing this place, and saying, "Hey, this is a great place to come live, it's got a favorable tax structure, etcetera." And I think it's fantastic that the crypto community is essentially adopting Puerto Rico, and also moving here. All this activity is really going to give a shot in the arm to the Puerto Rican economy, and people are doing that very intentionally, as a way to give back and help to rebuild the island. >> So what do you say to the folks out there that say, "Well it's not just Puerto Rico, there's other domicile digital nations out there." I mean today the U.K. announced, or yesterday announced, that they are going to convert to Fiat currency, with a faster payment system, with Coinbase. It's a significant, radical move. So can Puerto Rico maintain a position, and countries like Bahrain which Amazon works with, you got Armenia, you got China, you got all these, Estonia. You have people who are jockeying for similar positions. Is it going to be a new digital nation sovereignty structure? >> I think Puerto Rico has a particular advantage in this part of the United States, so if you're a U.S. citizen, then this is the only place where you can go and stay in the U.S. and get this special treatment. So I think it's always going to have a little bit of a niche there, but this is truly a competitive environment. It's global, it's very competitive. There are certain nations that are very anti-crypto, like the United States for instance, and there are certain nations that embrace it. The one that we like best, and we're doing a couple of token sale events or ICO's, is Malta. And Malta has a history of creating a regulatory environment that's very favorable to things like financial services and iGaming, so doing digital currency is something that's a natural for them, and the government and the regulatory agencies are all in. So they're a competitor, and there are many others as you said, but I think that's all good because competition will bring down prices, spur innovation, etcetera, and that's fantastic. >> John: But regulatory posture and policy will be the gating factor for competitiveness for nations. >> Yeah, that's one of the major factors, It wouldn't be the only one, but absolutely. When you've got a situation where the regulators are saying, "Our mission in life is to have a light touch. We want it to be regulated, we don't want a lot of fraud going on, but we want to make it easy for you guys to be doing these things." It makes a huge difference. >> So what do you say to the folks out there that would say, "Okay you know, Michael Turpin, he's got so many ICO's, he's just pumping and dumping these things, he's got so many ICO's." He's a promoter, basically. He's not really-- >> Yeah I mean he started out as a P.R. firm. >> Yes. >> John: He's a P.R. firm. You got a P.R. firm as a leader in the industry. Some people will say, "Hey, I want to see Goldman Sachs come in. I want to see real players come in, I want to see more validation." The P.R. messaging is not going well, look at Brock Pierce, he got taken down by John Oliver. New York Times wrapped it up-- >> Scott: Bad timing. >> So you have a lot of kind of thud out there. >> Yeah, yes. >> So what do you say to that? What do people say to that? I have my own opinion, but I'll share it after you share yours. >> I mean just one observation is, you can tell a lot about a person's personality type by what their initial reaction is to cryptocurrency. It's almost like a Meyers-Briggs, right? >> Explain that. >> Well just in my experience, I've introduced the idea of crypto, or now that I'm in the field, a lot of people have approached me, friends. >> John: Who want to learn. >> Who want to learn but they come into it with certain biases, and for some reason, crypto really pokes at people's biases, and some people can't get over the fact that well, "Why does it have any value?" And I go, "Well, why does the United States dollar have any value?" I mean you've got full faith in credit of the government that's in debt by 20 trillion dollars, is that a good idea? But they don't understand-- >> What are some of the reactions you get? across the board what's the spectrum of reactions? You've got the one end which is fraud, it's bad-- >> Scott: It's got to be a scam. >> John: The next revolution is here. >> It's the entire spectrum. Again like I said, it has a lot to do with what people's personalities, If people are very conservative and skeptical, they're going to be conservative and skeptical about it, and look for the negative. If they're very innovative and cutting-edge and open to new ideas, they're going to think it's cool and interesting, and is an agent for change. >> Well a lot of people I talk to, and here's my opinion, I personally believe that you can't P.R. your way to industry momentum. That's the old way, so I'm down on the whole press release model, just pump and dump, and you're seeing a lot of that, and it's not just the Transform Group, it's just P.R. in general. There's also people misrepresentation. So to me that's a communication vehicle, not primary. The key is value creation. Which companies are creating value? Which one's communities are endorsing? Who has real communities? Who doesn't? So I think as investors come in, the thing that I'm hearing is, smart money saying, "I want quality deals, and I got to peel away the promotional layer, and look at the core data." >> Scott: Right. >> That seems to be a flight-to-quality right now in this market. >> There's a major flight-to-quality. We're probably in the third or fourth era of ICO's, and there is a flight-to-quality because people realize, what I call these deals are vaporware or field of dreams. These are the ones where there's really nothing there and it's, "give me $30 million, and I'll build this, I'll boil the ocean for you." That's why we like to work with companies like Wealth Migrate, because what they've done is, on relatively small capital, proven a business model and started a business, and now what they need is money to scale that model, and those are the ones that we prefer, and that's when people can look and say, "I can see that this business model's working, and that's where a lot of the risk is factored out, and now it's just about making that a bigger business." >> The thing I tell people is when you look at selecting service providers or partners, whether it's P.R., strategy, advisory, it's not so much the function. I'm against a P.R. angle, but let's take Transform Group, They have a great social network, so the signaling is, if they are involved, so it's about the network you're choosing, right? So to me it's not so much the functional P.R., or the functional advisory, it's really who's bringing the network effect, investors to the table, partners to the table? >> And that's good and bad actually, because you're talking about hype. There's no more fertile hype environment than social media. One of the things I find to be really scary, is that a proxy for the quality of the ICO is how many telegram followers does the chat group have, which I think is just insane. >> John: You can game that. >> Yeah. >> Well Scott, what are you working on now? What's next for you? What's some of the things that you see happening in the next year? >> Well we're just staying heads down, executing several of these token sales or ICO's, and that's what we're going to do. We're also going to get back to the original knitting, which was our mission, which is expand our venture-development services, so have a full palette of things that the startups from Network Society Ventures can choose from, so that we can help them make successful. >> Token economics is a critical decision every company has to make, >> Scott: Yes. >> And having advisory help is great. Thanks for sharing your opinion here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier. Puerto Rico, for theCUBE's exclusive coverage of BlockChain Unbound. Back with more coverage after the short break. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)