GRTiQ Podcast: 138 Isaac Prada

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Isaac Prada (00:00:49):

So basically, whenever you have to access data on chain, there are several ways and what we found is that The Graph is the most efficient way for us in terms of currently decentralization uptime in terms of cost.

Nick (00:01:34):

Welcome to the GRTiQ Podcast. Today I’m speaking with Isaac Prada, the director of communications and project management at Radiant Capital. Radiant Capital is a pioneering DeFi solution facilitating cross chain lending and borrowing of assets with the ambitious mission of becoming the first omni chain money market. Their mission is to allow users to deposit major assets on any major blockchain and borrow a variety of supported assets across multiple chains. As you’re about to hear, Isaac has a fascinating background. During our interview, he takes us through his university years where he not only completed, but also won an international competition that ultimately led him to the thrilling world of Formula 1. We discussed his transition from Formula 1 to Airbus, his foray into entrepreneurship, and his subsequent entry into the web3 space culminating in his role at Radiant Capital. Throughout our conversation, Isaac shares valuable insights into system optimization, achieving balance in life, the utilization of The Graph by Radiant Capital and a lot more. As always, we start the discussion talking about Isaac’s educational background.

Isaac Prada (00:02:44):

Absolutely, and happy to take this question because it’s not one that I normally answer on AMAs. So, I’m an electrical and mechanical engineer, born and raised in Madrid, Spain. Then I went on to work for Formula 1, aerospace in Airbus, and then I came back to finish my PhD in optimization. So that’s my educational background in a nutshell.

Nick (00:03:05):

Do you remember why you decided to pursue a degree in electrical engineering? What was it that drew you to that field?

Isaac Prada (00:03:10):

Well, the first engineer I knew who came and spoke about the degree itself told us engineering faculty, the engineering school in this case, had the largest tennis court and that was the reason for him. I said, okay, I want to decide for something with more weight than just a tennis court. I was into physics and I was about to get into the physics degree, but I decided to move into engineering because I thought it was more tangible. So it was like physics, bringing physics to the ground. And that way I thought I could be, well, closer to the real tangible jobs that I could think of and not just working in a university lab of some sort. So that was why I turned down physics, one of my passions, and I went into engineering, which was enough physics for me and much more time.

Nick (00:04:01):

And so you mentioned this PhD and I think you said optimization, but can we double click on that? What do you mean by that and what did you study exactly?

Isaac Prada (00:04:08):

Yeah, absolutely. That was when I came back from Formula 1 and after spending a spell of three years in Airbus and aerospace, I started a PhD. It was the third PhD intent that I started. So I tried starting my PhD on two other topics, but then I moved to optimization and in particular aerodynamic optimization. I came from Formula 1. I realized the importance of aerodynamics course. Anyone can realize the importance of clean airflow, well, the car and all the effort that’s put into optimizing the aerodynamics of a Formula 1 car or any racing car. But Formula 1 is like pinnacle. And when I came back, I decided to apply all that I had learned into aerodynamic optimization for the industry in general. And we started developing, as a matter of chance, we started developing a cool project, which is an indoor skydiving facility. I think you have one quite close by to you, Nick, but it’s basically one of those places where you can simulate free-falling from an airplane, but in a closed environment, super safe, one meter above ground level.

(00:05:11):

And of course that requires very, very extreme aerodynamic optimization because it’s a massive amount of air being moved around within the tunnel. And you can optimize the consumption of electricity a lot if you optimize the aerodynamic design. So, we wanted to be the most sufficient wind tunnel in the world and we wanted to be the fastest. And we achieved that in 2016. It reached around about 300 kilometers per hour. I don’t know off the top of my mind what that is in miles, but it’s very, very fast. And that was the project I applied my aerodynamic optimization too. And then I developed an optimization algorithm, something similar to AI that’s in such a fashion today, but basically an AI algorithm to optimize geometries and make them more streamlined for better aerodynamic performance. And this I also applied to mathematics in general and it can be applied to finance and other fields, but I focused on that aerodynamic performance.

Nick (00:06:07):

You’re right, I have seen one of these facilities before and they’re brilliant and a lot of fun to see.

Isaac Prada (00:06:12):

Have you tried it?

Nick (00:06:13):

I haven’t done it yet. A little nervous about that and I don’t know if I’ve got the strength quite yet in the core to do it, but maybe one day. After interviewing so many guests on this podcast, I’ve come across, as you might imagine, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, software engineers, of course. What is it about that engineering brain that primes them for career or pursuit of career in web3? Have you ever thought about that? It seems to attract a lot of people with engineer like brains.

Isaac Prada (00:06:43):

Well, I was saying before that I turned down physics and I selected engineering because I think engineering is, in my case, building physics, but it’s building many science and tech things. So it puts a stress on actually building things, but it also puts a stress on prioritizing things, organizing things, knowing how to solve big problems because you know how to divide big problems into sub-problems, chunks of a problem that you can then prioritize, optimize address with different methodologies. So it’s really having an organized mind with clear priorities, objectives, goals, indicators to see if you’re progressing well. And I think that that’s very well suited to build things in a complex world, in a dynamic world. And it’s not necessarily only in purely engineering tech related fields, but it’s also applicable in finance, medicine, elsewhere. Maybe it’s not your own core major that you studied at university, but it’s something related and the same principles are applied.

(00:07:44):

And in particular case of web3, I think the charming nature of uncharted territory, it’s like the gold rush, but in the good sense. So trying to find something which has not yet been discovered or trying new things, it’s uncharted territory. It’s like trailblazers in that sense. And I really love the fact that being the first ones to build, I think that’s the excitement and engineers love building things, and if you add that extra motivation of being the first ones to build something in a new sector, in a new tech field such as crypto and web3 in the space, plus you add the important layer of the ethos, the values, being able to help bank the unbank, eliminate frontiers, develop new ways of payment systems, which are far more efficient than what we currently have. And you’re thinking countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, countries in Africa, whenever you add all those layers and you add them up, it’s a cool blend. If you’re into beer, good wine, it’s a good blend to have and I think that’s what attracts many engineers to this field.

Nick (00:08:52):

Well, Isaac, you and I are speaking today because you eventually make your way into web3 and you’re with Radiant Capital presently. But let’s work backwards a little bit. So you’ve already mentioned once or twice here that right after university you went to work in Formula 1. I’m always love coming across GRTiQ Podcast number one. This is the first time I’ve ever had the chance to interview a guest with this type of background. So, talk to us about that. How did you get involved in Formula 1 and what did you do there?

Isaac Prada (00:09:18):

Well, absolutely. That was one of my first projects in optimization actually as I later carried out for my PhD. And once I was on my last year at university, so that was my fifth year in that case. I remember my parent came in with a small newspaper article and it said, “Alonso is searching for his next engineer.” Alonso, of course being Fernando Alonso, so a famous Spanish driver in Formula 1. He was, well, winning his first races in Formula 1 and it’s not common for Spain to have a top driver in Formula 1. It’s common for the UK, Germany, other countries in Europe, but not for Spain at the time. And everyone was super excited. Everyone was bullish on Alonso. And when my father came with that, my mother said, “Okay, what’s that all about?” And it was this competition, international competition to put together and present technological idea for a Formula 1 car that you had to present in front of, well, there were several rounds. There was a national round, then an international round at the Renault Formula 1 premises in the UK.

(00:10:22):

And when my mother saw the exams I had at the university, all the work I had, she said, “Oh, that’s nonsense, absolute nonsense. You cannot do that competition this year with all the work that you had.” But something sort of, it was like a little spark in me. And as I said before, building things, being the first to build was that motivation for me at that time. And I said, “Okay, well this is absolutely crazy. So there’s one in a million chances that I can win this, but someone has to win. So, I’m going to try it.” And I tried it and it was like I always say I didn’t win because I had the best idea. I won, and the jury later told me about it, because I was able to show to present the idea in a more compelling way and because I was able to show that within a Formula 1 environment in terms of stress, quick decision making and so on, I was, that’s what they thought, at least the best candidate of that year.

(00:11:21):

And it was the first time this competition was held internationally. When I got there, they told me, “Okay, you will be the last presenting.” So I said, “That’s wonderful. I will see all the rest of the presentations.” Then on the actual day of the presentation they said, “No, no, you will be the third presenting.” So one of the first. So that added up to the stress. It was super stressful, but I really loved it. I went for it. I was passionate. I took some prototypes with me on my luggage when I went there. I absolutely loved what I was presenting and I was lucky enough to win the competition.

(00:11:58):

It added up to the stress, Nick, that there was such a fandom growing in Spain that I had two journalists fly with me to film the competition. So I was the only candidate with two journalists from TV, from a major TV channel in Spain coming. And they said, “Okay, he comes like he’s going to win.” And by no means, but it was adding up to the stress. So it was even more challenging. But then when I ended up winning and it was one of the best experiences, professional experiences in my life by far absolute.

Nick (00:12:32):

There’s two components of that story that are incredible to me. So the first one of course is the fact that you worked in Formula 1 and I have a lot of questions about that. But the second thing is this competition and international competition and the fact that you won. Starting with that, how does going through an experience like that with the pressure, with the media, with this probabilities, the chances of losing far outweighing the chances of winning, how does that change the way you think about life as a young person getting started in career and in work? That must’ve had quite an impact about how you thought about and framed your career.

Isaac Prada (00:13:08):

Absolutely, and it’s of course, this doesn’t mean going to the casino, it’s the pure excitement of being able to have, yes, a very, very tiny small chance of winning. But the excitement of winning is so big that it’s the whole process and that’s the most important thing. The whole process is there for you to enjoy. And I must admit, I didn’t enjoy the process at all. I have learned to enjoy the process after that when I was in Formula 1, when I was nervous, when I was an entrepreneur for many years setting up my first companies. And I learned to enjoy the passion and the pressure, not only the passion, but the pressure mostly because otherwise you cannot go through all the process and everything that’s needed to really outperform your expectations. But when I was preparing for this project, I was too young to know at that point. And I enjoyed the process after I had finished and after I had won the competition, but not during the preparation and everything while I was prepping for the competition.

(00:14:08):

But absolutely going through what’s currently of course a very small version of America’s Got Talent or any talent show, we had a national, well first, a local competition and I was interviewed in four languages because they saw my resume that I said I spoke French and German. The lady interviewing me was French, so her French was pretty good and she interviewed me in French then in German. And then I had a national round and then we had the international round and there was a guy. Well first day we gathered with the rest of the candidates, there was a French guy from the Olympic ski team of France, there was a Canadian guy being backed by NASA, and there was an Indian guy from India. And so you saw the level of candidates and that only added up to the pressure. I said, okay, I’m lucky enough to have got here, but I’m going to be give it my best.

(00:15:01):

And well, the competition was for me, it was an opportunity to ensure that when you try to give the best, you’ve given your best throughout all the process and you have that excitement of being able to be in Formula 1. I think that I wasn’t better, smarter than the rest, but I’m pretty sure I was more convinced than anyone else that I could win.

Nick (00:15:26):

I love that insight there and I think I’ll always remember the idea that we must be in love with the process and learn to enjoy that. So, let’s click then on this Formula 1 experience. Take us inside that industry. I’m sure a lot of listeners follow and track Formula 1. I know there was a Netflix series, for example, in the US that brought a lot of interest into the sport. Take us inside that. What is that industry like? What did you learn? What did you see?

Isaac Prada (00:15:50):

Well, I’ll take you through Formula 1 with two moments, two stories, if I may, because I think they offer the best insight into what I at least lived in Formula 1. I worked for Renault Formula 1 for two seasons. And I was lucky enough that those were the two seasons in which Renault Formula 1 won, won everything, the drivers championship and the team championship, the constructors with Fernando Alonso, as I said. And the first project I had, I remembered my boss, Robin Tuluie, head of R&D, I was in the R&D department, so developing the ideas and the prototypes for the car of the next season of the following season, not the current season that we were competing in.

(00:16:31):

And when Robin, my boss at the time, came to me for my first assignment, he said, “Okay, Isaac, you’ve won the competition. You’re one of our R&D engineers now and you have to develop a test rig to test the braking system of the Formula 1 cars.” And I said, “Okay, what have I got to do?” And he said, “Okay, you have to simulate the braking system,” which of course gets up to 18 degrees Celsius, so pretty hot, don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but very, very hot. They glow in red. Whenever you are training at night, you can see the discs glowing red and that’s super impressive. “So you have to develop this braking, test brake and you have to design how you’re going to pull it down and you have to have a moving wheel. And of course you have to build it here in the warehouse and of course the wheel has to go as fast as possible to be as close to reality as possible.”

(00:17:27):

And I said, “Okay, well that’s a cool project. Seems exciting. I’m sure I will be part of a great team of engineers that will be, and I will be designing alongside them the different parts of the break.” I asked Robin, “And who’s in charge of the project?” And he looked around, he smiled and he said, “You are, because if you’ve got here, if you reached the end of the competition and you’ve won, it means that you are more or less as smart as we need engineers to be in Formula 1. So, you’re in charge. Everyone else will help. The technicians, lab technicians and so on will support, but you’re absolutely in charge. This is your project. This is your absolute responsibility.”

(00:18:03):

I had never of course designed a braking rig, never of course designed a cooling system, had no idea how to get something up to that temperature, that speed. And that level of pressure combined with the responsibility and the autonomy, so all the team relying on me for that particular project. Of course there were hundreds of other projects, but that particular project was only my only responsibility and I was the only one responsible for that. That was an extra level of pressure, but also an extra level of motivation. That was the main driving force for me in that case.

(00:18:39):

And then the second moment was whenever we were developing a different simulation test rig for the cooling system of the cars. For anyone very, well, not very familiar with Formula 1 cars, you have two big black holes to either side of the cockpit where the driver is sitting. Those are the airflow entrances to the radiators and basically the radiators are the core of the cooling system for both water and oil within the tanks and the systems of the car. Basically what we try to do in Formula 1 is make them as small as possible because that way the whole body of the car can be as streamlined as possible. Those basically are two big things in the airflow and they are big, big obstacles in terms of aerodynamic.

(00:19:29):

So, we wanted to test how we could reduce the size. We had built a whole new testing rig for this, a whole new facility, a small wind tunnel. That’s where I gathered my first experience regarding to wind tunnels that I later used for the indoor skydiving wind tunnel. And one of the times I remember we had had an accident within the testing rig, something had exploded. The whole room had just been swallowed by fumes and smoke and everything. Nothing happened thankfully, but we were having lots of pressure to meet the deadlines and everything. And I met one of the technicians of the head lab technicians, Martin, and he saw that I was very, very stressed. And he said, “This is a huge level of stress I know, but we love the passion. What would be this job without that level of stress? We wouldn’t enjoy the passion as much as we do. If you had two years instead of two weeks to develop something, this would not be the same.”

(00:20:26):

And when you are working in a world where there are only a thousand engineers because it’s roughly 100 to 200 engineers multiply by 10 teams and you want to be the best, and the differences are measured in less than the time you take the blink your eye, the blinking of an eye, and I’m a quick blinker, it’s 0.15 seconds. And normally differences in Formula 1 can be 10 times smaller than that. So, really the level of excellence that you need coupled with the level of pressure, if you think of the finance or the traditional Wall Street company world where you present results every quarter, in Formula 1, you’re presenting results 23 times a year because those are the races in front of hundreds of millions of viewers. Plus with the Netflix series, of course, many people in countries such as the US have become huge fans of Formula 1. So it’s lots of pressure, but that’s where the passion comes from.

(00:21:20):

So it’s the excitement, the passion, the working on the limit, trying new things. For example, I can finish up with another anecdote and that was Bob Bell, one of the huge, well great, great engineers of all time in Formula 1. Bob Bell, at that time, he was our chief technology officer and we were discussing with this supplier of springs and they had this new spring built of a new material, super exotic. And they said, “Okay, what’s the safety coefficient that you work with?” Normally on buildings or whatever when you build a pillar or column or structure, you have a safety coefficient because you don’t know the amount of people that are going to be living there, the amount of snow that you can get, the speed of wind that you can have, so you have your safety cushion. Well, Bob Bell smiled and he said, “This is Formula 1, we have no safety margin. So, we work with no safety coefficient.”

Nick (00:22:47):

Hi, this is GRTiQ and thank you for listening. Listeners who enjoy this content can help support the GRTiQ Podcast by leaving a review or a five star rating wherever they download podcasts, by sharing episodes on social media, or by simply telling a friend or colleague about something they heard or learned from one of our guests. It’s support from listeners like you that make it possible for us to keep shining a light on the people and stories behind web3 and The Graph. Eventually after two seasons, you move on from that team and start heading in a different direction, but made a stop as a commentator, which you did for quite a while. Do you still do that? Are you still a commentator for Formula 1?

Isaac Prada (00:23:37):

Yeah, I’ve been doing it for, it’s over 17 years now. And it’s only on the weekends, of course, so I can coordinate that well with my normal week job at Radiant in this case. And it’s commenting every race from a technical perspective and I love doing it. And I’ve learned so much because it’s not only knowing about the tech, but learning from the great commentators, radio commentators, in this case, journalists, how to make it engaging. People who may not know, may not be familiar as you are with the sport in this case, Formula 1.

Nick (00:24:08):

So some listeners may recognize your voice and you’re on Spanish National Radio where you’re doing that commentary. So indeed you might have some folks here today that are listening, recognizing. So after two seasons you move on and you decide to go work at Airbus. Tell us about what happened there. What was the transition? What sparked the move?

Isaac Prada (00:24:27):

For me, family is one of our priorities, top priorities. So in that case, that year was when my grandmother passed away. So I felt that my parents, especially my mother, was having a tough time at that moment and I decided to go back to Spain. And I said, “Okay, there are many cool things that I can do tech-wise in Spain. So if Formula 1 is my path, I will get back.” But otherwise, I’ve lived two marvelous seasons in Formula 1. Probably never again would I have lived those two seasons in Renault and that was what happened. They haven’t won again, and that’s 16, 17 years ago. And I decided to go back, find something that I was excited about in Spain. And I found it within a new R&D center that was being founded by Airbus in Spain. And I had the opportunity of working within a multinational company such as Airbus, move around Europe. I travel a lot, get to meet really cool people, but in the aerospace sector, which was another of my passions along with Formula 1 and quite close in many, many aspects.

Nick (00:25:32):

At what point in your life did you make family top priority? Is this something you grew up knowing or is this something you came to learn and decided to make a priority?

Isaac Prada (00:25:43):

I think that that’s something I learned with the years. And I guess I learned it especially on those tough moments because when things are working well, when everything’s going well, then everyone’s happy. You can go away, you can be on the other side of the world and that’s not a problem. And your family’s happy, you’re happy, everything’s going well. But when you realize that you are too far away to live some things which you want to live, which you want to experience, you realize that, okay, that’s cool for some time, but whenever this special, sad moments happen, you have to be close to those that are important to you because at the end of the day, and now it’s crazy to understand, but in 2005 it was not that easy to work remotely or do other things that we can do easily now. You really have to prioritize in life there are way more exciting things than just the job that you’re currently working at.

(00:26:37):

And you know that at least that’s my view. And when you realize that family is first, there’s always a way of doing exciting. It’s not that I had to go back and I had to say no to my exciting career and that I stopped doing exciting things. I did many other things I wouldn’t have built, founded my first tech company, built the indoor skydiving wind tunnel if I hadn’t come back [inaudible 00:26:59]. I always joke with my wife that I would probably have married a British woman, but I’m much more happy now. So, that’s also part of the story.

Nick (00:27:08):

Well, Isaac, you’re truly an incredible guy. So just catching everybody up here have an incredible academic pedigree, apply for competition, an international competition, awarded an opportunity to go Formula 1. You just mentioned there some of the things in the projects you took on two amazing seasons. You pivot out of that go to work at Airbus, but you’re also still working as a commentator and then somewhere along the line you also start lecturing in mechanical engineering. So, how in the world does that come about? And how are you balancing your time among all these different things?

Isaac Prada (00:27:43):

Well, I wanted to give back part of what I had received because I remember two of my favorite teachers, lecturers, professors throughout both my school years and then my university years. I actually invited both of them to my graduation from university because I thought that they were such an important part of my academic degrees and studies and I wanted to give back something of what I had learned in Formula 1. So the engineering mindset that we were discussing before, taken to the utmost limit as in the pinnacle of motorsport as they always refer to in Formula 1. I wanted to bring back some part of what I had learned in Formula 1 to everyday students that didn’t really know what they wanted to do as a job in their life, that they really didn’t realize all the possibilities that there were. And I wanted to bring part of that mindset, not only the technical lessons that I had learned, but also the mindset, which in life is much more important.

(00:28:45):

Engineering, as with any dynamic field, gives you the technical foundation, but most importantly it gives you the mindset. So I wanted to bring back part of that. And first day of my first lesson, Nick, when I went there I was 23 and there were guys there who were older than me because of course they had spent more years at the university. They were much taller and stronger. And I said, “Okay guys, how am I going to take control of the whole bunch of guys in front of me?” Mostly the men at that point, not very many women. And it was a tough lesson, but I enjoyed it a lot.

(00:29:22):

And once I set the limits for the class, because it was not only knowing what you wanted to tell the group, but also how you wanted to engage with them and make it as engaging and motivating as possible. Once I left it clear that I would leave no room for people to make jokes of me or whatever, things just flowed very naturally. I enjoyed it and they enjoyed it and I had some of the best experiences professionally speaking of my life. Absolutely.

Nick (00:29:51):

Well, you’ve already accomplished at 23 what most people hope to accomplish over a whole career in their life. How are you balancing your time? How are you as a young person balancing all these different obligations?

Isaac Prada (00:30:03):

Well, that was one of the lessons I learned years after that because I don’t want this to be the perfect story or the romantic tale. I want to share my lessons with everyone and everything I’ve accomplished. I love to serve as inspiration for others rather than any sort of benchmark or anything. And what I learned at that time was that I was devoting, and you asked about priorities and family priorities before, and I learned that I was devoting too much time to my job, first my studies and then my job. So, I would’ve enjoyed spending more time having fun with my friends during my university degree and so on. And that’s something I tried to regain afterwards, to recover badly afterwards whenever I realized that it was something. If I went back today, I would try to spend more time doing other stuff rather than being at university studying and only working on projects and stuff.

(00:31:01):

By the way, it’s the same kind of regrets Formula 1 drivers have. They have no free time to spend with friends as much as they would’ve liked, to eat what they would. They are in a diet since they are age six. So it’s really a tough program. And I would’ve, it’s not that I regret the amount of time that I work, but I would’ve wanted a bit more of not excitement of fun, but quality time with friends that I had years after that. So, that’s also a lesson I learned. For example, I have a little child now and I would want him to learn how to reach a better trade off than I reached during those years between my leisure time and what’s your passion? But at the end of the day, it was my passion, so I enjoyed my time too much. But course you have to have a balance.

Nick (00:31:49):

As you mentioned earlier. Eventually you become an entrepreneur and you pivot out of working in traditional industry and starting something on your own. Is this around the time of Airbus? And talk to us about that moment. What was going on in your life to kind of spark this entrepreneurial fire, so to speak?

Isaac Prada (00:32:07):

I will tell you one of those stories that I enjoyed telling and it was when I was offered a new position in Airbus. This was for an internal program that they had to develop future managers and they offered me the dream position for me at that time. So working in special R&D, the R&D department of EADS, that was the name of the company, but it was basically Airbus at the time. And it was living between Munich and Paris, two of my favorite cities in Europe. And the day I was accepted for that job, I turned down my job at Airbus because I realized in parallel I’d been working as a hobbyist with some other entrepreneurs for some months and we had also been granted a project to develop the first electric bus, minibus. And so I realized I couldn’t do both things at the same time. So I had to choose and I loved both projects, but I said, “Okay, maybe this is the time to jump off the multinational company boat and jump into the entrepreneurial world and start up land and everything.”

(00:33:16):

So I remember that was, if I’m not wrong, May 2009. I remember driving out of Airbus, not the day I said I was leaving, but the day I was actually leaving, so some weeks after that. And I put my arm into the air, just one because I was driving, but I put my arm into the air and I was just crying out loud. I was super motivated and I thought that everything in startup land was going to be super easy. I was super bullish. I was going to make more money than ever and live a life happier than ever. And what I learned is that startup land is much better in the good times, but much worse in the bad times. And I loved it, but you have to know the rules of the game. And I’ve spent ever since then, founding companies, working as a consultant to other startups, and I enjoy this sector. But of course it gives you a lot, but it also takes a lot.

Nick (00:34:09):

What’s the main lesson that you learned in all these years in entrepreneurship? You hinted to what I might infer from some of what you said there, but what makes a successful entrepreneur? What do they need to know in order to succeed and learn the rules of the game?

Isaac Prada (00:34:24):

I’d say two things. Of course there’s much more to unfold, but there are two main things for me. And one is, and this is a Tony Robbins lessons, it’s not something I say myself, but I’ve experienced it so many times that I think it’s a great lesson. It’s that if you want great results, you have to be better than great to achieve those great results because the level of competitiveness, complexity of the dynamic nature of our world means that if you’re great at what you do, you just achieve good results and not great results. So you have to run that extra mile, make that extra effort in any aspect within your job.

(00:35:03):

And then second one would be clarity is velocity. This is a Formula 1 lesson, number one lesson that I earned. Clarity is velocity, clarity is speed. When one of my bosses in Formula 1, James Allison, currently CTO and Mercedes, one of the most successful Formula 1 teams and sport teams ever said, “What’s the main difference between you, James, and some of your friends working in the city in London, Wall Street companies, big multinational companies?” And he said, “Clarity. In Formula 1, we have absolute clarity on the priorities, on the trade-offs.” It doesn’t mean that we always make the correct decision, but we have clarity on what decision we are making, what trade-off we are making, what we are prioritizing. And whenever you have that clarity in your life, personal life or professional life decisions are way easier to make. So, those would be my two main takeaways.

Nick (00:35:54):

Any regrets Jumping into entrepreneurial life? It sounds like to me you could have stayed on at Airbus, you probably could have gone back to Formula 1, and a host of other maybe more mainstream, secure, less risk type of professional tracks. But when you look back on your life, you’re glad you did it? The ups and downs were worth it?

Isaac Prada (00:36:12):

Absolutely. So the ups were much higher, the lows were much, much lower, but the average is way higher. So, I would’ve made more money absolutely at Airbus, at least for some years. You end up setting your company and most of your workers get more money than you do, make more money than you do because at the end of the day, you’re paying the payrolls and you have to make sure that the company is up and running. And you are the last one to get the bucks on the money, euros, dollars coming into the company. You learn the hard way because it’s like an accelerated MBA. So, this is not theory that you are discussing in a classroom. It’s real money coming out of your pocket and it’s the best MBA that you can have in the world, accelerated learning. And whenever you learn from great mentors, great entrepreneurs that I’ve had the privilege of working with or learning from, being inspired by, that’s an absolute… I’m jealous of people that have spent even more years in startup land than I have.

(00:37:15):

I think I have a great blend in my perspective of working for a big corporation, working in a smaller company, such as Formula 1, but in a cutting edge sector, also working a startup environment in many different texts. But I really think that people have to know how the game is played, the rules of the game, because if you are not into soccer and you have to play soccer, you will not enjoy it. You’re not into football and you have to play football, you’ll not enjoy it. All the bumps and the getting early for the trainings and the sweating and the high temperatures, low temperatures, all the difficulties of whatever sport or activity, you have to know that whenever you’re setting up a startup, you will fail. You will fail big. You will succeed if you are good at what you’re doing and really even greater than great, as I said before, but whenever you win, you will win big. Not in terms of money, but in terms of what you’re building.

(00:38:11):

Now, every time I go by the wind tunnel that we designed, I remember of all those tough moments, the problems that we had, the challenges. But whenever we met a couple aged, I think 70 or 75, and they said that had been the best five minutes of their life flying within that wind tunnel, that is something which the screen is not big enough to capture my smile. So, it’s something that still makes me feel super, super emotional. And that’s the highs, which are much higher than anything I could accomplish in any other company.

Nick (00:38:44):

Well, you mentioned you’ve been in startup land ever since you made that transition since 2009, but while working in startup environments, you’ve also become a consultant and you’ve become a keynote speaker and you present all around the world. One of the things that I noted when I was looking up you in preparation for this interview is something called exponential management methodology. What can you tell us about that? What are the origins of that philosophy or that methodology?

Isaac Prada (00:39:11):

Sure, absolutely. So it’s a management methodology, basically aiming to bring the main lessons, the main takeaway from Formula 1, from the racetrack to the boardroom. And especially focused, it can be for larger companies, but it’s mainly focused on startups. So mainly trying to accelerate the route to success for startups, thanks to the lessons I learned in Formula 1, clarity, prioritization, key indicators, how to measure whenever you are going well, not going well. How to fail quickly, fail many times, but fail cheaply if possible. How to optimize your projects whenever you have many ideas, how to prioritize, how to, for example, whenever we have this saying of finding a needle in a haystack, how to discard the hay rather than trying to find the needle, which is the mindset that many entrepreneurs have. And it’s way easier to get rid of the hay and eventually find the needle, if there is one, than trying to find the needle and say, okay, is this a hay? Is this hay or is this the needle?

(00:40:16):

So that’s what I learned in Formula 1 and basically it’s a framework. It’s a detailed questionnaire which diagnoses the status of company and helps the CEO or the C level of the company prioritize the main areas that they should tackle, which will have the greater impact on the performance. It may be financial performance, it may be customer experience and satisfaction, employee satisfaction. But whenever you are in startup land, you realize that you have many areas to improve in your company, but you don’t have time to improve all of them. And the temptation is oftentimes to try to tackle everything at once because everything is so important. It’s the most important thing that you should be doing. Whereas if you try to prioritize in 1, 2, 3 things that really have a great impact in your company and then move on, that normally eventually has a much better result for your company. So, that’s where exponential management and competitive management comes from.

Nick (00:41:13):

Appreciate that overview. If people want to learn more or get a little bit more information about this idea, where can they go?

Isaac Prada (00:41:19):

They can just check my website, that’s keelwit.com. So that’s K-E-E-L-W-I-T.com or just reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Nick (00:41:58):

Okay, so we’re setting the table here a little bit here. 2009, leave Airbus, go into startup land, become an entrepreneur, have some hits, have some lows, but all in all, don’t regret it. Also, starting to do some consulting on the side. You’re a lecturer in mechanical engineering. At some point in this whirlwind of activity, you become aware of crypto and something must have sparked your interest. Take us back in time. When was that and what were you thinking about crypto at the time?

Isaac Prada (00:42:26):

Okay, well, I can tell you of one negative moment and one positive. So, the negative was we had two engineers working for us, young engineers at the time, very young engineers actually. And they told us about this thing called Bitcoin, which was going up like crazy at that moment in the order of I think 16 or 17,000 euros. So this was just before the bull run up to 60,000 and they asked me for advice. I had no idea, of course I knew what Bitcoin was, but I had no idea if it was a good investment, a bad investment, if it was just speculation or whatever. And so they asked me and I said, “I don’t know, so I’m not the best person. But what I know is when I don’t know, I don’t invest or I wouldn’t invest.” But of course they were too eager and FOMO hidden and they feared missing out and so they went in and they lost money. That was the negative. That was me realizing that Bitcoin seems just for the speculation. So this is crypto.

(00:43:29):

Then the positive one was a couple years later, one of my entrepreneurial friends comes along and says, “Why don’t we set up this Bitcoin mining unit? Why don’t we set up a mining unit to mine Bitcoins?” And I said, “Okay, well this looks more promising than investing in Bitcoins because you actually get the Bitcoins.” You don’t invest in the price, but of course you are of course exposed to the upward, the downward trend of the price of Bitcoin. And that was what allowed me to, given my background in optimization and everything, I tried to calculate what would be the optimum configuration for this mining unit. And we realized that for the electricity costs in Spain or even in Colombia where I was starting to live at that time, it didn’t make sense unless you invested in eight or more mining units.

(00:44:18):

So our investment, the amount that we could invest in at that moment was around fourish and it didn’t make sense until you went above eight. So, that was a moment when I said no to crypto again. So that was the second no to crypto, but it was a positive thing because I learned much more about the inner workings of crypto, how Bitcoin worked. And that was my second moment of saying no to crypto, but that was a positive. And then came Radiant Capital, and that was the third moment, and that’s was when I said yes to crypto.

Nick (00:44:50):

So many people begin their journey with crypto as a speculative asset. So it’s no surprise, and listeners that have been following the podcast for a long time will know that a lot of people that I’ve interviewed begin their journey with this understanding of this speculative nature of it. At some point you make that jump. Apparently it came with Radiant Capital. Take us to that point. When did the light bulb go off that this was about something much greater than just a speculative investment? This was about technology, something that could impact the world?

Isaac Prada (00:45:22):

What I’ve been a big fan of, Nick, when I see things from an entrepreneurial perspective is the infrastructure. So, I love when people talk about the gold rush and say that those probably the most profitable businesses were those selling shovels to the people going to try and find gold because of course, one in every, don’t know, 1,000, one in every 10,000 people would find some gold. And of course they turned super, super rich. But of course, whenever you average that, most of the people got zero or lost money. So, it’s the infrastructure that I’m very interested in. So, not the speculative assets that can make you super rich or super or at least, lose everything that you put into it from one day to the other, but it’s the infrastructure that really is behind a strong sector with potential. And I didn’t think first that crypto had that potential and that was me not knowing enough. I thought it was just for the sake of speculation.

(00:46:23):

But when I got to know Radiant, and that was mid to end of last year, I realized that this was infrastructure, this was not speculation. There were other top projects of course, following the same path, many more than I thought. So I realized that crypto, besides I had been learning blockchain, I thought it was a disruptive tech. Probably the most disruptive tech along with AI that I could experience throughout my whole lifetime. And I realized that there were things being built in crypto, which were infrastructure, which were railroads to have goods move from point A to point B. It was not for the sake of speculation. When I learned, for example, about over collateralized loans is not something related to people getting loans with no guarantees and just speculating and investing in a cool token and then hoping to get rich. But it was people doing many different use cases of course, but that had to put people who had to put more money into the platform than they were actually getting from the platform in terms of lending and borrowing.

(00:47:26):

And then I was surprised that this actually existed. I got into the inner workings of how this actually worked. Then of course I learned about the technology, layer zero Layer 1s, Layer 2s, bridges and all that stuff. But what interested me most in the first place and made me jump into this was, okay, this is infrastructure, this is real building of interesting use cases, and this is uncharted territory, something that has not been built because of course there were major lending and borrowing protocols, but Radiant aimed to do something different. So aimed to be a leading money market, cross chain built on top of layer zero, but basically allowing users to have a streamlined experience. Not having as with other protocols to know what chain A is, how to bridge to chain B, because I have to deposit it on one chain, borrow on that chain, bridge my assets to a different chain. And I have to know what chain A is, what chain B is, what a bridge is, the risks associated.

(00:48:21):

Whereas with Radiant, I saw the vision of, okay, whenever you want to buy a cool product, you just go to Amazon, buy it, and with three clicks you have the product at home. I wanted that same experience with Radiant. So a platform which offers different assets supported as collateral, even exotic assets in the future, such as NFTs, of course, always robust and with rigid risk parameters. But then you can jump from chain to chain, so deposit on one, borrow on another, repay on another one. And you don’t actually know what’s happening under the hood if you don’t want to. And when we have the vision of onboarding the next 100 million users onto DeFi, it really has to be an Amazon-like experience. Otherwise the next 100 million users are not worried about Layer 1s, do not care about Layer 1s, Layer 2s. They won’t get into crypto unless the experience is at that level. So, that’s in a nutshell what sparked my interest in Radiant.

Nick (00:49:12):

Well, as I said at the beginning, we’re talking today because you joined Radiant and Radiant uses The Graph, which we’ll talk about in just a moment, but you provided a nice overview of the infrastructure component of what drew your interest into web3 and you bolted on there a description of how Radiant works. But resetting a little bit here, tell us what you’re doing at Radiant. Tell us a little bit about the team and how it works.

Isaac Prada (00:49:38):

Absolutely, Nick. So, my current role at Radiant is I’m director of communications and project management. So in my role as director of communications, I carry out AMA’s podcast as this one, for example. Normally much more on the crypto side than on the person side, as you know. And I love to speak, of course, personal side of things also. And I carry out AMAs, I carry out comms, marketing actions in general, basically discussing with other protocols, top protocols from other chains, trying to reach out to other cool protocols, building cool stuff in crypto and discussing about the future of crypto. So that their communities and our community at Radiant get to know each other’s vertical better and what’s being built because I think it’s a joint collaboration and it’s much more a synergy than a competition.

(00:50:26):

And then in my role as director of project management, what I do is basically PM the dev team. My main role is one, offer clarity. As I discussed before, clarity is velocity and we have to develop fast in crypto and at Radiant Capital. And two, try to get rid of obstacles for them because I consider that they are smarter people than me developing tech in this case and they know the stuff much better than I can do. So, I try to get in the way very little. I try to unblock the projects that they’re working on, if there are any roadblocks, trying to get rid of obstacles. That’s my main role and setting clear priorities, clear streamlined workflows that I learned from Formula 1. And that basically try to make their life as easy as possible because they are facing enough challenges to even have an over burden in terms of tasks or problems or rather managerial stuff. So, trying to make their life as easy as possible so they can focus as much as possible on developing and building.

Nick (00:51:25):

Let’s talk about the target user of Radiant then. Who are the primary users of Radiant and how do they benefit?

Isaac Prada (00:51:33):

As I said before, I see Radiant as a key infrastructure within the crypto space. And basically what we offer is lending, borrowing, and providing liquidity. So that’s the three main pillars, the three main parts that you can see within the app. In terms of users that we are targeted at, we try to target the whole spectrum of investors from whales to small investors, from newbies to pros, because we want, and that’s our vision as I commented before, to onboard the next 100 million users onto DeFi to bring many, many more million users onto DeFi to make DeFi mainstream as soon as possible. And that of course encompasses all type of users. But that’s really challenging because we have to, for example, in our comms or in the AMAs that we take part in, we have to try and explain Radiant and the benefits that we offer both for newbies who have no experience with lending and borrowing, especially in an over collateralized world. Or also to whales who are super interested in the super fancy and complex strategy, building three layers on top of Radiant.

(00:52:42):

So trying to encompass that is very challenging, but of course very exciting. And what we try to offer in Radiant is a super easy app so that pros find cool features for them and for the complex arbitrage or trading strategies that they want to implement, bots or whatever. And people new to crypto, new to lending and borrowing can deposit, borrow, and go buy an NFT with three clicks. So, that’s what we try to do at Radiant. And I think that if anyone wants to check out the app and check for themselves, they’ll see that at least the UX is as streamlined as you can get in a lending and borrowing.

Nick (00:53:17):

Beyond creating that Amazon-like experience to onboard users into DeFI, what are some of the innovations or other contributions that Radiant has released that makes it different from what seems like sometimes a kind of a crowded space? It feels like to me, and I hasten to even say it because this is such an emergent industry that there’s any crowded spaces, but if there is one, you can argue it’s in DeFi.

Isaac Prada (00:53:40):

Yeah, absolutely. And there are several lending and borrowing protocols, even some of the top protocols that everyone will be familiar with. But several things that make Radiant stand out in this crowd of lending and borrowing protocols is one, the protocol fees are shared with the community, with the users. So the fees coming in from borrowers repaying their loans, 85% of those fees are shared with the users of the protocol. Only 15% is retained for opex or marketing action salaries and so on. 85% is shared with the users in our community, and that’s a strong differentiator from other protocols, which do not transfer that economic activity to the end users. So, that’s one thing.

(00:54:28):

Then those fees are paid not in exotic tokens, but in blue chip tokens. So, they are paid in hard assets. That’s Bitcoin, ETH, Stablecoins depending on the chain that we’re talking about. But basically that’s the whole real yield narrative that we are very supportive of. Then you have the pool token system. Of course you have the governance and the utility and that’s very important. We are a DAO at Radiant, but you have the tokenomincs that’s very novel and innovative, or v2 that’s our current version at Radiant. And basically the main concept is what we call DLP, so dynamic liquidity provisioning, and that basically is providing liquidity to the protocol. And as soon as you provide the first dollar of liquidity, you start getting protocol fees. Out of that 85%, you get 60%. But the interesting part comes from the requirement to meet a certain threshold to be a member of the club, of the VIP club.

(00:55:25):

And what that means is in order to unlock not only competitive base yields and protocol fees, but the boost in Radiant emissions, in RDNT emissions and emissions in our own native token, you have to meet a particular threshold, which in our case is you have to provide 5% of liquidity with respect to your deposits. That means that if you have a hundred dollars in deposits, you have to provide $5 or more worth of liquidity. So basically that means that we are only rewarding people providing liquidity, being loyal to the protocol, and even more, we have variable locking lengths. So once you provide liquidity, you obtain what’s called an DLP token. It’s an LP token with a name that we have at Radiant, DLP token. Then once you lock it, you have variable locking lengths, so you can lock it for one month, three months, six months, or 12 months.

(00:56:13):

And interestingly enough, we are seeing that more than half of the customers, more than 50% of our customers are locking for six or 12 months. So, they are really loyal. And that was a way of filtering out mercenary farming because we wanted to focus on sticky TVL. We were aware that we may lose TVL by introducing this measures and this tokenomic system, but we were prepared to lose TVL if it was of the mercenary farming nature. And we wanted sticky TVL, which is happy to have many deposits, but which is happy to meet that requirement of providing a 5% or more liquidity and locking it for longer periods because of course, for example, now currently the multiplier of yield that you have, if you lock for 12 months with respect to one month, is 24. So we’ve developed a tokenomic system which tries to reward loyal users who are here for the long-term vision of the vertical. That’s in a nutshell what makes Radiant stand out and apart from other lending and borrowing brokers.

Nick (00:57:13):

Well, I’ll put links in the show notes for any listeners that want to learn more about Radiant, dive deeper on some of the things you mentioned there. That’s a great overview of Radiant so I can encourage listeners to visit the show notes. As I said, and as you know, Isaac, a lot of my listeners are enthusiastic about The Graph and the role that it plays in web3. And we met because Radiant has made some announcements, and of course a lot of community members will recognize that they use The Graph. So for listeners who are interested in The Graph, can you just double click on how Radiant uses The Graph and maybe explain why you think The Graph is important to DeFi in something like Radiant?

Isaac Prada (00:57:48):

Coming back to my Formula 1 background, it’s like the most efficient way that we know of getting our telemetry. So getting all that data from, in this case, the blockchain from the chain. We were operating on BMB and on Arbitrum. We are launching shortly on Mainnet Ethereum. So basically whenever you have to access data on chain, there are several ways. And what we found is that The Graph is the most efficient way for us in terms of currently decentralization, uptime in terms of cost. And basically that means that our front end gets fed with all this data coming from The Graph. And we recently moved to The Graph decentralized network and that was a great move because actually The Graph had a maintenance downtime, very small one recently. And we were planning on, okay, what’s the impact going to be of this downtime maintenance program, downtime to our front end and to our app in general?

(00:58:46):

And our devs had been able to move to the decentralized version before the maintenance, the maintenance window. And when the maintenance window had happened, we had that backup plan, but nothing happened on our front end. And some of our C-level guys asked, “Why did nothing happen?” Well, because the devs had managed to move on to the decentralized version. So we realized the power of course, of being decentralized and backed by many nodes and all the whole decentralized version of The Graph. So, that’s basically quick recap of the value that we find in Radiant for The Graph and especially for the decentralized network.

Nick (00:59:20):

I want to ask a follow-up question on the importance of decentralization. So you talked that infrastructure was what pulled you into web3. You recognized that something like Radiant is innovative in shaping DeFi. It’s an important piece of that infrastructure, but then you have The Graph, that supports projects like Radiant. How important in your mind, as you evaluate the infrastructure and the disruptive nature of what web3 is, how important is the decentralized nature of things like The Graph?

Isaac Prada (00:59:50):

Well, it’s key to our ethos, to our values, to the performance that we are seeking. Because in terms I gave you the example of the maintenance window and how being decentralized and having all this decentralized infrastructure allowed us to have no impact at all. That’s from a purely performance standpoint if you want. But there’s also the ethos standpoint of being able to have more reliable data because you have data which is, well, paralleled or copied all over the planet and there’s many nodes that are backing one another. And that’s a more safe way of having your data feeds. Going back to my background as electrical engineer, this is the same way the electrical power grid is designed. So whereas there’s not only one electrical line coming into your house, probably yes into your house, but not to the main center close to your house. There are two, three backup lines depending on where you live. And that makes the system more reliable, more robust.

(01:00:48):

And when the infrastructure is more robust, the things that you build on top of the infrastructure a cooler. If you’re building on top of land, which is close to the sea, you cannot build a cool skyscraper. A cool city cannot be built. You can build other things but not cool things, really, really big exciting things as we plan to build on crypto. So you really need the infrastructure to be efficient, to be reliant, to be performant. And the decentralized network of any of our suppliers, you think of data feeds, price feeds and so on, gives you the reliability, the performance, the safety, security that you need in terms of attack vectors and any other stuff that you think it’s not having one single point of failure, but being much more reliant, much more efficient in general terms and also from a cost perspective.

Nick (01:01:35):

Well, Isaac only have two more questions for you before I ask you the GRTiQ 10. The first one is about optimization. So, you got a PhD studying systems optimization. That’s the way I would translate that. You worked in Formula 1, Airbus, and did a lot of cool things in the entrepreneurial space based on your ability to optimize performance and systems. When you zoom out and look at web3 as an industry, is it optimized for success? What needs to change or what needs to be improved or where are we winning I guess based on how you think about that?

Isaac Prada (01:02:10):

Well, I think that I would frame it as when I first got involved into electric cars some years ago and you saw two ways of doing things. One, companies that were using previous cars and just getting rid of the internal combustion engine and putting an electrical engine into it. And two, companies such as Tesla building from Scratch. We all know the success that different companies have had of course. And what I would encourage everyone in web3 is to have more of a Tesla mindset in the sense that things have to be built from scratch and really take the opportunity, of course getting many useful things from web2 and other sectors, but making sure that we build things from scratch and not carry over many of the bad things, of the cons of web2 infrastructure.

(01:02:56):

So I think web3 is a change in paradigm, change in mindset. And what I think is that we have to put a lot of effort into education for mainstream people and building infrastructure that’s really innovative, not for the sake of being innovative, but because we can afford to be innovative in a way that offers way more benefits to the end user if we are not constrained by the mindset that we have for many of our web2 projects.

Nick (01:03:24):

And the final question I want to ask is you talked about a mentor when you were Formula 1 talking about passion and stress. And I’ve had a lot of founders, a lot of builders in web3 on here and it’s no question that people working in web3 are building a new industry. They’re working a lot of hours. I think the burnout rate can be somewhat high. And so there is this balance between passion and stress. How do you think about that? Now that you’re in web3, you definitely got used to that dynamic throughout your career, but how do you deal with that in web3 and what’s your advice to others that are trying to do the same?

Isaac Prada (01:04:02):

Well, I think that it’s… And it’s not an easy task and I would never say I have the right balance, but I keep optimizing, and this comes from my optimization background of course. But I think the most important thing is to have your priorities clear and to do less, but way better. Those are the two principles that always set me. So whenever I am on stress mode, I’m really having a stressful day as, for example, the one I had today, it’s 11:00 PM and we are recording this. So whenever you’re talking about burnout, it’s like I’m smiling. But it’s always having your priorities here and knowing that, okay, if you try to accomplish less, but you try to be far better in what you accomplish.

(01:04:48):

It’s like what everyone in MBAs talks about the Apple example, for example, case study. And they say, “Okay, Apple way too many products back in the eighties, nineties. And when they focused on 1, 2, 3 super products, they made this super big company that only, I was reading some time ago, that only the airports make more money than the whole of Uber, for example. And that’s massive. So, it’s focusing on not building too many things, because sometimes in web3 you see overly complex protocols. So trying to build simple, easy to use use cases because making things complex is too easy, making them simple is a complex thing. That’s a famous quote of course by Einstein.

(01:05:31):

And making things simple is what we need in web2 and DeFi in particular to make it appealing to the mainstream. Having sound use cases, real use cases, sound business models within our protocol so that we don’t have 99% of our protocols going to zero because they just had excessively high emissions of the own token just to try and attract TVL. So, that’s what makes the path to a strong and really robust sector in general in the future. And those principles that I discussed before would be the core for me in this sense.

Nick (01:06:08):

Isaac, now we’ve reached a point where I’m going to ask you the GRTiQ 10. I always end each podcast off with these 10 questions. It’s a great way for listeners to learn more about you on the human side, but also a chance to maybe learn something new, try something different, or achieve more in their own life. So, are you ready for the GRTiQ 10?

Isaac Prada (01:06:24):

Absolutely. I was waiting for this all throughout the show, so go for it.

Nick (01:06:38):

What book or article has had the most impact on your life?

Isaac Prada (01:06:41):

Well, I’d say two. One being religious, the gospel, everything that I’ve been able to read about the gospel. And two, the Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. That’s probably my number one reference book in the motivation slash mindset set of books that I’ve read and I’ve read quite a few.

Nick (01:07:00):

Is there a movie or a TV show that you would recommend everybody should watch?

Isaac Prada (01:07:04):

Once again, I’d recommend too, Nick, actually, if you want to learn, change your mindset, shift paradigm Drive to Survive, probably the Netflix series about Formula 1 is great. If you just want to enjoy yourself, the trilogy of Back to the Future.

Nick (01:07:19):

If you could only listen to one music album for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

Isaac Prada (01:07:24):

Okay, one music album as a whole, that would be… Well, one music single, that would be It’s My Life by Bonjovi. It’s 20 years old, but it’s a great, great song that I play over and over again when I need motivation. And I’d probably choose an album by Bryan Adams, starting with Summer of ’69. And that’s his album of I think it was 19-ish. And that’s the one with Summer of ’69 is the first song and that’s probably my best labored album of all times.

Nick (01:07:57):

What’s the best advice someone’s ever given to you?

Isaac Prada (01:07:59):

Be humble. Be humble and that’s the best way to learn and try to be better at what you are doing in every aspect of your life. Personal life, family, life, working, be humble.

Nick (01:08:11):

What’s one thing you’ve learned in your life that you don’t think most other people know or have learned quite yet?

Isaac Prada (01:08:16):

I would say apart from being humble, clarity and priorities. I’ve got to a point in my life where I think that I have qualitatively improved my clarity on the priorities that are important to me. And I think that that helps make decisions a lot. That helps me make decision way faster. So, my decision making is, that doesn’t mean I will be right in everything that I decide upon, but it makes it way easier and I make decisions faster. And most of the times it’s better to make a decision than to make the right one to move faster, if that means waiting too long for the right decision.

Nick (01:08:53):

What’s the best life hack you’ve discovered for yourself?

Isaac Prada (01:08:56):

Well, apart from putting your phone on a glass so that the volume is louder. Apart from that, I’d say many hacks, probably baby hacks now that we have a little one. Many of the baby hacks that we’ve learned, my wife is super expert in hacks. So, one of the baby hacks I would say is my favorite.

Nick (01:09:15):

Based on your own life experience and observations, what’s the one habit or characteristic that you think explains best how or why people find success in life?

Isaac Prada (01:09:25):

For me, and this is one I’ve experienced time and time again, it’s not talent. Of course, everything adds up to other probabilities of success, but if I were to choose one, that would be persistence, absolute persistence.

Nick (01:09:38):

And then Isaac, the final three are complete the sentence type questions. So the first one is, the thing that most excites me about web3 is…

Isaac Prada (01:09:45):

What I don’t know yet.

Nick (01:09:47):

And how about this one? If you’re on X, formerly Twitter, you should be following…

Isaac Prada (01:09:52):

I would say of course Radiant Capital, but there are many top protocols. And I would say someone inspirational, whoever that means to you, such as maybe Tony Robbins or whoever excites you, but someone who gives you that extra dose of motivation. But someone who has reached, really reached whatever you want to accomplish because there are many motivational speakers, of course.

Nick (01:10:13):

And the last one, I’m happiest when…

Isaac Prada (01:10:16):

When I see my kid first thing in the morning.

Nick (01:10:27):

Isaac Prada, thank you so much for taking the time. As you mentioned there, it’s very late where you’re joining me and I’m grateful for your time at the end of a long day. And I appreciate that you would carve out some opportunity for the members of The Graph community and listeners of this podcast to learn more about you and of course to learn more about Radiant. If listeners want to follow your work, stay in touch with the things you’re working on, what’s the best way for them to do it?

Isaac Prada (01:10:49):

LinkedIn, as I said before, it’s my LinkedIn profile, and just feel free to reach out and send me a message.