Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I heard podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Mus It's Wednesday, October twelve. What do Michael Sailor, Jesse Powell,
Speaker 1: Michael Morrow, Sam Trabuco, Brett Harrison and Alex Maschinski all
Speaker 1: have in common? If you said there dudes in crypto,
Speaker 1: you'd be correct. If you said there dudes who used
Speaker 1: to be crypto CEOs and suddenly weren't anymore, you'd also
Speaker 1: be correct. This crypto winter has seen a string of
Speaker 1: high profile exits from the c suite, a mix of
Speaker 1: resignations and other forms of well to coin a phrase
Speaker 1: conscious and coupling. What's driving all of this activity? Is
Speaker 1: it Bitcoin prices falling more than is that the bankruptcy filings?
Speaker 1: Is it the SEC breathing down everyone's neck? Is it
Speaker 1: the wanting to spend more time with your yacht in
Speaker 1: the Bahamas? Maybe it's all of these at once. For
Speaker 1: more on this succession level crypto drama, we've got Bloomberg
Speaker 1: report to U. H. Young antipoly Vias, executive search recruiter
Speaker 1: at Global Consulting, firm. Corn Ferry very excited to have
Speaker 1: you both on the show. So that's all going on.
Speaker 1: I feel like I thought, basically every episode of this
Speaker 1: podcast with there's a lot going to own. It's always true,
Speaker 1: but today, more specifically, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, roughly a dozen or more folks
Speaker 1: in C suite executive management, senior leadership positions at some
Speaker 1: of the largest crypto companies in the world have in
Speaker 1: recent days found themselves either out of a job or
Speaker 1: in a different job from what they were doing before.
Speaker 1: Industry turmoil happens, company upheaval happens. You know, we'll talk
Speaker 1: to folks and they'll say, oh, yeah, totally, this person
Speaker 1: just wanted to spend more time with their family. There's
Speaker 1: always a narrative around these things. What we're going to
Speaker 1: dive into a little bit is why we're seeing this
Speaker 1: right now in crypto, what might be coming next, and
Speaker 1: what our listeners need to understand about corporate succession and
Speaker 1: you asually, I'm going to start with you, could you
Speaker 1: just remind folks how many people have switched the jobs
Speaker 1: in the past couple of months in crypto. That's going
Speaker 1: to be a long league. What are some of the
Speaker 1: biggest names. We'll start with Michael Saylor, who let macro Strategy,
Speaker 1: which is the company that's been buying big Coin. And
Speaker 1: then we also have Crack and CEO Jesse Pals stepping
Speaker 1: down as he was the co founder of the crypto Exchange.
Speaker 1: And then we have a leadership shuffle at Genesis, one
Speaker 1: of the biggest institutional crypto brokerage, which was the biggest
Speaker 1: creditor for Three Arrows cryptal hedge fund that went bankrupt.
Speaker 1: So we've seen a series of changes, I would say,
Speaker 1: starting as early as August this year. As you say,
Speaker 1: U G, that is a fairly long list of people,
Speaker 1: and some of those folks, you know what they've telegraphed
Speaker 1: is this is expected. I've been doing this for a
Speaker 1: long time. I'm really interested in these other opportunities. For
Speaker 1: some of them, it came as kind of more of
Speaker 1: a surprise to the market. Are there any common trends
Speaker 1: or themes like, are there particular signs that this company
Speaker 1: was about to go through some kind of leadership of people.
Speaker 1: I would place all these changes in the broader context
Speaker 1: of what the cryptal industry has been sued in the past.
Speaker 1: Several months. As we know, ever since the collapse of
Speaker 1: cryptal prices, there has been a series of shakeout. We've
Speaker 1: seeing layoffs at big cryptal companies. There has been companies
Speaker 1: that fell for bankruptcies, there's been consolidations and bailouts, and
Speaker 1: now we're entering a stage where some of these companies
Speaker 1: are starting to change their top leaders, including the CEOs.
Speaker 1: And I would say that the cryptal industry is fairly
Speaker 1: news about ten years old. So a lot of these
Speaker 1: CEOs that are being replaced are actually the original founders
Speaker 1: of the crypto companies, and they are oftentimes closely associated
Speaker 1: with the brand name of the company, and they're able
Speaker 1: to amass lots of followings online and their household names.
Speaker 1: But now they're starting to be replaced by professional managers
Speaker 1: whose names are less familiar to folks in the cryptal communities,
Speaker 1: but who have background in traditional professional services firms and
Speaker 1: the Probably I wanna get your perspective on this, because
Speaker 1: I feel like we've seen this in finance, We've seen
Speaker 1: this in tech. You know, boy jenior ceo company grows
Speaker 1: to ten thousands, Suddenly like wow, this is really hard
Speaker 1: managing all these people's less fun we're gonna switch over,
Speaker 1: or there's some kind of corporate crisis, or as you
Speaker 1: directly points out, a an industry wide crisis from your perspective,
Speaker 1: as anything about what was happening in crypto unusual or
Speaker 1: different in any way. I think there's two answers to
Speaker 1: that question. I think there's a yes and a no.
Speaker 1: I'll start with the no, in that any disruptive industry
Speaker 1: or any disruptive technology has its early adopters, and there's
Speaker 1: an education process that the industry has to go through
Speaker 1: in order to adopt it. And so we've seen that
Speaker 1: in tech and like you said, a wonder cand and
Speaker 1: you know, these these geniuses, there is that element of it.
Speaker 1: The yes part of the unusual nous is that this
Speaker 1: is such a novel concept, but it's baked an ideology
Speaker 1: as well, right, and so they want to actually reimagine
Speaker 1: the way money is distributed with etcetera, and even the
Speaker 1: creation of a currency. I would you know, draw some
Speaker 1: parallels to when you know, the euro was introduced in
Speaker 1: the market. And I was actually there at the London
Speaker 1: School of Economics at the time and when they introduced
Speaker 1: this concept. As a student, I was like, this is
Speaker 1: never gonna think what is this? This is never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: What what are you guys talking about? And there was
Speaker 1: an adoption or an adoption process, and so I think
Speaker 1: with the crypto space there is some big uniqueness from
Speaker 1: sort of a you know, reimagining the financial system with this,
Speaker 1: and that's where you're going to get a lot of
Speaker 1: different perspectives. It's so interesting to hear you identify the
Speaker 1: kind of the ideology that's wrapped open crypto because that
Speaker 1: has absolutely manifested in the shall we say, some of
Speaker 1: the larger personalities at at play here, and you know,
Speaker 1: cracking and coin base and a couple of other folks
Speaker 1: have had their CEOs kind of go on the record
Speaker 1: saying if you're not down for this cause, if you
Speaker 1: are like one of those quotes unquote wokes out there,
Speaker 1: like we're not interested in what you have to say
Speaker 1: about any of these things, like don't bring politics to work,
Speaker 1: or let's ask questions about whether women can be people.
Speaker 1: You know. So that's such a specific way of running
Speaker 1: a company, and I wonder how that squares with what
Speaker 1: you AI is identifying of bringing in this class of
Speaker 1: like professional managers who are much less likely to be
Speaker 1: wanting to write incendiary blog posts about who counsel as
Speaker 1: a person as you, And she said, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of founder lead and founder first firms out there which
Speaker 1: they have become their own brand and personal brand in
Speaker 1: the crypto space, and as any industry, the maturation of
Speaker 1: that industry requires a lot of institutional knowledge, which is
Speaker 1: why you're now seeing this new wave of leadership step in.
Speaker 1: Because have we gone through a crypto winter? Yes? Have
Speaker 1: we gone through crypto winters? Yes? Have we gone through
Speaker 1: really extreme market volatility? Yes? Has the regulatory bodies that
Speaker 1: started to take a look at this yes. Think about
Speaker 1: when the iPod first came out. When the iPod first
Speaker 1: came out, people are like, what are you talking about? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna have you know, five thousand songs
Speaker 1: in this little device, And the early adopters really geeked
Speaker 1: out about it. And so the early adopters of crypto
Speaker 1: really geeked out about it because of those personalities, because
Speaker 1: of those guys that they were and yes, they wrote
Speaker 1: a lot of them were guys that came out and said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the next way of the financial world.
Speaker 1: Let's democratize access and let's figure out what those pain
Speaker 1: points are in the industry and completely obliterate everything. And
Speaker 1: I think ideally everyone can understand that this is great,
Speaker 1: but the implementation of it is so hard, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what these guys are running up against. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly why you're going to see the succession around
Speaker 1: leaders that have said, I've taken a really hard concept
Speaker 1: in this, you know, age old industry, and how am
Speaker 1: I going to execute it and implement this? And you're
Speaker 1: going to need that institutional knowledge. You're going to have
Speaker 1: to have them navigate through the system because those guys
Speaker 1: that are just sitting on the other side of the
Speaker 1: house saying this is what is ideal. That's great, but
Speaker 1: you have to get the others to adopt to it.
Speaker 1: That's probably given that this is literally your job, right
Speaker 1: It is like identifying that pool of talent, but also
Speaker 1: helping organizations who are going through these kinds of transitions
Speaker 1: define who they want that could take on that change
Speaker 1: of strategy, Like what does that like look like in practice?
Speaker 1: Is this a short process? Is this a loan process?
Speaker 1: Like who gets involved? Depending on the stage which you
Speaker 1: know these companies are in trouble or you know, there's
Speaker 1: some event that has happened. And I think I might
Speaker 1: have mentioned this, uh before, is that you know, there
Speaker 1: needs to be an adult in the room that's kind
Speaker 1: of been there, done that, seen it and can tell
Speaker 1: the story again. And so you know, oftentimes those individual
Speaker 1: alls are parachuted in quite quickly together with the leadership
Speaker 1: team and the board working in lockstep. Other times, you
Speaker 1: know you're going to see what you're kind of seeing
Speaker 1: in some of the executives that might have come in
Speaker 1: is what we generally call organ rejection. Right, So they've
Speaker 1: come in and they've had really good intentions and you
Speaker 1: know they've just brought in a different perspective, but the
Speaker 1: culture itself or management or however things are working on
Speaker 1: the inside just basically rejected them. And so while all
Speaker 1: intentions were good, it just might not have worked out
Speaker 1: from that perspective. And sometimes the culture piece does run
Speaker 1: very deep, depending on the organization, and so you can
Speaker 1: get immediate sort of organ rejection and you'll see people
Speaker 1: out of there within six months to a year. Colorful phrase,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely I'm gonna have to work this since at
Speaker 1: the title of the episodes on How Up Next, you'll
Speaker 1: hear more on how the Crypto ceo reshuffle could change
Speaker 1: the entire landscape of the industry with Bloomberg Reports, uh
Speaker 1: G Young and executive recruiter deepoly Vas. Broadly speaking, I,
Speaker 1: at least other than the financial crisis, I can't remember
Speaker 1: witnessing an industry where they have been like so many
Speaker 1: very senior leadership transitions like this in such a short
Speaker 1: amount of time. Right, it would be like, if you know,
Speaker 1: Bezos and Zuckerberg and Tim Cook, We're all like Tuesday,
Speaker 1: let's do Tuesday, and they all just quit. Like That's
Speaker 1: what it sort of felt like in Crypto. What is
Speaker 1: like the collective effect on the talent pool? Are there
Speaker 1: people out there who are still lining up and being
Speaker 1: like that seems like a really good idea for a
Speaker 1: job transition. I'm going to run one of those companies.
Speaker 1: Or does that make it more challenging to replace these folks?
Speaker 1: I think it's challenging in general. Right, So you have
Speaker 1: one side of the market that is looking for extreme
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial opportunities, extreme challenges. They want to roll up their sleeves,
Speaker 1: they want to get in there. And then the type
Speaker 1: of talent that these crypto companies originally wanted to attract
Speaker 1: was this institutional knowledge that can convert themselves to a
Speaker 1: more entrepreneurial mindset and come in there and help them
Speaker 1: build something great. So that part of the market has certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, taken some pause and say, while I was
Speaker 1: super interested, I bought into the story, I might hit
Speaker 1: the pause button because where I am I'm safe and
Speaker 1: do I want to take on this risk in my
Speaker 1: career at this time and in this particular industry. And
Speaker 1: this is mainly due to the macro economic conditions. Right,
Speaker 1: are we going into a recession? You know, is crypto
Speaker 1: taking an even deeper dive? You know, there's massive consolidation.
Speaker 1: Do I want to work for a company that's going
Speaker 1: to because solidated and then I'll be layered or I
Speaker 1: might be out of there. So there's so many different
Speaker 1: considerations that are going on. I think this shakeout has
Speaker 1: to kind of taper off or level off at some point,
Speaker 1: and that will only be done as soon as we
Speaker 1: know what is the FED doing, you know, whereas inflation?
Speaker 1: What are other parts of the globe doing around the industry? Right,
Speaker 1: what's happening in Asia, what's happening in Europe. And then
Speaker 1: lastly the regulatory environment. Where do the regulatory body see
Speaker 1: us as a digital asset and how are they going
Speaker 1: to deal with us now and in the future and
Speaker 1: what sort of lined up? And then how are the
Speaker 1: banks and other institutions and institutional investors going to treat
Speaker 1: us positively or negatively? Time will tell. Those questions are
Speaker 1: so hard. You're You're like, what is the fact going
Speaker 1: to do? What's gonna happen with regulations? I could understand
Speaker 1: why somebody might be like, I'm just gonna set this
Speaker 1: one out, I'm gonna be okay, But actually you actually
Speaker 1: I want to come back to you, and then deeply
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you the same question. Are there certain
Speaker 1: types of industries that the folks in crypto have been
Speaker 1: trying to recruit from? So you age you've written about
Speaker 1: the fact that there was like for a while, the
Speaker 1: sort of revolving door of trad fi to defy, defy
Speaker 1: and the other parts of crypto, And now it's like,
Speaker 1: I might go back to my relatively chill investment banking job.
Speaker 1: How do you think that ship shaking out? Well, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Banking jobs are not exactly chill but it is a different,
Speaker 1: very different wife from what you get at the crypto firm.
Speaker 1: We are still occasionally writing about news of people who
Speaker 1: are leaving big washway firms and joining crypto. This morning,
Speaker 1: we just wrote about MPT at Goldman SAX who's joining
Speaker 1: Quin based Institutionals for their derivative's effort. So these changes
Speaker 1: are still happening, but I feel like, just based on
Speaker 1: our observation, is less often as I would say the
Speaker 1: latter part of last year when the market was still
Speaker 1: going strong. And I would also note that a lot
Speaker 1: of these replacement of top leaders often come within the
Speaker 1: company or at least within the cryptal communities. It seems
Speaker 1: that they're the ones who already know the company inside
Speaker 1: out and therefore they have an understanding of how things work,
Speaker 1: what are the key issues here? And then oftentimes, with
Speaker 1: short notice, if you have to change your leaders, some
Speaker 1: of these companies will look within themselves to find the
Speaker 1: next leader. And probably how common is that right where
Speaker 1: it's like a company is going through crisis and they're like, actually, Jim,
Speaker 1: who's been here all along, it's gonna be it's going
Speaker 1: to be the new person in charge all the time,
Speaker 1: all the time and I and it's almost as if
Speaker 1: they need to rely on sort of that safe, steady
Speaker 1: pair of hands that have actually seen the story play
Speaker 1: out and they just didn't have the opportunity to jump
Speaker 1: in in. But because they have all of the bird's
Speaker 1: eye view or the front row seat right to what
Speaker 1: has happened, that they would be an ideal candidate to
Speaker 1: kind of step in. When you think about people going
Speaker 1: back to those investment banking jobs, those jobs are also
Speaker 1: sort of drying up in these specific market conditions, right
Speaker 1: like there's less deal flow. Goldman Sacks and other big
Speaker 1: banks have come out with potential layoffs and hiring freezes, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so that's again just based on market conditions. So
Speaker 1: I would say that for me, if I was just
Speaker 1: sort of predicting future of work for those gyms that
Speaker 1: are sitting in those seats right now that want to
Speaker 1: take on something, I'm going to go out on the
Speaker 1: limb and say, for those companies that we're keeping a
Speaker 1: close eye on crypto, and I'm particularly talking about the
Speaker 1: banks and funds and others, this may be an ideal
Speaker 1: time for them to build something in house. Right, this
Speaker 1: is the time to say all right, there's talent on
Speaker 1: the street, there's consolidation. What can we do to set
Speaker 1: ourselves up for when crypto makes a re emergence after
Speaker 1: this winter? And they would be smart to do so.
Speaker 1: Final question, you are a person who was running a company.
Speaker 1: You spent a lot of really quality time on your yacht.
Speaker 1: Now you're like, I want to you know, like, there's
Speaker 1: only so many beautiful beaches I can spend time on.
Speaker 1: I want to go back and get my hands dirty again,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily in either you know, trad fire Wall
Speaker 1: Street or back into crypto. What from your perspective as
Speaker 1: a recruiter, like, where would you expect to see some
Speaker 1: of those folks popping up? I think the next trend
Speaker 1: is going to be sort of platform as a service
Speaker 1: and data as a service. I think that those individuals
Speaker 1: that have been in any part of the tech, financial services, data, crypto,
Speaker 1: blockchain ecosystem, it's all gonna be kind of in and
Speaker 1: around there, right, So for those yacht goers that want
Speaker 1: to dip back in, they're huge opportunities in these data
Speaker 1: related companies. Right at the end of the day, that's
Speaker 1: the data is going to be king amazing. Well, I
Speaker 1: feel like I learned some things. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is one of those episodes we should post on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: I feel like, did you recently buy a yacht? Like?
Speaker 1: Listen to the Scrypto episode. Well, thank you both, so
Speaker 1: so much. What a pleasure to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: You can find more of you. H Young is reporting
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal, on Bloomberg dot com and on Twitter.
Speaker 1: She's at you underscore Young, that's why you e Q
Speaker 1: I underscore y e n G on the next episode
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Crypto. Of all of the regulatory priorities in
Speaker 1: the world, why is finding Kim Kardashian one point two
Speaker 1: six million dollars at the top of anyone's list. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I
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Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Vergelina. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Janet babin Our producer is Sharon Berrio, Associate producer is
Speaker 1: Thy Butler. Desta wonder At is our engineer. Original music
Speaker 1: by Leo Sidrin. I'm Stacy Marie schmal We'll be back tomorrow.