When it comes to the team of professionals guiding Dataeum through the raging sea of crypto market, we’re all set. We’re happy to be working with the best experts in the field.
Today’s interviewee is a successful investor and advisor for several blockchain projects. He has held various CTO roles and worked to create the emerging telecom technologies. He has built probably the biggest database in the crypto sector — allcoinWiki — and has been voted to Top 5 Blockchain Advisor in the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Anders Larsson:
— Anders, you have an immense experience in telecom. How does it feel to have taken such a big part in the tech revolution that it brought?
— When I started most people told me “I will never get a mobile phone. I don’t like the idea of being reached everywhere. It is also very expensive and too heavy to carry around. Only people like financial traders or doctors will ever own one.” Today there are 7.8 billion paying subscriptions, exceeding the world population of 7.6 billion people. It became the most inclusive system in the history of the planet, fully compatible in every country of the world, China included.
— What drove your decision to engage in crypto after all these years?
— I felt that the mission with telecom was complete and I wanted to have one more go at changing the world. First I actually started with VR where I developed a framework that trended up on Github but then I stumbled into crypto and realized that this was the next world revolution.
— Do you think anyone had foreseen the emergence of something like blockchain way back?
— It is very difficult to foresee true revolutions. Most people, myself included, actually thought that double spend problem was unsolvable in a decentralized way, meaning you need to have a bank in-between to make an electronic money transfer. In the same way we think many other things are impossible — until someone does it for the first time.
— In your opinion, in what ways will the technology develop in the future? Will it give birth to something yet unimaginable?
— I am certain that crypto will change society at least as much as Telecom and Internet did. That is why I went in full stream. We tend to underestimate how profoundly new technology changes society, but paradoxically at the same time we overestimate how fast change will go. My story above was 21 years ago. That’s how long it took, from commercial GSM phones that were quite good and that people were using. That is roughly where we are with crypto today. The world moves faster today, but I think we are still talking about 10+ years until crypto has changed society.
— Why did you decide to become an advisor after all?
— I’ve always been the guy who people come to for advice. I give freely from my learnings and insights. Many people hold back, thinking that their knowledge has to be protected, giving them an advantage, but in my experience it doesn’t work like that. By helping as many people as possible, as much as possible, good things come back. Business is about adding value to people’s lives. Money is just a side effect of that.
— Do you take pride in having been voted among Top Blockchain Advisors?
— Yes I do. I was an established name in my previous industry and starting fresh in crypto, as a nobody, is refreshing because I need to qualify again. It helps me to practice a beginner mindset of learning and staying humble. The moment you feel that you know-it-all, you have started the decline towards obsolescence. These lists helps me stay on target and focused.
— What criteria do you have for the projects under your supervision?
— I get on average 5 incoming requests per day and I have been very selective. I have many more criteria than I can list here. Statistically most startups don’t make it and there are 1001 ways it can go wrong, but when it works out the returns can be astronomical, compensating for all those that don’t make it. What I look for first is a team that can execute, and for that I look for past results. Other similar initiatives have dreams and plans, but the Dataeum team has already done the job for a few years before blockchain, with customers and results. Also I look for teams that listen, because it can be frustrating to give good advice to someone who knows-it-all. Imagine that you give the advice to plug the hole in the boat, because you know with certainty that it is necessary, but the captain says “no need, the sun is shining”. Then next day the boat sinks — with you in it. The Dataeum team listens and I like that.
— Are there any projects you feel most proud of?
— Yes I have many :)
— What are the biggest problems crypto world is facing right now?
— The crypto community is quibbling internally about details like block sizes, while AliPay and WeChat Pay are approaching 1 billion users on their peer-to-peer electronic cash system — which is not crypto.
— Being an expert, how do you evaluate the importance of Data in the scale of modern technology?
— That is such a great question. Many professions have changed and will change as result of data. Data will become a cornerstone of our everyday lives. I just chatted with one of our projects and told them that the marketing job has moved from being a creative gig with storyboards into excel. Marketing is a highly analytical, quantified job today, optimizing percentages and conversions based on facts and results rather than winging a groovy campaign. We will see many more jobs taken over by data and AI.
— Do you believe Dataeum will be able to change the data market as it is?
— The recent Facebook scandal I think gave the general public an insight into how powerful data is. Creating a fair and transparent market of data creators and data consumers is such an obvious use case for blockchain. That will become an industry for sure, guaranteed, and I think that Dataeum, with their execution experience, has a good chance in making it big. That is why I signed up as advisor for Dataeum.
Anders Larsson, co-founder allcoinWiki
