Building Resilient Teams: Navigating the Web3 Ecosystem | Devcon SEA

[Music] hello hello how is everybody doing today last day of Devcon we are super excited to be here talking to you about building resilient teams navigating the web through e system and we have three incredible speakers today um our first panelist we have Evan McMullen she's a Visionary in the web3 space with such a robust background in both blockchain and Enterprise Tech she's the co-founder of pado ID where they're focusing on transforming identif identity verification across digital and real world environments and she was previously the founder of disco. XYZ um with leadership experience at Brookshire hathway and consensus Evan has really been at the Forefront of advancing decentralized identity and Data Solutions and fun fact Evan and I met while we were students at Yale University and here we are years later together so um and our next guest we have uh Rachel and Rachel's been working in the blockchain space for years as a Founder best-selling author and Global public speaker she's really passionate about sharing uh sharing knowledge and building Community she has been very active with the base and coinbase ecosystem at founding onchain media where she runs a podcast in Twitter spaces and she's co-founded incentives with per Labs with Mr migles on base team uh and additionally she works with the city of Berkeley uh to promote blockchain use cases at a m Municipal level and our final panelist Olivia Smith is the COO of moons song Labs where she directs operational strategy and scales a company's impact in web 3 Innovation she was formerly the VP of strategy at pure stake where she played a key role in launching Moonbeam and she also has a background in finance having spent four years in trafi uh tradition or prior to blockchain and she also holds a joint JD MBA from Columbia University so welcome to these panelists um let's why don't we kick it off with you know let's start simple to each of you in a sentence what is resilience mean I think of resilience both in a in a very sort of literal technical sense as well as the human sense the ability to withstand friction disruption to maintain integrity and to maintain process and success despite shifting conditions around you um when I think of resilience I don't know I I was doing a Twitter space with uh this MMA fighter who was talking about you know getting knocked down repeatedly over and over and I feel like in our space we are really fighting this good fight for the greater good and after getting knocked down time and time again I think resilience is you know the ability to pick yourself back up and realize okay we are working towards a greater good and this is a fight worth fighting so I think it's just getting up you know uh and if you get knocked down just get up and keep trying I feel like that's that's resilience me I like that image of just keep getting up um for me it's like you know it's obviously persistence but it's this like mental fortitude I think when I think of it it's like as simple as being being able to sustain so you can succeed and so it's something that's consistent that's always there that you have to keep cultivating but is key to success so looking at these definitions that you all just provided how do you instill these sort of core values of resilience that you just defined within your teams so the only thing that is certain about the blockchain industry is that we can guarantee uncertainty um I'm sure that all of you here have experienced various different swings of Market Cycles introductions of new political influences social influences that change the Dynamics in which we operate every day both from our you know technical resilience and the challenges of new Adoption or new capabilities or even errors that we find along the way as well as the human beings coordinating these systems who need to be able to accommodate themselves um at pado ID in our practice we have an incredibly diverse team our teammates you know represent present Nations across the world as well as backgrounds that are incredibly diverse from more traditional to pretty degenerate um and it is through that range of experiences and perspectives that I think we find resiliency and strength the opportunity to invite points points of view that might not occur to you in fact the invitation to disagree rigorously and respectfully you know raising one's voice because you love your users is never a bad thing on my team and and so I think that through open communication deep consideration for what success looks like and a shared understanding that the ground under us will always shift these principles you know this this way of being uh has been working so far but of course as I say with all Technologies and all processes we will work for as long as this serves us and we when we find something else we will do that instead mic drop um yeah so I feel like what creates a resilient team in my eyes is I I don't know I'm a big proponent of really understanding your why and the purpose behind what you're doing when you have a strong enough why you figure out the how and the teams that I've seen make the most waves and make the most progress they're tapped into uh this greater Mission and greater purpose and they just do it with such conviction like Evan here you know just constantly showing up and realizing okay what we're doing is so important for the greater good what we're doing is you know what I'm doing is align with my purpose every day and I think that excitement and that joy to be a part of this uh positive change globally uh I think is what the the is behind the energy of resilience yeah I agree and I think Evan what you spoke to is this like psychological safety in a work environment being able to speak up being able to have debate I think that's crucial to a part of a culture I think it's really comes down to people and purpose and you talked about that of like you have to have a greater good that you're solving for and you have to give people purpose for the work that they do day in and day out and then I think as I think a key part is you've got to invest in people and people investment is not just paying them I think that's really key it's recognition and appreciation and not just accepting work but actually talking about all the work they put into it talking about what they learn from it and I think you know to add to the psychological safety that you mentioned Evan I think there's this aspect that everything should be a learning opportunity the long-term purpose of what you're building for but then you also want to have like a personal purpose of I am developing myself and as a leader you want to invest in that bringing in outside speakers investing in them learning stuff that's not even just like related to their direct work but cross cutting across the company I think a lot of times we get really focused and siloed on our direct work and we don't realize that people can learn a ton from whether it's the marketing department The Business Development Department there's just a lot that we can take advantage of so investing in people I think is the key to resilience can I add one thing there okay so another big component that I was just thinking of and I feel like Evan has always understood this but it's also having fun uh I actually I went to Doge day in Tokyo recently in Japan and you know uh they're actually honoring the life of a big uh Community member in the Doge Community named Julia love and a quote from her is if it's not fun it's not sustainable so I feel like you know we're seeing the rise of all these meme communities and people are realizing okay this is fun we can rally around this and celebrate community so I feel like fun is a big component too being connected to a greater purpose and having fun and Evans Evans always got that she's got a disco ball on stage with us right had a fun um so you know I think that a lot of things like this with like resiliency there's sort of these kind of higher level almost like philosophical questions of how we how we approach this and discussions about this but if you were to like measure resilience and look at metrics as we're in a very metric driven industry like what would you say are some things that you could look at for that burnout attrition uptime transactions per second mic drop no but like for real though you know when we when we talk about sort of metrics like it's a it's a challenging thing to try to apply across the board because every you know every team is different every human experience is different but what I can tell in terms of measuring the health and resilience of our community is that the number of chairs in this room far exceeds the number of chairs in the room in 2018 in Prague at Devcon when I first learned about the work of my now co-founders the Iden 3 protocol the you know ecosystem around us has scaled significantly such that there are a lot of new faces and many that remain but whether it's through you know the the difficulty of the work that we do the you know pressure of the Dynamics and constantly changing ecosystem it's a a challenging place for everyone to build resilience for every team to persist um and so through the natural emergent progress of you know of um ethereum I think it is organic that not everything will stay the same uh and in fact um the ability to adapt and change and to jettison what no longer serves us I think is part of what makes that resilience possible uh I know I am definitely guilty of hanging on to some ideas for a little too long even when it was clear that they may no longer be viable whether that's a signature scheme or you know particular way like State channels I thought that was going to happen turns out we went with layer twos so you know the ability to receive that new information and iterate um I think is also you know important in the ways that we measure who's here and how it's working so I I think team by team it's going to be the metrics are going to be individual to what the purpose is but I think kind of a universal metric that we can look at is how long uh these teams are last asking how long the individuals are showing up how long they're staying in the ring after all of these Market Cycles going up and down uh how long are they showing up people like Evan people like these women on stage today have been in this space for years grinding and not stopping and to me that is a key Benchmark of resilience it's continuing to show up over the long term seeing the bigger picture uh you know during the the bare markets we lose so many people right and I feel like that's you know kind of the opposite of resiliency these women up here see the long-term Vision have continued to show up over the years and I think that's a universal metric that we can look at yeah I agree with both of those things I think for me attrition seeing like if you survive a bare Market obviously those are tests of resilience but in some ways those are like you've already lost the battle right like you build resilience actually in the bull it's opposite of like building software in the bear like this is the time to build resilience because the bar Market tests resilience um and I think when you have lots of attrition you're already kind of losing that um resilience battle for me it's you know part of a key part of developing resilience is developing with your team your company's core values and linking Behavior to that so when we talk about how to measure resilience for me it's one just the behavior of your team on a day-to-day basis are you able in your team meetings to call out how people's actions are directly tied to your values I think the other part of it is ironically I think you should look at how many failures you've had in a risk-controlled environment and what's happened from those failures because the key part of resilience as you said is like being able to get knocked down and get back up and you don't want to have it be that like it's when you have a concussion and you can't get back up right you want it to be when it's a risk controlled environment where someone has been given ownership of something they haven't done it quite right but they're in an environment EV to what you said before that they can learn from it they're not fired right way and they can become more resilient one thing that I I want to note too like just in thinking about the process of like how One cultivates resilience as as you were noting in practice I think the same is true for you know the acific hardening of our code and smart contracts as well as the processes that we have internally on our teams right the reason that we trust certain contracts the reason that we trust certain projects is because of the volume of capital that they have supported over time that consistency of their security um and that is you know proven first through audits but then really through volume and consistency over time and I think the same is true in our you know internal team practices and even how we work with one another in this composable ecosystem that demands you know modular teams interface constantly um you know defining the processes that work getting a gut check from the other parties involved whether you know that's a formal audit for code or whether feedback for your colleagues and then over time you know repeating that process adding more value that's supported by it aify that social code as it were so you sort of jumped slightly into my my next question but you know I think that when we talk about web 3 resilience is mentioned so often and so you know how does web 3 vary in resilience from other Industries and obviously we've touched on some of these topics but I wanted just to get a little bit more specific here and see if there's anything that you think you missed on that of like what do you think that you know web 3 can learn from you know your experiences in the past from other Industries and and what's different and would you say that resilience in web 3 is drastically different from other Industries y'all we need some boundaries up in here um I definitely think the demands of a 247 Market that is emergent at every edge with with constant communication with Global time zones like this industry is 247 not just the markets which invites the most spectacular opportunity for every minute throughout the day to be um you know an an act of continued progress and for the permissionless nature of our ecosystem to invite everyone on Earth and in space with an internet connection to contribute um but what this can look like uh is very different than for more formal structures where the relationship between you and your work the relationship between you and your colleagues has been aifi in its own way by different processes um I think the Choose Your Own Adventure uh you know way of being in spaces such as Devcon and the etherium ecosystem offers the tyranny of structurelessness where it is very easy to forgo your own boundaries in service of the chain I certainly know that I do not get enough sleep and I'm not hydrating enough this week in you know in service of our work but um but that type of constant opportunity for engagement that 247 on ramp um and opportunity to participate is both a gift and a curse um and I think that the way we require resilience um to be self-guided just like the shape of how we participate in this ecosystem is different than these more traditional Informer structures where um there's a much more uh clear separation um in between what one might call work yeah U my answer my mic drop Again by the way um yeah so I I would say you know to Evan's point is this space is always on right there's always messages in telegram Discord uh things happening around the world because we are a part of this borderless Global onchain community and um I think that's a very beautiful thing I've also seen the other side of the coin where it's it's very easy to burn out I mean you should see some some of our calendars up here like uh they're pretty crazy because um I I think that comes from the excitement and the passion and the purpose behind what we're doing it makes us want to show up and and you know put 110% in because we realize the significance of the work that we're doing so I think something that other Industries can learn and what you know lessons I've learned working in web 3 and in the onchain space is you really have to master the art of time management figuring out where your time is best Set uh spent and really mastering that because it's easy to get sucked into like a ton of rabbit holes CU our space is always on there's always exciting things happening um but yeah I'd say the other side of that the positive side is that you know this is like a a global celebration I feel like so many people are excited about this industry and you know we get to be at events like Devcon and you know conferences all the time so yeah I'd say I I really love the excitement piece of it but it's really important to master your time in the space I agree with both of those things I think for me and it's we've talked about it is that web 3 you have this much bigger mission that you're that we're on and it we don't really know what the end will look like right and so it's there's a so much untapped potential that we need to harness and drive people and give people that purpose but you know I also think you know as you said like I started my career off in Investment Banking I actually probably worked just as much um it there's no creativity though I would say probably better Bankers have more creativity than I did but um I think this industry you can be creative and you can try to figure out what the best way forward forward is and that's really wonderful and I think that allows for more resilience because it gives you more ownership of what you're doing um and then you know I think there's some things from my past that I would like to see more in web 3 I think we can have more structured cultures that promote learning and teaching and mentorship you know it's a very fractional environment work environment but that doesn't mean that it's not a core part that every person contributing to a project part of their job is to teach and that is a really powerful thing to move our industry forward um one other comment I want to add like what other Industries can learn from web 3 um one of the things that initially attracted me was the the concept of dows right like being uh being in charge of my my day-to-day work right having more freedom and flexibility and ownership of my time I think that's something that's always been attractive to me but I do think we need a blend of like structure but also Freedom flexibility and sovereignty over our time because that's one of the things that initially attracted me to the space so so you all just t on a lot of really really great things you know I I want to jump back to the like this industry needs boundaries um for a second here and you know obviously you guys are all leaders in this space and we're talking about you know resilience and how you instill it in teams how do you approach it you know obviously we have we have the personal we have the teams and then we have the larger you know web three industry what would you say like as a leader how do you take your personal lessons and share share that with your teams and help build in like a resiliency practice within your your teams or communities mission team individual in that order um you know I I know there are a lot of different approaches and styles to leadership I do not want you to bring your whole self to work I want you I do not want to build a family in the office we are a band of Assassins we came here to slay we've got some we've got some objectives to achieve and whatever you want to do on the weekends when you're done go so forth but I will still be online so you know to that end I guess you know what I really mean by that is having you know a shared purpose shared ideas shared objectives a shared Way Forward means that whatever you know you showing up as an individual looks like can be part of that that you know range of of you know individual interest and expression and capability in service of your shared Focus as a team in service of your shared Mission means that anyone can take a slice that suits them well that is you know that is focused on their strengths and their areas of interest um and I think prioritizing our work prioritizing our team and then thinking about ourselves you know as individuals separately from why why we come to the table and how we come to the table together you know I think that can and should mirror ways that we think about the ethereum ecosystem as a whole you know as ethereum we are mission team individual and I hope that you know we find Opportunities to practice that in our own ways as well well I don't know how to follow I mean I feel like she really uh covered everything there I I will say there is a quote that stuck out to me from someone that I know if any of you know uh Jesse Pock the creator of Bas chain uh you know one of the first things I heard him say uh I I joined this onchain summer uh kickoff event and he said put the team over the individual stay optimistic and remember put the team over the individual and that is something that stuck with me to Evans Point putting the mission and the team before the individual is important and and of course operating in a human Centric way right Val valuing individuality but always remembering you are working towards a greater mission in purpose uh I think is essential yeah I think you struck on something that I think is really important which is like always be positive and I think a lot about you know when thinking about resilience as a leader it's this consistency and this positivity and that's not to say that you don't talk about the negative things but I think the hard job of a leader is that you have to frame the negative things with a positive outlook and to say okay this is what we're learning from this this is this is where the opportunity is because this happened um I think being calm and collected is a really good trait for resilience um and I've heard the analogy used like you have to save up the good energy from positive news to use it when there's bad news because it's way more important to have that when there's bad news so you kind of have to act like a dam in a drought right like you let out water when there's like a drought and you there's nothing sustaining your team um and I think that part of leadership and building resilience is that it can't just be you building resilience you need to coach you need to Mentor people so that they can be resilient leaders for their team and part of that again is like giving them Authority I don't know Evan like I do agree put the team before the individual but I think there still needs to be meaningful interactions and support network that allows you to be resilient and I think it's you can find that support through a mission but everyone is different and some people need to be able to share personal things about their lives at work and and be able to be known and I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing but obviously team you know is the priority and the mission of the company so we've talked a lot about you know resilience within teams and individuals um but we also have other teams that we're observing go through the same things that we are um you know I can kick it off to all of you but are there any teams that you guys have seen doing things with common denominators of resilience and what that looks like outside of your own experiences shout out to the l2s I feel like um you know in the in the scaling road map of ethereum there has been much uh much Evolution um and much iteration um first you know side chains all to l1's l2s rollup Stacks shared sequencers all of these flavors all working toward a more perfect union of block space and applications and services um so the you know just from a a technical an team perspective um the way these longstanding infrastructure substrates have evolved to accommodate better developer experience to accommodate different kinds of business needs as we have Enterprise chains entering the chat um I I think that's definitely you know something to to look toward and as a sort of a snc for all of our industry and the way that we continue to evolve and iterate both you know in the stack and in our teams yeah well I I have to start out by by just shouting out ethereum uh for just doing doing all this and making it to where we're at um you know the l2s too have come a long way uh you know shout out to the uh base and base team for traveling around the world and actually meeting with builders in person I think that's a really incredible thing like like Evan was saying right prioritizing uh the user right and the individual that's uh within your ecosystem I think they're really doing that um and then there's other projects like you know I I recently went out to Tokyo to connect with the Doge Community um the own the Doge team the team that owns the Doge IP I think they're doing really amazing things and you know the the Doge IP has lasted for so long and kind of kicked off this uh trend of of all the memes that uh we have known to love today so shout out to the Doge team who prior is fun continuing to show up and doing only good every day the Mr miggles team I've seen a lot of teams in the space uh they're actually uh newer right that came about during onchain summer who have just you know uh really done amazing things in in the short time uh that that they've been in existence so yeah shout out to all those teams yeah I would say just generally the team entrepreneurs and people working in web 3 whose previous projects didn't work and who didn't leave web 3 but started another one and stayed in the industry I think think like the specific purpose of your company or project may not be lasting but you believe in something bigger and I think that's that's really cool so there's one specific part of this industry that I really want to you know call out and and chat about during this session is so a lot of times you know we have communities in this industry and they're they're Builders they're developers so we have you know your communities are it's a community of developers and so you have your your Dev ra teams that are within your you know ecosystem teams reaching out to the builders um you know what do we see within devell and like their role within resiliency so like in traditional business you know you might hear phrases like B Tob business to business or B Toc and in crypto we have this this sort of interesting phenomena of the B Tod the businesses to developer where um so many you know components tools pieces of infrastructure rely on the um you know adoption of either independent developers and teams to drive traction of of their tools um and so the way that we speak to and engage these folks is a little is a little different like I I don't think we're going to see the KPMG team at the bar chain Rave um so understanding you know what it means to engage your audience in different ways is a little bit of a newly formed ground um I think you know culturally we're still all observing what it is to find that type of footing um and I think the the pressure that is put on the front lines of those you know rep in the code um is immense to translate you know cap Tech highly technical capabilities to a global audience you know devil is sort of one part sales one part engineering one part influencer and one part therapist and a little bit of marketing in there too oh yeah certainly and so um the evolving demands of what that looks like means that there is no longer a job description for what Vel oper relations you know is in a singular sense um it's been very cool to see the way that different teams have um you know sort of broken this practice out have uh invested in you know materials and experiences those sorts of things um but at the end of the day these are also still humans the human part of human coordination um so there is a yeah I think there is um an evolving opportunity for the maturity of what we call devrell um to be more close integrated with other parts of the practice to um be able to provide feedback I know internally on our team for example our teammates who are externally facing um provide structured feedback to our product process such that we can hear directly from folks who we're building with how we want to change and iterate prioritize new features and Beyond um and so you know I to at risk of sounding like a broken record up here the you know the core I think of of what you're asking about again is communication and understanding of the shared Mission the way that that serves the team and then how the individual fits in sure um yeah I think you're totally right like Devil basically has to wear every hat they have to be product marketing BD slightly engineering like you name it operations um I have immense amount of respect for anyone in devell and actually in some ways to the point of like reduce as an industry is a whole in web 3 we need to reduce developer friction and so we should all be wearing some sort of devel hat or think of that when we're doing our job um I think the other thing yes they're on the for they're on the for forine Forefront like working really hard having to interact with customers but the other aspect I think that's hard with devr is that they get kind of like an onslaught of issues that they have to deal with but they're not necessarily empowered within their own companies to change to make change right so like the aspect of product the aspect of engineering or on the marketing side they just have to relay that and deal with the kind of um complaints that are that they're getting and so I think there's other ways that we can think about how do we Empower devr to be more cross cutting across an organization so they actually can take action to find solutions to the things that customers are bringing rather than just being kind of you know the messengers I think that's really interesting um you know I think we have just in this industry there's so many different pockets that are all working together again towards this greater Vision um and you know Rachel I kind of want to have you touch a little bit more on communities and what you think communities can be doing for resilience how they're interacting with all these different facets and like what you've seen in your experience there uh yes something I think is really important is having some level of discourse with the community right so if you're a project I think something that's vital that we that we all crave is to be a part of the narrative to be a part of the discourse and the discussion right doing Twitter spaces I mean I I've done hundreds of space I've done some with uh with Evan before and I think you know building spaces where you can foster that Community Connection right so that you're not just working in a silo but you hear from your community you hear what they want and you actually know them they're your friends they're people that you show up with every day and speak to I think that is so essential for building Community uh building those spaces where you can hear and have that feedback loop um yeah I think that's essential also please use your own products like I I don't I I know that this is almost like kind of crazy for me to say out loud but it is challenging to empathize with the members of your community if you have not looked at the screens they look at if you do not click the buttons they click if you do not force yourself to eat the friction they have for breakfast every morning um and so I think also one of the greatest ways to show love and empathy to those individuals is to join them on the Walk of their user Journeys and to make that a part of your everyday practice whether that's you know on the product side internally to your team whether that's on you know the support side and the way that you ask and answer questions or whether that's you know you hanging out with your docs trying to start from scratch taking them literally um so you know there all of these conversations all of these you know communication patterns and showing up for each other is really great but if we are not working from a shared set of information it becomes really tough to do absolutely I also love how I'm like sitting here having a next question for Evan and she's like starting to teed up perfectly for me it's almost like we've known each other for decades um so I want to also talk about resiliency in building products and that was exactly for you when you sort of teed up when you started talking about products how do you experience in your experience like what are the lessons that you've learned in res your resilience in building products in in different products the extent to which you think other people are excited about the intricate nature of your Tech stack is vastly overrated um I think especially for those of us who kind of came up in in protocols um there is a culture that we live in to celebrate you know technical complexity and detail um and you know some might even say that that's bordering on nerd sniping um so you know I I think about resilience in technical products as a function of the operations of the team but also the processes that you know these sort of aify processes we talked about earlier um specifically very simple things you know the ability to communicate regularly with those who are using your product in indeed you know putting yourself in their shoes as we discussed having a meaningful ongoing communication with regards to those changes or updates that might improve um being prepared to receive new data for the model and iterate like a good Agent um but seriously though you know obviously there are a lot of new technologies new capabilities that are introduced frequently and so um the amount of self-awareness that teams technical teams in this ecosystem need to have is like off the charts compared to centralized Alternatives when you build a modular stack you're never going to know every character of code right of all of the other elements on which you rely unless you um unless you built the hardware yourself and mind your own minerals you're also trusting someone in that you know in that stack as well um this means that we need to trust the people behind these other products this means that we need open channels of communication um whether it's you know the way that our team at pado ID engages with our home as a base or solves problems with our colleagues at ens or defines collaborative ways forward with our teammates over at consensus the way that we build resilient products in a modular ecosystem is that we talk to each other frequently often rigorously honestly um I think also the economic incentives in this space can muddy that process can make it weird there's a lot of political tension in ethereum you know I know that that's not something we like to say out loud but there is and so the less we play into childish games of inclusion exclusion omission of information and bullying behind the scenes in the signal chats and the more we put sunlight on this as a disinfectant and speak honestly with one another in the forums I think that will be reflected in our text tax as well exactly well I think we're definitely not done with the panel but that definitely deserved some snaps at least um you know I think one of the you know when I'm looking at these panelists up here and the different backgrounds that you all come from and the sort of areas that you represent in the industry it's really intering interesting to have these varying perspectives and you know I think the the next area that I want to sort of move to and touch upon is um obviously this industry is mostly remote there are some companies that are you know having or protocols that have in-person things but when we have everybody that's remote one we obviously we come together for conferences like we have here we I think it's over like 12,000 attendees and over 950 side events in addition to the main conference there is this need for for human interaction and I think that those moments also give us resiliency um as an ecosystem together but in in all of your experiences from the you know the different sides of the industry that you come from how do you Foster you know resiliency Within your teams specifically around this remote work or or being isolated or only getting to see people you know a couple times a year um running around in the chaos of conferences yeah I could take that well obviously the conferences are a big piece you know having those opportunities to come together and connect and do events um also locally I realized there's a lot you can do in your local community so I actually I moved to Berkeley and realized okay there's a lot of people in the Bay Area that want to connect that want to learn um you know as far as my I I guess people in the community that I work with I kind of go out of my way to to find them to host events together uh even virtual events that's another way you know you can connect with people around the world uh you know I started a telegram group called uh let's touch base shout out to our let's touch base friends um and yeah basically every day you know it's a place where we can go and we have this camaraderie we you know talk about you know not not only working crypto but like our personal goals too and you know uh really just have this place where we Foster connections and friendships um so I think really taking advantage of those virtual spaces is essential uh especially if you're a team working uh globally right uh having your chats having your uh your uh Twitter spaces as well and also I've become a big proponent of creating video content as well um you know showing my face showing up on video talking and putting myself out there um and and connecting with the community virtually is something I've started doing a lot more of yeah I think it is a challenge you know I think there's a lot of positives of remote working I think for us it's really that we're able to recruit an incredibly diverse talent pool that we wouldn't be a ble to recruit if we were if we were tied to recruiting only in like a physical location for a physical office but I think there's a lot that comes from just like spontaneous collaboration when you're in an office together and that's what we really need to strive to achieve when we're in this remote working environment and I think the first thing is to talk about it like to be honest about that with your team of like there are downsides let's tackle them and let's invest in opportunities for you to tackle them whether that's you know cross compan um you know Zoom like online Meetings online events also spending money to have imperson meetups you know our company we do a retreat twice a year um and we're you know I think it's also kind of changing your incentive scheme so that you look at how much are people contributing to dealing with this remote working and and finding this cross collaboration so you know in our company it's you know companywide trivia on Tuesday about people and fun facts about them and then there's rewards at the end of a certain amount of time about like who's winning trivia I think there's they're corny but I do think that they matter that people need to be you know see that leadership cares about this and is trying to tackle it I would say like so you know we are sitting here in this room a function of extraordinary privilege not everyone and every team has the opportunity to hop on a flight and join the traveling intellectual circus at its next stop and so it is outlandish that we would assume the opportunity to be in these extremely fortunate spaces though it is incredible spectacular that we are here together um and I think that you know if you have the the privilege and opportunity to you know to come to the Mountaintop and to visit Devcon of course that is the ideal but you know to your point remote experiences are also incredibly compelling um so you know the the privilege that we have to leverage the content created at conferences like Devon Devcon to share it among our teams to create a common vocabulary of what we've learned and how we learned about it I think is you know one thing that's always been you know very important to to me in my practice um one thing that we've started doing at pado ID is also every other Thursday we do just an hour of like straight headlines and updates feelings check-in on the week's news on chain especially as it pertains to our work um and that can of course include very focused and you know disciplined technical approaches to you know papers and things that that have been released of late but also can just be a fun and joyful time to show one another daps that we like or new interfaces that are cool or ask for help because we've somehow you know wound ourselves up into some like weird experimental shitcoin we don't know how to get out of um but you know we can recreate those moments of curiosity and learning and openness um and I think doing so you know by example asking for help showing something that you've learned inviting other people to do so um is a simple way to start I think those are all great so I have we have a couple minutes before we're going to open it up to questions and I sort of wanted to end this this panel with you know we've talked about a lot of topics here a lot of different you know parts of the industry are there any specific tools that you guys have used either personally or for your teams or like best tips or tricks that if you had a you know a minute sound bite that you wanted to go off on that we we didn't touch on yet I wanted to kind of give you guys the opportunity to to talk on any of that so I was thinking about it last night when I was at to dinner probably 50 people I was looking around the room all men of course and thinking about um you know what it means to to welcome people who don't look like you into a space where they are not representing the majority what does it mean to invite resiliency when the diversity of the folks at the table is pretty imbalanced um now I you know feel incredibly fortunate in that um you know I was first introduced to bitcoin like 2010 2011 by a young woman so I never got the m memo this wasn't for me um you know just girl stuff crypto as you can see here up on stage um so we feel you know confident in in this way forward but a really cool tool that I want to give a shout out to is called shifi um it's a curriculum created by a close friend former colleague ma Maggie love um that is used to introduce fundamental concepts of Defi and crypto to all audiences um today shifi is utilized by teams like Fidelity teams like Ava as um an introductory set of content for those who are new to crypto um leveraging uh you know examples that help both the most you know technical among us as well as those who may not be as familiar with these topics um and so I guess the sort of tip of the spear there is you know tools that are well suited to the unique experiences of your teammates exist discoverability is tough on chain and in the game so um also just remember one tool you always have are your DMs on Twitter Min are open ask for help and by the way she serious I have never met anybody that will answer more questions and be there and show up for people so take her up on that yeah um well I think to what Evan was saying I think prioritizing inclusivity is so important in our space uh you know tools like shifi and and you know even boy club right prioritizing the fun aspects having the parties where we can all gather and you know connect with other women in the space I think that's invaluable um and for me you know founding onchain media um doing onchain media Collective uh what I've really uh prioritized is looking for places where I can actually mint my stuff on chain so I'm a big proponent of Zora of Dracula if anyone's familiar and I think that's a really good feeling to not just like put my Creations out there uh only solely on YouTube or Twitter X um but actually having that onchain element right so uh you know we're perpetuating the ethos of bringing the world on chain so uh for me that feels really good and yeah we cannot um underestimate the importance of Education in the space too the education Focus projects are essential I think shifi is just knocked out of the park uh with their whole curriculum so uh yeah education focused projects uh uh creating onchain media for me has has been something I really loved and building more inclusive spaces also RA are you minting with pods pods. media no but I I want to connect with them fantastic Lucas shout out we love you in your we love you Lucas um I would add what's been most helpful for me is having a great co-founder who's kind of the opposite of me and thinks about things in a different way and compliments me and and we have very different skill sets so I think surrounding yourself with people that complement you I think is really important because it's not you can't do it alone and you need a team around you that helps you in your weaknesses and bolsters you in your strengths really quick rigor is a love language do not surround yourself all day with people who only gas you up and tell you how great you are if someone cares deeply enough about your work to offer a disagreement a critique or piece of feedback that is a gift you say thank you thank you yes and I think I can't quite see the clock here but I think 20 seconds great so we I think we just finished off on the the official time for the panel and we're going to open it up to some questions now um I think some of these have been a little bit touched on but I this is one so the first question um which I think you all can see up there is you know we touched on how do you build community in a a remote team which I know Olivia you touched on that um but we didn't really touch on time zones and differences with time zones so if you guys have any additional answers on you know building Community with with time zones and remote stuff that you would like to add so let's open it up to that for the first question you have so the the team that you know we have the Good Fortune of working with represents a global array of individuals and therefore a broad range of time zones um you know as with all composable Stacks you have to choose the attributes that you prefer and do you need to accommodate for the challenges that they may introduce there are trade-offs in all things as in our team composition and that means if you want to have Global voices at the table you're going to have to get on Zoom at 2 o'clock in the morning and you are going to have to accommodate just as much as your colleagues will have to accommodate you I think you know the the sort of Waypoint here um that you know that's really important to remember are what are those moments of human connection even if they are happening at moments that are inconvenient to your calendar those things things can occur async those things can occur in you know moments of sharing and learning and so devoting time and energy to them is the only way you know there's no perfect answer but practice makes progress yeah and something I mentioned earlier too is time management so time management and mastering your calendar are like essential skill sets in this space you know especially if you're working with a global team making sure you're scheduling uh communicating with your team and mastering time management is absolutely like a needed thing if you're working on a global team I think can work with a global team but some time zones just don't work like I think sustainably like I couldn't get on a zoom every day at 2:30 in the morning I think you have to be realistic I think there's certain amount of hours and you have to it's you know you have it's individual you have to decide what's right for you but I think that you do have to design a team with that in mind I also think you have to look at who works with whom and so like people need a buddy who they work with so you might have people that that are really far away but you have two of them they collaborate together so you just have to be mindful of it who are the individuals what's their role and what you know what will drive them forward all right next question what's the best way to encourage your team to stay current and educated on the state-ofthe-art all right show of hands how many of you have listened to a crypto podcast in the last month last year all right so it seems like we've got pretty pretty good consensus there I personally am a huge fan of The Chopping Block if I were to if I were to pick one um but there are so many well curated Publications um that keep us up on the tea uh if you're going to subscribe to a newsletter I think milk road is a really outstanding one and if you want some Savage memes and excellent crypto content definitely uh smash subscribe to the boys club newsletter yes um something I would also say is depending on what your purpose and your mission is I'd say look for people that are doing the things that you want to do people that could be kind of like uh leaders or examples of accomplishing the things you want to do follow them I don't know I think Twitter is is for me a place where I you know follow warp cast as well where I follow individuals that are just uh you know doing things that I I want to Aspire to do I think that's a powerful Tool YouTube is a powerful tool podcasts um I think just immersing yourself in your specific KNE if you have one um and following those individuals that are talking about it and you know uh listening to the experts but also be careful if all they're doing is talking that talk are they an influencer being paid by a protocol to do it so do your own research remember the builders have different incentives than uh those that are you know Distributing content on Twitter um so as a leader how to encourage people to do it you have to do it yourself or have someone on the leadership team doing it and I think they have to talk about that they're doing it so one in team meetings talk about podcasts that you've listened to and why you found them really interesting J second if that's not if you don't have that space make the space so put a meeting on a calendar that's optional that the whole team can come and join that meeting invite and talk about interesting things they've learned that week and we I'm going to add on that because I'm at the same company as Olivia at moonsong Labs we have a weekly uh devs uh news and and sharing for for learnings and news and anybody's able to attend so it's like a non-developer I will go sometimes too and so if you have multiple people who are looking at maybe I'm looking at more Market other people are looking at more technical stuff other people are looking at regulation you can kind of work together to find the areas of interest that people are researching so I was sorry to add to that guys um hold on my questions just went down um all right love Olivia's comment about learning from failures how do you make time from retro learnings when there's so much pressure to move on to the next thing often early and often feedback is never an untimely gift um one of the things just I do personally in one-on ones with their teams especially um you know when we're more talking about kind of product and design those sort of tangible deliverables um three quick questions what's going well what's not going well how can I help and having that conversation on a regular basis I think you know helps to uncover some of these challenges or points of friction um additionally Retros are really wonderful obviously everyone has different ceremonies and processes you know our vers of agile is going to look different than B's version of agile um but holding time for formal structures um where people are welcome to share what is not going well or did not go well um as an opportunity to do better not a punitive measure sounds really obvious sometimes challenging in practice especially when we're stressed or especially when we expected things to go a certain way and didn't um and so the you know the thing to remember always I you know I I know this may not be new to you guys um but it is never you against your teammate it is always you and your teammate against the problem yeah and I I think something that you were saying earlier is that it's actually healthy to talk about the negative to talk about the problems and how you can overcome them right so I think taking that time like to what Evan was saying to actually analyze what's working what's not working how can we help doing that as a team is very important but also doing that as an individual is extremely important right holding yourself accountable because you know no one really has the time to uh hold your hand every everything right like you're the one at the end of the day who has to look in the mirror and say okay what is working for me where am I seeing the best results where is my time best spent and what things aren't exactly working and what can I take off my plate so I think individual account accountability is very important as well yeah I feel like I'm going to be like Nike here like you just have to do it like just you just have to like find the time I think that a lot of times in blockchain like it there it's crisises are very time sensitive so obviously not in the middle of a security issue do you say like let's where where did we fail here but I think that you know two weeks down you have to go back and look at this like where what practic is what needs to change to make sure this didn't happen all right so in the spirit of putting mission team first what do you do when the te the needs of the team's team evolves but team members work isn't evolving to meet the shifting needs yeah I can I can jump in on that one like obviously every situation is different I think a key thing is communication so the team member has known that their that their work needs to evolve it's not meting expectations you need to have that those conversations even when they're difficult but I also would say that you know if someone your team is only as strong as the weakest person so if someone isn't stepping up if someone isn't performing at the level of Excellence that you need that is a detriment to your team and you do need to move quickly to fix that yeah teams are commitments that we make to each other the second those commitments are not in a position where they can be honored in the same way it warrants a conversation and that goes both ways whether for individuals and also you know the the leaders who support them all right I think we probably we're going to try to get through both of these but we're definitely going to hit this first one what personality traits do you look at when recruiting new talent that gives you hints about resilience I'll I'll comment there real quick I would say passion and excitement when I see that light and that spark in someone like they are so lit up about what they're doing I'm like okay they they have that energy they have that level of passion and dedication to really show up and be hungry I look for hunger in people um people people that want to show up and and do the work and are excited about it because I think you know they'll they'll have that energy and that momentum to get back up if we get knocked down so I think passion spark and energy is what I look for yeah I love that they also need to be able to talk about their failures if you ask them what their weaknesses are or what they've learned from failures and they kind of go quiet it's not a good sign um I definitely think that uh you know folks need to um be able to do what they think makes sense so and you know individual sense of autonomy and comfort there um I also think that uh I I'm big on the yes and people um you know if we have a conversation we identify a task to be done I do not want to just execute on the task I want us to explore the idea so the execution of the task is the start not the end of how we act on it and I can't see the clock but I think we're very close to time 28 28 seconds all right I'm going to take the the last 28 seconds we have to say thank you so much to everybody for being here for your great questions uh to our amazing panelists please you know we're going to stick around afterwards if you have questions you want to talk to us we're here again follow everybody on Twitter look at what they're doing um DM them they will answer you you have proven Authority Rachel onchain and _ Smith um and thank you again you guys have been a really really great audience these questions were really insightful and happy last day of Devcon everyone all right thank [Applause] every thank you