Jul 9, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
AnatolyYakovenko
Co-founder & CEO of Solana Labs
$47 Billion Crypto Founder Shares His Story - Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana)
In this episode
Today I’m speaking with Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana, to trace his journey from a childhood in the Soviet Union to building one of the largest blockchain networks in the world. They discuss his years at Qualcomm, the eureka moment that led to Solana, surviving the FTX collapse, and how he uses AI to run multiple side projects. The conversation closes with reflections on stress, risk, parenting, and his definition of success.
Chapters
- Trailer
- Intro
- Growing up in the Soviet Union
- Immigrating to the United States
- Career dreams and studying computer science
- First startup and early lessons
- 13 years at Qualcomm
- Meeting Raj and founding Solana
- Fundraising and early investors
- Surviving the FTX collapse
- Solana's mission and impact
- Using AI to run side projects
- Hardest decisions as a leader
- Outlook on crypto and Solana's future
- Twitter, being public, and politics
- Beliefs on human nature and life philosophy
- Outro
About the guest
Full transcript
LubaToly, thank you so much for taking the time.
TolyThanks for having me.
LubaTell me, what was it like growing up in the USSR? What do you remember?
TolyIt was very surreal because, you know, like, I showed pictures to my kids and my wife and stuff, and I've got, like, a uniform and a briefcase for school papers and stuff. A little red tie and stars.
LubaLike the pioneer, right?
TolyYeah. Stars with photos of Lenin on it. It was, you know, when I try to remember it, it feels really like a dream because the world is so different now.
LubaYeah. So you have pretty vivid memories of it.
TolyYeah. For sure.
LubaWhat was it like? Like, what were the defining experiences that you remember?
TolyI think TV was terrible. Like, you had no media.
LubaIt's interesting that you remember TV was one defining thing.
TolyBecause it's such a contrast to the United States. Yeah, you had no media. We played a lot outside by yourself, like, I mean, without parental supervision. So that was, I think, kind of maybe what people kind of remember, the, you know, whatever, the good old days in the US was probably the 80s in the Soviet Union.
LubaDo you have fond memories of it?
TolyOh, yeah. Totally. My parents, definitely not.
LubaYour parents not? Yeah. What were their memories? What did—
TolyI mean—
LubaDid they tell you about—
TolyThey probably lived through all the worst parts of it, you know? My grandparents, or whatever, my grandparents met in World War II. Like, in the middle of the war.
LubaSame, actually. My grandparents as well. My mom's side.
TolyYeah. I mean, they were trying to get out, I think, since the 70s. The USSR blocked them from leaving.
LubaWow. And what was their primary reason for wanting to get out? Just all the politics? Were they in a certain line of work that they were, you know, pursued by the government?
TolyI mean, yeah, all of the above. I mean, the main one is the Soviet Union was an evil empire that persecuted everyone, basically.
LubaYeah, but—
TolyNot a good place.
LubaBut, you know, some people have kind of fond memories of the order of the USSR, and some people had very visceral memories of being constrained to do the things and live the life that they wanted to live.
TolySo they don't have any fond memories.
LubaWhat was the life that they wanted to create for themselves, that they wanted to get out so badly?
TolyI think the biggest kind of, like, sadness is probably for them as parents, like, seeing that their kids don't have any opportunities to go pursue their dreams. You know, I can't imagine, like, what that was like for them.
LubaAnd what happened that they were able to emigrate? Like, tell me more about that. Immigration.
TolyThe USSR fell apart. So as soon as kind of things relaxed there politically, in '91, my parents were able to get out.
LubaAnd the US was the first spot?
TolyYeah.
LubaTell me more about what you remember from immigrating. So you come to the US, you were—
TolySo I thought that from coast to coast, the United States would be like Manhattan. Just like one giant built-up downtown city. My imagination of it as a kid.
LubaThat's cool.
TolyBut, like, no mountains or lakes or rivers. Yeah.
LubaI think if you were to ask me, because I'm originally from Belarus, I would be like, probably also thinking that the US is New York and Walmart and Levi's.
TolySo, like, it was just a shock to see, like, farms and, like, country and neighborhoods and suburbs. So it's very, like, that was just one of it, just landing there first.
And then, so I grew up without any media. You literally had three channels in the Soviet Union. They were all communist propaganda. There was, like, one Disney cartoon a week that they would allow showing.
LubaDo you remember which ones?
TolyDuckTales.
LubaDuckTales? Interesting. Okay.
TolyYeah.
LubaAnd so you come to the US.
TolyThat was, like, the highlight of my life as a kid, watching that one DuckTales, one allowed Soviet cartoon, like Disney cartoon. And then we landed in, like, '92 in Chicago, which was, like, such a dramatic difference because you had, like, music and the Bulls being on top of the world and Michael Jordan and just this, like, kind of oversaturation of media. And I just absorbed all of it, and the internet. My parents got me a computer a year later.
And, I mean, people ask me about my inspiration or heroes, like, why do I work so hard? I mean, my parents landed here with $50 per person, because that's all the USSR would let people take, the amount of wealth.
LubaWow. I didn't know that.
TolyBuilt a life from nothing in their 40s. Not knowing the language. Just started and, like, gave me every opportunity I could ever dream of.
LubaSo what did your parents start doing when they landed in the US? What were they doing?
TolyReally blue-collar work. Like, my mom was, like, a pianist, like, played with, like, famous musicians or whatever. Ended up teaching kids in school. And then my dad was a civil engineer, like, I don't know, he could, like, rearrange mountains in Siberia with dynamite or whatever. He's got crazy stories.
But when they landed in the States, he just worked blue-collar jobs, like roofing, whatever, in Chicago. I remember he was working to get, like, his electrician, electrical, whatever, certificates. And I would do, like, his work and homework because, you know, as a kid, you, like, pick up English really quickly. So I'd be doing, like, electrical, whatever, circuit analysis.
LubaWow. That's amazing, to help out your dad with his schooling.
TolyYeah.
LubaSo blue-collar work. And then were they able to establish themselves later on?
TolyI mean, that's how they retired. Yeah. I mean, I guess to them, the kind of work that you do here that's considered hard is ten times easier than—
LubaThan whatever it was in the USSR. Interesting. I read somewhere that when you were back in the USSR, you wanted to be a businessman who made things happen.
TolyMe?
LubaYeah. So can you tell me more about—
TolyAll this stuff posted about me online that my parents did? Not true. Like, this is totally made up.
LubaSo that's not true. Okay. What did you want to be when you were in the USSR? Did you have any dreams for, you know, what you were gonna do when you grow up?
TolyI mean, like, being an astronaut. I had, like, little kid dreams.
LubaOkay.
TolyLike, yeah.
LubaOkay, so you come to the US, and then there is an abundance of everything in the US. Abundance of media. You start learning English and then you get into computers.
TolyWe had English, Russian, French and Ukrainian from first grade.
LubaWow.
TolyIn the old country.
LubaThat's insane.
TolyYeah. They kept you there for, like, over nine hours so your parents could go work.
LubaYes. That's crazy. What do you remember from immigrating to the US, besides abundance? Like, how quickly did you feel like you could establish yourself as an insider? Or did you always feel like an outsider at the beginning?
TolyI mean, like, I think people were always curious about my name, or I had an accent, I think, for quite a while. My, you know, my wife still catches me every once in a while. It's like, you're a spy. But, like, never felt like an outsider, I guess. I think that's, like, maybe it comes from within. Like, whether you want to be an outsider or an insider. I just always assumed.
LubaThat's great. How did you get into computer science?
TolyMy parents got me a computer, I think, '93. So kind of, like, right when the internet was burgeoning, and I was messing around with software, Linux, open source, because it was just kind of a cool idea. I was really interested in, like, code.
There was this game called Ultima Online that was one of the first, like, massive multiplayer games. My first kind of programming experience was scripting it to go, like, chop wood at night while I slept.
LubaOh, wow.
TolyAnd then later on, like, I figured out that you can sell resources and stuff for, like, real money over eBay.
LubaSo you started making money on eBay.
TolySo this is, like, these are, like, precursors to NFTs. Yeah, digital content, kind of funny.
LubaHow long were you selling those resources on eBay? Did you actually make some money with that?
TolyI made, like, enough, I think, for, like, my first case of beer in college.
LubaThat seems pretty substantial.
TolyYeah, yeah.
LubaAnd how did you decide to go to college studying computer science, given that it was on the verge of the dot-com boom? Like, was that even a concern at all, or did you have conviction that this is what I wanted to do, I've been doing—
TolyProbably the movie *Hackers* had the most influence on me thinking about my career. I just kind of thought technology was interesting and always had the knack for math and engineering. So I was actually, like, kind of debating between computer science and, like, bioengineering, biology.
LubaOh, cool.
TolyBut in that first year, I think the weed-out classes really, like, separate the people that like lab work—
LubaYeah, yeah.
TolyAnd the minutiae, pipetting things—
LubaYeah, for sure.
Toly—from people that kind of like to code. So I was more on the coding side.
LubaWhy biology and bioengineering? What was that inspired by?
TolyThis was, like, at the time, like, on the verge of, like, kind of sequencing the human genome, and kind of this birth, I think, of the idea of genetic engineering just seemed, like, very sci-fi to me.
LubaThat's very cool. I studied chemical engineering in school, and then a couple of years in, I taught myself how to code to switch to tech, because lab work was also not my cup of tea. So I totally get it, that you kind of, you know, you get a taste of both, maybe, and then you get separated out very quickly if that's not your thing.
So, okay, so you studied computer science, and then I believe in school, you started your first company, or you were part of a startup.
TolyYeah, I was part of a startup with a bunch of friends. A founding member, co-founder, or whatever you want to call it.
LubaTell me more. What was that startup doing?
TolyWe were doing voice over IP systems for kind of these small businesses to, like, do kind of, like, I don't know if you remember GrandCentral. Google Voice precursor.
LubaOh, yeah. Okay. I do remember Google Voice.
TolySo we, like, built them without really understanding, like, the idea of the internet, that you can scale things globally for everyone. We thought, like, we can kind of bootstrap it locally. And in the middle of Illinois after the dot-com crash, it was not, like, a thing that could happen.
But kind of going back in retrospect, if I kind of just understood that, like, you can take whatever you're building and just make it available to everybody at the same time globally on the internet, you will grow with the internet. So I think, yeah, that was, I think, kind of a lesson that I only learned maybe a decade after the fact.
LubaYeah. So what failed about that startup specifically? What did you guys do wrong, now in retrospect, that it didn't work out?
TolyWell, we literally just didn't understand how to, like, let's just bet on the internet, like, don't worry about getting, like, ten users locally. Just get global with the internet.
LubaYeah, that makes sense. So you then started your career at Qualcomm. And I'm surprised that you stayed there for, like, 13 years or something.
TolyI was, so I would wake up, surf, bike to work, run, like, during lunch, bike home, surf again, then go play underwater hockey.
LubaWhere were you living?
TolyIn San Diego.
LubaOkay, okay.
TolyWell, you see, really, like, if you live there, I think that's kind of the life you can choose for yourself. Like, I was an Ironman. Like, I was in fantastic shape. Like, outside all the time. And also kind of working on whatever I wanted to. So if you want to be, like, an IC that's just, like, deep down in code, there will be managers, they'll be like, here's the hardest problem, come back to you.
LubaYeah, yeah, yeah. So was it that lifestyle that you wanted to keep living that kept you at Qualcomm for so long?
TolySo I had, me and, like, one of the guys that ended up CTO and co-founder of Solana, we were, like, roommates for basically until we got married, for, like, over a decade. And we were constantly, when we would be surfing, we would be just shooting ideas around, like, should we do this? Should we do that? We had probably 14 tiny startups that, like, kind of had no real traction in that time. So we were always just messing around, trying to build things.
LubaSo was he at Qualcomm too, or he was just your roommate?
TolyHe was at Qualcomm too, also an Ironman champion, also underwater hockey player.
LubaThat's amazing. Sports unite.
TolyYeah. We had, like, a cohort of basically Ironman Qualcomm underwater hockey players that were just, like, trying to do these, like, small, whatever—
LubaYeah.
TolySmall ideas, random stuff. None of it panned out. But when I did kind of have that eureka moment and kind of the drive to go build Solana, I literally just pulled those people in, and they were like, yeah, let's do it.
LubaYeah. So what still kept you at a company for 13 years?
TolyI think the work was interesting. So it was just really, really, like, at that time you had mobile phones going through this, like, rapid innovation phase. So similar to how, like, AI hardware is, like, accelerating. Basically every year you get, like, a full generation leap. You had that from 2001 through, I think, like, 2010-ish. So it was just really fun and challenging.
LubaFun and challenging. You lived the life that you wanted. There were a bunch of friends that you kicked off different side projects with. That makes sense. And then you leave to go to Mesosphere and Dropbox, and you had very, very short stints at both. What triggered you leaving Qualcomm? Did the work stop being interesting?
TolyI moved up to the Bay Area. Basically my wife kind of got on an awesome career track in the Bay Area, like, ended up at Airbnb. So we moved up here.
LubaWhat was that? Huh, what year was that?
TolyShit. 2011-ish.
LubaOh, wow.
TolyOkay, something like that.
LubaGotcha. So she was at Airbnb very early.
TolyNot, like, super early, but early enough to, like— So we moved up there. And I was bored working remote, so I just wanted to, like, check out a couple companies.
LubaMakes sense. So that was kind of the stopping point for Qualcomm. Okay. Okay. So you move up to the Bay. You start working at Mesosphere, then you go to Dropbox. Every stint is, like, 5 to 9 months. What were you looking for, and what didn't you find?
TolyI guess, I think you kind of just stay for really good people. And, like, kind of interesting work, I would say. So I think Dropbox, I probably would have stayed, because I found, like, a team that was really, really hardcore and smart, working on compression and AI. That would have been, yeah, you know, for whatever, for better or for worse, regardless of how Dropbox the company was doing, the team there was awesome.
LubaI feel like that time was a pretty golden time for Dropbox. It was, like, 2015, '16.
TolySo that's really, I think, kind of like what you're looking for most of the time as an engineer. And I was literally just kind of just inspired to go build Solana.
LubaGot it. So it was more of an opportunity and situational that you left Dropbox so quickly. Tell me about the time when you, tell me about that, you know, inspiration to start Solana. So first of all, how did you get into crypto?
TolySo one of the guys from my Ironman underwater hockey Qualcomm group, we were working on a side project building deep learning systems. So this was right around when TensorFlow came out, before, they just got them to, like, the dream images and stuff. This is before the transformer paper and everything. We were literally just putting up boxes with GPUs at Hurricane Electric and building, like, a thin wrapper.
LubaWhat year was that?
TolyHuh?
LubaWhat year was that?
Toly2017.
LubaGotcha.
TolyAnd we were mining crypto in the background to pay for the hardware.
LubaOh, wow. That's so cool.
TolyBut it wasn't, like, a mining operation, because we were optimizing it for GPUs. Yeah. It was just, let's— we have all this hardware, it's like, why not? Yeah.
LubaHow much did you guys mine?
TolySo we were spending it all back on buying GPUs. So it wasn't profitable from that sense, but it was crazy that people were paying us to do nothing. Yeah. Effectively. We were using, like, a Claymore miner or something, and it would just switch to whatever the optimal proof-of-work coin was.
So I got, like, kind of nerd-sniped by crypto and proof of work, and we literally had two coffees and a beer at Cafe Soleil. And that didn't sit well with me. And I was up till four in the morning with this, like, eureka idea that there's a way to use a similar scheme to proof of work, but to measure time. And that later became proof of history.
And the reason why I was, like, so driven by this to go start Solana was because I didn't know what to Google for.
LubaWhat do you mean?
TolyLike, these things are technically called verifiable delay functions. And, like, these folks at Stanford were working on them and had, like, very advanced papers on, like, much better constructs than what I had in mind. But because I didn't know, like, how to find it, I thought I had something, like, really interesting and unique.
LubaOh, wow. That just drove you to continue figuring it out and working on it. That's crazy. So it's kind of like naivety and lack of skills of searching for a specific thing. That's fascinating. But why did this idea drive you so much harder than your other side projects that you kept working on for the past 13 years before that?
TolyPartly, I think I got some really good advice from my wife. She was at Columbia, like, working on a Facebook competitor, and her memory of that was that there's, like, this brief moment, like a six-month window, where there is an idea, everybody knows it's going to be built, and it's really hot. And if you get funding, then you'll have a shot. And if you kind of wait too long, you won't.
So there was this idea that there's going to be a fast blockchain. Like, everyone knew. This was kind of up in the air.
LubaThe idea was in the air. Okay.
TolyThere were a bunch of different people trying to do it every different way. And I had, like, this insight that there's a way to do it that would kind of be very similar to how, like, radio protocols work for cellular networks, like TDMA. This was what I observed from Qualcomm. So I think I was maybe the only one thinking of that problem that way at the time. So I was able to get enough funding. So that was kind of it.
LubaSo it sounded like because of all your experience at Qualcomm, you were like, huh—
TolyAlso, I would say, like, the difference between San Diego and the Bay Area was, like, really stark there. Like, when I told Dropbox, hey, I want to do the startup, the response that I got was, like, this happens all the time, come back in six months if it doesn't work out.
So when you're, like, in the Bay Area, probably still even now, this is the best network of founders and companies and VCs. And even the people that are your managers at whatever big tech company you have in the Bay Area all have that. The only reason they're there is because they wanted to be startup founders, like, to some extent. So you have this, like, instant connection with everyone there that will just kind of help you along.
LubaRight. And instant permission to go ahead and do that. Tell me— I'm sorry.
TolyGo ahead. And that's just very hard to find anywhere else. Like, even in tech companies, I would say, in Seattle and San Diego, maybe in Austin now, there's this group now. But, like, I think outside of the Bay Area, it's very, very different.
LubaTell me about your impressions of the Bay Area at that time. So you guys moved, and then were you like, oh my God, this is the best place in the world?
TolyYeah, it is much closer to a real city. You go to a cafe, you hear, like, a thousand different startup ideas. Yeah, it's just really exciting. Yeah. If, like, I was young and no kids, I would be in San Francisco trying to build an AI company.
LubaOh, wow. Okay. Is that the next chapter after Solana?
TolyNo, I mean, I already have a baby. I've got to, like, I'm a parent.
LubaSolana for life.
TolyYeah. Solana for life.
LubaGotcha. You've described yourself as a stress seeker. That's something that I've heard across a lot of conversations and interviews, that you kind of, like, love eating glass, and under stress you perform the best. Where does that desire to seek stress come from?
TolyChildhood trauma, you know? Yeah, it could be, right? Like, I don't know. But yeah, for whatever reason. Yeah. This is, like, I'm actually, like, it doesn't mean I'm a risk-taker. I'm actually very cautious, because when I was competing or whatever, racing, I needed, like, a lot of course intelligence. Like, I needed to do the same track over and over before I could, like, go fast. Because, maybe, I don't know, like, if you're used to stress, you know that it's not a good guidance for when you should brake, so you can go a little too fast and hurt yourself, you know?
LubaHas that ever happened to you in sports?
TolyNot a ton. Like, yeah. So I've luckily avoided major injuries.
LubaBut that whole experience allowed you to figure out how to calculate risk and then use that in your startup journey.
TolyYeah. So you got to, like, be able to push it, which means you are taking on stress that then you have to kind of eat, which is, like, it has to go somewhere. Like, yeah, I don't know.
LubaSo, okay, so you have this idea at Cafe du Soleil, then you quickly meet or get reconnected with Raj, right? And then he was down to help you.
TolyYeah. I basically, like, asked all my friends, folks that I worked with, you know, like, people that I constantly built ideas with, and, like, Raj was, like, a mutual connection. And he had kind of, I think, the other side of the coin. Like, I had the engineering and kind of this big design idea, and I could effectively build it all myself. I just needed people to, you know, accelerate. Raj had raised money before, I think, understood kind of a lot of the other growth, you know, business development hustle. So it's a good kind of good combination.
LubaYeah. I know you had a really hard time fundraising. Were you fundraising alone, or were you fundraising with Raj?
TolyMe and Raj were, like, the main two founders fundraising. So it took a thousand meetings.
LubaLike, literally a thousand meetings?
TolyI would say literally a thousand.
LubaWow. And so what were you doing wrong at the beginning? Why did it take so long?
TolyI honestly think that that is just what it takes. I don't think it's like we had a harder time than a company that really gets funded. There's a bunch that have an easier time through whatever network connection or something like that. But I think the relative amount of money that we raised to the amount of work hours we put in is, like, nothing. Like, I mean, we raised so much more than the cost of my hours.
LubaWho were you most excited to get a yes from back then?
TolyYeah. We got, like, really good early investors, I would say. Were, like, Foundation Capital and Slow Ventures and Multicoin were, like, the big three that I was pretty excited about. None of them were, like, huge funds, and Multicoin was a really small fund at the time, just starting. And we were their biggest check. And surprisingly, like, we didn't expect, they ended up being kind of probably the most pivotal, hardworking, like, actual, you know— in VC, say they add value, the vast majority of value they add is the money.
LubaThat's, like, that's the reality. Yeah.
TolyAnd that's really important. You need the money to pay engineers to build your product. But they ended up— and I doubt any big VC can actually add more value beyond that. But if you get lucky with a small startup fund that really does make a big bet, they will, out of necessity, put in all the hours doing everything they can.
LubaWas there someone like that who did that? Multicoin?
TolyFor sure.
LubaHow did they help you out at the beginning?
TolySo they were basically doing, like, all the non-engineering work they could, like marketing, PR, training, all of this stuff, like, connecting me with whatever company or whatever connection they could get to.
LubaI always hear about, or sometimes I hear about, startup founders having this amazing experience with a VC firm where they literally did a bunch of groundwork for them. So I'm wondering, for someone listening who's at the beginning of their founder journey, how can they spot or recognize that the fund will actually do something for them versus just being lip service?
TolyI mean, I didn't have the privilege, like, the opportunity to, like, say no, because we weren't raising, like, out-of-the-park money. So it was basically saying yes to every VC. And the ones that were the highest impact were the small ones. So I would say don't, like, underestimate, like, the impact of, like, a small fund. But it's all kind of like an interview, you can't ever tell. Like, a new hire could be really great at interviewing but really bad in a startup environment.
LubaSo it sounds like in that first round you were just like, anyone who's going to give us money, we'll take them on. How did that change with subsequent rounds?
TolyI think that only really changed after we had, like, we didn't need the money.
LubaOkay. And then you became more selective.
TolyYeah. But even then, like, you only really have the ability to say no when you're so successful that you don't really need it.
LubaSo what was the criteria you started looking for in, you know, VCs when you already were successful, that you didn't need the money?
TolyI think then, as you're thinking about this, this is, again, post product-market fit, you're thinking about your company as it's going to grow in traditional markets, where you start pushing against, like, traditional, like, players, Stripe, banks, whatever. You want VCs with board seats or connections there, because they can kind of help you build those relationships.
LubaCan you tell me more about what you envisioned Solana to be when you just started, and how has the mission evolved over the years?
TolyI mean, it's surprisingly just stayed on track. We always thought that price discovery and trading is the most important use case for a smart contract platform. So we've been optimizing for that and focusing on making it kind of the best place for permissionless markets to be created, and none of that has changed.
So I think the challenge is, like, I think with all just kind of these open-source permissionless systems, it's really hard to build them out, because anyone can fork you. Anyone can literally just copy the idea and rebuild it in a centralized way. So you're always competing with these kind of forces that want to verticalize everything. But I think over the long term, those end up surviving for a shorter amount of time, even if in bursts they're more successful.
LubaHas any— like, were you driven by any of the memories of your upbringing and trauma of the USSR into entering crypto and building Solana?
TolyNo, I don't think you can draw these kind of, like, full conclusions. Yeah. Cause-and-effect things. It's more that if you survive the childhood trauma in a certain way, you get some benefits out of it.
LubaYou're lucky. If you're lucky.
TolyYeah.
LubaWhat's been the hardest moment as a founder? I know you guys had a lot of challenges with FTX collapsing, with the network going down multiple times. But what felt the most challenging to you personally?
TolyOh, definitely the FTX collapse. Like, the network stuff is, there were growth problems. The only reason it would go down is because we would get overwhelmed with the demand that it was trying—
LubaYeah, it's a good problem to have.
TolyYeah, it was serving beyond, like, what we could test, the capacity we could test internally. So then we had to go, like, fix stuff. That was great. I wish we had more of those.
LubaMore of those problems.
TolyYeah, those kind of problems, I'd welcome them every day. Yeah. FTX collapsing, that was terrifying because you had no idea. Like, the worst fear I had was a bunch of teams that raised capital to build products on Solana had their money on FTX.
LubaAnd then it turned out that most of them actually didn't, right?
TolyFortunately. We, like, Raj and I were panic-calling teams, like, just trying to figure out, do you have runway? Like, and see if we could find some VC somewhere that could help people out. Even though half of the VCs also got screwed just as much, and the markets were tanking, so that was pretty bad. But yeah, luckily, I would say, like, 80 to 85% did the right thing, were conservative.
So if you're a founder listening to this, TreasuryDirect.gov is your friend. Your CFO should tell you to put all your runway into short-term Treasury bills and remove bank risk, remove any kind of custody risk.
LubaYeah, yeah, yeah.
TolyThe best advice I've gotten was actually from Kyle from Multicoin. It was, like, that funding is for taking, like, startup risk. Like, you shouldn't be investing it into anything that investors can already invest in on their own. So you're basically trying to create something that is going to outgrow everything else in the world.
LubaSo tell me a bit more about when FTX happened. Where were you? What was happening?
TolyWe had just had Breakpoint. All our Breakpoints have, like, broken records. So at that time we had the biggest Breakpoint we ever had. You know, like, I don't know, thousands of people bought tickets. Thousands of founders showed up for, like, Hacker Day and stuff. It felt like the ecosystem was booming, even though we were already in kind of this part of the bear market. And on the flight back, I'm, like, following Twitter and seeing all of this, like, holy shit, it's real.
LubaSo you were on the flight back and you were on Twitter. What was going through your mind?
TolyI mean, like, I called, like, dude, dude, is our company screwed because our runway is on there? No. Like, so our CFO was smart enough to, like, put things in Treasuries. But then, are all the other founders that I know screwed? So calling people, trying to figure out how bad things were.
And obviously it was going to impact the ecosystem, because FTX brought with it a whole bunch of engineers that were building stuff on Solana. So it was one of those moments where you don't know, like, how truly distributed or decentralized your ecosystem is until, like, one of these pillars gets broken, right? And then you get to actually see it play out in action.
LubaA lot of the founder's journey is managing stress, and you've dealt with so many stressful situations across the board. What are your tips for managing emotions under stress, and how did you learn to be better at it?
TolyYeah, I mean, it's 90% of what Bryan Johnson or your mom will tell you. Don't drink, get a lot of sleep, work out. So lift weights or running. I used to be a runner, but I blew out my knees, and now I'm a weightlifter.
LubaOkay. Makes sense. The transition. Yeah. Did you, are you, do you believe in executive coaching? Is that something that you and your co-founder do?
TolyIt, like, helps too. You'll kind of know what you're supposed to do, but it sometimes helps hearing somebody else repeat it back to you. So, like, don't discount it, try it, see if it works.
I was lucky enough that, like, Raj and I were basically, like, work married. So I would pace around, like, the room or whatever, talking to him about, do we do this? Do we do that? And we would exhaust every option. This was, like, my method of trying to figure out what to do. We would argue until we were just, like—
LubaOut of arguments.
TolyYeah, out of arguments. And then the number of options remaining is Pareto efficient. It doesn't matter which one you pick, because you've argued away all the bad ones. So then you might as well coin flip. But the CEO has to make that decision.
LubaSo did you know that Raj and you would be such a good pairing, or was that a—
TolyIt was totally random. So again, like, he was just a connection through, like, a really good friend of mine whose opinion I valued a lot, because he's, like, a really awesome genius. So it's really hard to pick co-founders. I would say, like, just pick one. You know, it's like dating. You never know, right? Like, it's just random.
LubaWhat was the advice that that friend gave you? Did he give you frameworks for how to think about it?
TolyI needed Raj because I'm an engineer and I didn't really know anything outside of that domain. So having, like, a cross-domain co-founder works out really well.
LubaHow did you guys pick who's going to be the CEO?
TolyI wanted to be the CEO.
LubaSo why did you want to be the CEO?
TolyI just, it was my idea. I kind of just wanted to drive it.
LubaOkay, okay.
TolySomebody, like, you need, like, a— I think a lot of other teams that kind of get together, and there isn't, like, a clear leader, you end up with problems that you eventually have to solve. Like, somebody has to decide, I want to be the leader, I want to make the decisions. And I like that. Because when you do end up with that Pareto efficient set, somebody has to pick one. And you need, like, I think at some level, somebody that, you know, wears the crown, no matter how heavy it is.
LubaIt sounds a little counterintuitive for you to be like, I want to be the CEO, at the same time hearing that you're just an engineer, you don't know anything else. How were you thinking about that? Were you like, I'm going to learn everything else that's important for the role of the CEO? Because it sounded like Raj was kind of the more—
TolyWhy it worked for us is I had people that just were good. They were good people. They were both, like, good and honest and hardworking, and were smart. I think these are just, like, necessities out of a team. If you have, like, a bunch of bad team members, it's not going to work.
And I was able to trust them to just go execute on big parts of the system, or engineering parts, or with Raj, basically the other half of the company, without ever, like, thinking or needing to micromanage. Or, like, I basically could delegate completely and blindly. And if you don't have those kind of co-founders, I think no matter what, like, you get a lot of problems, and you might get lucky and kind of work through them. But generally, like, what worked for me is just having that trust and really good people I could delegate to.
LubaDid you guys ever have moments where you didn't trust each other on a certain task or in a certain project?
TolyNo, I mean, we'd argue, and eventually, like, Raj would be like, well, you're the CEO, just tell me what to do. And I'm like, all right, fine, you win. Like, go do what you were doing.
LubaSo it just kind of worked.
TolyAs soon as he would, like, push me into that, like, you're the CEO, you can tell me what to do, I'm like, okay, you're right. I'm the CEO. That was a sign that I was arguing too much, that, like, we'd exhausted every possibility, and I could trust him to do the right thing.
LubaSo for someone listening, how would you go about selecting a co-founder and making sure that that relationship stays trustworthy?
TolyI think, like, this, I don't know how you can, like, filter for it, except that you just kind of have to commit to it and trust that you'll get lucky. Like, it might not work out, right? But I think, no matter what process you create of evaluating, or spreadsheet, there's no way to spreadsheet this. You're just, like, at some point you gotta trust the person and be like, okay, I'm in. I don't know. Also dating advice, I suppose.
LubaThat's true. Okay. Speaking of dating advice, you've been married to your wife for quite a long time, and you bring her up in a lot of important decisions and situations. How did you guys meet?
TolyAt a friend's 30th birthday party.
LubaDo you feel like she is kind of also, you know, an invisible co-founder of Solana?
TolyAbsolutely. Yeah. She had to, like, we had two kids and a startup, and she had a super stressful job and had to, like, kind of carry the family during that whole, like, phase where it looked more like we were going to fail than we were going to succeed.
So I think, yeah, you actually, like, I think I'm split on whether— I don't think it matters what phase of your life you start a company. Like, you can do it at any phase, because I literally had, like, a newborn when I did it. So what you need are, like, just really good people that you can trust and delegate to. I think that's the most important part.
LubaHow did you make a stressful company situation and family with young kids work?
TolyYou don't really make it work. Like, you just kind of have fires happening, and you choose which fires to ignore and choose which fires to mitigate. Like, it's just suffering. You have to kind of be okay with suffering for a few years and understanding that it might actually not pay out.
LubaDo you feel like you're past the suffering point?
TolyYeah, yeah, a bit. Yeah. I mean, now I think, like, what's the big difference now is the folks that did join at that time and have been at Labs or Foundation or whatever for, like, five-plus years have really matured into their own and have taken up big pieces of the work. So now they're effectively kind of looking for their bench of people that can take over.
So now I think, like, the org has gotten, like, just mature enough to where if it rolls up to me, it must be really bad. So I don't get any of the fun news. This is all the bad news.
LubaOh. Has there been any recent situations where you—
TolyI have only a fire once a month.
LubaNo matter— or once a month? That's not too bad. That's not every day. What was the most recent fire?
TolyDude, I don't remember. So whatever it was, it was past now.
LubaOkay.
TolyThat's good.
LubaWhat would you describe as Solana's mission? Like, what do you want it to do in the world?
TolyI think we're very far down this track of open-source, permissionless networks. So our mission is to unblock founders, get them to use the protocol, build applications. This was part of the work we did with Seeker. Like, so we see, like, founders having problems launching on mobile quickly or whatever, so we can go and, you know, take a swing at solving those. And a lot of times that's building, like, another company or somebody like that that can provide a service.
We'll see how that plays out in a changing world. But I think the advantage that we have is that it's very malleable. So it constantly adjusts, because you have this, like, huge collection of founders that are building things without me being the blocker. I'm not their CEO or their decision-maker. They have their own ideas, their own VCs, their own funding. And that means that they can scatter and go do random stuff, but it also means that they will just go do things without asking.
LubaBut what kind of change do you feel like Solana has created in the world or for the ecosystem?
TolyI think you just can't build, like, a slow, expensive blockchain anymore. Like, I think that, I mean, it took years. Even after we were alive, people were still launching these, like, slow, expensive blockchains. And somehow they were, like, kind of still around as dinosaurs. But I think eventually we had won enough market share to where you just had to build, like, a really fast, high-performance system that's great for users. So I think we really kind of set the level there.
The next phase is really the hard part, because we're post this kind of Cinderella crypto phase where—
LubaWhat's the Cinderella crypto phase?
TolyA lot of, like, really big ideas that you can, like, get funding on and just launch, and, like, kind of hopes and dreams. And there were just so many of them in a row that it felt like none of them had to get traction or materialize. But I think that world is gone.
So you now have to build, like, a functioning company with traction and users and revenues and value accrual to the token, or whatever system you want to use. So, and that's just, like, that's what the real world is like. And that's a very mature system. And in a lot of ways it's maybe more boring, but it also means it's, like, really, it's here forever, right? Like, people are going to continue building businesses that make money, so it's never going to go away.
LubaWhat were your personal lessons in that evolution from, you know, building something pre-PMF to now it becoming a very mature company?
TolyYou can't really ever predict what PMF is going to look like. I think this was true for crypto. Like, all these kind of really big dream ideas that people had, it's just really hard to know which ones are going to succeed. Like, our story of, like, hey, trading is going to be important, was just as likely as any other one.
And I see the same parallels in AI. Like, a couple years ago, all of these AI companies had these really big visions that were really hard to pin down. Is any of this stuff going to work? None of it really made sense, because you just can't foresee how quickly some of the technology changes are going to be and how impactful they're going to be. But it's obvious now AI works and it has a business model. Like, no one's questioning this. Probably no more questions about crypto, but—
LubaNo, we can talk about AI. How are you using AI?
TolyOh, I have, like, five persistent projects that are building.
LubaWithin the company, or side personal projects?
TolyI mean, they're part of Labs simply because I'm the CEO of Labs. So, but there, I'm effectively, like, a CEO shouldn't be an individual contributor. So when I'm coding, it's like a side project, right?
I think the real big challenge, like, the really big difference now, is when I had these, like, kind of wacky ideas, I would tell them to engineers and they would go build them. So I was wasting company resources.
LubaSo now you're building yourself.
TolyI was diverting people from what they were supposed to do onto some harebrained idea that I had in a meeting. So now I can just go do it myself.
LubaWhat percentage of your time are you spending coding and playing around?
TolyThe—
LubaTime?
TolyIf you count sleeping, like, more hours of the day than any other time in my life.
LubaWow. That's crazy. Yeah. I feel like building with all the coding tools is so easy. It's so addicting.
TolyI mean, each agent is literally doing one FTE's worth of work for me. So I am, like—
LubaHow many agents do you have?
TolyFour that are, like, fully running on different projects. So I'm probably doing four, 4x times 3x, it's 24/7, 12x worth of work.
LubaWow. That's crazy. That's amazing.
TolyNone of it is— again, like, I'm back in that phase before Solana where I just have a bunch of ideas. None of them are a taxable event, just a bunch of random stuff.
LubaCan you share any of the ideas?
TolyYeah. I mean, one of them is totally open source. It's, after last year's 10/10, there was, like, a huge derivatives kind of fire across a whole bunch of, like, perpetual DEXes, perpetual exchanges, DEXes and centralized ones. Where, because they're running the liquidations engine as a black box.
And in my kind of mind, I think that was one of the ways that FTX got killed, was these systems. If you don't know how they behave behind the scenes, they accrue, like, bad debt, and it has to go somewhere. So something happened on 10/10 that was, like, catastrophic to markets, and you'll never know, because it was all off-chain.
So that was my kind of trigger to, okay, there's got to be a way. If these systems work, there has to be a way to do it fully on-chain. That's fully mathematically closed-loop. And if there's not, then they're not safe.
LubaSo is it, like, an observability tool, or—
TolyNo, it's literally, like, here's a closed-loop perpetual derivatives risk engine that's mathematically complete, and you can provably verify.
LubaSo that nothing fails. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
TolySo if something, like, if there's a crash in prices that's unpredictable, you know exactly how it will balance all the debts, and it cannot create bad debt. So that was my inspiration to, like— that event was, like, triggering for me because of FTX, because I'm like, oh shit, that can happen again.
LubaYeah, yeah. And that would not be good.
TolyEven if Binance is not, like, a huge supporter of Solana and is being this competitor, something bad happening there would have catastrophic effects across the whole system. And I don't even think they're doing anything bad. It's just having an alternative that is mathematically proven will set the level playing field for all competitors. They can take all that open-source code and copy it and make their system safer, if it'll help them or not. It's just, I think, not good. But selfishly, if I ship this code that works on Solana, people will go build markets. And that's not good for Solana.
LubaThat's awesome. So that's one of the projects. And then there's a few more pet projects.
TolyYeah, I've got, like, a couple video games. I think everyone that's ever programmed wanted to build video games. Kind of, none of them that I want to share yet.
LubaGot it. Do you have any personal projects, like how you use AI for yourself, that you've built out?
TolyI would, like, all the kind of Gas Town, like, OpenClaw stuff, I think it's, like, pretty mid-curve.
LubaSay more.
TolyYeah. You just need one agent on one project. Yeah. Like, maximum, highest-quality tokens. And you tell it the most complicated, like, complex product description, and it has to go build it. So if it doesn't, it means the AI is not there yet. Yeah. So you have to work at the level of complexity that the best model can do as a single context. I would say, like, that's kind of what I would do. Yeah, yeah.
LubaHow do you use OpenClaw or Hermes or those agents?
TolyAll this, like, I think, multi-agent, like, anthropomorphic stuff. This agent's a product manager—
LubaIs that what you mean by mid-curve? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Got it.
TolyIt means you don't understand the product enough. It's gonna come out as garbage.
LubaAre you using it for any of, like, family stuff? Do you guys have any scheduling?
TolyWhat do we do? I use it, like, as my workout scheduler now.
LubaOkay.
TolySo, like, what should I do today? Yeah.
LubaGot it. What are you doing for your lift right now?
TolyIt's just standard, like, deadlift, squats. Whatever.
LubaOkay.
TolyNice, heavy lift.
LubaBig functional movements. That's good. What's the hardest decision that you've had to make as a leader?
TolyProbably right before we launched, we were, like, really short on runway. And I fired, like, really good people just to extend runway. So that was kind of really gut-wrenching, because they were really good, really good engineers. But I felt like if we're going to do cuts, we need to kind of cut to the bone.
LubaYeah.
TolyTo extend runway enough to where we just have a couple more shots on goal at catching PMF or whatever. And I don't know if it worked or not, but it gave me just enough, like, runway and confidence to go and, like, not be— yeah, to launch and, like, give Solana a chance.
LubaWould you say that firing people has been the hardest thing to learn?
TolyYeah. Having to make that decision. To delay firing somebody that's not productive, it sucks.
LubaIt's one thing, but if it's a good person—
TolyYeah. Really good people that I'm friends with, still friends with. So they are not mad at me. Like—
LubaWhat do you feel like you're still learning how to do well?
TolyI think it's really hard to— again, like, the search for PMF. It's just really hard.
LubaBut you guys have already found your PMF.
TolyBut it's, like, the world has always changed. You always kind of have to ship and push people and iterate. And having, yeah, balancing that. Like, do we build this in-house? Do we launch, like, with a third party? Do we need to launch this? Do we do nothing? It's kind of a never-ending discussion.
LubaHow do you get better at that skill?
TolyI am not sure you do. Again, probably if you hire really, like, good executives, good co-founders. You argue, you just argue to death.
LubaAnd then hopefully you come up with— yeah, with the decision.
TolyYou eliminate all the bad options.
LubaWhat's the thing that you guys are struggling with right now?
TolyI would say just capturing more growth, more of, like, on-chain trading. It's never struggled, but that's always, like, the struggle. Like, we need to grow it, like, it has to grow year over year. So some stuff is growing, some stuff is not. And part of it is macro. So trying to figure out, like, where to get traction.
I think one lesson that I learned is that it doesn't really matter if it's a bull or bear market. Like, you just always have to focus on growth. And in fact, like, during a bear market, when things are, like, more constrained, the small, just, you know, tiny bits of growth that you get is what compounds much faster. During a bull market, when things are, like, really, like, the markets are really blowing up, there's just so much noise. It's really hard to tell signal from noise.
LubaYeah. For sure. Do you feel optimistic about crypto happening?
TolyYeah. Like I said, I think, like, we're at a stage where you have businesses with revenues. People are looking at chain revenues, application revenues, ecosystem revenues. And once you have revenues, you're sustainable, right? You don't need investment anymore, right? You're done living off fundraising. So we're past that point where there's any hope or chance for crypto to die.
LubaYeah. That's true.
TolyWe're stuck with it. You're stuck with it, for worse. So now you have to figure out, like, where do you create value? And, like, you can't ever predict the TAM, like, so that's going to change decade after decade.
I am, like, really confident that it's such a fundamental primitive that it's going to be around in 20 years. Like, it's not a technology that's ever going to go away. Even with AI, even whatever, you can predict changes, like, you know, robots replace everything. You're always going to have finance. You're always going to have lawyers. Yeah. So, like, and fundamentally, like, these systems are finance systems. So yeah. Yeah, it's never going to go away.
LubaWhat was your definition of success when you started Solana? Do you remember?
TolyThat we got, like, third parties to build apps that users use. That was, like, we're building a platform, it's good for trading, but we don't know, like, what kind of trading, where it fits into finance. So we really wanted to find, like, here's, like, a product with PMF that's organically growing.
LubaWhat about your personal definition of success? What do you deeply care about?
TolyWhat do I— that it's, like, it solves a fundamentally, like, hard, cool engineering problem.
LubaSo it's engineering.
TolyYeah. Like that. We, like, had to sweat a lot about the design. I'm, like, really digging into it. And we figured it out, and, like, it all works.
LubaSo it sounds like you've already reached that point of satisfaction and success, or is it never—
TolyThere's, like, a whole, like, we peeled off one layer and everything worked, and then we found, like, a whole bunch of new impossible problems that are, like, really hard. So now I'm blessed to work with people that are, like, the best in the world at, like, consensus and MEV and, like, kind of the crypto-economic side of it. So, and a lot of it is, like, ripping out my old code.
LubaNo attachment.
TolyNone. It's the Ship of Theseus. Except you're not rebuilding the exact same ship. You're, like, putting engines on it.
LubaYeah, that sounds great. Do you guys use AI for coding a lot?
TolyThat has dramatically changed, I would say, over the last six months.
LubaOh, two months?
TolySix.
LubaSix months. Okay. Tell me more.
TolyWell, I mean, like, more than six months ago, like, the quality was still—
LubaYeah, questionable.
TolyQuestionable. But I think, yeah, the recent, like, for me, I went full AI last year, and it was generating a lot of, like, slop that I had to manage. And none of those experiments panned out. And I think around December last year is when it really flipped to where it was usable. And now for systems engineering, I would say it's there now.
LubaDo you have any company-wide AI mandates? Like, every single—
TolyNo.
LubaYeah. What do you think about CEOs who are mandating AI fully?
TolyLike, this is, like, the hard part about running a big company is you're just, like, so many layers away from the individual contributors that are building stuff. Like me, as a CEO, I always had the luck of, like, having a small team where I could still write code and push it. I don't do that anymore, because they don't want to maintain my code. But I talk to the ICs directly. Like, I am like, what are you guys working on? Why aren't you doing it like this?
So they're in that environment. I know I'm not. I can't, like, tell that person, go use AI, or go use Emacs or something. To me, it's just a tool. Yeah. To them, it's just a tool. Use the best tool to fix this problem.
LubaBut what about this engineering resistance that some companies or some leaders are experiencing, where particularly senior engineers are like, oh, it's not good enough, we've got to do everything ourselves? Oh, you think that's fine?
TolyYeah. That the person uses whatever's the best.
LubaBut what about efficiency?
TolyWhy did you hire that person if you didn't think they were efficient? Like, yeah, you got to trust your people to do the best thing that they're going to do. So I fully delegate whatever tools they want to use. So if some people want to use Claude, some people use ChatGPT, I don't care. Like, if they don't want to use any of them, it's up to them.
LubaIt's up to them. Okay. That's awesome. Ultimate trust.
TolyYeah. Pre-AI, we had an engineer that would have, like, six monitors, and he used pedals to switch focus. He was, like, a true 10x engineer. The last one.
LubaThat's crazy. He's still at the company?
TolyNo.
LubaNo? Okay. Got it.
TolyBut yeah, I mean, you can look at GitHub, based on lines of code contributed in those early days. Some people were punching out a lot of code.
LubaWow. That's crazy.
TolyI don't think we've had AI contributors match that yet. So we're not at that stage of super-productive small team. It's totally greenfield.
LubaYeah. How far away do you think we are from that?
TolyI don't know. I mean, at the pace it's going, maybe two years. But, like, yeah, it's getting there. Yeah.
LubaYeah. I want to briefly talk about Twitter and being in public. So obviously, as you've described yourself, you're pretty introverted. You're, like, a very hardcore engineer, still in the weeds with technical stuff. And you have a very loud Twitter personality. What was it like to transition into, like, almost a cult leader for you? Was that natural? Was it intentional?
TolyI think this is, like, you need to have one co-founder that wants to do sales, and, like, it really is better when it's the CEO. So it wasn't, like, something that I naturally wanted to do. But Raj kind of, like, pushed me. You got to do it. It's gotta come from you, because it's your baby. So it's better when it's genuine and comes from the creator.
LubaWere you resistant at all to being public?
TolyNo. It just took practice. So, like, a lot of, I would say, iteration. But you literally, like, to get your first users, you got to do whatever it takes. A user, ask him, hey, try this thing. Yeah. And the worst thing they'll do is just ignore you.
LubaThat's true. Did you have a hunch you would enjoy sales and talking about product, or you did not know?
TolyIt's just work.
LubaAny tips for sales as a founder and knocking on every door?
TolyIt's also just, do it a thousand times and you'll get better at it.
LubaYou've gotten a little more political over the last couple of years, whereas before you stayed highly apolitical and more focused on technology. What was that shift like for you, and why did you decide to—
TolyI think I've always been anti-socialist, I don't know. Yeah. Fleeing from the Soviet—
LubaYeah, but you didn't flee personally. You know, your parents fled.
TolyI mean—
LubaYou heard a lot of stories.
TolyThey took me with them.
LubaYeah. That's true. So what was that transition to be more vocal about politics like?
TolyI love to argue. And I will argue with anyone online.
LubaSo it wasn't much of a transition.
TolyYeah.
LubaGotcha. How did money change you?
TolyIt's been, like, I mean, there's benefits to, like, not having to worry about it. But I think past the kind of, like, success you can have just at Airbnb or Qualcomm, like, in tech, it doesn't really, like, change your life that much. I would say, like, being in tech in the Bay Area, like, especially two parents in tech, you've already, like, kind of had more success than my parents ever dreamed. So, like, you have access to everything that you want. Then the only thing that you're really managing is time. Like, do I have the free time to spend with my kids or not?
LubaWere there any things that you started doing differently once you felt like you stepped into wealth? Or did it just largely stay the same?
TolyBasically stayed the same, I would say. I don't really like to travel, so I don't know. So yeah, I honestly have no idea what, like, what more needs I have.
LubaThat's great.
TolyI'm not a foodie. Like, I'm not excited about cars. I don't need, like— none of that stuff matters.
LubaWhat are your hobbies right now besides AI?
TolySkiing.
LubaOkay.
TolySkiing. Snowboarding as much as I can.
LubaOkay. How often do you go out?
TolyWhenever there's snow. So it's weather-dependent, but—
LubaOkay, so, like, a couple times a season.
TolyI mean, if I'm lucky, try to get, like, I don't know, 100K vertical.
LubaWow. That's awesome. Any curiosities outside of tech and AI that you're diving into?
TolyNo.
LubaNo big longevity or bio stuff?
TolyNothing.
LubaNo? You're not following? You're not interested?
TolyNo. I mean, I think it's pretty cool. I think I would say, like, quantum computing is probably the other one, because I think if we solve that, then we have a shot at solving the other problems, I think.
LubaWhat are the problems you're most excited about if quantum computing took a leap?
TolyLike material science, or, like, yeah. I think, like, to date, I think technology has basically solved, like, Newton's laws to a tee. We can track medium-sized objects really well. Like, you know, rocket fuel can launch them perfectly up and bring them down.
LubaYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
TolyBut as soon as you get into, like, atomic scale, protein folding, everything, you're dealing with, like, a very large, massive N-body problem that is just intractable. So quantum computing is, like, that. Like, if it works, I think that is going to be such a huge, significant change that it's hard to perceive the world after that. I think with AI, all we're doing is just, like, optimizing what already exists.
LubaWhat already exists. Yeah. What are your predictions for, you know, if quantum computing was at that point?
TolyIt's just as likely to work in five years as in 50. Like, it's just hard to tell. Yeah, like, everyone is, like, really terrified about cryptography being broken. Yeah, yeah. And eventually it will be, if we're lucky, if it works. If it doesn't work, I think we're stuck optimizing what we already have. So that's, like, kind of the exciting part about it.
LubaWhat do you want your life to look like ten years from now, personally?
TolyMaybe a million vertical feet.
LubaSnowboarding season is the dream? Just skiing the entire year? Yeah? Really?
TolyYeah.
LubaThat's a very deep passion. So no tech, just skiing.
TolyYeah, just skiing all day.
LubaSo then when do you think that chapter will come? Do you think there is a chapter after Solana, or do you see yourself running Solana—
TolyOh, definitely. What's cool now is, I was already, like, when I was on the lift, I would, like, log into my Claude and tell it to do stuff.
LubaFully autonomous Solana CEO, yeah, while you're skiing verticals. You don't think you'll miss building? I guess you'll still be building through your agents. Yeah. That's true.
Okay, I have a couple of last questions. What's something you believe about human nature that most people don't want to admit?
TolyI don't even think most people think this, but I think most people are very good.
LubaOkay. Yeah. I think good intentions, see the best in people.
TolyYeah. You can almost trust somebody to do the right thing by default, and they'll do it. Like, it's basically always worked out.
LubaDo you feel like you got that belief through your own experiences, or someone instilled it in you?
TolyProbably my parents, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, most people are good. Like, you can just do things.
LubaYou can just do things. Okay. Last question. What's something you believe— oh, sorry, I already asked you that. If you had a chance to meet your ten-year-old immigrant self, what would you tell him about the American dream?
TolyI would tell him to take it really easy and slow coming back to running after a break.
LubaIs that how you blew out your knees?
TolyYeah.
LubaSo what happened exactly?
TolyI just, I was, well, I took, like, I had, like, two years off, basically, because I was, like, working 24/7. And then I was getting stressed out, and I was like, okay, I got to go. Yeah. So, you know, I tried to take it easy, but I'm like, okay, I'm ready for sprints. Yeah. Damn, that was a bad idea.
LubaAnd there is no turning point? Like, you can, you know, go fix your knees and get back on track?
TolyI think post-quantum computing, we'll all be fixable.
LubaWith post-quantum computing.
TolyI hope that they'll be able to solve the protein folding problem around cartilage regrowth. Or we'll fully simulate cells, and then it won't be a problem. But I think until then, I'm basically screwed.
LubaDamn. That sucks. I'm so sorry.
TolyI mean, it's fine. I can, like, deadlift and snowboard.
LubaYeah. Do you see sports as, like, a thing that helps you be creative, or you just—
TolyYeah. For sure. Yeah. You get into the flow state, and you can, like, kind of ruminate on ideas and, like, discard a bunch of stuff that's not good and find new ones.
LubaAnd what's your life philosophy in one sentence?
TolyI don't have one. Yeah. One sentence, I would say, just, like, try to be mostly good, you know? Just be good. Assume other people are good, and things will work out.
LubaI love it. Totally. Thank you so much for your time.
TolyFor sure.