GRTiQ Podcast: 65 Vanessa Grellet

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Vanessa Grellet (00:21):

It’s really key because all actors and new projects need to have access to data and easy access to data and non-siloed access to data. This is what The Graph allows you to do.

Nick (00:35):

Welcome to the GRTiQ Podcast. Today I’m speaking with Vanessa Grellet, managing partner at Aglae Ventures, where she’ll help lead the efforts to invest in and scale web3 companies. In fact, the big news of Vanessa’s move to Aglae Ventures was announced just this week. Vanessa is recognized as one of the most influential people in crypto and has held many important roles at notable firms such as ConsenSys and CoinFund. She’s also active in several industry organizations including Blockchain for Social Impact.

(01:37):

During our discussion, Vanessa covers many important topics including her background in business and law, her perspective on the crypto adoption curve, her approach to due diligence and analyzing web3 projects to invest in and her ideas about The Graph and the future of web3. We began the conversation by discussing her background.

Vanessa Grellet (01:59):

Sure. I have a dual citizenship at French and the US. I was born in the US but I studied in France. When I studied in France, I studied law and I went to business school. Those two things allowed me to evolve in my career and in the different areas I navigated, whether it’s in finance or crypto in a very easy way because it gave me the fundamentals to grasp some of the complexities that a lot of the projects had to face.

Nick (02:38):

I’ve had pre-med artists, musicians, a lot of computer science of course, but I don’t think very many lawyers have been guests of the podcast. Do you use that law degree much in your career and profession thus far in crypto?

Vanessa Grellet (02:53):

Yes. I would say constancy. Whether it’s working with projects or just reviewing basic documentation and contracts and creating strategic partnerships or working in terms of acquisitions, there’s always a law component that comes naturally when you obviously studied law and have been a lawyer, and it just makes things easier and quicker for me to get over what’s important and what’s not, what’s important to negotiate or what’s not.

Nick (03:29):

You mentioned the dual citizenship there and I know that you’ve spent most of your career in New York City. I always like to ask guests of the podcast what the opinions and attitudes of the people where they live is towards crypto and web3. What can you tell us about the crypto and web3 space in New York City?

Vanessa Grellet (03:51):

I would say that the initial crypto movement started off in Brooklyn, whether it’s Bushwick or Williamsburg’s or other parts, but there was in 2015 earlier movement there. When I joined ConsenSys in 2016, our offices were in Bushwick. At the heart of this crypto triangle where a lot of the initial startups started. I would say that there’s a very, very strong community in New York and in Brooklyn.

(04:28):

I would say especially after the pandemic, you would see that a lot of people move there and it really became a center of excellence for innovation, devs. What’s exciting about New York and it’s not one dimensional, you have the confluence of financial services, arts, fashion. As we see crypto coming together with the real world and web2 and financial services, everything comes together in New York and there’s a lot of connectivity and an easy way for people to connect in person. That’s pretty exciting.

Nick (05:09):

I’m interested in this interplay between crypto and web3 and Wall Street. It goes without saying that New York is a financial hub for the global financial and investment markets. What can you share about that relationship or your experience in seeing that relationship between web3 and crypto and Wall Street?

Vanessa Grellet (05:27):

It was a fascinating relationship, especially as we started, I would say in 2016. When I was at ConsenSys, we worked very closely with JP Morgan and other companies to help them through their crypto journey. At the time, enterprise blockchain was all the rage. Everyone was trying to become more efficient by using blockchain-based technology.

(05:58):

Then as the markets matured, the traders and the managers and the hedge fund managers started to come in. The evolution through new tools and custody solutions that were compatible with the way large institutions could do business really accelerated the adoption of crypto, whether it was as an asset class or as a means of doing commerce.

(06:28):

I would say that although there was a lot of emphasis at the beginning on leveraging blockchain for efficiency, internal efficiencies and financial services, the real use case and the one that trumps everything right now is trading the assets and really understanding that these are almost like technology assets and that you are investing in assets that are building the future of the infrastructure.

(07:02):

Of course, the emergence of DeFi also really changed everything and the fact that these funds could now, in addition to just trading the tokens, could create additional yield in a low yield environment was something that was really transformational and I think drew even more the adoption of crypto.

Nick (07:28):

Given that unique perspective about New York and Wall Street, I’m interested in how you feel about where we are in the adoption curve, not only on Wall Street but Main Street everyday people. As an asset class, how do you think about where we’re at in the adoption curve?

Vanessa Grellet (07:47):

If you look at the broader asset classes out there, of course crypto is still very small, but it has yield extraordinary returns for those who invested in it. I think we’re really still at the beginning of the adoption curve, but I see a world where in the future tokenized assets will be the way that people transact and it’s going to be all the tokens that we know, but new financial instruments that are going to be based on blockchain and that is going to create media, a totally different way of engaging with investments.

(08:33):

That’s more on the institutional side. Then we see also large funds, VC funds investing heavily in crypto and mainstream web2 funds coming in the past two years and really investing in this asset class. I think it will become a mainstream asset class, but we’re only at the beginning and there’s still a lot of challenges ahead in order for this to be adopted as a mainstream asset class.

(09:07):

But we’re getting there because the infrastructure by which you can trade these tokens is getting more mature and more secure, and I think we’ll see great evolutions in the coming 10 years even despite the ups and downs of the market.

Nick (09:25):

As you think through the adoption curve in more momentum, greater adoption throughout the world, are there any mile posts that you’re watching for signals that greater adoption or an inflection point has been reached, whether it’d be something related to regulation, something related to greater institutional involvement? What are you watching for?

Vanessa Grellet (09:48):

Yes. I think what’s really important to me is to see how much capital is allocated to new funds that are investing in crypto. It’s also important to see mainstream financial institutions starting to offer crypto investments to their clients. We haven’t seen an and individual clients. Currently, it’s more like an institutional clientele. I think it would be interesting if there’s more adoption around retirement schemes and savings and investments capabilities that you have access to when you deal with your wealth manager or your bank.

(10:32):

I think that’s to be watched out for and whether these institutions will leverage DeFi as a source of yield, I think the regulators are paying attention, but that’s not something I am currently using as a metric of adoption. Because right now it’s the technology is a little bit unstoppable. What’s important is the adoption with the general public, the adoption with the investors, the adoption with the devs.

(11:10):

The other interesting metric is we see a lot of web2 devs who are starting to move to web3. Of course, the number of devs by ecosystem is something that is always a metric to watch, to check if the ecosystem is successful and whether people are building on it and whether that drives adoption because at the end of the day, yes, there are the investors. Yes, there are individual investors. But how much projects are being built is the key metric.

Nick (11:45):

Vanessa, I’m thrilled to be speaking with you and for the opportunity to ask you some of these questions. You’ve recently been identified as one of the most influential people in the crypto space and your professional pedigree is incredible. You’ve done a lot of interesting things. I just want to spend a few minutes here and talk about or highlight some of your background professionally.

(12:05):

For example, you spent nearly a decade on the New York Stock Exchange. That’s an incredible position, an incredible institution in the global financial and investment markets. What was that experience like for you and how does your time there inform the different ways you’re navigating the crypto space?

Vanessa Grellet (12:22):

I really loved my time at the exchange. I was at a unique position where I was dealing with all our acquisitions and some of our strategic partnerships. The exchange had just acquired some European exchanges. Globally, they were trying to understand how to manage the portfolio of activities and really create synergies with either other exchanges or new business lines that they could get into.

(12:58):

I really love my time because I worked with an amazing team there and the rhythm was pretty intense and that suits well my personality because we were dealing with very complex deals, global deals with global regulators with a lot of constituents and a lot of things at stake.

(13:23):

For example, we tried to make a merger between the New York Stock Exchange and the German Dutch Force, which didn’t work out. But we had to go through all the competition authorities in Europe. We had to deal with so many our clients who had stake in the game and that type of operation that it was a really exciting time to be at the stock exchange.

(13:49):

Now, what’s really interesting is to see how the crypto exchanges have emerged and where we’re going to be in 10 years where the crypto exchanges expand. The traditional exchanges are getting into some of the aspects of crypto like CME offering futures, et cetera, and all new financial instruments that are related to tokens that are going to be created and hopefully listed.

(14:23):

I think we’re all waiting for the ETFs. That knowledge that I acquired at the exchange is also very helpful to me to gain perspective on what drives adoption for financial instruments for derivatives. I was lucky enough to work from our London office in the derivatives exchange life, and there I learned a great deal about listed derivatives.

(14:54):

I think that helps me every day in assessing projects, in assessing new primitives that are being created on the blockchain, which sometimes mirror what existed in the financial services world.

Nick (16:45):

In your opinion, is this asset class an inevitability? It’s going to happen and the cat’s out of the bag so to speak, or is there more to come? More of an experiment we’re watching play out.

Vanessa Grellet (16:57):

I think the cat’s out of the bag. We’ve been saying this since 2016 when I was at ConsenSys, but it has become a reality. I think we see global adoption. We see consumer adoption now with NFTs and we see a wide range of adoption and financial services. I think we’re still very, very early if you think about the implications of what decentralized models could be beyond NFTs, beyond financial services in other business models.

(17:41):

I think everyone is gearing towards that transition of more decentralized platforms that are accessible that people can build on, that people can participate in and generate revenues from.

Nick (17:58):

Another thing I wanted to ask you about is the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. What is that organization and what do you do for them?

Vanessa Grellet (18:05):

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance was actually my first job when I joined ConsenSys. We wanted to create this server consortia of enterprises that wanted to build on this area. We launched this with JP Morgan, BNY. I mean there were a lot of players at the time. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is a group that really tries to help enterprise and drive adoption of Ethereum Enterprise.

(18:43):

People were working long quorum. Now I think people more and more are seeing the power of Ethereum as you can do private Ethereum and public Ethereum and blend it to, and there are ways to secure the private instances of Ethereum that you can use from the enterprise side. But now all eyes are on the public blockchain and I think the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is a great convening venue for those conversations and for people to work together on projects to help bring enterprise to the public blockchain.

Nick (19:27):

I also want to ask you about blockchain for social impact, another organization you do some work with. It’s hard to imagine, given everything you’ve accomplished that you’ve got enough time to do all these incredible things. What can you tell us about Blockchain for Social Impact?

Vanessa Grellet (19:42):

We launched the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition. Again, when I was at ConsenSys, it was seated by ConsenSys and it became a standalone non-for-profit where each year we would organize an annual conference and then an incubator. We’re right now working with an association called Green NFTs and Continuing Network.

(20:09):

I have some exciting news that we are going to shift the official entity into DAO so that we could have a more vibrant participation and more open participation for people who want to get involved in building solutions that see the greater good as the end game and want to see the impact of the solutions that are built from a tech perspective.

Nick (20:45):

Following your career track to present, you recently joined Aglae Ventures. This is big news that just recently released. What can you tell us about your new role and what you’re doing at Aglae Ventures?

Vanessa Grellet (20:57):

Aglae Ventures is part of the Arnault Family Office. Arnault Family Office is the family of the LVMH group and therefore they have a regulated asset manager that has a few VC funds. These funds have already invested very successfully in web2 companies and have asked me to set up their web3 activities as they were getting more and more opportunities to invest.

(21:32):

Being a very entrepreneurial family, they see the opportunity. I actually worked very closely with the LVMH teams a few years ago to create their blockchain platform called Aura, which allows you to track and trace luxury goods. It’s actually a consortia of brands, of luxury good brands with Richemont, Prada, LVMH, Cartier and others who created this platform to track and trace luxury goods and then also allowing for NFTs in ways for these brands to interact with the blockchain.

(22:11):

Being early visionaries and adopters in that space for their business, they wanted someone who was well-versed in web3 to lead their investments in that space.

Nick (22:26):

One of the questions I was most anxious to ask you is about how you do the work that you do. For listeners that don’t know, a lot of what you do is performance analytical work of investment opportunities. I’m curious about your method in this space, how you go about analyzing and identifying different opportunities for investment within the crypto space.

Vanessa Grellet (22:50):

Yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention before is that I teamed up with Jordan Lazaro Gustav, who was the former CEO of Aave. I brought him in as a partner in our activity and basically we like a few themes in the web3 space, which is web3 infrastructure, CeFi and DeFi, the creator economy, and of course Ethereum scaling solutions.

(23:22):

Basically, since we invest in early-stage deals, whether it’s pre-seed or seed, we really invest in the teams and the ideas and their capacity to execute. We’re often pre-product, [inaudible 00:23:38] maybe an MVP, an idea. We really need to assess the validity of the thesis and then the capacity of the team to deliver on that thesis and/or pivot if the thesis was wrong or if it needed to be course corrected.

Nick (24:01):

Looking at those three things then where do you think the most opportunity lies?

Vanessa Grellet (24:09):

I think in web3 infrastructure, everything needs to be built. I think there’s a lot of really exciting opportunities to decentralize the entire stack. The graph of course is obviously a key enabler in that space. But I think data storage, compute are still things where there is initial first movers, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be several players in the space. There’s a lot of excitement around more staking infrastructure and things like that which are really interesting to us, identity and then those key components.

(24:58):

But those are really hard problems. You really need to have a long-term vision in order to succeed there. I think another exciting area that we see is CeFi and DeFi and anything that helps drive the adoption of DeFi, whether it’d be security, whether it’d be just tools for consumers to access, DeFi, et cetera. I think that will be really interesting and other [inaudible 00:25:34] like insurance that gives comfort for mainstream adoption.

(25:40):

Then on the creator economy side, I think there’s a lot of excitement around NFTs and everyone is building an NFT marketplace, an NFT studio. We see a lot of projects that are more geared towards web2 and consumers rather than core web3 infrastructure. I think that’s what we’re interested in, whether it’d be financialization of NFTs or the expansion of the type of NFTs that are available.

(26:11):

Right now, we see collectibles, we see art, but NFTs could be anything. Finding new ways to leverage non-fungible tokens in financial services or real estate or others I think is interesting to us.

Nick (26:30):

I’d like to know how you deal with stereotypes often associated with crypto and web3. What I mean by that is sometimes in the media or in conversations on social, there’s this sensationalized perspective that the space is just full of shallow meme coins, no real underlying technology, no real underlying capabilities or assets.

(26:55):

How do you deal with that? Because you spend all of your time doing rigorous analytical work, due diligence, identifying investment opportunities based on these things, technology capabilities, assets. I’m curious how you deal with the stereotypes in the face of the hard work that you do and everything that you’ve accomplished in your career.

Vanessa Grellet (27:18):

When you’re at the early stage of adoption of innovation, there’s people experimenting, there’s people making mistakes, there’s people scamming. When I discovered bitcoin in 2013, I was at the bitcoin exchange downtown in New York, right by the New York Stock Exchange. I was like, “This is a very strange environment to me.” It made me think of what could have been the early days in the derivatives markets.

(27:52):

Things that are unusual or seem scammy or seem too good to be true at the beginning, maybe they are, but then they become mainstream and there’s adoption and people understand the power of the technology and what’s behind it. I don’t want to brush off all these misconceptions. But I think they’re part of the journey into creating really incredible and sustainable infrastructure for exchange of value across the world.

Nick (28:29):

As I mentioned earlier, not only one of the most influential people in crypto and web3, but you’re also a strong female voice in the space. I want to ask you about women leaders in the space and primarily contrasting it with your background. You spent 10 years in the stock exchange, for example, a traditional finance oftentimes criticized as being male dominated.

(28:54):

This move into crypto, this move into web3, is it more equitable? What’s been your experience on this particular issue of women, equality and leadership?

Vanessa Grellet (29:05):

I think there are less women in the space than traditional finance. I think due to the fact that it’s developer heavy and just the numbers don’t stack up in terms of computer science graduates that … I’ll give you an example. In the US I think 30% of the computer science graduates are women. Out of that 30% how much are going into crypto?

(29:34):

From that basis, there’s a numbers game that is not favorable to having a lot of women as developers. It shows afterwards in terms of how many women are leading projects, how many women are entrepreneurs, and how many women are in the space. I think if from could solve that education gap or that from the beginning there would be more women in the space.

(30:07):

I think there’s also the perception that it’s finance meets tech and some women maybe just naturally take a step back and don’t want to be involved or think it’s not for them. There’s some really great initiatives like SheFi who help Women invest get involved in DeFi and stopping that narrative that it’s not for them. I’ve only had really wonderful experiences in the space, but I also had great experiences in financial services. I know that’s not the case for every woman in the space.

(30:49):

I think much more initiatives around creating the conversations and stating that there is an issue that we can find some solutions is important.

(31:06):

Hi, this is Vanessa Grellet with Aglae Ventures. If my conversation with a GRTiQ Podcast has been helpful to you, then please consider supporting future episodes by becoming a subscriber. Visit grtiq.com/podcast for more information. That’s grtiq.com/podcast. Thanks for listening.

Nick (31:30):

I want to follow up on that and just ask, do you think that this space, crypto web3, is it fundamentally more open to equitable relationships between men and women?

Vanessa Grellet (31:50):

I think they are. I think everything is open, everything is available, everything is online, so no one really cares who you are behind your Ethereum address. There is that openness. But at the same time, as I’ve said before, there’s just a numbers game that just makes it difficult to have more women in the space.

Nick (32:19):

Vanessa, I want to ask you a really difficult question and I’d just love to get your opinion on it. But so much of the ethos of web3 and of crypto is that it equals the playing field for regular people anywhere in the world to participate. The barriers to participation are quite low. However, it is as you’ve very clearly articulated an asset class that’s growing in adoption and has a lot of opportunity ahead of it.

(32:45):

Do you really think it’ll be the case over the long term that it doesn’t end up a situation where there is the 1% and everybody else participating in the space? Or do you really believe in that equitable starting point for everyone to get involved and participate?

Vanessa Grellet (33:03):

I really like the starting points. I think it’s true. I think however things are built. We are still in the situation where the 1% or 2% are very influential and drives the conversation. But we’ve seen last year with the explosion of NFTs, how many people really got access to something that was easier for them to grasp than DeFi or finance and giving them more opportunities.

(33:37):

I think the key issue here is how do you drive adoption? I think for a long time we thought it would come from financial services and people would understand how to get yields and how to invest in these tokens and give them opportunities. But the average person, it’s already hard to manage their day-to-day finances in the traditional finance world, let alone trying to get onto meta mass to do some swaps and get rugged into a DeFi protocol.

(34:13):

I think that the opportunity here and [inaudible 00:34:16] NFTs is that it opened the conversation to a lot of people that previously were totally tone-deaf to crypto. Then you have other things like gaming like play to earn who is reaching out and is touching populations in the emerging markets that really have the opportunity to get extra income, where before it was totally closed to them.

(34:50):

I think the other aspect of creating that level playing field is in the context of inflation and countries where there’s such a high inflation that even just holding things in crypto allows you to not lose money, which is fantastic giving in some of the dramatic situations that some of the countries are in.

(35:16):

I do think that crypto levels the playing field, gives more opportunities. There are projects like SOLO who are very involved in emerging markets and really trying to make the experience of getting onboarded to crypto easier. I think we’ll see more and more of those. But you have to meet people where they are. It’s not because you build an amazing technology or DeFi protocol that everyone can take the opportunity to tune it.

Nick (35:50):

Vanessa, before you joined Aglae Ventures, you were at CoinFund and CoinFund is a fund that took a lot of interest in the graph protocol early on. During your time there, you obviously had a relationship with the graph. I want to know if you could just take us back in time to what it was about the protocol that drew the attention of you and your team at CoinFund and what some of your initial impressions were of The Graph.

Vanessa Grellet (36:18):

Yeah. I knew The Graph before I joined CoinFund. I knew the founding teams. Even taken and always was fascinating by the project and the vision. When I joined CoinFund, we were working with the teams to support them as we do with every investment at CoinFund and dove a little bit deeper into their model, what they were trying to achieve, their vision, and really being a key part of the infrastructure and empowering people to curate blockchain data and create this layer of application that everyone can use is really something that is really excited to me.

(37:09):

I think I really like those projects that serve the entire industry and that become a core piece of the infrastructure.

Nick (37:19):

If I go back to what you said earlier about identifying opportunities in the space, I presume The Graph would fit into web3 infrastructure. I want to ask you. How important do you think the graph or a solution like the something for querying and indexing blockchain data is for the future of web3?

Vanessa Grellet (37:40):

It’s really key because all actors and new projects need to have access to data and easy access to data and non-siloed access to data. This is what The Graph allows you to do. Once you have that, you can build solutions that are based on data, that pool data and that is almost like a shared sense of truth on that data. I think for me, The Graph is one of the key components of this new decentralized world.

Nick (38:20):

In this new decentralized world of web3, there’s been debate about how important decentralization is and if the whole web3 stack needs to be decentralized. Do you think we can properly call it web3 if it’s not fully decentralized the entire stack?

Vanessa Grellet (38:40):

I have to say nothing’s going to be perfect immediately. I think we all have the vision of these decentralized stack. There are some limitations due to regulation that people will encounter, and then it’s just the time that it takes to shift from one technology to the other, shifting an entire infrastructure and the way that people make money and are incentivized is really a varying long-term vision.

(39:24):

I’m comfortable with the fact that in the meantime there’s some centralized components to it and I think we should all look to the end game, which is really decentralizing most of the stack and having this access to platforms that are basically shared goods for businesses.

Nick (39:50):

The last question I want to ask you is about the future. It’s a difficult question, another difficult question for you here, but I really want to ask you. That is, if web3 is fully adopted in the world, it reaches its full potential, its full success, how does it impact the lives of regular everyday people?

Vanessa Grellet (40:10):

I think the first impact would be a reduction in fees that are paid to intermediaries that they can be hidden or visible things and I think will … That’s one and direct impact. Second impact is the opportunity to engage, burn, and be rewarded for your behavior or your actions in a way that’s not possible currently.

(40:53):

Moving from an extractive economy to a inclusive economy that allows people to be co-owners and have shared ownership of the infrastructure, which is a very different proposition. From a concrete perspective, I think that allows you to think differently about life and how you engage in life and what you need in life to thrive.

(41:32):

I think it will have immense impact on the future of work. Not everyone is going to be a DAO contributor. But think in the future, the impact that all these systems will have on more traditional hierarchical organizations and how that’s going to impact them.

Nick (41:57):

Thank you for that answer, Vanessa. We’ve reached a point in the podcast now where I’m going to ask you the GRTiQ 10. These are 10 questions I ask each guest of the podcast every week to help listeners learn something new, try something different, or achieve more. Vanessa, are you ready for the GRTiQ 10?

Vanessa Grellet (41:57):

Let’s go.

Nick (42:28):

Vanessa, what book or article has had the most impact on your life?

Vanessa Grellet (42:33):

One of my favorite books is called Why Nations Fail. It’s really an interesting book because it takes you throughout the ages why some nations succeeded and why some others failed. Of course, it’s not saying this nation is good, this nation is not good. It just tries to give a framework from distinguishing extractive economies that are more akin to create poverty and more inclusive economies that foster prosperity.

(43:18):

I think one lesson learned from that book was that institutions matter, the rule of law matters and that drives a lot of the environment in which people succeed.

Nick (43:37):

Is there a movie or a TV show that you think everybody should be required to watch?

Vanessa Grellet (43:42):

One of my favorite movies is Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick. I think everyone should watch that just to understand the depth, the analysis, the hilarious and ways of presenting things in that movie I think is really something that although it’s presented sometimes as a comedy, it dives into the deepest issues that me as human beings have.

Nick (44:18):

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

Vanessa Grellet (44:24):

I’m a big classical music fan. If there’s one artist that I could listen to for my entire life is probably Mozart, maybe not the answer you would expect. But that is something that I could listen to every day.

Nick (44:40):

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

Vanessa Grellet (44:44):

The best advice that someone has given to me was to read a book called What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. I read the book and it confirmed a little bit the theory that we’re constantly changing as human beings and constantly evolving, and we need to embrace that change in order to be the better version of ourselves or to want to achieve some goals that you’ve set for yourself.

(45:17):

It’s not a book that I would’ve befriend because I thought it would look like a self-help book. But I think it was really interesting for me to … If you read this book then, you’re able to take a step back on everything that you do and maybe make conscious decisions about how you evolve and where you want to be. I think that’s a book that I for everyone, but that was the best advice I got.

Nick (45:48):

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

Vanessa Grellet (45:55):

What I’ve learned is that you always need to challenge yourself and challenge your assumptions. I think it’s very hard. Unless you do this almost really to see and an exercise that you do on a regular basis, I think it’s not working and you won’t have the benefits of doing that. I think that’s something that I really try to force myself doing.

Nick (46:26):

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

Vanessa Grellet (46:30):

It’s putting in my calendar times where I dedicate certain activities, whether it’s research, whether it’s certain types of calls, et cetera, because it’s very easy for me to fill up my calendar from 7:00 a.m. to midnight with just calls. Just organizing that and being very intentional about it has changed a lot for me.

Nick (47:02):

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

Vanessa Grellet (47:12):

I think being optimistic, does it mean being over optimistic. But being optimistic that you can change things, that you have the ability to drive your life and make the changes that you want to change. Also having an optimistic outlook on other people and always taking the best part of everyone and every conversation.

(47:50):

If you have that optimistic outlook, I think it just changes the way you see the world and it allows you to also break down barriers into what you want to do and bring other people alongside you.

Nick (48:09):

Then the final three questions are complete the sentence type questions. The first one is, the thing that most excites me about web3 is …

Vanessa Grellet (48:17):

Decentralization.

Nick (48:19):

The next one, if you’re on Twitter, then you should be following …

Vanessa Grellet (48:23):

[inaudible 00:48:23].

Nick (48:24):

The last one, I’m happiest when …

Vanessa Grellet (48:28):

With the people I love.

Nick (48:38):

Vanessa Grellet, thank you so much for doing this interview. I’ve been so excited to meet you and again, so impressed with your background and everything that you’re accomplishing. If listeners want to learn more about you or follow some of the work you’re doing, what’s the best way to do it?

Vanessa Grellet (48:52):

The best way is to follow me on Twitter. My handle is @VanessaGrellet_. Or you can just reach out to me on Telegram at Vanessa Grellet altogether. I think that’s the easiest way to get in contact.