HBUS News: Interview with Sam Kim, Co-Founder of Lucidity on Adtech and Blockchain
San Francisco, CA
June 22nd, 2018
Welcome to HBUS News. We’re happy to chat with you today.
Happy to be here!
What industry are you trying to disrupt with blockchain?
Digital advertising! Miguel Morales, Sam Goldberg and I worked together at a digital advertising technology company and lived the very problem we set out to solve: poor data quality and highly discrepant digital advertising campaign data. Miguel quickly realized that the transparent and trustless systems enabled by the blockchain made it possible to unify the digital advertising supply chain around campaign analytics data.
Since rolling out our digital advertising protocol, we saw the potential for the cutting edge Layer 2 solution we developed for other industries and enterprises.
Tell us more about your experience about digital ads and blockchain.
Lucidity is a blockchain product that brings transparency to the world of digital advertising. The digital advertising ecosystem is ridden with fraud, data discrepancies, and inefficiencies. As a byproduct, there are massive trust issues in the industry. By using blockchain technology, we are able to ingest data from all the parties across the supply chain (a given ad campaign touches between 5–15 vendors) to expose the “ad tax” (little bits of money that each vendor takes out of your advertising spend) and achieve consensus across the supply chain about how many impressions were actually delivered (because nobody can agree)
What is your philosophy around hiring?
We look for people who have demonstrated passion throughout their careers and life, a passionate desire to learn and have a lasting impact. We find that it’s better to hire a less qualified person who demonstrates that characteristic over somebody who might check all the boxes but has a history of only doing the requisite amount.
What is a unique insight that you have gained while working in the blockchain ecosystem / industry?
It’s been a pleasant surprise just how international the blockchain thought leaders, innovators and contributors. This is quite different than the Internet revolution which was largely an American driven phenomenon.
What are your thoughts on building an active community around your project? Any tips that you’d like to share?
We decided to focus on our product and business first. And only once our product is built and partnerships are formed should we look to create and promote our community. We wanted to build our community based on actual achievements rather than the promise of our potential. We are in the early days of building an active community.
Who are some people that you feel are influential in the space that we should follow on Twitter?
Vitalik of course. Joseph Poon, Amber Baldet, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Wences Casares, Naval Ravikant, Karl Floersch, Vlad Zamfir
What are some good resources for beginners who are looking to “get smart” in the space?
Since I live in LA, I tend to sit in traffic a lot. So podcasts are my favorite medium / resource for “getting smart” about blockchain. My favorite is Epicenter followed by Laura Shin’s two: Unchained and Unconfirmed.
What are some problems that virtual currency platforms are currently facing that need to be solved?
Scalability is the big one, and I think the developer community has done a lot to resolve it. The challenge that gets less attention is privacy. Pseudonymous blockchains are insufficient for many industries. I believe the answers to many of the challenges including scalability and anonymity will be resolved using Layer 2 solutions rather than the public blockchain.
Here at HBUS, we pride ourselves in transparency and trust as our core values. What are some of your core values? How does this translate into your company culture?
Some members of my team have worked with me since 2011. And so I take the trust they place in me very seriously. So, I do my best to be as transparent as possible with them. That includes being completely open about our finances with the team, speaking honestly about what we have built and haven’t built and what our protocol is able to deliver. This culture of honesty and transparency is part of our ethos and is central to how we treat our investors, partners and community.
What was your favorite class in college? Did you have a nickname growing up?
Favorite college course was either Stochastic Calculus or East Asian History. You didn’t ask, but my least favorite was Art History.
Lastly, who are some other Founders that you respect that you think we should interview next?
As a company, we’re big fans of Joseph Poon and the Omisego team. Their innovations on top of Ethereum are really inspiring. They were a big influence in our approach to developing the sidechain using Plasma and a sharded system. Sometimes we like to joke that Lucidity is Plasma cause we talk about it so often.
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