Season 1: Episode 11

We discussed the peristaltic nature of marketplaces and the halting progress where recessions and expansions exist in ebb and flow. Paul is witty, candid and bold as ever.

Right now is, in Paul’s mind, the most interesting time in terms of rebooting the base structure of what we call money. Money, in our current practice, is both storehouse of wealth and medium of exchange – but in tech terms, those two things are becoming unbundled. Bitcoin is a tangible representation of that uncoupling: as a framework, it currently functions well as a form of payment, but less so as a storehouse of value. As far as Paul is concerned, there is no need for currencies of the future to fill both roles. In a world of doom and gloom naysayers, Paul’s view of the future is refreshing – not in its optimism, but rather in its utter refusal to adhere to false binaries. There are a few key technologies, blockchain in particular, which invites a decoupling of one thing from another which has traditionally been tied together. Money is  one example and jobs and employers are another. We dip into both examples, but I think that we are seeing only the very tip of the immense opportunity here.

The decentralized and autonomous collaborative economy of the future has a transparent and lightweight framework that allows us to abstract away the current issues. “It pushes things out in the open that were otherwise hidden. There’s a sense of where things are coming from, where they’re going, and where they are. Which is hugely liberating in terms of letting markets open up and begin to operate.” What else does Paul see in the future, when he looks around corners? Join me as we discuss how he dismantles vestigial views and unbundles formerly constricted relationships in favor of a new continuum.