GRTiQ Podcast: 44 Kyle Rojas

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Kyle Rojas (00:21):

Most of the time, if not all the time, the leaders of the chain say, “Our users are asking we use The Graph before they integrate onto our chain.” The users, the dapps or the apps in general are not requiring, but they’re highly recommending that these chains factor in The Graph almost as a binary, “We will build when you incorporate this technology.”

Nick (01:17):

Welcome to the GRTiQ podcast. Today, I’m speaking with Kyle Rojas, head of business development and partnerships at Edge & Node, a core dev team working at The Graph. Kyle’s move to Edge & Node caught some attention because he left a vice president role at Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment banking securities and investment firm, to work full-time on The Graph and to help build web3. During our discussion, Kyle talks about his background, which includes 12 years in the United States Air Force followed by six years at Goldman Sachs and then he shares his experience transitioning to Edge & Node. In addition, Kyle talks about the nature of his work at Edge & Node, what he has learned and experienced in this new role and industry and his long-term vision for web3 and The Graph. As always, I started the discussion by talking to Kyle about his background.

Kyle Rojas (02:10):

Well, I was born and raised in California. I joined the military at a really young age, got my MBA to make the transition to the civilian world and was at Goldman Sachs for almost seven years before transitioning to Edge & Node. Education’s such a broad term but, for my formal education, I went through a ton of training in the Air Force when I was there for 12 years and, through the various jobs I had, I got some associate’s degrees in aviation and aircraft maintenance while working on fighter jets. I got an associate’s in intelligence studies, Persian Farsi language and history, and I had close to a year of cumulative formal leadership training over about a decade or so in the military.

(02:53):

For my non-Air Force schooling. I got my undergrad in Japanese language and Asian history when I was living in Okinawa, Japan for four years. I finished my coursework for my first master’s degree in international relations while serving around the world and I got my MBA here in Houston at Rice University to make the transition out of the military. Pretty varied, but I always just loved going to school once I joined the military. Any classes I could take, I took, regardless of what degree I’d get out of it, and I’ve always just been a person pretty infatuated with whatever my world is at the time. I’ve tried learning about whatever space I’m in while I’m in it. In the military, I read a massive amount of leadership books of all types and as much about Persian and Asian history when I was in those worlds for either my job function or because that’s where I was in the world. Then, while in the finance world, I read so many macroeconomics, finance, trading and behavioral science books.

(03:53):

I fell in love with how economics and incentives drive human behavior. Obviously, for the past few years while at Goldman and interacting in the blockchain space as an investor and anonymous participant, I was concentrating on the blockchain space on my own, ingesting as many books, podcasts and reading content as possible. There’s just so much content out there that it’s hard to keep up, but I always like being behind the knowledge curve because it just gives me something to do. I’m not really good at just listening to music, relaxing and doing nothing. I never have been. I have too much energy for that. For better or worse, it’s just my personality. I’ll always say it’s for the better, but that’s just me.

Nick (04:32):

Well, I’m interested in your time in the Air Force because you mentioned there’s some maintenance on fighter jets but also mentioned some intelligence background. What can you tell us about your time in the Air Force and what you were doing?

Kyle Rojas (04:42):

It’s crazy how many things you can do in 12 years in the military. You always have your main job, then you have side jobs, you have your educational jobs, leadership jobs and nonprofit stuff but, I’d say for the main ideas of what I did, I started out as a fighter jet crew chief, working on F-16s and doing that in various capacities. That was for five years or so. Then, I had a political position for a year while in Japan at the end of my tour, working with heads of state and very high-level military personnel from around the world. Finally, I went into the operations intelligence world for at least six years or so of my military life. There’s a lot to unpack there, but let’s just say I supported special operations around the world in the air and on the ground doing a bunch of fun stuff and really checked my adventure box in life.

Nick (05:32):

It’s always been an ambition of mine to ride in a fighter jet. I’m curious if you got to ride in an F-16 and what that experience is like?

Kyle Rojas (05:38):

I did not. I wish I could’ve. I did fly in a lot of different aircraft from helicopters to C-130s, which was my main aircraft that I was an aviator on, and I flew on a ton of smaller aircraft of all sorts, usually in the back using some interesting technologies. Never the fighter jets, though. They usually kept us on the ground working hard.

Nick (06:02):

Well, another thing you mentioned there is some of your background in multiple languages. You mentioned Farsi and Japanese. How many languages do you speak and what drives your interest in foreign language?

Kyle Rojas (06:11):

I think I’ve just always loved communicating with people, just being a 99% extrovert and that, when I had the challenge of being around people I couldn’t communicate with in Japan, the first day I got there, I signed up for Japanese language classes and I studied every single day. I really enjoyed the challenge of it. Then, once I started being able to speak with people, I was even more invigorated. I just kept taking language classes and they were at the university there, a University of Maryland satellite school, and that just ended up fitting in Japanese language and Asian history undergrad, so that’s what I got.

(06:51):

Then, I had the option of going through multiple aptitude tests and various hurdles to try to become an airborne cryptologic linguist. I chose from a few different languages, chose the hardest ones just because I wanted the challenge, I suppose, and they ended up giving me Farsi because that’s what the Air Force and wider military needed at the time. I went to language school for a year straight in Monterey, California doing 10 hours a day, five days a week of language school, most of it in immersion after the first few weeks. Then, I’d go home and study for probably four to six hours at night. Then, listening to podcasts until I fell asleep. I’ve always been a pretty intense person and that time was no different.

(07:36):

I had Farsi, I lost most of my Japanese after I learned Farsi and finally, I needed to perfect my Spanish because it’s always been a life goal to be multilingual. Right when my kids were born or a little bit before, I started going really intense in my off time on Spanish. Luckily, my wife’s Colombian, we’ve been married 15 years now, but never really learned Spanish fully. Now, I can finally say I’m comfortable enough to just be dropped into Colombia, Mexico or wherever and just speak the language. Right now, it’s just Farsi and Spanish. Probably don’t know much Japanese anymore at all except for a few key phrases that I used to say, but it’s just fun. It’s just another challenge. It’s a notch on the belt.

Nick (08:21):

After your time in the armed services, you made a move into the private sector and you joined a very well known and one of the top international firms in the world, which is Goldman Sachs. What took you to Goldman and what did you do there?

Kyle Rojas (08:33):

Well, after 12 years in the military, I joined when I was 17, I got out when I was almost 30, and it was my entire adult identity. It was really tough for me to swallow coming into a place where I didn’t know how to act or who to be. That’s why I got my MBA at Rice since my wife got a job here in Houston as a drilling engineer at Exxon Mobil and I didn’t want to be away from her, so I just chose the most challenging school and MBA program that was close. I did an internship in oil and gas as an internal consultant, got a pretty good offer, better than I ever thought I could get in my early life growing up without money but, when I got that offer, I saw what the next 20 years would be like. I went through the simulations and it bored me. I needed something more challenging. I needed something more dynamic and I’ve always thrived in ambiguity, I guess.

(09:29):

When my buddy who did the internship at Goldman said I might be great at that role, in a corp dev and business development world, helping bring on AUM or assets for the firm, I just went full bore, got the offer and never looked back. Once it was on my challenge list, I just never gave up, though there were times that I was close. While there at Goldman, I needed to be a jack of all trades with the main financial incentive to bring on and manage assets for the ultra-high net worth people and institutions, from the 10 millions to the billions. I also did a lot of corp dev work helping pass opportunities to the investment banking arm for M and A, or mergers and acquisitions, in the IPO world, as well as putting Goldman balance sheet capital to work in companies across all sectors, from tech to consumer products to oil and gas, and a whole lot more.

(10:26):

It was fun for sure but eventually, it just became less challenging, I think, just doing more of the same to hopefully make more money, trying to keep up with or outpace those next to you. I just got tired of it. I didn’t get burnt out, I just didn’t feel the learning curve steep enough for myself. It just plateaued. I missed working on a team, I missed having a mission more important than my bottom line. I felt just empty towards the end with money as the only goal. I realized I didn’t want to be around the people, I didn’t want to be the people ahead of me that had made it in Goldman and I knew it was time to move. Plus, I’ve been interested in the crypto and participating in the crypto space for about half a decade now, and I’ve become a true believer over the past couple years.

Stefan (11:24):

Hey, this is Stefan from The Graph Academy announcing The Graph Academy Grants program, a program that is intended to foster the growth of our community-driven platform, The Graph Academy. We are offering grants to contributors to incentivize the creation of high-quality educational material. If you want to apply, simply visit TheGraph.Academy/grants, that is TheGraph.Academy/grants. You can also find more information in the show notes.

Nick (12:05):

Take us back to when you first became interested in crypto and what your first impressions were.

Kyle Rojas (12:10):

I’ve actually been investing and participating anonymously in the space for almost half a decade, even while at Goldman. I got to know some OGs in the space starting in, let’s say, 2015 or so. I was so brainwashed, I’d say, by the Goldman Kool-Aid and TradFi ideology that I didn’t even pay attention to what was happening, but still had it in the back of my mind. One of my childhood friends, a very intelligent and capable coder and hacker of sorts, he’d been putting the bug in my ear from around the same timeframe and I finally started as a volatility trader, then over the year or two from late ’16 to ’17, I became a trader learner and then a heavy DeFi user a few years back and just protocol user in general.

(12:57):

I probably became a true believer in what this web3 movement can do for the world a couple of years ago, even while hanging my hat at a TradFi shop. I’ve always just really loved, and still love, being an anonymous participant in this space. What I really enjoy is acting as part of the hive mind without leveraging anything about my history or credentials to push this or the other. I get so much joy out of it and I’ll continue acting anonymously for as long as I can. If I’m doxxed, I’ll just change my usernames and profiles and keep doing it. I think it’s important for the space for people to act on merit, to be rewarded for what they contribute and not their pedigree. It’s one thing I love about the space in general.

Nick (13:39):

I’d be curious, then, what your colleagues at Goldman thought when you came in one day and said, “I’m leaving one of the best-known financial firms in the world to go join and participate full-time in the crypto space.”

Kyle Rojas (13:49):

Man, just like in the Air Force, because I was doing really well, I’d say I was making rank faster than a lot of folks, I was leading hundreds of people, taking on a lot of challenges, a high performer of sorts that was relied upon for a lot of things and, when I was in Afghanistan again and my wife got that job offer making more than one and a half times what I was making, and I was gone seven, eight, nine months a year leading hundreds of people, people thought I was crazy. That’s because that’s all they’ve done their whole lives. The same thing at Goldman. After seven years of grinding and with all the sweat and tears over almost a decade, people don’t really leave after they make it to the point I was. That’s what felt so good to say I was leaving, to make a decision based on my moral compass and to finally be able to work to learn, not work to earn. It was extremely exciting, cathartic and fulfilling to walk away from a really good revenue opportunity in the hopes of finding purpose as opposed to just a bottom line.

Nick (15:05):

Without putting you in a compromising situation, I would be curious if you have anything to share about what you know about the inside of an organization like Goldman, and their perspective and operational orientation towards crypto. Are they ready for it? Are they cynical of it?

Kyle Rojas (15:22):

That’s a tough question to answer. There’s always a dichotomy of sorts, and I’ve been working for institutions for two decades now, over two decades, and finally weaned off the addiction. I truly think incentives drive behavior, whether it’s for an individual or an institution, and the incentives for large corporations is to preserve their way of life, make money for shareholders, and there’s so much risk in trying something new. The bigger they are, the harder it is to turn the ship, and this space is the newest of the new, truly a potential new paradigm for the world, and the traditional finance world just can’t really cope with it.

(15:59):

It’s experimental. The risks are real and corporations that are hundreds of years old will shy away from that risk, especially because they can’t mathematically factor that risk into their models because it breaks their models, which is how corporate financial minds just think in general. I’d say that’s one of the key philosophical differences between TradFi and Defi, web2 and web3, or whatever other comparison we can think of: this disincentivizes them from participating in general.

Nick (16:28):

After you leave Goldman, you join Edge & Node, you go full-time into the web3 space. As most listeners know, Edge & Node is a core dev team working at The Graph. Can you tell us about what you do at Edge & Node?

Kyle Rojas (16:41):

That’s tough to say in the startup environment. My title is head of business development and partnerships at Edge & Node so, like you said, one of the core dev teams working on The Graph but, in reality, I do whatever I need to do to help the team work, to help The Graph function and to help people learn about web3 in general. That’s light tech support, developer success, marketing, some operations leadership in various capacities … whatever it is, big or small, I’ll do it. I’ve always been that way. I’ve never enjoyed it so much as I am here. I’ll sweep the digital floors if I have to, I’m just happy to be part of all this.

(17:17):

I’ve always loved doing anything and everything I can at any organization I’m in, learning everyone’s roles as much as possible, and my role at Edge & Node probably delivers that more than anything I’ve done in my life. In the military, I had a lot of opportunities across a lot of different functions, but this blows it out of the water, which is pretty insane. It’s awesome and I’m happy to do it. I love it. I’ve always been a little scatterbrained and easily bored sometimes. Let’s just say I haven’t been bored for a second since I joined Edge & Node, which is strange to say only three months ago because, well, I feel like it’s gone by in a day or two, but it feels like I’ve done enough work for a year or more.

Nick (18:00):

Well, I’d be curious, then: with somebody who was on the outside four months ago and now is on the inside working with Edge & Node and fully committing their time to web3, what have you learned in that transition? What do you know now that you didn’t know four months ago that you could share with listeners?

Kyle Rojas (18:15):

One thing that’s great about working on The Graph is that, as opposed to only learning about one project, one chain or one vertical, you truly get to learn about the entire space from the inside out. We have now 25, 26 chains. I get to meet and work with the founders and builders of these protocols, of these blockchains and of these dapps that are building on these chains. That’s exciting because I get to learn a little bit about the entire space. I feel like I’m getting paid to learn and I’m excited every single day when I wake up, log on and travel around the world to meet some of the most amazing folks I’ve probably ever met in my life. I think I’ve learned that, before, I believed in web3 and now, I know it’s taking place in real time before our eyes and we’re a lot further along than I imagined. It’s probably a matter of quarters, not a matter of years, and that’s exciting to be even a small part of it.

Nick (19:34):

Early on, when you started at Edge & Node, you were attending a lot of conferences. You were a speaker, you were a panelist. I’d be curious because of that experience what you learned by going across the world and meeting so many different people at these conferences.

Kyle Rojas (19:47):

Oh man, so much. I’d say to start, probably the most important and palpable lesson is that this space is not just a vacuum of random folks trying to get rich, it’s truly a movement of people trying to change the world for the better, trying to remake the world because the world is not perfect, people see that, they realize that and they’re doing something about it. Again, I truly believe that incentives drive behavior. I think it’s obvious to anyone who really pays attention that incentives are not aligned for the benefit of all humans on the planet. I’m actually not a political person at all, but I think we can all agree the entire system needs some sort of revamp.

(20:33):

Growing up as someone who felt pretty let down by the system in general, I probably had a seed planted from a young age without me knowing to look for a way to build better. I never really thought there’d be a way to do it. I never thought there was a way out of the academic approach to the monetary and economic systems, but the blockchain space has given me that. It’s given the option to the world. I really think this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt that I actually have a chance to participate in something that could reshape the world for the better, not simply pruning bad apples from the existing system or voting in the hopes of a new leader that’s going to drain the swamp or whatever. It’s incredible. It allows everyone in the world to participate. I think it’s a first for humanity and the importance of that is not lost on me.

(21:23):

People like Yaniv Tal, Brandon Ramirez and Jannis Pohlmann, the entire team, the entire space, for that matter, are driving this. I feel so fortunate to be part of it. I feel lucky to work on a team with leaders like this and I think they’ll be seen as visionaries, as leaders pushing web3 when it wasn’t popular. I’ve thought about this a lot lately. It just feels good to participate, whether it’s as an anonymous participant or a leader in something like Edge & Node that’s an important part of the shift that I see as now close to inevitable. It’s just really exciting.

Nick (21:59):

You had the option when you left Goldman and had already some experience in crypto web3 space to probably apply many different places, and yet you chose Edge & Node. What was it about Edge & Node and this opportunity that pulled you that direction?

Kyle Rojas (22:15):

When I decided to leave Goldman, I instantly started reaching out to my network and luckily got some really good offers early on from some pretty big brand names. Even though I knew what The Graph was doing and I knew it was important, it wasn’t until I started talking with Tegan Kline, Eva Beylin and Yaniv and team. One, through that interview process, I read every single blog, I listened to as many GRTiQ episodes as I could, I listened to all Yaniv’s podcasts that he’s spoken on, Tegan’s and Eva’s, and I really started to understand the why of The Graph: why decentralization matters, why an app isn’t decentralized without a decentralized tech stack and why that’s important, why the robustness against physical, cyber and other types of attacks and verifiable truth is just such an understated and important part of the space.

(23:19):

For me personally, I’ve always just wanted to strive for the biggest challenges and I think there are few challenges in this space as big as the ones that The Graph is tackling, as big as the ones that I not only get to work on with this protocol, but that I get to help others figure out, as well, across every chain and every project. That’s a gift to me. It’s exciting.

(25:27):

Kyle, I think listeners would be really interested in knowing what excites you. You spend all day working on The Graph and you’ve got this really interesting perspective of a lot of the partners working in the ecosystem. What’s coming up? What exciting initiatives, deliverables or milestones are you looking forward to?

Kyle Rojas (25:43):

That’s a great question. There’s a lot to look forward to. I’d say a couple of things. One is the idea that most of the volume in this protocol is on the hosted service, so it’s not even factoring in to the utility of this ecosystem that we have, let’s say, a little over 200 subgraphs on the decentralized network versus over 20,000 on the hosted service. We have 1.6 billion queries per day on the hosted that will likely flow over to the decentralized network and it’s working well. It’s exciting to see that it’s still early days for The Graph and that’s just with existing volume, not what’s coming on. I’m excited about the cross-chain nature of what we’re doing, from the 24-25 EVM-compatible networks … we recently went non-EVM, bringing on NEAR. We’ve announced we’ll bring on Solana, Polkadot and Cosmos soon and, in the end, I’m really excited for every project on every chain to be able to use The Graph and build faster and more efficiently.

(26:54):

I’m also incredibly excited about the announcements that should come out next year from the research team on their snark research on verifiable truth, on verifiable queries, on the trustless nature that has only been a dream up to now and is becoming a reality little by little every day. To hear the team talk about some of these things, especially as a non-technical guy, one, it’s mind-boggling, two, it’s humbling and, three, it’s exciting to be in a room with people smarter than I’ll ever be. I’m just happy to be a little kid in the adult room.

Nick (27:38):

As part of your role, you’re obviously speaking with subgraph developers and users of The Graph. What can you share about how much they rely upon The Graph?

Kyle Rojas (27:48):

I think one thing that’s an exciting leading indicator is when chains are reaching out to integrate The Graph, most of the time if not all the time, the leaders of the chain say, “Our users are asking we use The Graph before they integrate onto our chain.” The users, the dapps or the apps in general, are not requiring, but they’re highly recommending that these chains factor in The Graph almost as a binary, “We will build when you incorporate this technology.” That’s exciting to be such a ubiquitous and essential piece of technology that it’s a binary, “You must use this for us to build on your chain.”

(28:36):

I also love when people have never even heard of subgraphs, we walk them through how to build it, even just sending them docs, they come back … I’ve gotten this multiple times. They come back and say, “This is absolutely amazing.” When they come back and are so happy with the product … There are issues. I know there are issues and there will be issues going forward, but to have people use something that allows them to build faster, to build better, to save money and to be robust in general, to truly be called a dapp … it’s exciting to be part of a team that’s making this happen. It’s just very fulfilling.

Nick (29:20):

I have to imagine, Kyle, at this time when you’re explaining to colleagues at Goldman or family at home that you’re making a move in your career, but you’re going to work on this protocol called The Graph, you had to explain this in non-technical terms that these folks could understand. How did you do it? How did you describe what The Graph was at that time?

Kyle Rojas (29:39):

That’s always a tough one. I think the Google of blockchains helps, because Google’s a very easily recognized name, but I think I like to use this analogy because it really helped me understand it and I think it’s helped a lot of other people understand it as well. Imagine going into a massive home improvement store like a Home Depot or Lowe’s in America, Homebase in Europe or around the world. Now imagine that store is a thousand times the size of a normal store, but imagine if every tool, every appliance, every plant, every item were scattered all across the store in no particular order, just piled in. Not only that, millions of items are dropped in from the sky every single day, just air dropped, if you will. The most recent items dropped would likely be the easiest to find, but what about all that junk underneath the billions and probably trillions of other items at the bottom of the pile?

(30:30):

If you think about it in a basic way, that’s what happens with data on the blockchain. If you want a piece of data for an app, just like an item in the store, you have to go scrounging for it, often manually. It’s not a fun time, as I’m sure a lot of builders in the space know. That’s where The Graph comes in. The Graph is indexing and allowing queries for all existing on-chain public data. It’s pretty incredible what the protocol does. Then, people ask what the different participants do, and I explain it as subgraphs are the individual sections, let’s say a screw section. You go the screw subgraph and that subgraph goes around that massive 1,000x home improvement store, gathers only the screws and organizes it.

(31:16):

The Curators are the ones who come in and say, “Oh, it’s summer, there’s going to be a lot of people buying plants,” and they put their GRT to show Indexers what’s going to be important for whatever season. The Indexers are the individual franchisees that make that one giant home improvement store into 1,000 franchises to make it more palatable. They go straight to the subgraphs, grab the screws they need based on the Curator’s signaling, they put it within their personal store and serve whatever customers come straight to them.

Nick (31:50):

Well, I love your creativity there, Kyle. I love the home improvement store paradigm. I guess I’d like to ask the same question when you were telling people about web3 when you were at this period of your life making the switch.

Kyle Rojas (32:02):

That’s an interesting question because it means so many things to so many people. I like to explain it by going through iterations. I think it was ’80s, ’90s, Web1 was where companies created content and companies profited off of that content. web2 was 20 years or so where we created content through our digital interactions and the companies profited. web3 now is where we create content and we own and profit off of it if we’d like. I think the promise of web3 is a few things to me. One, it’s privacy. Two, it’s ownership. Three, it’s realigning incentives that are fairly misaligned for some of the economic elite around the world. It’s enabling access for everyone in the world that has access to a computer and the Internet to be able to participate, not having to go through gatekeepers, collecting and rent-seeking middlemen and middlewomen.

(33:14):

It’s also robustness, and that’s where I think decentralization comes in: robustness against the physical, cyber and even regulatory attacks of sorts that can disable the centralized power and decision-making authorities of anyone from a dictator to a multinational corporation that has very grossly misaligned incentives that don’t benefit the entirety of the human population.

Nick (33:44):

Well, these are both very good answers, Kyle, and I really appreciate you taking time to define The Graph, web3 and how you described them to others when you were making this move into the space full time. I’d like to ask a third follow-up question in this context: how do those two things, then, fit together? When you think about what The Graph is and what web3 is, how in your mind do you marry The Graph to web3?

Kyle Rojas (34:05):

Well, without The Graph and without other parts of a decentralized tech stack, an application is not decentralized. There are risks to centralization that I’ve already mentioned that I think can and will play out in the near mid-term or long-term future. We need to move towards decentralization to prepare for that. I don’t think it’s an if it’s coming, I think it’s a when and, if we can get to a truly decentralized tech stack and increase robustness, I think that will be very important for human society.

(34:45):

Not only that, when you think of what the best leading indicator for any society, any entity, for survivability, it’s innovation. For somebody to innovate, they can’t keep rebuilding things from scratch like web2 companies who have to rebuild their entire tech structure. They have to build information capital and network moats. Now, there are these protocols making these public goods like The Graph or other amazing projects like decentralized storage projects, for example, where apps can go directly to them, use that tech stack in a well-incentivized way and they can concentrate on UI/UX, they can fail fast, they can fail forward and they can innovate. That is going to speed up the pace of innovation for the human species more than anything I think we’ve ever seen and that’s really cool to think how fast we’re going to be able to iterate on everything we’re doing right now. I think we’re not ready for how fast this can move forward if all this works as well as we think it will.

Nick (36:32):

Another common question I ask guests of the podcast, especially those that are more technical and moving from web2 to web3, is this question of, “What was that experience like?” For someone like yourself who six months ago was working at Goldman Sachs and working in TradFi, now making the move full-time into DeFi, web3, working at Edge & Node on The Graph, what’s that experience been like? What can you share with listeners that are contemplating making the same move?

Kyle Rojas (36:58):

Man, that’s tough. This is my third full career. I’ve reinvented myself. This is my fourth time I’m doing it with from the Air Force to MBA to Goldman and now this. It’s truly been one of the most challenging things I’ve done in my life, having jumped from an incredible TradFi opportunity into this world, and I’m not an inherently technical guy. I don’t know how to code, yet. I’m coming into the startup tech environment to work on probably one of the most complex protocols in the space in a leadership role, working with builders that are smarter than I will ever be, and it’s been such an insane ride. I’m only a few months in, but that’s what I wanted. I was finally comfortable and decided it was time for me to, again, work to learn, not work to earn, to finally make an impact on the world in a truly positive way that aligns with my personal values, helping build a piece of digital infrastructure that could help realign the incentives to allow the world to build better. This is something I didn’t even think possible until a few years ago when I really started getting deep into the space as a user. It’s amazing and it drives me every day.

(38:10):

As far as advice for those thinking to make the move, probably a couple ideas to unpack here. For those that haven’t made the move but lucky enough, like myself, to be aware of this foundational shift and maybe have the guts to jump, start tinkering. Start using these protocols, start using everything and anything you can. Start reading and listening to everything you can, get into Discords, Telegrams and everything else you can get your hands on. If you don’t, it’s on you when you look back 20 years down the road when the future becomes the present and you realize that you missed the opportunity of a lifetime. I think you’ll regret that you didn’t at least try to go through the simulation to see if it’s worth diving deeper.

(38:54):

Second, for people close to making the move or who are actually in the process, just buckle up. In the end, we could always go back to what we were doing before, just keep that in mind. Optionality is so valuable and we can always go back to the lives we were in before. It’s so cliché, but I know on my deathbed I’ll only regret what I didn’t at least try to do, so just go do something for the world. If it all fails, at least you took a swing at one of the juiciest pitches we’ll ever have in our lifetime, maybe many lifetimes, and you just don’t want to strike out by not at least swinging at that pitch.

Nick (39:33):

What’s your long-term vision for The Graph?

Kyle Rojas (39:35):

This one’s pretty easy for me. I think my long-term vision for The Graph is that, once every piece of digital data is tracked on blockchains, which I think is not only possible but becoming more and more likely every day, The Graph will be the technology that allows people to sift through that data. Near term, I think it’ll be the way to access data across every project on every blockchain across the entire space, and that alone is pretty insane. Now, imagine when the world’s data starts living on blockchains in general, again, something I think is pretty likely. When all medical data, personal identification information, all supply chain data from commodities to food items, to all real-world assets and services from real estate to landscape services … everything that’s tracked digitally, it will realistically all be tracked on chain and I think that’s pretty crazy that we’re getting close to that paradigm shift.

(40:33):

The Graph will power it all. It already is powering much of it. I really think it’ll index all digital data in the world and, as the world continually digitizes everything, every data point we previously kept on paper, The Graph will power everything. It’s pretty cool. The Graph, I’d say, is one of the most essential pieces of digital infrastructure in this new world and what matters to me is just helping even a little bit with what I do to empower people, to empower builders, to empower innovators to go and just move things forward. It’s my new life mission and I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity.

Nick (41:09):

In addition to your work at The Graph and everything you’ve shared about web3 and Edge & Node, what excites you most about the future of web3 and crypto?

Kyle Rojas (41:18):

I think I hit this a little bit, but I would re-emphasize that I think web3 and The Graph will allow a few things. I think it’s all about power dynamics, so who is making the decisions and deciding what data to provide that people consider truth, meaning it shouldn’t just be a few folks behind closed doors. The decentralization we discussed, in my opinion, is about the decimation of centralized power structures and decision-making. It’s about well-aligned incentive structures that drive behavior regulated by code and not emotional decision making, as well as increasing the robustness in all systems to resist attacks of all types.

(41:57):

It’s about verifiability of data, as in how do we know what Google, the government or some dictator serves us as true data, since they own the data and can literally change what they want? Imagine if a dictator owned servers and what that dictator could do to sway what is seen as true in that person’s country. It’s about control, among other things, of course. He or she that owns the data and therefore the narrative has control. That’s pretty scary to me. There’s so much that the web3 Renaissance can help fix. It’s pretty incredible that we have something that is even able to attempt to uproot these systems. It’s pretty crazy, and you and I get to be part of it. It’s really cool.

Nick (42:43):

For my final question, I want to ask something more personal in nature and it’s about your drive and your ambition. You’ve mentioned several times a little bit about your background and some of the things that you’ve achieved in your life as you push yourself forward. I would really like to know what motivates you.

Kyle Rojas (42:58):

I think growing up as a pretty lower-middle income kid who got in trouble a lot with the law all through high school and a little bit before, was a bit behind the IQ and EQ curve gave me a chip on my shoulder that has always made me feel like I needed to catch up. Once I started to get the dopamine hits from conquering challenges, I realized how exciting it is and I kept going for bigger and bigger challenges, whether it was in the military and try to become a leader and lead 10 people or get awards, or then I’d lead 50 people, then 100 people, then I’d go on different missions, then I’d start nonprofits and try to build missions there, then whether it was in the military, trying to lead people, trying to learn more and more, and achieve a higher degrees, to challenging myself at Goldman in an ambiguous environment and, after succeeding, then blowing up what some consider a dream job of sorts where you’re comfortable, money’s coming in and revenue is increasing pretty well going forward, I think what drives me is the challenge, the idea of being emotionally anti-fragile, of always growing.

(44:34):

When I stop growing, when I stop moving, when I stop listening to podcasts or when I stop doing something that’s productive, I feel stagnant and that’s one of the worst possible feelings for me. I’m sure it’ll change as I get older and I don’t know what I’ll have to do to feel comfortable, but I’m not there yet, especially when this opportunity to work on something so monumental, so important for the world, in my opinion, is right in front of me. I have to do well. I have to take every opportunity to learn everything I can about the space or I know I’ll regret it and, as I mentioned, I know I’ll only regret what I don’t do. If I fail, that’s fine. I’m not scared of that. I’m scared of not trying.

Nick (45:21):

Kyle Rojas, thank you so much for your time. You’ve been very generous in sharing so many great ideas, especially about your background and your recent move into a full-time role at Edge & Node and working on The Graph. If people want to learn more about you or follow your work, what’s the best way to do it?

Kyle Rojas (45:35):

I sometimes post on Twitter, not often, but my handle there is @KyleARojas. My Telegram and Discord are the same handle, and feel free to ping me there if you need anything at all. I try to always be there to help find answers, even if I don’t know them offhand. In the end, if you need something regarding The Graph, just ping me ASAP. I’m all in on this initiative and I’m here to help.