0:02

Welcome. This is the interviews

0:02

with leaders in FinTech and Web3 podcast.

0:07

And I'm your host, Matthew Cheung,

0:07

from Work in Fintech and we're delighted

0:10

to have on our show today

0:10

a Vassilis Tziokas who is the global lead

0:15

for Web3 business

0:15

development and strategy at Microsoft.

0:19

Thank you very much, Matthew, and thank you for the invitation. Very happy to be here.

0:22

Can you kind of introduce yourself

0:22

and what you

0:25

what you actually do

0:25

at Microsoft at the moment?

0:28

Sure. I'm Vassilis and ive been working at Microsoft for the last almost 7 years now

0:30

and the past six months,

0:35

I'm working in a brand new and small team.

0:38

My team are doing the business development strategy,

0:39

what actually that means is that

0:43

we are building designing

0:46

a go to market

0:46

strategy of Microsoft in the web3 space.

0:50

So we work with engineering,

0:50

sales, marketing and of course we try

0:54

to execute our high impact partnerships

0:54

with strategic players

0:58

and with three other one to bring this

0:58

go to market to life.

1:03

So that's the business development

1:03

part of the partnership.

1:05

So it's many things together,

1:05

but actually we're designing how Microsoft

1:10

is, is what is the role of Microsoft

1:10

in this new evolving with this space.

1:15

So can

1:15

you talk to me and talk to listeners

1:17

about how you got to this role

1:17

and some of your background

1:20

and where you kind of started off? Because a lot of people that we've spoken to on this show,

1:22

there's never a straight path from A to B.

1:26

There's a lot of kind of, you know,

1:26

pivoting around through that journey.

1:29

You learn a lot of skills as well. You talk about your story. Sure. Sure.

1:34

It's a great question. So if I go a few years back,

1:37

I mean, what I have studied is business

1:37

strategy and marketing.

1:41

That's my academic background.

1:44

I'm as I said,

1:44

I have been working in Microsoft 70 years

1:48

and my previous roles were always in

1:48

sales strategy and go to market.

1:52

And that's how I define myself

1:52

as a professional.

1:55

Then the way I got into Web three,

1:55

as I think

1:58

most of the people will think exactly

1:58

because it's information space

2:02

is by deep

2:02

diving out of personal interest.

2:05

I just identified a few months ago

2:05

that I spend all my personal time outside

2:09

Microsoft reading, contributing

2:09

and learning about Web three,

2:14

but with my passion and this space still

2:14

excites me amazingly. So

2:20

I ended up here because there

2:22

are some like minded people at Microsoft,

2:22

and we made a case.

2:28

And of course, we believe that Microsoft

2:31

has has a role to play. And how would you describe

2:33

that nature in Web three?

2:36

So we somehow formed

2:36

that team as a leadership team.

2:40

So just to summarize,

2:40

my answer is it started out

2:43

with person I endorsed, and

2:47

that's still the case. I think the people, everyone within Web

2:48

three, regardless of whether it's

2:51

a big enterprise like Microsoft

2:51

or a small startup or even a developer,

2:55

it comes out of their passion

2:55

for this new emerging technology, right?

3:00

It's a it's a it's a real philosophical

3:00

passion for a lot of the people.

3:05

So and that's one of the most

3:05

exciting things in the space.

3:09

But yeah, that's in a few words,

3:09

my professional journey and how

3:12

I ended up in what, three. And can you talk

3:16

about your early part of your career

3:16

in marketing?

3:20

Sure. And how how did you get interested

3:20

and involved in that?

3:24

Sure. Sure. And it's a good question

3:26

in the way that marketing, in

3:29

my humble opinion, is is a convoluted

3:29

term, right?

3:34

People use it in this. It's this chameleon phrase, right?

3:38

And you can take different meanings

3:38

according to the context

3:42

that you're using. It. So I started in marketing

3:47

my first job out of my master's

3:49

degree in UK, was in marketing in a

3:49

in a in a mobile technology

3:53

company called Upstream, which is still one of the biggest

3:55

mobile technology companies.

3:57

And it was pure marketing in the sense

3:57

that it was about how

4:01

you set up a lead generation

4:05

mechanism, working with

4:06

PR, working with the advertising agency,

4:09

so that the typical pillars

4:09

of marketing right,

4:14

how you build an engine

4:14

about brand awareness and sales,

4:18

I would say generation,

4:18

that was it back then.

4:21

I do believe that I learned a ton, right,

4:21

because it was a start up.

4:26

But also it was it was a big enterprise

4:26

for for the industry.

4:32

I think it was operating within. So I learned a ton.

4:35

And I think that one thing

4:35

that I was always missing

4:38

is how you can connect more effectively

4:38

The marketing engine with sales, right?

4:44

I think all the reason that I listen to

4:46

your podcast know about this

4:49

never ending chasm

4:49

between sales and marketing there

4:52

there are millions of articles

4:52

of marketing and sales and friends

4:57

that do not work well together because marketing cannot understand

4:58

why sales do not sell

5:02

and sales can't understand why marketing

5:02

cannot operate with a sales mindset.

5:06

So they see the world in two different

5:06

ways.

5:08

I think that's a very archaic I

5:12

think I think that we have, through

5:12

technology, through startups and through

5:16

new professionals, this chasm has started

5:16

becoming smaller and smaller.

5:21

So just to come back to your question,

5:21

that's that's found it.

5:27

That was a foundation of my knowledge

5:27

out of my first professional experience.

5:31

And when I understood that I want to be

5:31

that person

5:34

that will understand both worlds,

5:34

I did a two year,

5:38

I would say, role in consumer goods,

5:38

which was not about technology,

5:42

to be honest with you. That was a huge learning experience for me

5:43

because consumer

5:47

goods is still a very big industry.

5:50

We are only using consumer goods

5:52

in our everyday life, and it brought me

5:56

this experience of how the real world

5:56

operates Outside technology.

5:59

You have to talk with grocery

5:59

stores, have sales

6:03

and actually move

6:03

physical goods from one place.

6:06

So it has

6:06

it has a different component of marketing.

6:09

Again, it's a very marketing driven world because there's a huge competition

6:11

with other consumer brands.

6:14

And the last 70 years I've been

6:14

with Microsoft and as I was saying

6:18

before, all my roles were all about sales

6:18

go to marketing enablement.

6:22

I happy to discuss that over, but

6:22

I would say that this is a journey, right?

6:27

I started with the foundation of marketing. I understood that there is something

6:28

that needs to be connected, but

6:32

very few people understand and hopefully

6:32

I'm one of those leaders that can do that.

6:37

But let's say to you. It's interesting

6:38

that you have gone from a marketing

6:41

and then now moved into Web three

6:41

because it's something that you found

6:44

very interesting and very much there's

6:44

this tribe of like minded individuals

6:49

with Web three, and you found that within

6:49

within Microsoft's

6:53

going to that point there. There's a

6:55

there's a kind of a misconception among a lot of people that you need to be

6:57

a developer to work in web3 and fintech

7:01

and kind of these kind of very technology

7:01

heavy industries.

7:06

But that's not your background

7:06

and that's not what you're doing either.

7:09

So can you talk about some of

7:09

the opportunities that you see in Web3?

7:13

And we'll talk about

7:13

what is Web3 in the second book.

7:16

Can you talk about the opportunities

7:16

that you see in Web3

7:20

outside of just coders and developers?

7:23

No, I think it's a spot on comment

7:23

and people need to understand

7:27

with especially young professionals

7:27

who may be discouraged

7:30

2012 three because they don't have

7:30

an engineering background.

7:33

I don't think that's the case, right. I think what three will become very soon,

7:35

what we call now the Internet.

7:39

The Internet needs all kinds

7:39

of professionals.

7:42

Of course, in those early days,

7:42

having an engineering background

7:48

or engineering

7:48

knowledge would help, right?

7:51

Because it's a very development driven world.

7:56

However, as it becomes more mature,

7:56

I think we will see the emergence

8:01

and the need for more business people

8:01

of what we call business salespeople

8:05

go to market people,

8:05

strategic people, marketing people, right?

8:08

And we need that because that's

8:08

the only way that Web3 can mature.

8:12

If it was only developer

8:12

think it will be a very

8:16

it will be a very siloed,

8:16

very narrow minded think.

8:19

And even the developers themselves,

8:19

they're asking for business people like

8:24

and again,

8:24

I want to be very firm in my mind.

8:27

It's not a it's not a black or white.

8:30

A developer can have a huge business

8:30

acumen and a business person

8:34

can understand technology. I consider myself a business person,

8:36

but I have spent a lot, a lot of time

8:40

at nights reading about solidity

8:40

web3 development.

8:44

Right? Because I love

8:45

I consider that part of my job.

8:47

I need to understand what needs to be done

8:47

under the hood

8:51

as I see for the web application

8:51

come into life.

8:54

And there are many developers who are spending a lot of their time

8:56

about sales, finance and go to market.

8:59

So it's not it's not a black and white.

9:03

I think we see I see in my game experience

9:07

a new hybrid type of professional

9:09

with a very well rounded professional,

9:09

only kind of sun, everything.

9:13

So if there is one advice I would say

9:13

to young professionals who do not have

9:17

an engineering background and wonder

9:17

what things that they are all welcome.

9:20

They are welcome,

9:20

but it will take them time,

9:24

effort and energy and invest

9:24

those resources in order to understand

9:28

what we want from a business,

9:28

but also from a different point.

9:34

There's been a lot of focus, like you say, on the engineering piece of it,

9:36

and that's come a lot from the state

9:40

of the maturity of the technology

9:40

and where we are still very tech heavy.

9:45

But what we've seen obviously

9:45

in the last 48 months or so is the rise of

9:50

gaming's. Always been there for a long time,

9:51

but that starts becoming massive

9:54

and bigger than film

9:54

and all the other media out there.

9:57

You've got, and there's been a lot of metaverse

9:58

kind of plays going on in the last year

10:02

and people are talking about a lot more of an NFT

10:03

has become this kind of bridge product

10:06

connecting some of those things. So it's become a bit of an onramp

10:08

for retail and consumers

10:13

to be able to start just playing around

10:13

with those technologies.

10:16

So two questions. One is

10:18

what would be the on ramp for enterprise?

10:21

Because Enterprises is

10:21

is has been looking at blockchain

10:25

for a long time

10:25

but has not really been adopted

10:28

in earnest until probably in the last

10:28

six months or so.

10:31

There's some big names

10:31

looking at big projects.

10:34

What's going to be that on ramps

10:34

for enterprises to really embrace it?

10:38

And then outside of that, you know, where

10:38

where do we see the future

10:42

of enterprise technology embracing

10:47

web3 and decentralized

10:47

kind of ways of doing things?

10:51

And, you know, for example, we saw

10:51

there was a big deal that was announced

10:55

from Microsoft taking a stake in Altech,

10:55

which is, you know,

10:59

formerly London Stock Exchange,

10:59

but now a data and analytics company.

11:03

So be interesting

11:03

if you just talk about that kind of trend

11:07

from the onramp for enterprises

11:07

is really embracing it through

11:10

to where it where the direction of travel

11:10

is in the next few years.

11:14

You asked two very interesting questions.

11:16

One, the first one was

11:16

what will be the long run?

11:20

Right?

11:20

And I don't think there's one answer.

11:23

I think there are multiple answers. At the end of the day, any enterprise,

11:24

any commercial enterprise company,

11:30

what they are looking for is to generate

11:30

value either for the shareholders

11:35

or for their employees

11:35

or for the consumers as customers.

11:39

What about that is that let's take

11:39

the example of Starbucks.

11:43

For those who do not

11:43

know, Starbucks recently launched Odyssey.

11:46

Right. Which is I would call it an NFT based

11:46

loyalty program.

11:49

Let's call it this way. Right? So Starbucks

11:51

being a very consumer driven business,

11:56

going back to consumer goods, to the point

11:56

I made before, what you really want

12:00

to do is to unlock

12:03

and generate new experiences

12:03

for the consumers

12:06

so that they make them stick to Starbucks

12:06

and not move to another coffee company.

12:09

Right. So and if these nonfungible tokens

12:14

have this innate capability,

12:14

they have the capability that you can own

12:19

something which is a on blockchain

12:19

and that something can unlock

12:24

further value benefits

12:27

for you. We were coming from many years of

12:32

loyalty programs in and airline miles.

12:35

For me, this is the evolution of Detroit.

12:38

Our now I'm flying tomorrow to London,

12:38

for example, and I was checking my mind.

12:43

If you think about it,

12:43

the miles belonged to me, right?

12:46

It's it's it's a token in a way,

12:46

from an airline to me.

12:49

Right. But it's a very static one.

12:52

It could be translated into some side

12:52

benefits.

12:54

If I had my

12:54

if I could buy an extra seat or whatever.

12:58

But it's not really,

12:58

you know, liquid from a cold this way.

13:02

And by liquid, I don't mean necessarily liquid in real money,

13:04

but liquid information, other experiences.

13:08

So that's an example of how an enterprise,

13:08

a very big one like Starbucks, is using

13:13

a dynamic concept that kind of

13:13

to provide value to the consumers

13:16

and of course,

13:16

finally to the bottom line in the PNL.

13:19

So just to summarize my answer,

13:19

there's not one thing

13:23

I think every company,

13:23

according to their industry

13:25

they operate in that will find different

13:25

value in web3 and blockchain.

13:30

For some it may be an excuse. For some

13:31

it may be blockchains and immutability.

13:35

For other may be this openness

13:35

and possibility for others may be daos

13:41

decentralized terms, organization and how they can create consortia

13:42

with other companies.

13:46

Again, Web3

13:46

the way I see it will be something

13:48

that we call the internet, right? So who knows what ideas will come up?

13:52

Any use cases. Another thing I'll say before comes to the second part

13:53

of the question, Matthew, is that

13:57

we're also seeing some very interesting

13:57

examples of of real life web3.

14:02

What I mean by that is we do see,

14:05

for example, helium,

14:05

which is a startup which is using

14:10

actual devices that people can buy

14:14

for 5G connectivity. So it's actually a web3 wireless

14:16

network, right?

14:18

They recently made a partnership

14:21

in mobile and through tokens,

14:21

which again is another innate capability

14:25

for free, they're coordinating,

14:25

they incentivize people to do stuff.

14:30

So I think more use

14:30

cases will be more the next months

14:35

as people, as business people

14:35

and technology people will work together

14:39

and who knows what emerging business

14:39

model will see.

14:42

But an individual, all it was always was

14:42

and it would always be about by now.

14:47

The second part of the question, can you

14:47

remind me was about how I went about the.

14:52

Yeah. And I kind of the I suppose the the trend

14:52

over the next few years for Enterprise

14:58

and you probably touched on it already

14:58

in some of those questions but

15:00

where's where's

15:00

the convergence of these different

15:04

there's these different kind of pioneering

15:04

use cases we're seeing at the moment.

15:08

Do you have a vision of

15:08

where do you think it's going to head?

15:11

Should I do what I see in my daily life?

15:14

And for many customers and partners

15:14

I'm talking to every day

15:18

is what I call live Web 2.5. And it's a very of course,

15:20

it's a euphemism, but

15:23

it's this idea of symbiosis, right?

15:26

It's how you're going to use existing web

15:26

platforms to onboard people to web3.

15:31

These platforms may be enterprise

15:31

platforms for example, things.

15:35

And I'm biased because I'm for Microsoft

15:35

Teams is a platform that people are using.

15:41

Millions of people are using daily

15:41

to interact,

15:45

to communicate,

15:45

right to exchange information

15:49

potentially in the future, having teams

15:49

with automated workflows

15:53

and web capabilities

15:53

and with tokenized portals, for example,

15:58

could be an amazing use case

15:58

for Enterprise to move to Web three.

16:01

So I do see this trend of symbiosis.

16:05

I do see companies mostly because I space

16:05

right now in the financial services

16:11

industry, understanding the value

16:11

of blockchain, but at the same time

16:18

wanting to

16:18

be a little bit, I wouldn't say careful,

16:21

but wanting to be a little bit

16:21

on an experimental mode, right?

16:26

Web two is great. I don't see again, I don't see the world

16:27

as a as a black or black and white,

16:32

but there are some things

16:32

that Web two cannot do right then,

16:35

because how it's built

16:35

in terms of technology.

16:38

So how you can bring in a bunch of web3

16:38

into web and vice versa.

16:43

This is what I think the magic happens. And actually then the case

16:45

that is the customer

16:48

stories I've seen from Microsoft

16:48

and other companies,

16:51

this is exactly what it is,

16:51

how you can combine things

16:54

and make this

16:57

what you want. Make this a holy grail of one

16:58

plus one, Make three.

17:01

How you can make it a reality. Yep, that's what it.

17:05

Was like we saw the other week type.

17:07

You can now do

17:07

crypto payments through Stripe.

17:09

So again, it's

17:09

this kind of on ramp and things like

17:14

the benefits. Of Stablecoins Stablecoins. For me too.

17:18

It's a web 2.5 thing, right?

17:20

Yeah, they made capabilities

17:20

of a blockchain, right?

17:24

But it's pegged to U.S.

17:26

dollar, right? Yeah. So for me it's a web 2.5 and it's great

17:28

by the way it works.

17:32

And what you see is a very stable

17:32

stablecoin, right?

17:37

I do. I do think that

17:39

circle as a company is doing very well

17:39

and again, with insuperable status.

17:44

So for me,

17:44

Stablecoins is a great example of 2.5

17:47

because it combines the,

17:47

the good things of both worlds.

17:51

So let's look at sales and marketing.

17:54

You're your where you spent your

17:54

your career.

17:58

You mentioned earlier

17:58

about different web3 projects and so on.

18:02

The end of the day

18:02

you need to create value

18:04

and if you create value,

18:04

then you're going to be able

18:07

to sell what you're doing

18:07

and having web3 approaches.

18:11

There are some new ways of doing marketing, and so I would like tokenization

18:13

to generate communities and local

18:16

Starbucks is doing incentivizing users,

18:19

but not just about web3

18:19

more generally with sales and marketing.

18:23

Can you talk about four maybe four, some of the kind of listeners

18:25

who are still studying

18:29

what is going to market

18:29

and what is sales enablement as well?

18:33

TO It's a great question

18:33

because and I'm smiling

18:36

because that's a question

18:36

I have been asking myself for many years.

18:41

I think that's a necessary part

18:41

and necessary

18:44

part of the journey

18:44

of every strategy professional.

18:48

I do believe that every company

18:48

with a different definition would create

18:52

that. So the the dynamism of the sector.

18:55

But I will tell you what,

18:55

I have come up as an option.

18:58

Right. And maybe other people will disagree. And let me start with what they are

19:00

not sometimes defining

19:04

what you are not is more important,

19:04

not defining what you are.

19:06

So go to market is not marketing.

19:09

I think that's a mistake that many

19:09

even seasoned professionals are doing.

19:13

And to be honest, it really bugs me

19:13

because that's definitely not the case.

19:18

The way I describe go to market

19:18

is how an organization engages

19:21

with customers to convince them

19:21

to buy the product or the service.

19:25

I know it's a very simplistic term,

19:25

but if I could stick to that,

19:29

I would stick, of course,

19:29

by how an organization engages

19:33

the world, how many things and marketing

19:33

is one of them.

19:37

So I see marketing

19:37

as a pillar of good market.

19:40

And before I go and deep dive on that,

19:40

you're also talking

19:44

about sales enablement. For me, that's another very exciting part,

19:45

which is also misunderstood

19:49

and sometimes even underrated,

19:49

I would say.

19:52

So sales enablement

19:52

again, if you want a definition,

19:55

the way I use it

19:55

is the strategic use of people, processes

19:59

and technology to improve sales

19:59

productivity and increase revenue.

20:04

Right? Again, if you put them next to each other,

20:05

you will see many similarities.

20:08

That's

20:08

why sales enablement and go to market.

20:10

Usually teams in bigger division work

20:10

closely together or even at the same team.

20:16

So you have to go to marketing your sales

20:16

enablement leader.

20:18

But they all report to the same,

20:18

I would say senior person.

20:22

So that's how we define them. They're not marketing differently.

20:27

These are different animals,

20:27

but they live in the same forest,

20:30

if I may call it this way. But equally important.

20:34

And for someone

20:34

starting out in their career

20:38

or opportunities, all their own

20:38

kind of go to market and sales enablement,

20:42

is that something you would start in

20:42

or something

20:44

you kind of worked towards

20:44

when you when you gain some other skills

20:47

and you find a specific niche area

20:47

that you really like?

20:51

It's a good question. I don't think you can start

20:52

as a go to market professional

20:55

because you need to,

20:55

as I said before, you need to have a

20:59

solid foundation of knowledge of how sales works and how marketing works

21:01

and how strategy works.

21:05

So if go to market and sales enablement

21:05

is the end product of the recipe,

21:10

the ingredients, marketing strategy,

21:10

sales, right.

21:14

So you need to have an understanding of how this thing, if you're going to be

21:17

an expert in sales and an expert

21:17

in marketing to be a go to market person,

21:21

but you need to understand

21:21

how those things work and how actually

21:25

before they are coordinated

21:25

and they are combined, right?

21:29

So I don't know if there is any degree in

21:29

go to market.

21:32

I don't think there is, But there are many degrees of strategy,

21:34

of course, and there are many degrees

21:37

in sales, even in business

21:37

development and even in marketing. So

21:41

do not What I would say to young

21:41

professionals is that

21:44

do not try to narrow yourself and say,

21:44

Hey, I'm a marketing person, right?

21:48

Because in especially in big enterprises

21:48

and even in startups,

21:52

nobody is just marketing, right? You will need to be or actually me

21:53

looking for is differently.

21:57

If you are just marketing, you will never

21:57

be able to provide value to sales.

22:00

And if you are just sales,

22:00

you'll never be able to work with others.

22:04

So try to see your

22:04

those skills as as Lego blocks

22:08

and when you put them together,

22:08

something comes up, right?

22:12

Yeah, that's how I see it.

22:15

And similarly on the

22:15

on the strategy piece, like you said,

22:19

there might not be any degrees

22:19

and go to market and all that

22:21

we're aware of, but there is in strategy

22:21

or do you think strategy

22:25

something you can start off on day one

22:25

or similarly you need to have a

22:31

kind of, you know, dip your toes in some of the other areas of a business

22:32

before you move into that.

22:35

Yeah, I have a it's a good it's a good question,

22:36

but I think strategy is different

22:39

than the others. In which way? I think strategy is also a

22:42

philosophical thing, right, in the sense

22:42

that nobody can really define

22:45

what strategies. I can try to come up with a definition,

22:49

but the way I see it is

22:49

that strategy is embedded in everything.

22:52

Strategy is embedded in in this podcast

22:52

as we speak, you have a strategy

22:56

that you would like this podcast

22:56

to come up in your mind as Xe.

23:00

You have an embedded strategy stock.

23:02

So for me, something innate is something

23:02

philosophical.

23:05

It's something

23:05

which is like an umbrella thing, right?

23:08

Of course, because that study strategy,

23:08

I think strategy is one of the key courses

23:12

in all MBA degrees

23:12

and you know, and business degrees.

23:17

I if there is one industry

23:17

that is coordinating strategy

23:20

is the consulting industry. So if you are working for the McKinsey,

23:22

Accenture there, so you actually

23:26

must be able to define themselves

23:26

as strategy professionals.

23:29

My recommendation would be that going

23:33

back to one of the probably your listeners

23:33

know Nicholas Nassim Taleb, right?

23:38

Try to try to have skin in the game.

23:41

What I have seen in my experience,

23:41

there are many strategy people

23:44

who have never done

23:44

what they are strategizing about.

23:47

So you will find in your career many

23:47

people who are strategy experts in sales.

23:52

But if you ask them when they did,

23:52

when they sold something

23:55

they never have done, so it's rank and file or an expert,

23:57

a strategy person and go to market.

24:01

And when you ask them why they go to market, they have done

24:02

they have never done one.

24:05

So for me, strategy something

24:05

which comes also through experience

24:09

and through leave, I would say experience.

24:12

So that's my bit on strategy.

24:14

Let's move on to generative AI

24:14

because it's been a hot topic in the last

24:21

few months and particularly in the last few weeks

24:22

where we've seen GPT

24:26

gain like over a million users

24:26

in less than a week,

24:29

the fastest adoption of software

24:29

or technology you've ever seen.

24:33

And that's, you know,

24:33

and then that's running on Azure, right?

24:37

And Microsoft is, you know, a contributor

24:37

to open AI, which also has produced

24:42

only to where you can you can ask Dali to,

24:42

to create images and so on.

24:47

So we're seeing really the color version

24:50

1.0 of generative

24:50

AI and you can already see its benefits.

24:54

You know, we've started to

24:54

look at what I say.

24:57

We, I mean I push Paul where I'm also

24:57

CEO of we've started to use chatbots

25:01

for doing unit testing on some code

25:01

just playing around in the last week

25:06

we can already see benefits to enhancing

25:06

you know it development saying it's a

25:11

that's in the world of kind of development

25:11

and coding in the world of sales

25:14

and marketing. How do you see generative

25:15

AI being able to augment or help

25:21

or even replace some sales

25:21

and marketing functions which historically

25:25

have been very kind of people facing

25:25

and something where

25:28

there's a creative elements of what

25:28

a human can do?

25:31

Where do you see these technologies

25:31

helping sales and marketing?

25:34

It's a great question. I was doing. I spend the weekend talking

25:36

with some friends about generative,

25:40

and these are

25:40

the things we were contemplating with,

25:44

I think in the following way. What I have learned in my in

25:45

my experience is not try to make very long

25:49

term predictions because those are right.

25:52

There are many black swans,

25:52

but I would say the following,

25:56

especially in those sectors discipline

25:56

that you mentioned, sales and marketing.

26:00

I do. I'm a techno optimist by definition,

26:00

so I do see that as an enhancement

26:05

and rather as a replacement. Right.

26:07

So I do believe that it will increase

26:07

the productivity

26:12

of strong marketing and sales professional

26:14

because you can easily do some stuff

26:14

which are boring, to be honest.

26:17

For example, like, I don't know,

26:17

write a very convincing email about X,

26:24

but then one from what I have used

26:24

and have been using Strategy B

26:28

three pretty much every day

26:28

just to test it myself.

26:31

The results are good enough,

26:31

but they always require some human

26:36

skill, talent, knowledge, context

26:36

to make them perfect.

26:40

Right? Of course. So I will say the following If you are a

26:45

a good,

26:48

ambitious professional

26:48

in the marketing and sales charge,

26:52

you can really scale up

26:55

your capacity and your productivity

26:58

and you can see it as something that can allow you

27:02

to invest time in most creative

27:06

and contextual tasks, right?

27:09

If you are just a person

27:09

who just wants to send random emails

27:13

in, you know, sales prospect,

27:13

take it, don't care about the context.

27:16

Yeah. So it could replace in the future. Right?

27:19

But I do see that. I do see just do typically as I say later

27:20

that would unlock

27:26

further unlock productivity equity

27:26

with for professionals.

27:29

Right. That's how I see

27:30

who knows what will happen.

27:33

Right. We of course will become better.

27:35

It's a it's a large language

27:35

model by definition becomes better.

27:39

Right. That's the nature of it, to be honest.

27:43

I would go ahead with more if I were a

27:43

developer that for me, that's the magic.

27:49

The magic is not about creating a marketing copy

27:51

or a sales pitch, right?

27:56

You could easily do that through Google as well. It would Google it

27:57

and you could take copy paste and it would

28:01

a similar type of but would never hurt

28:01

and not the feel kind of

28:07

coding platform. Right. And and by the way, as Microsoft,

28:09

we have the copilot and GitHub,

28:13

I would say an enterprise

28:16

version of chat typically.

28:19

And it's it works amazingly well.

28:22

I do see that as a

28:22

as a further unlock tool for productivity.

28:27

Maybe that's the positive side of me,

28:27

but I truly believe that

28:30

there are some great days

28:30

ahead of us as human species.

28:33

If we if we manage it

28:33

smartly and efficiently.

28:39

Well, that's what technology is about. You know, it's about unlocking

28:40

productivity and automating mundane manual tasks

28:42

and then enhancing what you're doing,

28:46

freeing up your time to do more

28:46

creative and value tasks.

28:50

There's another element

28:50

which connects generative A.I.

28:52

and blockchain, and this is Web3 podcast.

28:56

So maybe that's that's of interest. I want to make a specific mention of that

28:57

because there are many people,

29:02

for all the good reasons,

29:02

who are very skeptical with web3

29:05

in terms of like

29:05

which are they really use cases, right?

29:09

And the way I see it

29:09

is that actually the generic to AI

29:12

is great news for all three in the sense

29:12

that through blockchain

29:17

in the future we will be able to identify

29:17

what is someone with a real person gold

29:22

rather than a machine group, right?

29:25

There's this idea

29:25

of, of, of proof of personhood.

29:29

But what three. Right. You can prove that you are a person,

29:30

you're a real human being

29:34

and you can create

29:37

input on a blockchain, right?

29:39

So that feature how blockchains

29:44

can distinguish what something was created

29:44

generated by a human being.

29:49

A virtual machine

29:49

could be an amazing use case,

29:52

which like one a year ago

29:52

nobody would have ever thought.

29:55

That goes back to my point,

29:55

right of symbiosis, right?

29:58

A.I. in Web three,

29:58

If you ask me, like two years ago,

30:00

Hey, blockchain

30:00

will be the verification layer.

30:03

I was like, I see that.

30:06

But sometimes life surprises, right?

30:08

So I just wanted to make that asterisk

30:08

because it's important for me.

30:12

It isn't Microsoft

30:12

working on like a digital ID service.

30:16

To have people can actually visit

30:16

the website.

30:19

The website will have something

30:19

called Decentralized Identity,

30:22

which is part of our intra

30:22

offering enterprise,

30:25

the name of all of security and identity

30:25

offerings.

30:28

Yes, we're working on on this

30:30

direction. But again, I do see that

30:31

as something that will be of like

30:35

general use in the near future. I wouldn't be able to submit

30:36

to a blockchain what we have something

30:40

what we have created

30:40

and then it will be distinctive.

30:42

But what typically or another

30:42

large language model will have?

30:46

Great. So so it's around off.

30:48

What words of advice

30:48

would you give our listeners

30:51

who are anything from young people who are

30:51

studying or just tossing their career

30:56

through to people have been in traditional

30:56

finance and traditional industries

31:00

who are very interested in web3

31:00

and also fintech?

31:04

What words of advice would you give

31:04

to two people looking into this area?

31:07

Because you already sent

31:07

in the last few years you went down,

31:12

they call it going down the rabbit hole,

31:12

but you've spent time doing that as have I

31:16

as well. I'm learning about these new technologies

31:19

and how the web two worlds

31:19

can make that evolution wrong.

31:23

It's not a revolution, it's an evolution. And it's this kind of incremental steps

31:26

towards a vision

31:26

of something in the future.

31:29

Well, what what words of advice would you

31:29

give to people looking to get into Web3?

31:32

I'm a person who does believe a lot in the

31:32

in the concept of advice.

31:36

I will share some of my insights

31:36

and hopefully that will be of of value

31:39

to those people. I won't say the same things

31:41

for young professionals and seasoned ones,

31:41

but for graduate students

31:46

of what we want to enter Web3

31:46

is that they're all welcome, right?

31:50

What I have seen in my daily experience

31:50

is that actually the people

31:54

who are reading it distanced

31:54

from that core tech of word three

31:58

are the ones who can connect the dots,

31:58

so can see a vision

32:00

that other people cannot see. Sometimes when you take the bird's eye

32:01

view, you can see more things, right?

32:06

So I would say you're all welcome. The future is not

32:09

written like three years

32:09

ago, blockchain or something

32:13

which actually correlated with bitcoin

32:13

in a few nerds in a good way at work.

32:18

So. And now. Now it's a bigger thing. The future is not within.

32:20

The future will be written by you, right?

32:23

And you will define it right.

32:23

So we'll get all welcome.

32:25

Try to bring ideas, innovation, knowledge

32:27

and something else,

32:31

and then I will make the segue way to them

32:31

to their finance profession.

32:35

Professional afraid. Try also to bring values,

32:36

ethics, transparency,

32:41

responsibility, accountability,

32:41

even compliance.

32:45

That's a segway to the finance, right? I do believe that this is a space

32:47

that unfortunately there are many

32:51

malicious actors, but behaviors

32:51

we all know them, supporting them

32:55

and they use actually the awesome news a few hours ago

32:56

about someone being arrested, What I would say is that

33:02

these are things that are, regardless

33:05

of web web one whip to Web three,

33:05

web web 25.

33:09

They make us as human species distinct.

33:13

Right. And they are innate characteristics

33:13

of a well

33:18

functioning society. So only we operate with ethics,

33:19

transparency,

33:22

accountability, with responsibility. We will be able to to advance forward.

33:26

And web3 really means that. And the reason that we went through

33:27

really means that is because delivery

33:32

is an industry right now

33:32

very much tied to finance.

33:35

And our moving to your second part

33:35

of the question, right?

33:37

So especially finance

33:37

when we have to deal with people's money,

33:42

we need to be extra careful, extra

33:42

compliant experts.

33:45

Right. So again, that's not that's real advice.

33:48

Everyone knows that. But when you are trying to form

33:50

partnerships, create new products,

33:54

try to embed those things,

33:54

those values in what you do,

33:58

because that's the right thing to do. What's the ethical thing to do?

34:01

And that's, I think, something

34:01

that will make Crypto's clash

34:05

with blockchain more easily

34:05

accepted by work to folks, right?

34:10

So that's my advice. If I, if I make all it advice.

34:13

Just one last question,

34:13

because you mentioned someone

34:17

who might have been arrested in terms of what you're

34:18

referring to them and FCX was, even though

34:22

they're saying they're a crypto exchange

34:22

there, a centralized exchange,

34:26

and now you kind of have this people

34:26

looking at,

34:30

okay, one of the reasons they didn't work

34:30

is because it was centralized and

34:33

now you have more decentralized exchanges

34:33

kind of in focus

34:38

going to what we're talking about

34:38

with Chachi T and I'm more open

34:41

I he's doing what's your thoughts on open

34:44

I in a way is a centralized holder

34:44

of all of these large language models

34:49

and people are Elon Musk and Sam Altman

34:49

and that that group of people are driving

34:54

the direction of that whole of, you know,

34:54

good intent in the right direction.

34:58

But actually that's centralized as well.

35:00

What what do you think about the way that can evolve

35:02

and the way that can be shared?

35:05

So it's more decentralized? Yeah.

35:07

I don't believe

35:07

and that's facilities have been right, but

35:11

I don't believe that centralization is

35:11

evil, right?

35:15

There are forms and forms of

35:15

centralization, and I don't believe that.

35:19

FDX Because it was centralized,

35:19

I think FDX failed

35:23

because it's a direct commentary term,

35:25

but I'm service and what we know,

35:28

but I don't think FDX failed

35:28

because it was centralized.

35:30

FDX failed because they were not

35:30

ethical business people

35:34

and they were doing all kinds of shady

35:34

things right.

35:40

I do believe that there is a future

35:40

of both DEX decentralized exchanges

35:44

and centralized exchanges,

35:44

and the same about large language models.

35:48

Actually, I think there are

35:48

I've seen some examples of decentralized

35:52

language models. I think everything is welcome.

35:55

I don't believe centralization is evil,

35:58

but I do believe that

35:58

centralization, extreme centralization,

36:03

can lead to bad outcomes.

36:06

So what I would say is that we need more

36:06

innovation, we need more openness, right?

36:11

We need healthy

36:11

we need healthy competition.

36:15

And if something can work

36:15

in a truly decentralized manner, perfect,

36:18

it will be another option. There are people

36:20

who are investing money in Coinbase,

36:23

which is a centralized company

36:23

using crypto.

36:26

There

36:26

people who are investing money in Uniswap,

36:29

which is completely

36:29

decentralized, right? So

36:32

one of the two is not more evil

36:32

or more good than the other.

36:35

They're just different options, right?

36:37

And I can say and I'm very confident

36:37

what I'm saying,

36:40

that there are many decentralized things

36:40

which are completely decentralized,

36:43

and because of them being completely

36:43

disorganized, they do not work.

36:48

Right? Yeah. Going on an anthropological discussion.

36:52

Humans need a form of centralization.

36:54

That's how societies

36:54

work quite by definition.

36:57

So as a philosophical concept,

36:57

I don't think that organization is.

37:00

But I do think that extreme

37:00

concentration of power is bad,

37:05

unethical behavior is bad.

37:07

So I can keep going on and on. But that's that's how I feel.

37:10

I got to go. I know you need to drop off,

37:11

but maybe for another question.

37:14

It was a great question and. There was a good answer. So I do know you need to drop.

37:17

So facilities,

37:17

thank you so much for your time today.

37:20

How can people follow you

37:20

or kind of hear from you?

37:24

Sure. I mean, my name

37:24

you can just put my name on LinkedIn

37:28

and I think you'll find me

37:28

not happy, too happy to be connected

37:31

with everyone who is interested. And I am on Twitter as well.

37:32

Pretty active.

37:35

It is my surname Joker's V, which is

37:35

the first letter of my first name.

37:41

So it's special to the young professionals

37:42

and their graduate students.

37:46

If I have a dime,

37:46

I will be more than happy to

37:49

help share my insights on my journey.

37:52

I have been there a few years ago

37:52

and I know how it is and any voice up.

37:56

So I'm here for you. Thanks.

38:00

Thanks for listening to this podcast

38:00

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38:03

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