Fireside Chat with Chad Liu, Co-Founder of Tidal Finance
- Where are you from and where are you based?
Currently, I am based out of Houston, Texas, because of the Covid situation. Before that, I spent most of my time working in New York. I have more friends and family here in Houston since I worked in the energy industry as an engineer for SAAS solution for 8 years before moving to the crypto space. Originally I am from China, came to the US almost 15 years ago for graduate school, and started my career here.
2. How did you get into the crypto space?
The first time I heard about Bitcoin was in 2009 from a friend who works at IBM. He was buying the Bitcoin mining machine back then, and now he is pretty well-off :) I was a bit skeptical about it back then. Still, I started to read a lot on blockchain technology, trying to understand the fundamental value it brings to society and how it solves the trust issue.
When I fully got involved in Crypto was 2017, back then, I was in Wharton business school getting an MBA degree. I met some classmates sharing the same interests in the crypto space, made some investments, and worked on an interesting project using blockchain as a platform for commodity trading in the energy space.
3. What were you the best in school at? What were you the worst in school at?
I am better at math and physics. My worst subject was history. I wasn’t into learning a lot of historical events, but that has changed quite a bit now since they reflect the future as well ;)
4. What led you to your career? Why did you study what you did in college?
I had applied mathematics for a computer science degree in college. I also have an engineering degree in graduate school and an MBA degree. After grad school, I started working in the energy space as an engineer, providing SaaS solutions. After a few years, I joined a startup-sized firm to build AI products, where I learned a lot about startups and the business side. Then I pursued a business degree to explore further what I wanted to do when I entered the crypto space. It has been quite a journey, and I am enjoying the process of gaining different experiences.
5. What do you consider to be your core values?
Passion -I have always been intuitive to let passion guide me to where I want to be. I guess doing something that interests me is the most important for me.
Commitment — I like to follow things through; giving up is definitely something I don’t favor much.
Positivity — I believe there is a way to view everything from two sides; focusing on the positive side changes a person for the better.
6. What are some of your hobbies and interests? How have your hobbies and interests made you a better professional?
I like to workout. It keeps me active, and taking an hour during the day to exercise refreshes my mind making me more productive. I also enjoy the process of working out to make progress on my body. It is a slow but rewarding process to help me be more patient, persistent, and disciplined.
7. What do your parents do? Has that influenced you or your career choice at all?
My mom was a teacher. And my dad was an engineer in his early career, then started his own business. I think the entrepreneurial spirit I have definitely got a lot of influence from my dad. I remember since I was in college, I had always wanted to start my own business.
8. Why do you think you have what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur?
Strong mindset and being persistent. Startup life has a lot of uncertainties that no founder can prepare for everything. But being resilient and mentally prepared is the most important, in my opinion.
9. What has been your biggest challenge so far while starting Tidal? What has your biggest challenge in life been?
There are always some challenges. I don’t know which one is the biggest:).I think that’s just the nature of doing a startup; you see a different challenge every week, remove it, move on to the next one. There are few challenges on the product side we had to redesign and complete in a timely manner. Leading the team and getting good talents is also pretty challenging in the startup environment.
10. Who was your best friend in college, and why?
I have 2 best friends in college. We could pick up the phone and call each other anytime. I guess our personalities matched, and it’s that trust and loyalty built over time that ties us together.
About Tidal Finance
Tidal Finance makes DeFi safer by providing insurance coverage for assets across chains in custom balanced liquidity pools. TIDAL is a Balancer-like insurance market built upon Polkadot that allows users to create custom insurance pools for one or more assets.
With Tidal, users can choose risk pools depending on their risk appetite, and filter it through a combination of protocols/assets and their coverage terms (premium, cover period, etc). Liquidity Providers, on the other hand, can invest in pools that suit their risk/reward ratio.
Follow our Tidal public channels for future updates:
☂️ Official Website: https://tidal.finance/
☂️ Medium: https://medium.com/tidal-finance
☂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tidaldefi
☂️ Telegram: https://t.me/TidalGlobal
☂️ Announcements Channel: https://t.me/tidalann
📗 Tidal Gitbook Whitepaper: https://tidal.gitbook.io/tidal-gitbo
