GRTiQ Podcast: 91 Suhail Kakar

The following podcast is for informational purposes only. The contents of this podcast do not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice. Take responsibility for your own decisions, consult with the proper professionals, and do your own research.

Suhail Kakar (00:19):

I think I recommend The Graph because it is very easier, a very cheap way, and also it’s completely decentralized, which is a great thing about it.

Nick (00:56):

Welcome to the GRTiQ Podcast. Today I’m speaking with Suhail Kakar, a developer advocate engineer at Livepeer. You’ve likely already come across Suhail’s work, either on Twitter, through his blog, or through his newsletter. Suhail is a content machine regularly producing illustrations or charts, articles, or blog posts that explain web3 and empower devs to build the next generation of dapps. During our discussion, Suhail talks about his background and work at Livepeer, his perspectives on dapps and the web3 stack, and then we talk about his enthusiasm for different projects such as Lens protocol, and of course The Graph. Like we always do, I started the conversation by asking Suhail about his professional and educational background.

Suhail Kakar (01:44):

So I started my career as a developer in 2019 as a freelancer where I was working with different clients to review their websites and create new, or update your existing, websites. In August, 2022, I started working as a software developer at an Indian startup responsible for end-to-end web an app development. However, due to COVID, I stopped going to the office, and then I got a remote job in a UK-based software development company in 2021. And there I collaborated with team members to develop structure and implement applications from different types such as health, social, fitness, and many other. At the same time, I also went through the web3 rabbit hole and continued learning and building projects, which is why in August, 2022 I joined at Chainstack as a developer advocate. And just one month ago in October, I joined Livepeer with an amazing team of three enthusiasts as a developer, advocate engineer. Livepeer is a decentralized video infrastructure that primarily focuses on the video transcoding, uploading, streaming over the decentralized network.

Nick (02:53):

Suhail, you mentioned that you’ve done some work at Chainstack. Listeners know that I had Eugene Aseev, one of the founders and the CTO at Chainstack on for episode 40. For those that don’t know what Chainstack is, what can you share with them about Chainstack and what you did while you were there?

Suhail Kakar (03:09):

Yeah, so basically Chainstack is a single point of access for all the projects and protocols in order to deploy or create a public network on any blockchain that’s [inaudible 00:03:22], if they want to interact with it. So that is what Chainstack offers, public and private. For public blockchains it provides nodes and infrastructure. At Chainstack, I used to work as a developer advocate, write web3 focused articles, attend different events and conferences, and also build the web3 developer tools.

Nick (03:41):

And you’re working at Livepeer, contributing to that community there. What are you working on specifically at Livepeer?

Suhail Kakar (03:50):

At Livepeer I currently work as a developer advocate engineer, which is more like a hybrid role of a developer advocate and software engineer. At Livepeer, I basically contribute to one of our open source projects named as Livepeer JS, which is an SDK. So I contribute to that, and besides that I attend to events and conferences, write tutorials and guides, and also help developers integrate and also solve if they have an issue with the Livepeer or the other services which we provide.

Nick (04:19):

So, Suhail, in addition to these projects you’ve been working on, you have a huge online presence. You create a ton of content, and your Twitter following and engagement is super-high, which is part of the reason we’re talking today. Before we talk a little bit more about all of that, I want to ask you how you first became interested in crypto and web3. If you go back in time, can you remember when you first became aware of it, and what your initial impressions were?

Suhail Kakar (04:45):

Yeah, so I think it was 2021 where, basically, I came across the different cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. At that time, I had no idea about web3 so all I knew about was they are cryptocurrencies. Digging a little bit deeper into those cryptocurrencies, I learned about how they work and how they are so fast, which are completely opposite to the banking system, which currently works that takes more than 24 hours to send money overseas to some other country. And seeing these cryptocurrencies make this lightning fast and just within the same minute or maybe not more than two, three minutes, you can transfer it, and also seeing the idea behind it, that it’s completely decentralized, not owned by any company, I got the main idea there on the 2021. Then, digging a little deeper, I came across different blockchains, and that is where I started my web3 journey.

(05:43):

After going through it, seeing its community, the idea behind it, the decentralization, and also how it differs from the Web Two and the centralized communities and companies such as Google or Facebook, I thought this might be the best thing to follow and continue along.

Nick (06:03):

So you’re interesting to me, and I’ve had a lot of guests on the podcast before that have a similar story because you were working in Web Two. You were doing good work. You’re a smart guy, and something about web3 draws your attention, and you decide to make the move and make a career change. What do you think it is about web3 that’s pulling all this next generation talent into the space?

Suhail Kakar (06:24):

Right, actually, as you know, the main idea behind web3, it is decentralized, meaning that nobody controls it, so it’s the people who control the projects or any software. So that was the main idea, which I believe most of the people are translating. But beside this, the security, the privacy which the users have on the web3 projects are compared to be very low on the Web Two platforms. As you see the news, there are many millions of users that data gets leaked from the Facebook or Instagram. However, as we see for the web3, actually there are quite a few, or maybe they are not at all, because this web3 projects do not collect any data, and they’re completely secure, and they are decentralized. And also, I believe they have a very much powerful and also a great community, which is why it draws many people and developers into it.

Nick (07:20):

So what do you tell your friends and family as you’re exploring web3 and you begin making this career move?

Suhail Kakar (07:26):

So actually I told them back in 2021 when I started it, and to be honest, many of them were interested. And since I’m from Afghanistan, a country where it is very backward, an underdeveloped country, and seeing that nobody is capable of sending the money to other countries wherever they are with very high charges, and also very difficult for those people. When I mentioned my friends and family, they were very much interested in it, too, not because of even decentralization and privacy, but because that you can send it very fast. You don’t have anyone who controls it. So this was the primary reason for my [inaudible 00:08:06] developer I thought about this privacy and decentralization.

Nick (08:09):

Suhail, as you mentioned there, you’re from Afghanistan, but you’re currently living in India. I always like to ask my guests about the interest in crypto and web3 where they’re currently living. So what can you share with us about what’s going on in India?

Suhail Kakar (08:21):

I believe in India there are many great leaders and also developers, great communities in India. So from where I’ve been here for some time, I see that there’s a lot of potential of great companies and developers arriving from India in a few years, or maybe a few months. So I think, from my point of view, India has a great people and also community on the web3 side.

Nick (08:45):

Suhail, let’s turn our attention now to this content machine that you are and a lot of the content you’re producing. Let’s start with dapps. So this is something you’ve written a lot about. I’m curious about how you define what dapp is?

Suhail Kakar (09:00):

From my point of view, a dapp, which is also called as a decentralized application or applications which are completely decentralized, meaning they are not controlled by a single organization and they are playing a vital role in the world of blockchain. To give you an example of a difference between app and dapp, an app is just like Facebook or maybe Twitter or an Instagram where users can share their posts, pictures and et cetera, and it has just one server, which is maybe the Facebook server. And once it’s down, the whole app would be down and nobody can post anything. And also, when you post something on this application, they are completely controlled by Facebook and Twitter team. However, an app which is a decentralized application has a different networks across the world, and they’re completely owned by the people who host and who interact with those applications. So this is the main difference between the app and dapps.

Nick (09:56):

Where do you come in on the discussion around decentralization in terms of infrastructure and how people build dapps? Does a dapp need to be built on fully decentralized infrastructure in order to be considered at dapp? How do you think about that?

Suhail Kakar (10:12):

So it is basically for now we just have a half-answer, because most of the applications or most of the infrastructures are currently centralized, many node service provider are completely centralized right now. But from what I define, even if it is more than 80% to 90% of applications that is using decentralized, the main point is it does not have any downtime, or if it is completely transparent stored on a public ledger, which keeps track of everything, that is considered as dapp. But if the app completely uses everything decentralized, that could also be called as a dapp, which are completely used, for example, if they use Anchor, which is decentralized for node service providers, The Graph, or querying the data. So those will be fully decentralized applications.

Nick (11:02):

When I interviewed Sam Williams with Arweave, I asked him what the next big thing in web3 needs to be and he said, “It needs to be more dapps. We need more people building dapps and as a result, more users using dapps.” How do you feel about that?

Suhail Kakar (11:19):

I completely agree with Sam. We do need many dapps because as you know the web3 is at early stage and there will be a lot of tools and software which developers and also other users need [inaudible 00:11:33] on these decentralized networks. So I do believe that we still need a lot of decentralized applications or dapps to speed up our work as a developer, but also each dapp should be different also from the previous one. For example, currently most of the dapps lack UI and UX, which is one of the drawbacks of the most of the dapps right now. But I hope that this will be solved in a few years after we have correct tooling and applications.

Nick (12:01):

So, Suhail, I then have to ask you what web3 dapps are you using as a user?

Suhail Kakar (12:07):

For me, I usually use Lenster for now, which is a web3 social media application on the web. And on the mobile I usually use the Onboard application, and also some other web3 applications like Rainbow, Uniswap, and also a few others such as Olive and [inaudible 00:12:28] is one on the applications which I use on a regular basis.

Nick (14:01):

As you’re out meeting different developers, and I’m sure from time to time you come across Web Two developers, do you think there’s a big appetite within the developer community to build in web3? I guess my question is, are developers or the global developer community thinking about building in web3 as something they should be doing?

Suhail Kakar (14:21):

Well, actually, it really depends. For some of the developers, they usually just build the applications, which would be, for example, social applications or streaming applications and just decentralized applications. While most of developers which I talk to, they are very much building developer-focused web SDKs and tooling, which is a very great idea. For example, I have met many developers at the Solana Hacker House where they had great ideas of building SDKs and APIs which would speed up the process of building these dapps.

Nick (14:57):

You bring up Solana there. Recently there was a huge announcement with relationship to Solana and Google. I’m curious what your thoughts are when you hear news about big Web Two companies getting involved in web3? Are you excited about that? Or does it make you suspicious? What are your thoughts?

Suhail Kakar (15:15):

For me as a web3 developer, it makes me excited because these tech giant companies understand the true meaning of web3 and try to just translate into these and provide nodes for infrastructure. However, in my point of view, since these blockchains are decentralized and they are completely… companies do not own them, even though a Web Two companies such as Google transit into web3 applications, there won’t be any change in the web3 because it is decentralized and that they cannot change that.

Nick (15:44):

So as you think about the next big milestones that we need to see in the dapp space in order to push greater adoption, what are some of the things that you’re personally watching for?

Suhail Kakar (15:55):

Personally, most of the dapps, which I currently watch right now is the social applications, which is most of them built on the top of Lens protocol, Graph protocol, Livepeer and many other applications. So these are the apps which I currently watch, and day by day I see the new innovations with these apps and the improvement in the UI and the UX, which really opened the door to many other ideas and innovations which developers can do in the web3 ecosystem. And as you mentioned it earlier, web3 is still at early stage, and we need a lot of dapps to be honest.

Nick (16:31):

When I look at the content you’ve produced, a lot of it is geared towards, obviously, developers and how to build in the web3 space. It’s almost impossible I think to talk about building in the web3 space without talking a little bit about the web3 stack. So as you look at the web3 stack right now, what do you see? Do you see gaps? Do you see a fully formed web3 stack? What’s your perspective?

Suhail Kakar (16:53):

From my point of view, the web3 stack currently has a lot of gaps to be honest, currently. For now, it is completely fine? We do have blockchains Layer 1. We do have authentications, the Layer 2 smart contract development. However, these or not sufficient yet. We do have a lot of gaps between these web3 stacks and we hope to see many other protocols comes up to speed up the development and also innovate the new applications. The best example, I think, is the Lens protocol. I believe it was created in 2021 May of this year. And from that time to now, it gets lots of popularity, and most of the big social applications in web3 right now uses Lens protocol which speeds up lots of the work, and it also provides a great UX such as Gasless or Signless. So I really hope in upcoming years we would see lots of great web3 protocols that are web3 [inaudible 00:17:49].

Nick (17:49):

Does the web3 stack need to be decentralized? Kind of going back to my question about dapp infrastructure, does the stack itself need to be decentralized?

Suhail Kakar (17:58):

In my point of view, in order to keep an app decentralized, the infrastructure should be also decentralized because these are the stack which an app uses. So if they are not decentralized, or if they’re using a centralized service such as Google Cloud or AWS, there is still a point of failure which sometime it might come down, or the server might not work, or maybe they completely shut down the whole node service provider. So I do believe it is very good, and most of the protocols are already following to completely go decentralized and without any centralized middleman in the middle.

Nick (18:34):

One of the things I love about your Twitter account and following you on Twitter is the charts and the graph that you create. Some of the illustrations that outline, for example, what web3 architecture looks like, what a dapp architecture looks like, and things like that. When you look at the web3 stack in general terms, what are the key elements of that?

Suhail Kakar (18:56):

In my point of view, the key elements for our web3 application, the first it would be the blockchain or… either be Layer 1 or a Layer 2, and then you would have an authentication, which is either MetaMask or ENS Wallet Connect. Then we would have a smart contract, which is a language which we use to write on the blockchain. And then you would have some protocols which plays a wider role. Some of them are Graph, [inaudible 00:19:24], Livepeer. And for front end, it is very similar to Web Two. We have the React [inaudible 00:19:30], and then we have the last three or four, which is the file storage, which one of them is Arweave, IPFS, and also Filecoin. We have a developer environment which is Hardhat, Truffle, or Brownie, and also Foundry.

(19:43):

And plus we have our web3 libraries which will allow us to contract with our smart contract. Those are Ethers.js, web3.py, and also web3.j. Finally, we would also need a node service provider to query that blockchain, which as example, Infura, Quick Node, Alchemy, or Chainstack.

Nick (20:03):

You have a lot of personal experience as a software developer in using things like JavaScript or Python, GraphQL, React, Solidity. These are a bunch of different skills that you have being able to use all of that. When it comes to web3, does it stay as open and diverse as it is presently when it comes to these different developer languages? Or does it eventually consolidate?

Suhail Kakar (20:28):

From my point of view, all our front end developer tooling or infrastructure will still be the same, like the React, the Tailwind, the JavaScript and everything. This is what we use in web3 right now. So I believe there won’t be any change on the front end tooling. However, on the backend we might do it, but there’s some rare cases. However, some of the web3 applications which I see now do not use the Web Two backend, for example, MongoDB or maybe Node.js, but the front end is completely same, and I believe it will be same even in the future.

Nick (21:00):

How does GraphQL fit into all of this? I’ve had Uri Goldstein on with the Guild. As you probably know, the Guild is a core developer team working on The Graph and their expertise is mostly in GraphQL. How should we think about how GraphQL fits into web3?

Suhail Kakar (21:15):

In my point of view, GraphQL plays a vital role in the web3 applications, mostly applications which are built on top of The Graph because The Graph uses GraphQL as [inaudible 00:21:27] layer in a state of rest. So GraphQL plays a vital rule even in the Web Two and web3. And even some of the other protocols uses GraphQL, for example, Lens protocol, and many other. So I think GraphQL plays a vital role as you use these infrastructures, and it is way better faster than the rest which commonly many people use.

Nick (21:50):

You recently did a Twitter spaces called, How to Start Your web3 Journey, and you joined a bunch of panelists and guests. If you could sum up what came out of that conversation, the best advice to somebody who doesn’t know how to start their journey into web3, what would you say that is?

Suhail Kakar (22:07):

Yeah, sure. So in my point of view, if a person already wants to come to web3, I think that really it depends on what they want to become in the web3 space. If they want to become a blockchain developer, if they want to [inaudible 00:22:21], or if they want to be a full stack web3 developer. So once they try to understand their objective, then each path would be different. For example, if they want to become a full stack web3 developer, the best way would be to first learn the front end Web Two, that is React JavaScript, and then learn the basics of blockchain and terms, for example, web3, [inaudible 00:22:41], and then learn smart contracts, for example, Solidity or REST. And then maybe they can try with [inaudible 00:22:49] with the blockchain. That would be Ethers.js. And finally they can learn the development environment Hard Hat, and also [inaudible 00:22:59].

(22:58):

But this is just for a person who wants to get started. If they already are, then it would be better to dig a little deeper and learn about oracles. That would be Chainlink, Graph, and also social layers, DeFi. So I think that was the main outcome, that every path is different for every developer, yes.

Nick (23:16):

Suhail, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times here, you have an enormous online presence. I kind of put you in that same bucket as someone like Nader Dabit out there working with devs. You’re also working on other projects. I want to ask you about your work at Onboard. What is Onboard, and what are you doing there?

Suhail Kakar (23:32):

Yeah, sure. Thank you very much. I work in an application called Onboard. It’s a decentralized social media application built on top of Lens. And since I built it with React Native, it’s available for both Android and iOS. So the main idea of this application was to create a seamless social media application, just like Web Two apps such as Twitter, which is completely gasless and signless. So this onboard application has already got over 50,000, five-zero on the waitlist where users want to try the app. And within just a few months from the launch, we have already got over 13K followers on Twitter. So I think this means that there’s lots of people who have interest in the web3 projects, especially on the social media side.

Nick (24:17):

Suhail, forgive me. I want to understand a little bit more about Onboard. So, is the best way to think about what it is as kind of like a web3 Twitter? Have I got it right?

Suhail Kakar (24:25):

Yeah, exactly. So it is more like Twitter. As I mentioned previously, since it’s a web3, we don’t collect any data and it’s completely decentralized. And also for example, we don’t even collect your email, your full name, your address, or any other thing, your IP address, specifically. So you can compare it with Twitter, but with many other features and different infrastructure, and also different stack.

Nick (24:51):

Congratulations. That’s a huge deal, and that’s a lot of people signed up to wait and see this. If someone wants to learn more about Onboard and maybe get involved, what’s the best way to do it?

Suhail Kakar (25:01):

So I think the best way to learn more about onboard would be to visit the onboard website, which is onboardhq.io or maybe the Twitter handle where we provide more information. That is twitter.com/onboard_hq.

Nick (25:16):

You recently have been tweeting quite a bit about Lens protocol. Let’s just start with some basic stuff, for listeners that haven’t caught the news or been aware of what Lens protocol is and what it’s doing, what can you tell us about that?

Suhail Kakar (25:30):

Lens protocol is a decentralized social network that is built on top of Polygon, and by the great team from [inaudible 00:25:38]. So, in the Lens protocol each user has the ownership to their profile and the content they create, so users can create a content, monetize it, or even transfer their data. This is just an overall idea about Lens.

Nick (25:51):

Why is Lens protocol getting so much notice on Twitter and other places? What is it about that project that’s got people so excited?

Suhail Kakar (25:58):

So I think the best way to describe it, since there were not any web3 social networks right now, so the Lens protocol is very interesting right now, and also the idea behind it and the most of the applications which users use. The best example would be Lenster, which is already built and [inaudible 00:26:15] that is on Lenster.com where people see the future of the web3 social networks and how the user owns your data, the new ways to interact online, and also the portable social Graph. So I believe that’s the main reason why it’s getting lost of traction on social media.

Nick (26:31):

You tweet a lot about The Graph protocol. So you’re a user, but you also include it whenever you mention the web3 stack or dapp infrastructure. Why are you so excited about and engaged with The Graph?

Suhail Kakar (26:45):

Regarding Graph protocol, I’ve been using it a ton for most of my web3 applications. For those who don’t know about Graph protocol, it’s an indexing rail of the web3. Graph protocol is one of the most important indexing protocols for organizing the blockchain, and also it is making it a lot easier to access the data using GraphQL. There are many subgraphs which users can use. For example, there’s a subgraph for Livepeer, for Lens protocol, for DeFis such as Uniswap, and many others. And also, since it’s an open network, it is a very cheap and very reliable way to access data for many crypto applications, and the best way that supports many blockchains like Ethereum, [inaudible 00:27:30], and many others.

Nick (27:58):

How important do you think The Graph is for the future of web3?

Suhail Kakar (28:02):

Again, I think I mentioned this very much, but I believe it plays very much an important role in the web3 stack, even in the future, because that is where most of the applications use in order to query the data. The current [inaudible 00:28:14] is using Ethers.js or web3.js is also good, but I think I recommend The Graph because it is very easier, a very cheap way, and also it’s completely decentralized, which is a great thing about it.

Nick (28:26):

Are there any other projects that you’re excited about? We’ve already mentioned you’re working on Livepeer. We’ve mentioned Lens protocol several times, as well as The Graph. What else are you excited about?

Suhail Kakar (28:36):

So I’m also excited about many other web3 projects. For example, Arweave, which provides a great permanent storage, and also other services, IPFS from their protocol lab. And also there’s a new one, which is also called it XMPP. It is an open protocol for secure web3 messaging. It’s end-to-end encrypted. And also Polygon, Push protocol, [inaudible 00:29:00]. These are one of the projects which I keep an eye and I’m very much interested into it.

Nick (29:03):

There’s a little bit of a debate within the web3 community about what a world looks like where web3 is being used and Web Two is being used? And sometimes it’s framed as a winner-take-all situation. Either web3 is the next internet, or it’s Web Two, but they can’t exist at the same time. What are your thoughts on that argument? Where do you come in on it?

Suhail Kakar (29:26):

For me, it is in the middle. From my point of view, every app cannot be decentralized, and also should not be. If the app is not necessary for it to be decentralized, there’s no need to make it web3. For example, we have already have a Google search which users use to search the web. So it’s the Web Two, but we already know that it’s tracking the users and et cetera. It would be great if we also have a web3 alternative of this. But there are some application, for example, that do some blogging like WordPress Medium, which uses Web Two technology, so there’s no need of them to create a web3 version of it because there’s no need. I believe the Web Two version is only better than the web3 version. But for applications like social media, the one where Web Two companies have a lots of access to our privacy, I think it’s better to have a web3 version. And then I think both of them should exist at the same time.

Nick (30:21):

Let’s talk now about your blog and your newsletter. Let’s start with the blog. As I said, there’s a lot of great articles on here with some great illustrations. I don’t know if you do the design work yourself or source that out, but it’s all very well done. What can you share with listeners about some of the things you’re working on on your blog?

Suhail Kakar (30:38):

Thank you very much. So actually I do design myself using Sigma. It’s pretty easy. And for my blog, I usually post web3 content right now. It was also Web Two, but due to high demand of many people requesting the web3 articles, I started with the web3 articles. I already have main articles about building a complete YouTube clone with The Graph, Livepeer, and also Solidity. I have a complete roadmap and resources to become a web3 developer. And in upcoming days I’ll be publishing a new article about building a complete Twitch clone. So, yeah, I think that is where I usually share how to build web3 stuff and also guide other web pre developers.

Nick (31:17):

And the link to your blog will be in the show notes, so I want to encourage all the listeners today to visit the show notes and visit this incredible blog with, like you said, some really great content. You’ve also got a really nice newsletter and a lot of people subscribe to that. What are you doing with your newsletter, and what’s the best way for people to sign up?

Suhail Kakar (31:34):

So I think my newsletter is This Week in web3, which users can sign up from my Twitter account. It should be at the bottom of the followers I’m following. In my newsletter, I usually share a weekly newsletter of apps, resources, and new related to web3. For example, what happened in the past week in the web3 ecosystem? For example, on the June 6th, we had [inaudible 00:31:56] and Alchemy announced the support for Solana. We had [inaudible 00:32:01] some information about it. And then my newsletter, I usually share the weekly news resources about web3.

Nick (32:08):

Suhail, for listeners that are still trying to understand a lot of the different things going on in web3 on dapps, obviously you create a ton of great resources. I’d be curious if there’s other resources you would direct them to?

Suhail Kakar (32:20):

Yeah, so actually, there is one from Patrick. He’s a great web3 developer and also [inaudible 00:32:26]. He works at Chainlink. He recently published a course which is over 30 hours of complete full stack web3 development. So I think if anyone wants to learn web3, or completely new, or even experienced, that is the best way to watch the video.

Nick (32:41):

Why are you so optimistic about the future of web3?

Suhail Kakar (32:45):

Yeah, so actually have I mentioned it previously, the current situation of the web is a little bit bad. Most of the Web Two applications get a lot of data from us, for example, our information, everything, even our IP address and everything. And most of the time these apps are getting hacked. If you take an example of Facebook, Facebook collects many information from the user, their birthday, address, IP, and everything. And if we see news, I think few months ago Facebook, a database was leaked and over 25 million users’ data was leaked online by the hackers, which is completely unfair. And the users’ data get leaked. It was a very big issue.

(33:28):

I think the web3 solves this one, and also many other things, the ownership of the users on their data. For example, the different YouTube channels are getting banned because it is YouTube and they can do it. But if it’s web3, they cannot because the users own their content, their channel, and everything around it. So this is the main reasons why I’m completely optimistic about the future of web3.

Nick (33:51):

When you produce a piece of content, whether it’s for your blog, your newsletter, or any of the other projects you’re working on, have you noticed a pattern of what type of content people are most interested in having right now?

Suhail Kakar (34:03):

Yeah, so I think right now most of the people are interested in learning more about web3 ecosystem, as we mentioned The Graph, the Livepeer, Lens, EPNS. So they want to learn about the new protocols, and also they are very eager to build and learn about new stuff because it’s web3, it’s very new, and there are not much resources available. So I believe there are many other users or developers who are looking for good information, the way to learn about web achieve

Nick (34:34):

Suhail, before I ask you the GRTiQ 10, I want to ask you one final question, and it’s about what you’re seeing right now in the developer community. We’re currently in a bear market. People are concerned. What do you see in the developer community at a time like this? Are people still building? Are people motivated and excited?

Suhail Kakar (34:53):

From what I see, the developer interest on the web3 is completely unrelated of bear market. Especially in this bear market, we see a lot of new initiatives and also lots of new applications pop up every single day from different ecosystems. So I do believe that usually many developers don’t care about bear or bull market, and for them it’s just a build market and they just build applications.

Nick (35:18):

All right, Suhail. Well, now we’ve reached the time 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. So are you ready for the GRTiQ 10?

Suhail Kakar (35:32):

Yeah, sure.

Nick (35:44):

Suhail, what book or articles had the most impact on your life?

Suhail Kakar (35:47):

For me, it was a book called I am Gifted, So Are You by Adam Khoo from the… a student from National University of Singapore, which is one of the most inspiring stories of a person on how he achieved his dreams and how he reached success.

Nick (36:01):

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

Suhail Kakar (36:05):

Actually, I’m not a big fan of movies and TV shows, so, sorry, I don’t have any recommendation for that.

Nick (36:10):

No problem. What about this one, if you could only listen to one music album for the rest of your life, is there a particular one you would choose?

Suhail Kakar (36:17):

I think it’s similar to the first one because I usually spend my time listening to Lofi. I might not have information for this.

Nick (36:25):

No problem at all. So what about the best advice? What’s the best advice someone’s ever given to you?

Suhail Kakar (36:29):

So I think the best advice that someone given to me was my dad, which told me to… Basically, I was just doing a front-end stuff, and one day he just mentioned it is really weird if you do just do front end and not the backend, or maybe the database or blockchain. And he mentioned that, if you have time, try to learn those. For example, backend, cloud, mobile development, and cetera, if you have a time, especially on weekends. So that’s what I used to do, and that is why I’m here right now. If I would just continue my front end and developing, I think I would be just another company and just trying to be a front end developer. So that’s the best advice that he gave me.

Nick (37:05):

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

Suhail Kakar (37:11):

I think I don’t have anything for this one.

Nick (37:12):

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

Suhail Kakar (37:15):

For me, the best life hack to be productive or more efficient is, to be honest, do not use any productivity softwares. There are many right now, many timers to do applications and et cetera. But for me, if someone wants to be productive, it’s better not to use any applications like those and just stay focused.

Nick (37:34):

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

Suhail Kakar (37:43):

I believe the more they learn new things and the more they continue learning about new things as the best way to read success.

Nick (37:50):

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

Suhail Kakar (37:59):

Its community.

Nick (38:00):

And what about this one? If you’re on Twitter, then you should be following?

Suhail Kakar (38:05):

You should be following Nader Dabit. He’s a great tutor and instructor in Twitter right now.

Nick (38:10):

And lastly, complete the sentence, I’m happiest when?

Suhail Kakar (38:13):

I think it’s pretty common as a developer. I’m very happy when the [inaudible 00:38:17].

Nick (38:27):

Suhail, thank you so much for taking time to join the GRTiQ Podcast today. You’ve been very generous with your time and really appreciate the overview that you’ve provided of some of the projects you’re working on as well as all the great resources you’ve created for the web3 community. If people want to learn more about you and follow the things you’re working on, what’s the best way for them to do it?

Suhail Kakar (38:47):

Think the best way would be to contact me through Twitter, which is @suhailkakar.