Ali great. Can you hear me? Hey Ian. Yes, I can hear you. You hear me? Awesome. Yep. Yep. Latin clear. Fantastic. Thanks for doing this man. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, I guess it's yeah, I guess it's kind of close to February. Yeah. I think I can still say that for a couple
weeks. Yeah exactly. Yeah, did you do any travel over the break? I just went home. It's all the family. How about you and home? Yeah, good. Yeah. Same here. You know, took a little bit of a break.
from crypto Twitter and then recharged for this year. There's a lot to be excited about. Obviously a lot still happening as a result of last year but generally very excited about 2023. So I think with that maybe we can get started and jump right in. Let's do it. I'm excited. All right.
Alright, awesome. Well, for those of you who are tuning in, thanks for joining. I'm really excited here to have Ali. No, not Ali for a number of years. And obviously got to know him very well when he led Syndicates Series A in 2021, I think at this point.
And, you know, what I think we want to talk about is really what things look like as we sort of project out in the future. Things look like for crypto and web3 and this year and beyond. So, couldn't think of a better person to do that with
with us than Ali and maybe with that we'll get a little bit into your background Ali. I think it's super interesting. You know provide some some important context behind like what I think you're most excited about and and thinking about these days. Also very relevant given like all
the new wave of excitement going on right now and like, you know, generative AI and stuff and so we'll touch on that a bit. But maybe where we can start all these, like, tell us a bit about yourself and your journey into Silicon Valley and tech. I mean, we can start there and then we'll quickly turn into, you know, the whole
you know, entry into crypto. Sure. That sounds good. Yeah, so well, I'm originally from Mexico. So Born and raised in Mexico City and growing up, I was always into technology. I was into computers, into robots, AI. I enjoyed building things with Lego and
K-nex and a bunch of other sort of child-oriented little engineered toys. And from an early age, I think I also got exposed to some of the failings of centralized government. I remember there was a big devaluation of the Pesno early in the 90s.
though I didn't fully understand what was going on. I remember adults talking about how the price of the parity, the price to dollar exchange rate was changing. And it was kind of an interesting exposure to how currencies work and how markets work and how governments can fail, which I think