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.
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Transcript (2 segments)
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Interviewer0:17
A few CompSci students we were recruiting them. I started a program called Duke Emerging Scholars and recruited Fred to this program. Fred took the first two computer science courses his first year, at the same time as part of the Duke Emerging Scholars program, he also took a year-long seminar course on problem solving with the other students I recruited and hoped would all become CompSci majors. Here is the Duke Emerging Scholars class that year, the largest cryptocurrency company in the US and held the role of President from 2012 to 2017. Fred purchased his first bitcoin in 2011 and has been an angel investor in some of the space's most formative companies. Fred holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Economics with honors and departmental distinction from Duke University Class of 2010. Class of 2021, it's Fred Ehrsam. Congrats, you've made it - come a long way since your first recursive algorithm or your first supply demand curve. I was sitting in exactly your
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Fred Ehrsam2:10
And you know I sort of asked 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. Well, to give you a little bit of background on my life story: when I was in your shoes, my job didn't even exist. Bitcoin didn't even exist when I was an undergrad at Duke. You're going to go into the world and there are going to be a lot of people who have very 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 oftentimes. I had 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 it every single day, whether it's through writing a song, writing a new recursive algorithm, dissecting a financial market - doesn't matter. If you do decide to follow your curiosity you might find yourself in strange and unexpected 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. But again those inquiries brought me to important places. So as you go out into the world, don't be afraid to look like an idiot or to look strange in a given moment because you're following your own path. They 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.
