Fred Ehrsam Addresses 2021 Graduates

🎥 May 05, 2021 📺 DukeEconomics ⏱ 3m

Duke Econ alum and founder of Coinbase and Paradigm, Fred Erhsam (T' 10) shares a message with graduating students.

About Fred Ehrsam

Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase and managing partner at Paradigm, has described his view of crypto as developing in three stages: a new digital money, a new financial system, and a new broad internet application platform. He stated that the industry is roughly "an order of magnitude into a new digital money, maybe one tenth of one percent into a new financial system, and effectively at zero on a new internet application platform." Ehrsam has characterized the current internet as "feudalism," where large platforms operate as closed systems, and has said that "crypto is the metaverse" in the sense that it provides a shared data layer for digital ownership. He has also commented on the potential for the U.S. to "get crypto wrong" regarding regulation and noted an opportunity for miners in the United States to help make crypto more decentralized following a government crackdown on mining in China. In public addresses, Ehrsam has encouraged graduates to "follow your curiosity," citing his own experience spending 4,000 hours playing World of Warcraft, which he said taught him about digital worlds and currencies. He has stated that "the world is highly malleable" and that "people will try to tell you that there are rules to how the world works; there are no rules." Ehrsam has also discussed the potential for NFTs to evolve beyond static art, suggesting that creators could build highly aligned communities where consumers are also part owners of a product. He has described the current era as an "internet renaissance" where crypto is beginning to affect social media.

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Fred Ehrsam's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (4 segments)

Fred Ehrsam0:10

Or your first supply demand curve. I was sitting in exactly your shoes 10 years ago. So when you all asked me to come say something at your graduation, my first thought was, hmm, I'm kind of skeptical of advice in general. But okay, we'll do this. And I started to ask myself, what would I want to know when I was sitting in your shoes 10 years ago? The biggest thing that came to my mind is follow your curiosity. That's been the biggest through line in my life and in the lives of all the graduates my year who I think have gone on to do the most interesting things. Now why follow your curiosity? To give you a little bit of background on my life story.

There are going to be a lot of people who have very specific ideas about how the world works. They think it works a certain way, it's set in stone. Spoiler alert: that's not true at all. The world is highly malleable. It's being created and recreated every day by people who are no smarter than you and me. For those of you who go on to work at startups, you'll see this up close and personal, often comically. Asking questions is more important than answers often times. I have a theory that the smartest people in every single field are philosophers. They're just applied philosophers through whatever their craft is. They're asking questions and trying to answer them.

Strange and unexpected places. This started for me before I even matriculated to Duke. I spent 4,000 hours in World of Warcraft. My mom, needless to say, was not very happy about this. But I did learn about digital worlds and digital currencies, and that came to become very important for me later on. And I had no idea as it was happening at the time. I was just curious. The same was true when I was at Goldman after school trading foreign currencies during the European debt crisis, sitting there thinking, what is money and how does this work? Very basic perhaps, in today's parlance, stupid questions.

Because you're following your own path. I was definitely not cool in undergrad, but the coolest I got was playing Halo 4 against the basketball players before they went out on a Friday night. And the future is yet to be written. Life is one big adventure. Never stop asking why. People will try to tell you that there are rules to how the world works. There are no rules. And just have fun with it. I'll see you out there.