#1390 Kenny DeGiglio on How To Get Rich With A Bitcoin Job

Kenny DeGiglio is the Co-Founder of Dream Startup Job and Crypto Academy. Anthony and Kenny have helped over 3,000 people get a job in bitcoin & crypto. In this conversation, we discuss the transition into bitcoin & crypto industry, levering up your skillset, best way to build relationships, tricks to get recruiters attention, importance of a proof-of-work project, knowing how to sell yourself, likability, and compensation potential in crypto. ======================= Apply for my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/ View 12k+ open startup jobs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================= Gemini is the safe and secure way to trade crypto. Gemini is offering eligible new users the opportunity to earn $100 in BTC when they trade $1000 in crypto within their first 30 days of signing up. Head over to https://www.gemini.com/partners/pomp and start trading crypto to earn $100 in BTC. ======================= CrossFi is the Apple Pay for Crypto. For the first time in history, anyone with a web 3 wallet like Metamask can spend crypto through a physical or virtual visa cards anywhere in the world where Visa is accepted. Be one of the first to get your hands on a CrossFi card and a prize pool of $3 Million Dollars by joining and participating in their testnet today: https://xfi.foundation/users ======================= Meanwhile is the world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Protect your loved ones with sound money built to manage life’s uncertainty and a broken financial system. Their BTC-denominated Whole Life Insurance policies allow HODLers to pass more BTC on to their loved ones and a tax-advantaged way to access BTC for liquidity during their lifetime. Visit their website at ⁠⁠⁠https://meanwhile.bm/⁠⁠⁠ to join the waitlist for a policy and to learn more. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. What's up guys? Bang bang. You may not know this, but we have helped thousands of people get a job in the Bitcoin and crypto industry. Why is that important? Because you can make more money, have more fun, and you can achieve freedom. Now, of those thousands of people that we've helped get a job in the industry, we went, we just conducted a big, big study.

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

  We asked them, what worked? What didn't work? What do you wish you knew before you got the job? How would you help someone else figure out how to get a job in this industry? And here today, Kenny is with me to talk about what we learned from that study. This is probably one of the largest studies that anyone has done in order to be able to figure out how to go from not having a job in Bitcoin and crypto to having a great job that pays you a lot, gives you flexible working conditions, and also is just fun.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:38Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:20Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Today's episode is brought to you by CrossFi. CrossFi is the Apple Pay for crypto. For the first time in history, anyone with a Web3 wallet like MetaMask can spend crypto through a physical or virtual Visa card anywhere in the world where Visa is accepted. No more exchanges or middlemen. Just link your wallet, get your card, and start spending today. CrossFi card transactions have already been successfully processed in New York, Los Angeles, London, Dubai, China, Japan, and over 20 other countries. Be one of the first to get your hands on a CrossFi card and a prize pool of up to $3 million by joining and participating in their testnet today. You can go to XFI.foundation users. Again, that's XFI.foundation users. Go check it out today.

• 3:49Anthony Pompliano?

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• 4:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Visit their website meanwhile dot BM to join the waitlist and to learn more about the world's first Bitcoin life insurer. Again, that's meanwhile dot BM. Go check them out today.

• 4:45Anthony Pompliano?

  I thought a great place to start would be as you talk to so many of these different individuals. How many of them go into the crypto industry and leave? It seems like most of them actually end up staying, meaning that once they actually made the transition into the industry, they find that valuable. They want to stick around and they don't leave.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, so almost everybody stays. There's a little bit of nuance here. There's really two big things. The first is there were a significant number of folks who got laid off this past cycle. And it's this interesting thing of once you're in the industry, it becomes a lot easier to stay in the industry. And so of the folks who got laid off basically from November 2021 until June 2022, that was the big period of layoffs. Seventy five percent of those folks got a new job within four months. And so I think that's pretty interesting. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the, the people who leave the industry, it's because they didn't find the right fit. And what I mean by that is they were so eager to break into the industry that they took something that wasn't a good idea for them.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  And so an example is imagine you have someone who's a Bitcoin maximalist. Their bookshelf is full of Austrian economics textbooks. If they take a job at one of these longer tail crypto foundations or something, they're going to be miserable because that foundation's ideology doesn't align with their own. And so those are the folks who leave. I would say I don't have the exact numbers here, about half of those folks go on to find something that is a good fit. Half of these folks kind of go on to do something else. And so a large majority, so 85, 90% of the folks who transition into the industry, stay in the industry.

• 6:16Anthony Pompliano?

  So as part of this study, we talked to tons and tons of different people. And there's basically six common themes of what people have said helped them get a job or something that they wished they knew going into it. So they can make more money, have more freedom, et cetera. The first one is kind of levering up their skill set. Explain what people mean by saying this.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Okay, so. Last time I was on the show, we covered a bunch of facts, statistics, data about what type of roles are open, how many roles across the industry, how long does it take on average? I spoke to a bunch of people after that. The number one question they had was some version of, "I'm non-technical. How do I fit in the industry? Like, I still don't have a good idea of like, what I should do." And so, through these conversations, and through the study that we did, a big trend emerged that's like, focus on what you're already good at. And so, there's really two ways here. The easiest and the best is if you think of it in terms of function. And so, if you're someone who, you graduated from college with an accounting degree, you worked for one of the big four, and then you transitioned to like, a corporate accountant? Guess what you're gonna do if you transition to the industry? You're gonna be an accountant.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Same is true for growth, marketing, operations, et cetera. Like, a really great example here is I spoke to this guy, Abhay. He was at Citi for 12 years, and he was working on remittances, so global payments. He left, he was a principal product manager at Amazon, and his job, the team he led, was the primary team within Amazon of, "What alternative payment method should we consider besides credit cards?" And so, at Amazon, as you can imagine, everything's on the table. Should we buy Visa? Should we start our own credit card processing firm? And so, that's where he spent, I think, three or four years. He went through our training program, and I vividly remember it, in one of our discussion groups, we were talking about the Lightning Network, and specifically talking about Strike,

• 8:00Speaker 02

  how they use the Lightning Network to send, basically fiat payments and remittances. He puts his hand up, and he's from India, and he goes, "Why has no one built this for India or Asia?" And I was like, "Well, because it's hard, it's capital intensive." He goes, "Oh, I know how to build this. I'm going to build this thing." And so, he's a guy that's like, the extreme version of this, is he spent his entire career at a very high level in finance, remittances, global payments. And so, when he realized what the Lightning Network was, a switch went off in his mind. And so, he actually started a business called Crowbo.Money, which is fantastic, and they're doing very well. And so, it's like, for him, he's not gonna go and retrain for growth, marketing, or operations, like, he has a very specific skillset. And so, that's kind of the ideal thing.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Take what you've done already in your career for five, 10, 15 years, apply it to the industry. So, that's kind of the first category. The issue is, that doesn't work for everybody. And so, we have folks who come to us, they're chefs. We have a guy who's a project manager for a real estate development firm, another guy who's a funeral director, who is actually successful. There's no funeral directors, so you get the idea. And so what these folks need to do is focus on their skills. And so the very first thing, if you're someone where the role, the kind of the thing that you do right now in terms of function doesn't exist in the Bitcoin and crypto industry, and this is important, write down as many, like do a brainstorming session. What are my core skills?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  What am I better than 80, 85, 90% of people in the country or in the world at? And that's where you should start. And then we could talk a little bit more about that. But then that's kind of how you back into what should I do in terms of a function? So those are the big two. There are a couple of other nuanced ones, but I would say 70% of the folks that we spoke to fit into one of these two categories.

• 9:46Anthony Pompliano?

  And so obviously it's much different if you're going to start your own company versus go work at one.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 9:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Another thing that I took away from the study was a lot of people said, look, you know, I have a resume, I have this skill set, but still this is a people game. Getting a job is all about who you know and the relationships you have, the network that you have. So talk a little bit as to, you know, their focus on kind of building these relationships and thinking more long-term rather than short-term.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Pretty much everybody, to one extent or another, got the role. Those who were successful got their role because of relationships. Some folks, it's very light, as simple as they submitted a cold application and then they just DM the hiring manager or the recruiter after, right? Most of them, it came from a warm relationship. So they developed really a friendship. So I don't like to use the term networking. So kind of this like quid pro quo, you do this for me, I'll do this for you. We can talk about why, kind of this gimme gimme attitude, it doesn't work. The majority of folks, they had a really solid relationship, friendship with someone for six months, a year, two years, or even beyond, and that's how they landed their role. And so this is true in every single industry.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  It's specifically true in Bitcoin and crypto because in relative terms, it's still a really small industry. Right? And so a couple important things. The first is don't have this gimme gimme gimme attitude. When you're thinking about forming relationships, it's actually the opposite. And I think you do this really well. I can tell a little story of what I've Learn from you, my general framework, what I follow is do provide as much value as you can for other people. Be as nice as possible, as helpful as possible, and never ask or expect anything in return. As you know, it usually comes back tenfold. So many people start with, hey, I'm a product manager at X company. I noticed that you have a product manager at Roll Open. Can you get me in for an interview?

• 11:35Speaker 02

  And that's like the exact opposite of what you should do. Instead, what you should do is initiate a warm relationship, become friends with them over time, get to the point where they like you, they trust you, you guys are legitimate friends, and then the magic starts to happen. The problem is this takes time. So if you think about folks who come from traditional finance or tech, they've been developing relationships over five, 10, 15, 20, some people 30 years. Well, you're starting from scratch in Bitcoin and crypto. It can happen a lot more quickly, but the key is to form these same level of relationships. Where you're friends, you know about the person, you share common interests, and they like you. So we'll talk a little bit more about likability. And so that's kind of overarching. And the thing I learned from you is sometimes we'll be looking to get a meeting or a call on the calendar,

• 12:19Speaker 02

  and I'll see your calendar, but why are you talking to that person? And your answer is, I don't know what I'm going to learn from them. And so it's always this thing of just like, don't assume, you know, a certain person's going to help you or not. Talk to everybody, get to know everybody. Don't really think of it in terms of what's the outcome going to be? And that's what the, that's kind of the best, where the best results happen.

• 12:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I mean, it also is, if you're genuinely interested in other people, right? And you really do want to help them, then there's a huge advantage to doing that. I would say another aspect of this is probably as you go into these relationships, if you do look at it from like, how do I learn from this person?

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 12:59Anthony Pompliano?

  People really love to teach other people, right? And so there's this element of, hey, if I can learn from this person, they're going to also enjoy teaching me something. And so it's a very kind of symbiotic type relationship, which is pretty cool.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the interesting thing is, a lot of people have a fear of like sounding stupid with the learning thing. The thing you need to realize is everybody, whether there's someone like you who talks about Bitcoin and crypto. All day, every day, or someone who they work within one of these organizations, but they're not public facing. They're obsessed with this stuff. And so if you ask them a basic question about Bitcoin mining or anything, they're going to be practically frothing at the mouth to explain that thing to you. And so that's another framework that we saw that people said is like the kind of two ears, one mouth, like listen a lot. So ask people questions, listen, and then see what you can learn. You're not going to sound stupid. Anything that you ask, the person's going to be dying to explain their obsession.

• 13:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, one of the things that did shock me as a result of this study was people said, hey, going into this, you should just automatically assume you're going to waste a lot of your time. And I thought that was kind of a optimistic, yet pessimistic of view of the world is that, hey, I'm going to go do this. It's really important. I want to get this new job, but I'm going into it fully knowing I'm going to waste my time. What are they talking about?

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. So we have an alumni Hector. He's now the COO at a company called Rhino Bitcoin. They're a Bitcoin-only financial services app. He had a long career. He was in sales and business development for years. And then most recently, we've talked about this, he ran his family business, which was salon capes. And so they had a very successful, you go to the barber shop and they put this line up, the cape on you. That's, that's what he did. And so he was this interesting thing of, he was at this stage, a career transitioner. So he was also a college professor for years, but you know, kind of when he was getting his job, he was going from a small business and he originally got hired for sales and business development at Rhino. And so it wasn't like an apples to apples transition. And so he told me, he kind of brought this up and reminded me of this. So if you think

• 14:57Speaker 02

  about Malcolm Gladwell, he wrote this book called Blink. And one of the chapters is, I think it's called Spot the Sucker. And so basically they found this car salesman. He was one of the, the most successful car salesmen in the nation. And they said, how do you figure out who's a buyer? Like someone legit who has money versus someone who's just browsing? And his answer was, I don't. I treat everyone exactly the same. And eventually the, the people who don't have money, it shows. And the people who, who do have money, they purchase the car. And so I think with the job search is exactly the same thing. A lot of people Try to off the bat, say, these are the high leverage activities. This is where I'm going to spend all of my time. Something everybody said that I spoke to is you have no idea.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  The things that you are almost certain are going to be a waste of your time. End up being kind of your big break where you meet your next mentor, your next boss, your next co-founder. And things that you think are going to be the biggest thing ever amount to nothing. And so almost what I say is upfront, accept the fact and think of it in extreme terms. That 90 to 95% of what you do is going to be a complete waste of time. You have to go through that in order to find the things that aren't a waste of time. It's the only way to get there. And so a good example, personal example is when I don't even know if you know this. When you and I started working together, I had a lot of ideas for, hey, we can develop a training program. We can do a lot of the stuff, kind of the business that we've built. And so I committed to myself, I'm a huge football fan, so is my wife.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  And every Sunday, I'm just going to take my external monitor out to the dining room table. So I can see the TV and I'm instead of saying, hey, these are all the things that I can do for you. I just put it all together. So 10, 12 hours a day on a Sunday, I think for like three or four Sundays in a row before I got your attention. And then I said, look, most likely this is going to amount to nothing. But if he finds this interesting, this is exactly what I want to do for my next chapter. And so the thing that made that easier is right up front. I said, almost certainly this is going to be a waste of time. I'm okay with if he never sees this or doesn't respond. And it's so it made it easier for me to actually take action. So I'd encourage people to do the same. All of the alumni that we spoke to said some version of that.

• 17:07Anthony Pompliano?

  People can tell when effort's been put into something.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Well, exactly.

• 17:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Speaks to seriousness or kind of professionalism to a degree.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  You and I get these all the time. People reach out and they say, hey, I'm very interested in what you're doing. I want to help. If someone says, if you have any small tasks that I can take, I have a bunch of excess capacity. Anything that you need, I'll mop the floors. It's like, we both have so much going on that like, I don't necessarily have time to, especially if I don't know the person. I don't have time to think like, what, what do we have? If someone comes to me and said, hey, I might be a little bit ignorant because I don't know your business. But from what I can tell, your growth strategy has a few gaps. I've spent 15 years in growth. I could tell you what I'll do, but I just put together a slide deck of, these are the five things that I think you should be doing, that you aren't doing.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  We probably hadn't thought about growth in those terms at all, just because we have a million other things going on. At the very minimum, I'm likely to respond and be like, hey, let's chat about this a little bit more. And so it's one of these things of, we'll talk more about this, but if you don't get a response from people, because most times you won't, it's most likely because they're just really busy, or they didn't see your message, or you didn't come from a warm referral. But also, like, the easier that you can make it for someone to put a little bit into thought, a little bit of thought about what you're saying, the better the outcome's gonna be. And so I think that's kind of similar to what you were saying.

• 18:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, the next one is proof of work, which is really important. And proof of work, obviously, play on words for kind of the concept in the blockchain world, but help me understand, what does that mean when you're going to look for a new job?

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is, it's almost a version of what we just discussed. And so what I just discussed with the growth example is what you and I call do the job to get the job, basically. And so it's almost like a micro version of proof of work. You come to the table with something that's, it's like a hook, right? You're getting the person's attention. The way that I think of proof of work in this context, and again, it's this thing of nearly everybody that I spoke to, 90-plus percent, they did some version of what they call a proof of work project. In other industries, they call it a portfolio. We obviously call it proof of work because it's the Bitcoin industry. And so it's something that you do over an extended period of time that shows two things. The first is, this is the way

• 19:28Speaker 02

  I think. This is the type of human being that I am. And so we'll talk about some examples, but whether it's publishing on Medium, doing Substack, a podcast, a YouTube channel, there's a million other things, the content of it, it gives the person who's viewing it a very easy way to say, I either like the way this person thinks, or I don't like the way this person thinks. An interesting thing is, even if you actually kind of, your conclusion disagrees with what the person already thinks, as long as you can articulate it well, and you're clearly someone who thinks from first principles, that's still like, by far a net positive. And so we can talk more about that, but that's an interesting piece. So, a proof of work project, so it's anything that you do that, over a long period of time,

• 20:10Speaker 02

  You're putting content out there in the beginning. Nobody's going to pay attention. You know that better than anyone. The first thing is it shows people this is the way this person thinks. The second thing, which most people don't think about, is it gives you some idea about the type of person they are. And so if you're someone who every week you publish a Substack article, or every day you did a Medium article, whatever it might be, you're by definition a certain type of person. You're disciplined, you're consistent, you're hardworking, and that matters too. Again, it's this idea of, hey, I can do all these things for you versus, this is my Substack, check out what I'm able to do, especially if it's you're applying for a research role or something that's directly applicable. And so that's the first thing I'll say on proof of work is,

• 20:54Speaker 02

  it makes it as easy as possible to show people how you think, and it gives them a little bit of insight into the type of person that you are.

• 21:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, as you're going through this kind of proof of work, you know, one of the examples I always give people is if you're a salesperson, showing up to a job interview with, oh, by the way, I took the liberty, I talked to these three companies, I just used the information off your website. They're interested in learning more. Is there somebody I can hand this hot lead off to internally? The person interviewing you is going to be like, I think you probably can do the job. Like, you may have more hot leads already in the first hour of us talking to you than some of the salespeople here do. Right? So it obviously increases the odds. The same thing is true of designers, right? If it's some sort of technology platform to go in and kind of re-mock up why it should look differently and have a very good way to kind of describe why I decided that,

• 21:44Anthony Pompliano?

  you know, whether it's the color scheme, or this, or you know, the layout, or this button should move here, or whatever. Now you have something to kind of discuss. And people are like, you know what, like, whether I agree or not, or this person doesn't have context, like, it's very obvious that this person is skilled. They are clearly really want the job. They've put in work and time and things like that. And they can start to envision that they are already working with you, which is pretty crucial to, you know, getting hired as well.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I think we think of this as what I call high-leverage, low-probability activities. And so you nailed it. So a proof of work project, something Like a podcast, YouTube show, uh, these are things that nobody's gonna pay attention for a really long time, if at all. But you can still point towards that and treat it like a portfolio. The things that you just mentioned are a little bit shorter term, but the same principle applies. Imagine in a given week, you have 10 hours to dedicate to the Bitcoin job search. On average, let's say it takes an hour to submit an application. Sometimes it takes less, sometimes it takes more. You can submit 10 cold applications in that given week. Most likely, you would reach out through LinkedIn. A little bit more advanced is reach out through email, right?

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Find the hiring manager and the recruiter's email and reach out to them through email. So you've reached out to 10 companies. The problem is, they have anywhere between 40 to 1,000 very similar cold applications. And so it's going to be difficult to stand out. So if instead you took that 10 hours and you did what you mentioned, if you're a designer, you do, you re-mock up their homepage. Now, if you're someone who's a researcher, you do a free piece of research for them. And then you reach out and you make sure that you get their attention. So this is where relationships come into play, right? If you know someone who knows that person personally, say, hey, can you just please get this across their desk? I spent a lot of time on it. And you only reach out to one company with the same 10 hours.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  They may not, you, you may never hear back from them, but the likelihood that you do hear back is way higher. And so it's this weird thing of if you're just doing the kind of plug and chug submitting cold applications. We all kind of know the probability that there's a positive outcome is pretty low, but you get the dopamine release because you have your tracker set up. And you're like, I did this today, right? Versus with these sort of strategies that we're talking about. It's sometimes really difficult to tell whether or not you're making progress. And so that's where kind of accepting the fact that you're going to waste your time comes into play. And so again, it's just right off the bat, thinking about how you want to strategize. How much time you want to spend on all of this and do that upfront, even even upstream of that.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  If think about like, what do I really want, right? What's going to get me out of bed and excited in the morning? These things are all really important because it's going to be difficult. It's going to require a lot of hard work. And so having a plan that you can kind of stick to and having some of these frameworks become really A, useful and really B, valuable. And there's one more thing I want to say on this point. So if you're doing something like a podcast or a newsletter that you're putting out there into the world, if your mom and dad love you, they'll probably follow along, but nobody's really gonna pay attention in the beginning and sometimes for a really long time. Kind of curious about the kind of how that worked for you. But the important thing is it's never going to be like

• 25:01Speaker 02

  fun in the sense of like watching a stand-up comedy special, right? It is work, but you want to make sure that whatever medium you choose grabs you and it does at least a little bit feel like fun to you because if not, you're not going to stick with it. And doing something for three months and then quitting is almost the same as never doing it in the first place. Like you need to have the consistency and duration. And so I'm curious how big your smile is going to be, but Tatum Cave from Between Two Asics, right? We know him very well. He created this popular YouTube show called Between Two Asics. It's like Zach Galifianakis between two firms, except they said between two Asics. And it's become tremendously successful, so much so that the first year he attended the Bitcoin conference, he was following me around like a little puppy dog. The second

• 25:46Speaker 02

  year, we couldn't walk more than 10 feet without someone across the conference hall screaming his name like, "Tatum, what's up?" And so that was his fifth attempt at a proof of work project. He didn't stick with anything at all. And he got to the point of like, "I'm just never going to figure this out." Eventually, he started Between Two Asics, but the thing that he told me is he wished that he quit on the stuff that didn't grab him earlier. And so he did a newsletter and he did six editions and then he finally quit. He had a merch store and he did all the upfront work of getting it set up. And then he eventually quit. And what he told me is with the show, because he's kind of a funny guy, it's a comedic show, it right away, he was like, "Even if this never goes anywhere, like I love doing this, I get to meet people through it." And so that's

• 26:30Speaker 02

  another piece of advice is with any of this stuff, make sure that it grabs you because otherwise you won't stick with it.

• 26:37Anthony Pompliano?

  This next one, the fifth point out of the study is know how to sell yourself. What did people learn there?

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Look, this is a, this is a difficult one because I think all of us kind of stink at selling ourselves because we don't want to seem like full of ourselves or kind of come off like an asshole. And so, most of us undersell ourselves and this in a very simple example might be if you're looking at a job that you want to apply to and you only meet 60% of the requirements, you might not apply at all. You should definitely apply. If you're having a conversation and maybe it's a first interview and they ask you about some of your relevant experience, you might say something like, "I'm no pro here, but", right? And you might talk about that. We have people that come to us with 20, 25 years of legit Wall Street

• 27:25Speaker 02

  experience at the top firms and they say stuff to me of like, "I just want to get my foot in the door. I'll even mop the floors if necessary." And so, this is really common. I'm sure you've seen it as well. And so, I almost have a framework that I call takers versus tellers. And so, I'll explain what I mean by that. In the traditional world, most people are successful by being takers. And so, you do well in high school, you go to college, you get a degree, you go through the on-campus interview process and you're always a taker. What's the opportunity open? I'm going to take whatever the best opportunity is for me. In Bitcoin and crypto, it's a new industry. We're kind of the Wild West, right? Things work a lot differently. The tellers end up doing a lot better.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  And so, I almost think of this, two other ways I think of this and then I'll go into some more detail is hunters versus fishermen. So, hunters would be tellers, fishermen would be takers. And then, another way to think of it is just like high-agency people versus low-agency people. And so, we already talked about this a little bit of a taker would sit around waiting until an opportunity comes up that looks like a good fit. If they don't meet all of the requirements in the job application, they might not even apply at all. And then, if they do apply, when they get the interview, they'll be very gentle about like, "Oh, you know, I'm kind of good at this or I think I have some relevant experience." A teller would be someone who, another Way to think of it is they control the frame. So they go to a company and they say, hey,

• 28:51Speaker 02

  I've spent my career basically grinding the ax. I've gotten really, really good. I'm world class at this thing. From my understanding, you have some gaps. Here's very specifically how I can help you, A, and B, here is some evidence. And so these people tend to do really well. Again, it's much lower probability, but it's much higher leverage. And so I'm curious what you think about that or what you've seen, but I think takers versus tellers is a really good framework. If you're someone with any experience at all, you want to be a teller. If you're someone who you're just out of college, or maybe you skipped college and you don't have any experience, being a taker usually works a bit better. But yeah, you have to know how to sell yourself and you can't be shy about telling people what you're good at and how you can add value.

• 29:37Anthony Pompliano?

  I also think telling people what you did is only half the battle.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 29:42Anthony Pompliano?

  You also have to be able to tell people what were the skills you acquired or what was the experience. So for example, if you said, you know, actually the military is a great example. There's people who leave the military all the time. They're like, well, uh, I don't get to shoot a gun in my corporate job that I want. So like, I have no experience. And then people will come in and say, well, no, you have led a small team in a dynamic environment. You were responsible for X dollars of a budget, you know, you and they'll go through this and you're like, oh, the role, kind of the title, you know, on the, on the role is sometimes important, sometimes not. But what are the skills or the experiences that you picked up that are applicable end up being pretty important?

• 30:22Speaker 02

  That's where people get stuck, right? Like so much of this, as with other things in life, but this specifically, it all comes down to momentum and forward center of mass, right? Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Most people just, they don't get themselves started and then they almost give up before they get themselves started. And so a good way to think of this is like, in the job search, when you sit down in front of your computer, if you have two hours to dedicate to the search that day, you should know exactly what it is that you're going to do. And most likely, if your list is organized correctly, you only achieve 10% or something like A small amount of the stuff on your list. Most people get to the point where they're just completely aimless. They're kind of putzing around, looking at open positions. They might put an application in here.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  They might put an application in there and they never actually get that forward center of mass. What I found is the reason is they just don't have the correct upward aim, you can call it. And so it's exactly that. And we see this is it's very true with folks who have non-traditional backgrounds and then people who are entrepreneurial. You've kind of just been doing the thing that you do for a really long time and you don't. You've never actually articulated what you're good at versus what you aren't good at. And so that's why for everyone, we say the very first thing is get a notepad and write down every single thing that comes to mind. And there's kind of a whole system to it. You can clean it up later. Once people actually write things down, they're like, oh shit, I am kind of, I am kind of good at some stuff.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  But most people don't actually, or maybe not most, but 50%, you know, 40% of people never actually get past that point, which is interesting.

• 31:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, the last one here is being able to be likable. And likability to me is probably one of the most important things in the world in general. But it's interesting that people brought this up when looking for a job.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Almost everyone, again, it was, it was 98% of people brought this up in some way. And they all even almost had some version of like, I kind of hesitate to talk about this because it's kind of weird and it's, it's intangible. But likability matters. And the way that I actually think of it and the point that I make a lot, and people are surprised by this is when we're thinking about hiring or just looking in a broad scope at the people who have been successful. The three most important things and likability is way higher than people expect is competency. Like, are you world class at something? You have to have a very unique skill set. So that's, that's first and most important. Most people are like, okay.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Uh, the second is they got that dog in them. That's what I call it. You just have to be on, you have to work way harder than you can even imagine. And uh, we've talked about this, but like, but uh, um, ability to withstand abuse is actually like really high up. So it's like competency, hard work. The third right up there with those two is likeability. You can quantify skills, you can quantify hard work. Like, how do you think about likeability? So I talked to a bunch of people. Uh, one way to think about it is when you have conversations with folks, do you uh, leave them feeling energized? Uh, another way to think of it is, are you asking gimme gimme gimme, or quid pro quo? I'll do this for you, you do this for me. Or are you just focusing on learning

• 33:37Speaker 02

  from them, establishing a relationship? Uh, there are some little techniques, but like, throw all that stuff out the window. I think it's more about reframing, what are you hoping to get out of interactions that you have as part of the networking process? And it just comes down to, how do you get somebody's attention? And then how do you make it worth their time in some way? How are you providing value with them so that they want to continue spending time with you? At the end of the day, the way I think about likeability is, are you willing to, do you trust someone and know someone enough that you're willing to go to bat for them? And so a lot of times we'll have someone, a founder, they'll reach out to me and say, hey, I'm looking for someone to lead my growth team. Like, who do you got? You want to be the person that's one

• 34:19Speaker 02

  of the first people that they come, that comes to mind, and they're willing to essentially stick their neck out for you, put their reputation on the line to vouch for you. The way that you're not going to get there is reaching out cold to someone on LinkedIn and being like, hey, I noticed you're an engineer at XYZ company. I would like to be an engineer to work, even worse, I'm an aspiring engineer. You should, you should never use that word. Um, do you have 15 minutes for me to ask you a series of questions? Like, that's going to get ignored almost always. Um, but imagine you do get the call to someone, asking them for stuff and being like, what can you do for me? Right off the bat, it's never going to work. You almost want to flip that on top of its head. And so those are a couple of things. There's a lot to it. I'm curious what you think. Uh, but I would almost say like,

• 35:01Speaker 02

  If we ordered this conversation in terms of what's most important, likability is right up at the top.

• 35:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I think being likable really is being a good human. People want to be around positive, optimistic people who are high energy, who make them feel good, who stretch them intellectually, you know, and many other kind of things that fall under that bucket. But that likability is actually less about intentionally like, oh, let me scheme so that I can be likable. And it's much more about just like, be a good person, treat people, you know, well, genuinely be interested in their success. And you'll be shocked at kind of the results.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and even there, there were folks that I spoke to, Hannah Mariama, she, she runs an organization called Degree Free. You've had her on the podcast. She's fantastic. She's also our career coach for Crypto Academy. Everybody loves her. It's like the first hour they spend with her, some percentage of folks reach out to me and they're like, I love Hannah. And like, how do you know you love Hannah? You've been with her for an hour. She's just like, I just love her. She's, she's amazing. And so I asked her, like, how are you so likable? I said the same to Abe, who founded crowbo.money. And he said something interesting. He was like, in a long enough timeframe, the way that other people perceive you is kind of a window into your inner self. And so he's like, you can hide it for a long time, but eventually it's going to come out.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  And so if you're someone who internally is angry and you have a lot of resentment, that's eventually going to show. But if you're someone who's genuinely at peace, you wake up in the morning, you say, let's get after it relentlessly, stuff like this, that'll come through on a long enough timeframe. And so I thought that was pretty cool. Again, it's a little bit more esoteric and not specifically focused on like getting a job. But I think you nailed it. It's generally being a good human. What are all, you know, what are the things that you're doing with all of the rest of your time outside of the hour or two you day, hour or two per day that you spend looking for a job? I think that has a lot to do with likability, right? Keeping yourself in shape, eating, probably doing all the right things. But I do think it's something that all of us should continue to focus on.

• 37:05Anthony Pompliano?

  So maybe where we could wrap up is people are making more money, it seems like, in this industry than other industries. Is that still true, even, you know, with the volatility of crypto?

• 37:18Speaker 02

  The way I think of it is you have to think about, okay, let's say job seekers, right? So not someone who's going to start their own project or their own company. The way I usually think about it, and it's all over the map. That's the short answer. But the way I think of it is look at a company that's in a similar stage. So is it seed? Is it series B? Is it public? And then look at your function in general. So finance, operations, accounting, et cetera. In general, the compensation is more or less in line with what you should expect versus traditional finance or tech. If anything, it's a little bit higher on average. The little bit higher is kind of the the structure of the compensation is a bit more exotic.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  So in the longer tail scenarios, tokens, equity compensation. But in general, if you look at a company that's similar stage and you're looking at the same function, compensation should be roughly equal. The one caveat to that is what we talked about earlier is people who, let's say you're someone who you've built out multiple successful sales teams at Fortune 500 companies. And so you're a certified, you know, card carrying account executive, or probably someone who can lead sales teams. A lot of times, because people are eager to quote, get their foot in the door, they'll take a role that they're dramatically overqualified for. And because of that, their their total compensation will be lower.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  And so at this stage in the game, it's roughly equal to what you'll see elsewhere. I'm very curious. And so my answer now is a lot different than it would have been in, say, 2020. And so if we have this conversation again four years from now, I'm curious. My guess is it'll be quite a bit higher. But that's kind of where we stand now.

• 39:01Anthony Pompliano?

  So coming into these bull markets, kind of compensation increases. And, you know, if prices keep going up over time, then we should expect the compensation to do the same.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's right. And one point that's that's parallel to that is I almost think of it as like men in the arena. If you look at the 3,000 plus people that we've helped get jobs.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  A lot of these people actually had success in a pretty short period of time. And so I would say maybe 2,000 out of 3,000 people that we've helped came from Q4 of 2020 through, if you extend it, Q4 of 2021, because that's when companies were hiring. The people who did best got their jobs at the beginning of the previous bull market. They got in there, they did an amazing job, and they basically create a situation where they just do a bunch of stuff within the organization that nobody else knows how to do. That's layoff insurance. And then as some of these companies scale down, there were a lot of layoffs throughout the industry. These people ended up getting promoted because they were trusted and people kind of knew who they were.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  They knew that they did a really good job. And so I think the point here is if you are someone and you say, I want to transition into the industry at this time next year, you shouldn't start this time next year. You should get started now. Relationships, which are the highest leverage thing you can do, these take time to form and the entire process takes time to work itself out. And there is a lot of luck. I would say probably more accurate is randomness, but that is a huge element. And so, yeah, I think that as we progress through the bull market, compensation will increase. But I would say that like, you shouldn't wait until compensation increases to get started, because my guess is we'll see the same thing.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  60 to 75% of folks who are successful, you know, assuming the cyclicality continues, will be successful in probably a three or four quarter timeframe.

• 41:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Tell us everyone a little bit about kind of the three different options that they have where we can help them in terms of jobs.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the way that we think of it is if you're someone with your resume and you think it's perfect, probably it isn't, but some people actually do have perfect resumes, and you understand what your strategy is, you know where your upward aim is, and your goal is, I just want to apply to a lot of open roles. Because we've talked a lot about like these high leverage strategies, but don't get it confused, cold applications and then reaching out properly through. LinkedIn and cold email, it has a place for everyone in the job search portfolio because it's this thing of like, you don't know it's gonna work, right? So you should basically do everything. And so if you're someone who you just want to increase the number of applications that you can send, Dream Startup Job is perfect. We have 200 plus companies,

• 41:51Speaker 02

  very crypto Bitcoin and crypto focused, but AI, pretty much our mandate is, are you an innovative company? If so, you can be listed on Dream Startup Job. There's probably right now 12,000 open roles. And so if you want to increase the ease of submitting applications, Dream Startup Job is perfect. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are someone that you want like white glove concierge service, this is where proof of talent comes into play. They're a recruiter. And so the way I kind of think of it is they're gonna do pretty much everything besides the interview for you. So they're gonna find the company, find the role. They'll be your main point of contact with the organization. You just gotta go in and trust the and crush the interview.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  They're amazing. I would say, again, absolutely submit your information to proof of talent. The thing is like, then the process is outside of your control. So it shouldn't be the only thing that you do. And so it's kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum of the job board. In the middle, which is where I spend a lot of my time these days because I really like it and it's probably the most rewarding thing I do. I think you feel the same way is Crypto Academy. And so Crypto Academy is like a blend of Dream Startup Job and Proof of Talent. And it's a three week cohort based training program. Our goals are threefold and there's, there's others, but the three main goals are teach people a ton, dramatically accelerate their, the process of transitioning into the industry. And so it's a lot of the stuff that we have discussed, but we formulate it. We say, hey,

• 43:19Speaker 02

  if you close your eyes, as long as you just follow this process, you can trust that you you're still making forward progress. So learn a ton, dramatically accelerate your transition into the industry. And the third, and they all are related, right? The third is develop your network. And this is the most difficult part is getting the flywheel started of, hey, I know a bunch of people all across the industry. We've doubled in Triple and I remember in the early days, I was very bullish on this and you were like, oh, I think people will find the valuable, but I think the other ones are way more valuable. What we've seen is it's potentially the most valuable thing is connecting with the folks in your group. We put together groups 100, 120 people.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  And then connecting with the alumni base, which now is like 3,000 people big and continuously growing. And so it's almost like if you get a LinkedIn DM and it's some random person, what are we going to do? Most likely ignore it. But if someone says, hey, I played football at Bucknell or I was in the US Army, most likely you're going to look at that. And so we've, we've basically created this process of as you're beginning to form your network and as you're growing these relationships, we make it as easy as possible.

• 44:28Anthony Pompliano?

  And where can people go find the training program?

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Thecryptoacademy.io. And so I love chatting with people. Last time I was on the podcast, I spoke with a ton of people. I don't even know the number. It was a lot. If people want to learn more about it, grab some time on my calendar. It'll be very obvious of how you do that. Even if you just want to chat, I'm open to it.

• 44:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Amazing. Thank you so much for doing this. We'll do it again in the future.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Cool. Thank you, Bob.