The convergence of Web3 and AI is growing bigger by the day, and we can’t help but marvel at the imaginative use cases that are being dreamt up and developed as we sleep. To explore some of these innovations, we are joined in by Ron Levy, the host of the new AI podcast, Edge of AI. From futuristic fashion innovations that personalize your shopping experience to cutting-edge deepfake detection technologies safeguarding personal identities, explore the limitless potential of these two transformative technologies colliding. Uncover the impact of AI in various industries and its role in shaping a dynamic and interconnected future, where Web3 and AI together create new opportunities and possibilities yet to be imagined. Join in!
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Listen to the podcast here
Ron Levy - The New Host Of The Edge Of AI Podcast
This is Ron Levy. I'm beyond thrilled to host the Edge of AI Podcast, the next great endeavor from the Edge of Company. If you like the Edge of NFT, you will love the Edge of AI. Stay tuned to hear more about what's to come.
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NFT-curious audiences, stay tuned for this episode to learn more about the Edge of AI Podcast, its captain, and some of the incredible early guests. Let's hear about the Web3 and AI convergence that's already begun and where it might be going next. Finally, hear how one man's prized motorbike and a tank of gas serve as a fix for just about any problem.
It's official. You can now dive into the captivating world of artificial intelligence with the Edge of AI Podcast. Join us as we explore the frontiers of AI and its impact on our lives. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on Twitter @EdgeOf_AI and LinkedIn for exciting updates and insights. You can also visit our new website at EdgeOfAI.xyz.
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Our guest is none other than the esteemed host of our newest broadcast, the Edge of AI Podcast. His name is Ron Levy. I'll give a little bit about Ron before we welcome him to the show. As Cofounder and CEO of The Crypto Company Inc., Ron has led one of the first publicly traded entities within the blockchain industry. His company extends services spanning technology, consultation, and training. A significant branch of this venture is Blockchain Training Alliance, trusted by government agencies and leading global companies for quality blockchain education.
In addition to this, Ron is a Cofounder of Redwood Fund LP, which specializes in investing in small-cap companies. He also boasts a successful stint as the Founder and CEO of a renowned custom home-building company in Los Angeles, California. One of his current roles includes serving as a Cofounder and Director of Crypto Roundtable, a membership community aimed at fostering understanding and awareness of Web3, digital assets, and blockchain applications. Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Ron is a speaker and inspirational leader serving his companies and communities with unwavering character and commitment. Ron, welcome to Edge of NFT as well as Edge of AI.
Thanks so much, Eathan. I appreciate that great intro. It was like going back in the past for me. It made me tired just hearing it but I can't tell you how thrilled I've been here watching what Edge of AI has done from day one.
We appreciate you, Ron. That intro hits home for me in terms of why we wanted you to be our captain on the Edge of AI voyage because you have such a unique and diverse entrepreneurial experience that crossed all sorts of different industries. That's what Edge of AI is all about. It's this cross-cutting conversation because AI is oozing into the pores of every aspect of society. Let's start by diving into some of that background I mentioned and learn a little bit more about how you got into the tech space. What's that journey been like for you? What are some of the early beginnings there?
The first early beginning goes back to the zeros when I was running my construction and real estate development company. In my sector, I was one of the largest in LA, which I was very proud of. A gentleman showed up on my job site wanting to develop a project management software. I'll spare you the long story but he wanted to use my company as a guinea pig to do it. I always liked to be a little advanced in tech, so I said yes. It was one guy driving around with some laptops and working with my guys to develop his product. Fast forward 15 to 20 years, and he got a $4 billion company.
Having watched that happen, I thought, "That's interesting." I took note of that. Ultimately, through other things, I ended up starting The Crypto Company and getting to know crypto and blockchain. It was like a magnet for me for a lot of reasons. I love the decentralization philosophy. I really fell into it. I'm by nature a curious person. I went deep and I loved being around all the other people that are attracted to that, projects, and building things. It has been a seamless natural fit.
That hits home for me. One special factoid for our audience here is Eathan and I met through the round table that you moderate. It was this consortium of polymaths talking about where the world is going. It's not surprising that AI is now a conversation that we want to be part of because we're all attracted to that energy around conversations about what's disrupting society and how it is going to make all sorts of things happen. Another part of your personality and your hobbies that we should talk about is your world travel energy. I have that travel bug. I know Richard does. We have talked about it before. Eathan does as well. How has that fit into shaping your perspective on these types of things?
Probably the main part about it has a big impact on my life. A lot of those wilder travels were a lot of years ago. However, some of the lessons stuck with me. When you're by yourself in the middle of the jungle, and you got bad things and bad people after you, you learn something. I was around tribal culture. You learn something there. I lived in fully communist countries for years that were very heavy-handed communism. I can keep going with different religions.
When you see the results of all these things, you get a different perspective. That's why coming back here to the United States and working here is yet one more perspective, which we're immersed in but I didn't end up taking any of it for granted. It was something to measure it against. When Web3 showed up, for me, it was natural. I could look at how this decentralization of Web3 could help every type of society I was part of in theory. I thought, "That's a very unique quality." It has been amazing. Whatever excitement we had in blockchain, you can put multiples of that on top of AI with what's happening.
Through traveling the world, you start to meet and get a lot of experiences that crossover into the world of entrepreneurship. If you put out energy and try to meet different people, serendipity starts to happen. On your voyage, you serendipitously found us in our cross paths. There have been a lot of cool things that are happening now as we dive into the world of AI as you're alluding to. Can you talk through the story of how it was that you were able to cross paths with us, and now becoming a host of our new show?
It's such an amazing point you made. There was an art form. When I used to land in a new city, I would be nervous and have adrenaline pumping at the same time, "I don't know anybody here. How am I going to get started?" You develop art forms and realize every place you go is defined by the people you meet. I'll give you one example. There was one town I went into. I got into a cab the very first day I was there. The cabbie talked me into going somewhere, and I went there. It was like, "This is not how I want to start my journey." It was what I didn't want.
I remember sitting in my hotel room that night and going, "How do I change that?" In my mind, I came up with the idea, "I'm going to go downtown tomorrow and go where people would go for happy hour. After that, I'm working because those people seem to be what might give me the experience I wanted." It worked tremendously but it's a matter of stepping back. None of that is genius but it's a matter of not taking things for granted. You step back and do that.
I'm very proud of Crypto Roundtable when I started it. I'm not going to get into naming names but great projects and great people have come out of it. Most of those people showed up out of intrigue and curiosity. The lesson and the big learning is anybody can move forward, and more than anything, I would like to think I can deliver this. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are. If you choose to, you can do it. Make one relationship. Take one move. A lot of people did that.
It doesn't matter who you are or where you are, if you choose to, you can do it. Click To Tweet
I do remember the day that Josh called me up. He happens to be local in LA. I had never met him face-to-face before that. He said, "Do you want to meet me at 3rd Street?" We did. I remember that conversation. It was about the future. It was about skating to where the puck is going to be. We talked about that. I see Edge of Company as a result of that. I give myself about 1% credit for some inspiration. The founders have done ridiculous amounts of work to build it into what it is but it's amazing.
AI does that as well because as you will see in the Edge of AI Podcast of which we film some of them, the subjects are completely varied. It's not a tech show even though it's a tech show. It's like, "Holy heck. Look what's going on." Whether it's curiosity about it, whether they're looking for a career change, or whether they're looking for a place to invest money, it doesn't matter. It's all there. I don't know where else to go to get that information. It's going to be amazing. I can't tell you how thankful I am to become the host of it and be able to be part of the launch.
For the audiences out there who are curious about the new podcast, a few inklings there show up where Ron is hosting things. You might come out of it, whether you like it or not, with a new business venture, a cool insight, a new career, or something like that. There are no promises but Ron has a little bit of a lucky charm status in that respect, which I don't even know if we thought of before we brought him on board as the host. There are so many other great reasons.
I would love to chat a little bit about the show with you for a minute. You and I have been behind the scenes doing some recordings. I'm acting a little bit more as a producer of this one, although I have recorded a couple of episodes as host. Before we forget, we have been talking about the Edge of AI Podcast. We should mention, before people get too impatient, where you can subscribe and learn more about it. EdgeOfAI.xyz is the website. If you go to EdgeOfAI.xyz/subscribe, then you can easily subscribe on all major platforms.
We're going live on TV very quickly as well. You can check us out on the DeFiance network. On Twitter, we're @EdgeOf_AI. On LinkedIn, the company name is EdgeOfAI. You can keep up with everything going on. Back to the regularly scheduled programming here, by the time this episode airs, Ron, we will have launched on August 2nd, 2023. You're front and center for the recordings of the early episodes. I want to chat a bit about what you've done so far. Are there any general comments before we dive into some of the specific episodes?
The general comment is sometimes I've gotten the name of a company and/or person that we're going to be doing the interview with. Right away, my thought is, "I'm not sure why we're doing this. This may not be that exciting," but inevitably, it's amazing. Now I get it. That speaks to AI. AI is putting itself into everything we do and any company will do. There's nothing that it's not going to touch.
You can go across any sector. The great thing is it's entrepreneurs that are deciding which niche to tackle and it's just blue sky. You can pick anything and it's out there. We will get into some of what we have done. It's everything from deepfakes on the true AI side all the way to clothes, believe it or not. It's truly amazing. You're going to find it. I'm going to rewatch them because there's so much information. It's crazy.
You mentioned the entrepreneurial side. Interestingly, we've got several facets which you've also been involved in but you attracted the entrepreneurial side of things. We've got experts who are building the tech behind the scenes of how AI works, how has machine learning worked, how has it worked for decades, and how it has been built. We've also got artists and creators coming on as well as people who are using the tech in interesting ways, which we're calling use cases. We caught this person doing something amazing using AI. It's not necessarily a business or something like that but it's a cool project that they're doing. Let's check it out and have them show us how it comes together.
Maybe since you mentioned the entrepreneurial side of things, why don't we skip right over to one of those use-case examples of Galen Oakes of Future Factory? It was one of the earliest recordings you and I did. Galen was doing some amazing things in Midjourney. We asked him to share how, and he very kindly did. We will have the videos up. What was your impression of Galen? What did you think of that episode? What did you take away from it?
What I loved is they're using AI with Midjourney and creating artwork with it. That part is fantastic and I love it. What they're doing that I see is fairly unique but not 100% unique is they're also providing a physical space in multiple cities. You can join. That criteria quite honestly is that you're interested in spending time in it and being active. As long as you are, it's welcome. There's one in LA. You get a membership, and you will be showing up and be around like-minded people.
That to me is super powerful and amazing. They're opening in other cities. By the time this airs, they may be open in New York. I don't want to speak for them. They are opening in other cities. They're getting great adoption. It's this combination of Web3 with the physical space, which is an area that needs growing. It's that personal contact with people.
You bring up something pretty interesting. This is something Richard and I see as well as we talk to folks that might be potential guests on the show. We're straddling the curation side of both Edge of NFT and Edge of AI. There is this convergence, and that convergence usually involves a mix of digital and IRL. That's important to mind meld. If people want to get together, they don't want to just create the art. They want to show it off. They want to talk about how they did it.
We're excited about the live podcast format for that reason. We have one that will have already happened before this show comes out. If you've been checking our newsletter, you know about our launch party on August 2nd, 2023. We love those guys at Future Factory because they're creating a home for disruption and innovation. They helped with Outer Edge LA. One can imagine that we can accelerate the learning curve of using AI for good and impact if we not only use it for art as Galen is doing, but we could provide a place where people could talk about how they're using it.
What you said speaks to one of the commonalities we have between me and my companies, and you and Edge Of. That's education. Edge Of Company is a media company, make no mistake. In my mind, they're an education company. The idea is to educate people with everything you do. We have been doing that for years in this industry. Something like Future Factory does even more of it. Face-to-face get-togethers are everything. If you do only the other side, something is truly missing. To bring that in at this stage the way they're doing it is fantastic.
To recap too the general flow of how that's all coming together, we're all insiders on it but we have been seeing things behind the scenes. Future Factory is this amazing event space started by Paul Hemming, as well as an incredible team that he's brought together to do things. That team includes Galen Oakes. He is the Creative Director of the project.
They needed membership passes with an NFT attached to them because they want to be at the cutting edge of things. They needed imagery for those 10,000 profile pictures. Instead of doing the typical route of mixing and matching using randomization of different properties, Galen found a way to create these very unique but intricate character faces that have dissimilarity. They're unique. There are different tribes of them but then also, he was able to create a cohesive feeling to all of these images even though there are 10,000 of them.
If you've tried to use Midjourney to create cool images, you could do that, but to create consistent images, we were impressed with what he had done. Those images that Galen was creating were for the NFT passes to be a member of Future Factory. Future Factory is the organization that Ron has been talking about. Is there anything else to add about that episode? Richard, were you going to say something?
There are a lot of cool things. I remember you talking about this. Weaving into another episode that I know you spent a lot of cool time on is Joris Mollinga with DuckDuckGoose who talked about deepfakes and video images. Can we dive a little bit more into that one? I thought that was a cool one.
I'm happy to kick it off a little bit. It was truly amazing. First of all, Joris is out of the Netherlands. It shows how international this whole thing is. You don't even ask anymore, typically. You're just talking to people, and they're doing things. It doesn't even matter anymore. Deepfakes are a big deal. We all know that. It's one of the scary things that's going on.
For instance, if you're looking at someone's face, you can run it through his technology. It will give you a heat map on it and say, "That nose is a fake. With 90% surety, this is a deepfake." They can say, "With 90% surety, this is the real deal." They're creating libraries. It's amazing what they're doing. This is the industry solving what the industry knows is a problem and is going to become a problem, and designing the solutions off the bat. He's an amazing guy doing an amazing job.
With some of the cool stuff that they're doing too, Joris made a point to stress explainability as an important component of what we bring to AI. Ron and I were like, "Explain explainability. What does that mean?" It's not that complicated once you understand what the term means. We have AI being able to do things for us, but we don't always have AI telling us how or why it did what it did. What they're doing over there at DuckDuckGoose is saying, "We think this image is a deepfake. Here's the type of deepfake that we think it is. Here are a couple of different types of deepfakes that we know people use."
For example, he gave a face mash. It was two unique individuals that they made look like one entirely new person. It was Joris and one of his co-founders. You looked at the face, and you were like, "That's a guy. I don't know him. I don't know where he lives but that's a person." Their software says, "That's not a person. Here's why we don't think that's a person because we think it's a face mash." They had something called lip sync. There are different types of faking that get done. You were able to say what percentage or likelihood these different types were used.
Eathan, it reminds me of the time that we tried to merge together your face, my face, and Jeff's face. Someone wanted to create an NFT for us. We were trying to figure it out, "How do we create an NFT of a person when there are three of us?" That was a little bit of an ugly mashup of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots altogether. It did make me wonder when you were having that convo. Did the idea of using these deepfakes for authentication hacking come up? I'm thinking about bank robberies and personal identity robberies. That's one concern I have with deepfakes. I'm curious if that came up in the convo at all.
It did. There were a lot of conversations around those types of protections and personal ID specifically. Personal ID was a big deal for Joris. They're focusing on that because it's real. We're all using passwords to get into our bank accounts. It's going to be more and more, especially with the metaverse. Having companies like this spending the time and the energy they are now to come up with solutions for that is pretty amazing. That's exactly what they're doing.
There are more companies where you can use your face ID to log into an account. On paper, that feels more secure, especially if they're making me move around and stuff. I'm thinking about it, "There are products like this out there. Maybe not so much."
That is the goal. I asked him about Iris. That's not happening yet but it will because you and I both know. Iris scans are great when you're physically there but if you do it over your computer, and someone hacks in and gets that image, it's problematic. They're solving for all of that. There will be different ways of providing digital ID. My guess is we will have many guests that will be tackling different aspects of that. We had one already that talked about audio. I don't know if you want to go there, Richard or Eathan, but I found that fascinating.
One more thing I wanted to mention about DuckDuckGoose and Joris was that they do videos and images. They gave an image as an example in the episode but they do videos. As we're talking about security, he talked about it coming out of a university project and trying to find exactly what their fit was going to be. It's exactly what you raised, Josh. Identity is where this is needed the most, and that's where they have been targeting a lot of what they do. Down the line, they may move into other territories, but those are probably the easiest locations. Ron, you were mentioning Zohaib Ahmed of Resemble AI. They are doing audio. You could call what they're doing deepfaking. On the up and up, they're taking our voices and being able to create a double of them.
It's quite amazing. They did one of me and I can't tell the difference. I mean it is me the way they do it. What they have done back to Josh's question is they have a library. I can speak into their library, and it gets that check mark that this is wrong. Later on, if anybody tries to deepfake my voice, it will get measured against that. If it's not me, the computer will say so. The bigger the library gets, the more command they've got of that part of the industry. They didn't say exactly how they did it tech-wise. I didn't want to go into that detail on them but I have a suspicion I know. It's brilliant.
It's Resemble.AI. They focus on audio. That's what they do. That's their whole world. We all use speech-to-text and then text-to-speech. Most of us use it at some point in the day. They're doing it through languages. It's getting to a point where I could speak, and you will hear your language. If you speak Italian, I'm going to be talking at full speed in English, and you will hear it at full speed in Italian. There's no delay. There's no having to wait. I almost think you will hear it in my voice speaking Italian. I might be wrong about that but that seemed to be what they might be working on.
That's pretty awesome. When I think about impact, we have explored before what would it be like if Edge of NFT or Edge of AI was translated into Chinese, Taiwanese, or Vietnamese. The possibility that's on the horizon is exciting. On another point, I will mention this. Someone shared with me this fun Twitter space where Elon Musk was on. I don't know if anyone else saw this. There's another guy that sounds exactly like Elon Musk that is frequently on Twitter Spaces.
They were finally having their conversation with each other. Elon is testing out whether or not this guy is a person or AI. The guy is like, "Ask me something that I could only answer if I wasn't AI." He is like, "That's impossible. AI can answer any question I ask." We need this type of technology because, Richard, there could be your doppelganger out there getting into your accounts if you don't have a company like this.
I was going to add. The future of voice is interesting. I've been looking more into this. It goes back to a question that you asked, Josh, about security. One of the newest things that are happening is through voice. Resemble is going to be powerful for this because scammers are always going to scam. The newest scam is taking somebody's granddaughter's voice, calling them on the phone, and saying, "I need help. I'm in this bad situation. Send me the money in the next hour. Something bad is going to happen."
Unfortunately, people are getting scammed like that. How would you even be able to figure that out in real time? You call somebody but that's what the New Age of scam is. That's going to keep elevating because as new tools are continuing to evolve and have a lot of good, unfortunately, there's going to be bad that comes with it. We have to be ready for all these different scenarios.
I didn't even put that together, Richard. In this case, if that same granddaughter had put their voice into Resemble's database, then all grandma would have had to do is log in and say, "Is this her?" It would have said, "With 98% surety, it is not." That exists now but we don't know it. That's why it's called Edge of Company. Pulling all these things out that are more than relevant is amazing.
Resemble calls what they do an audio watermark of sorts. At least part of what they're able to achieve is if anything has been created using their software, then it can automatically be detected as artificially created through Resemble. There's another avenue that their tech could be less likely to be used for illicit purposes in a way, "We know this is fake. This has been tampered with." There's one more episode before we move on from talking about episodes that might be worth discussing. We talked to Chris Schmidt from Parallel, which is a social eCom AI for fashion, sharing sizing, and all this cool stuff. Tell us a little bit about what you learned from that one, Ron.
That was amazing. This is what I referred to about clothes. They have started this platform where with your camera, you're going to take two pictures of yourself as close to naked as you're comfortable with, maybe with some shorts on. You take a picture straight and sideways. You upload those photos, and the AI takes over. It takes your body measurements. There has been a company in the past, probably more than one, that you can then order clothes, and they will make the clothes.
That is not what this is. It creates a library of all these people, and they're up to 130,000 people that have put all their info in, and then it groups you together. I could have a group of 100 or 1,000 people that have my body type. When someone goes out and buys a Ted Baker shirt, they will say, "I bought a large. That's what fits me." Everybody that has that same body type will get that message or be able to look at it, click one button, and get that shirt in that brand with that size.
What does it do? It goes from the beginning. The problem Chris decided to solve was that a substantial portion of clothes are returned. When they are returned, it's an outright loss for the manufacturer, maybe not 100% but very much a substantial amount. He wanted to solve that problem, and this is how he's doing it. Now, when you get what you get, you know it's going to fit.
It's an amazing product. He's an amazing guy but he's got over a dozen developers. They all work under one roof. That's a very important part of the story. They have done what they have done in two years. It's this spectacular timeframe to build this out and have adoption already. They're in over 100 countries. It was mind-blowing but it was about the AI using it for the measurements I described but then using it to create communities for like-bodied people.
That's what I'm excited to listen to because this has been a pain point for me. I'm a marge. I'm between a medium and a large. I'm trying to get in better shape. Even within that category, different things fit me in different ways. I feel guilty. There have been a lot of times when if I want to try a new brand in particular, I have to order multiple styles, sizes, and products, especially since sources these days don't carry as much inventory. If you want to try a brand that you aren't familiar with, you may not even be able to go to the mall nor do you have the time. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place where I want to try new clothes, but I want to make sure they fit because I don't want to deal with all that extra time and energy. I'm excited this type of technology is out there.
There are two other things before we move on from that one. There are lots of exciting stuff. It alluded to what we're talking about but I don't know if we explicitly said it. Not only does it help the manufacturers with returns but it also helps the waste stream. A lot of these particular items get returned but they don't necessarily get restocked in some way because it doesn't feel right to send someone else some clothes that somebody else tried on. Some of them end up in landfills right there.
There's a lot of potential environmental positivity there. Even if people order the wrong size, don't return it, and get rid of it. The other thing that's interesting there is that it opens this world where people can become models of all sorts of different shapes and sizes for particular clothing. People are encouraged to share themselves wearing these things that they like the looks of, and other people say, "I like the way that looks on you. It's probably going to look good on me." It's pretty cool.
What we didn't mention is if you post something, you get a micropayment. You get a little bit for doing it and becoming that model. He was saying they have people going into dressing rooms, which I do not condone, trying various things on and taking pictures of it.
That's funny. You mentioned the intersection with blockchain too, which is micropayments and turning everyone into their creator and influencer and empowering them. It makes me wonder about a broader theme here that we're not going to be able to fully flesh out here. It's probably a conversation for the last few years from now. We have this situation where Web3, which is even a more nascent space than AI, is coming together with AI. Both are moving super fast. I'm curious, Ron. From these early episodes, what are some of the ways you foresee these worlds coming together, especially given you've been a student of blockchain and a leader in blockchain for a while as well? We have AI, and it's smacking us in the face but it has been around for a while too.
The overlaps are unimaginable. Let's move over to crypto for a moment. We have to quickly contend with what we are going to be allowed to do. Anybody that follows the news on some of the big companies and litigation can see that is being sorted out now, and it is not yet clear how it's going to land. While that's playing out, the industry doesn't slow down. The industry keeps going. It's worldwide. What's happening in one jurisdiction is there might be another jurisdiction where it is able to grow. That becomes something amazing.
Parallel is a perfect example. You get a real utility here of a potential token. I don't know if they're using tokens but I'm using it as an example. Micropayments enable people to do things they couldn't do before and extract value from them. It's pretty amazing. They cross over. The fact is it's a perfect question. I don't know if I can answer it. I'm thrilled with that. This is a discovery. We're all going to be discovering this together. The guests at Edge Of have been lining up. Look at the conversation we have had here so far. You can see the variety, and there's going to be more and more. We discover it all together. I'll say what's been said before. There's no limit. There's no industry that won't be touched by AI.
That's a great way to wrap up this segment. It's time for our Quick Hitters. Should we go ahead and dive into that?
Let's do it. We're mimicking this segment in Edge of AI with something similar but different. It's called AI Wants to Know. It's those questions that AI, no matter how smart it got, can't quite figure out about us quirky human beings. You can look out for that on the Edge of AI Podcast but we won't get into that with you, Ron. Maybe on another day, we will get your AI Wants to Know. You're on the Edge of NFT, and it's time for Edge Quick Hitters. This is a fun and quick way to get to know you a little bit better. There are ten questions. We're looking for a short, single-word, or few-word response but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Are you ready, Ron?
I am. I should have been in advanced prep for this. Thank you very much. We will wing it. Go for it.
You've listened to the show. You can always decline to answer whatever you want. This is going to be great. You've got such a great history. Question number one, what is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
I can tell you what snapped into my mind. It was an album by Iron Butterfly. It was called Ball. It had the infamous song, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which was eighteen minutes long or something like that.
I always liked how Iron Butterfly and Led Zeppelin had a similar theme to their names. Question number two, what is the first thing you remember selling in your life?
That would probably be a bicycle because I used to get them, tear them apart, build new ones, and sell them around. I loved to do that.
Before you were building homes, you were building bicycles.
I was very young. Our side yard ended up being a junkyard of parts, which I was very proud of.
The next question is question number three. Josh, do you want to take that one?
Ron, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
I got tickets to something. I'm trying to remember what. I bought tickets to a show of some sort. I don't even recall what it was. I bought them last week.
Hopefully, you have tickets to Oppenheimer because that was pretty awesome. I saw that. It was sold out for several days. It's hard to find a theater with the comfort seats at a good time but it's worth it. What is the most recent thing you sold?
The first thing that comes to mind that was easy was I was driving a 1967 GMC pickup truck as my daily driver. As you can tell from my early days with bicycles, I've always liked vehicles. It was great but I did sell it. That one went away.
Let's switch things up a little bit. What is your most prized possession?
I'm going with physical stuff so I don't offend any people out there. I have a motorcycle. I have a 1969 Harley-Davidson old police bike that's beautiful and in perfect condition. It's a work of art.
You live in LA. I'm sure you're taking on some great rides up and down the coast. On the flip side, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience that's for sale, what would you purchase?
I don't know for sure but it would be an experience. For instance, I don't speak Spanish. I was at least googling around, "Can I go to a surf camp that also teaches Spanish?" Sure enough, I was finding them. That's the top of my mind because I was looking for that.
Dominical. Why not Costa Rica? It's one of the best surfing areas. You will learn a little Spanish 100%.
My first surfing experience was in Lima, Peru. I didn't know that those guys would also teach you English but he was a good surfing instructor. I believe they called the guy Doc. He was this old and wise surfer guy. You've got a couple of options. This is great and affordable. These are affordable things. Question number seven, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
I would say, "Thank you, Dad." That has to do with character and integrity as he ingrained that in us above all. That would be it.
Question number eight, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would it be?
That would be Mom. I'm kidding. I don't know because I have had traits that I didn't like. I do self-assess and then work on changing them. I'm not saying I don't have any negatives. Let's not get a bunch of emails saying how I'm being self-absorbed here because I'm not. Nothing comes to the surface. No doubt there's a next one there but I don't know what it is.
You're taking a hiatus. That's well-deserved. Next question, Josh.
What did you do before joining us on the show?
That's interesting. I had to run out and do something. I drove down my street, which is right by Pacific Coast Highway here in Malibu. There were two dogs running free on Pacific Coast Highway. What did I do? I parked where I shouldn't park. I did illegal U-turns, chased the dogs, and ended up getting them back in their backyards. That was fifteen minutes before this show.
Thank God for the makeup artist that applied some powder to your forehead that we sent over to your house for the show. That worked out.
You were the one that called her.
What are you going to do after the show?
I'm going to go do what I was going to do before the dogs. I work in large part from my computer doing Zooms all day and working virtually. My personality is such that I need interaction. I have valuable things I have to do during the day but every day, I make sure I'm out of here, 30 to 60 minutes for sure. I'm mixing it up with some real live people. I consider it critical. I'll be going up into Palisades Village and doing some probably not-so-important things but getting my sunshine that way.
Those are all great questions and great responses but we always like to finish with a nice bonus question. Today’s bonus is this. What is the most random class seminar or workshop you've ever taken that ended up being impactful in your life?
Two things come to mind. They're very different than one another. The first one was many years ago, I went to a seminar that was in Mexico and met a gentleman there. This seminar had to do with international funds. I'll never forget it. The guy looked at me and said, "Making money is never a problem. Keeping it is a problem. Be very careful." That was impactful from that moment learning that. The other one was PCH. Again, I'm driving by a sign that said, "Volleyball lessons here." I had never played in my life. I called up and said, "I'm sure it's for kids. Do you take adults?" I'm not realizing how many adults played. The next thing you know, I was being taught by the best volleyball players in the world. It sparked ten years of being on the beach. It's fantastic.
That's awesome. I'm envious of you. I'm playing in a beach volleyball league and getting some extra practice on the side because I've never played before.
I don't know if you know the two names, Randy Stoklos and Sinjin Smith, but they were the winningest men's team in history at the time. Those are the guys. They might still be teaching. I'll let you know, Richard.
Typically, we might head on over to Hot Topics. We're going to skip it for now but there might be some hot news about where Edge of Company is headed in the coming weeks and months here. Josh, do you have an update for us?
Passports are up to date, and travel is booked. Some of the crew is going to be heading on over to Seoul, Korea for Korea Blockchain Week. We're excited about that. I believe the core dates are the 4th through the 6th if I'm not mistaken. We will be a media partner for that event. NFT Now has its gateway event in Korea that we will be checking out. We're excited about that.
We will be heading on over to Singapore. There's a cool event that we're going to be a media partner for again in 2023 called All That Matters. It's an interesting cultural affair around the intersection of music, film, and TV culture, as well as the Web3 portions in partnership with Enjinstarter, one of our friends. We're looking forward to that event.
TOKEN2049 is after that, right before the Formula 1 race in Singapore. A lot of the who's who in the industry will be there. We got some more interviews cooking. If you're going to be around any of these events, drop us a note, let us know, DM us on Twitter, or drop us a line if you want to do some collaboration or whatnot. We're not hard to find. Otherwise, we will see you on the flip side in Asia, and then we will be back in LA for some more fun stuff after that.
That's great stuff. Look out on the socials and the newsletter for updates from all those world travels. That's very exciting stuff. We continue to build those partnerships all over the world. It does well for everything we're doing here from NFTs to Web3 to AI. Here's where we would typically close out and ask our guests to share their social media links, handles, and stuff. I would love for you to share a few things about what you're up to maybe independently, and I can go forward after that and share about the Edge of AI Podcast. Is there anything you want to share in terms of how people can find out more about you and what you're up to independently of the Edge of AI?
Our subsidiary, Blockchain Training Alliance, is doing some cool things. We signed a contract with Hedera Hashgraph. We're doing some courses for them that are pretty exciting. We're in the process of developing them. That's amazing. It's on the heels of some other blockchains we have been working for from Zcash to Polkadot and some others. We're still knee-deep in that.
There are a couple of things I can't mention there but in addition to that is another major university. A lot of you may know that we have an association with Pepperdine University but there's another major university we're speaking with and some other things. That has been exciting. Within the parent company, we're working on various things that encapsulate what's going on in the blockchain world and the crypto world to some degree. That's pretty amazing. As far as where to find us, The Crypto Company, look at the handles. YouTube is where we are a lot. Blockchain Training Alliance is on everything from Instagram to Twitter.
Make sure you head on over to subscribe to the Edge of AI Podcast if you want to hear a bit more from Ron and his supercalifragilistic hosting possibilities. He's a great host. You can go to EdgeOfAI.xyz/subscribe or EdgeOfAI.xyz to get all that info. We've got people pre-subscribe to the podcast so far. It's exciting to see the activity even before we have officially launched. You can also follow us on Twitter, @EdgeOf_AI. Check us out on LinkedIn. The company is Edge of AI, LinkedIn.com/company/EdgeOfAI. Keep up with what we're doing.
We have reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFT for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We've got space for more adventures on this starship, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us, and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great Web3 content. Thank you for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- EdgeOfAI.xyz
- @EdgeOf_AI - Twitter
- EdgeOfAI - LinkedIn
- The Crypto Company Inc.
- Blockchain Training Alliance
- Crypto Roundtable
- EdgeOfAI.xyz/subscribe
- DeFiance
- Future Factory
- Midjourney
- Outer Edge LA
- DuckDuckGoose
- Resemble AI
- Parallel
- Korea Blockchain Week
- NFT Now
- All That Matters
- Enjinstarter
- TOKEN2049
- Hedera Hashgraph
- YouTube - The Crypto Company
- Instagram - Blockchain Training Alliance
- Twitter - Blockchain Training Alliance
- Spotify - Edge of NFT
- iTunes - Edge of NFT
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