Exclusive interview with Solana founder: Don’t try to chase the market, focus on what you want to do

Interviewer: Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder of Solana Translated by: Bai Ze Research Institute

Summary:

• The freedom to do whatever I want is more important than any measure of success.

• Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF, founder of FTX) moves very quickly, and that's why I think we work well together.

• The lack of and uncertainty around crypto regulation makes it really hard for startups in the U.S., and that’s a pressing issue.

Driven by founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana is changing the world of crypto and DeFi. As the fastest blockchain in the world, Solana is driving the development of the crypto ecosystem.

This summer has been dubbed the “Solana Summer” for good reason. Once seen as an underdog, Solana has quickly risen to prominence and has already secured its place in the crypto world. In addition to the price increase, many innovative crypto projects are being built on the Solana blockchain; crypto derivatives exchange FTX launched the Solana NFT marketplace, allowing users to trade, mint, auction, and verify Solana-based NFTs, and it is thriving.

Solana is very focused on speed, and so is its founder, Anatoly, a former engineer at the multinational company Qualcomm. Let’s listen to his story of “chasing dreams”.

The son of first-generation immigrants from the Soviet Union, Anatoly’s story is one of perseverance, immigrant-to-inventor American journey. While he has trouble explaining the ins and outs of the crypto industry to his parents, he knows they are proud of his accomplishments. “It’s hard for me to explain to them what I’m doing because they really don’t know. They barely understand how computers work and what decentralized computers are,” he enthuses.

An engineer by training, with a degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Anatoly has always been interested in solving complex problems through "simple math." However, what seems simple to him may not seem simple to most people. Many are still trying to understand what DeFi (decentralized finance) does and what it really means.

The future is bright for Solana, but Anatoly defines his personal success as “ doing whatever I want to do. That’s more important than any measure of success . I can choose to spend the rest of my life surfing and wasting time, or continue to build companies and fulfill my dreams. It’s the same in any industry, you work hard, and then you can build a happy, productive life full of passion, interest, and excitement,” he explained.

Experience Review

Growing up in the former Soviet Union, where Ukraine is today, Anatoly dreamed of America. “I had this idea as a businessman that I could move around and make things happen. I thought that was exciting. As an adult, I’m an engineer, and I love getting into the nuts and bolts of problems and solving them,” he says.

Looking back at Anatoly’s beginnings and the origins of his passion for entrepreneurship, he founded a startup with his friend while in college. “This was around the dot-com crash, and we were building something that now looks a bit like Google Voice,” he said. Once the dot-com bubble burst, many of the companies that thrived during the dot-com boom disappeared into thin air. However, the experience of structural collapse was not unfamiliar to Anatoly. He had already seen it in the Soviet Union. “I do remember that time in ’91, when it was clear that everything was done,” he said. Growing up in the ’80s in today’s Ukraine is “a little different” from the experience in the United States, but he still believes that the period of the ’80s in the USSR “was probably the best period for the country,” “because there was enough political freedom, people were not so scared,” and the society and economy remained stable to a certain extent. “I still remember my brother having to go to the army during the war in Afghanistan, and I was just scared for him,” he revealed.

Creating Solana

Anatoly entered the crypto industry and DeFi space for the simple reason that traditional finance requires a lot of paperwork. He realized that with the right software and the right protocol, the whole process could be much more efficient . He sees blockchain as a transformative opportunity to expose people to cryptography.

The world of decentralized finance is a hot topic, but Anatoly realizes that people are often confused and don’t understand what “decentralization” means. What are these protocols?

“A protocol is just a mathematical definition of something, the way a system works. The reason they exist is that the logical rules and cryptography that govern the protocol can provide guarantees that can’t be provided otherwise. So, that’s where the idea that DeFi is going to eat finance comes from. Why? Because we trust someone in a regulated bank to oversee us handling our money. It’s very inefficient and slow,” he said, insisting that with protocols, things can be “a thousand times better.” With simple cryptography and a protocol with a few thousand lines of code, consumers can get the same guarantees. It’s also why he built Solana.

Solana is censorship-resistant, but Anatoly understands what censorship means in his world. “People say ‘what is censorship?’ The protocol defines the rules of the crypto industry so that they are delivered to everyone around the world who wants to see them. That’s all it does, it keeps it accessible to all users. It’s a very simple thing ,” Anatoly explained. The Solana network will remain open, allowing decentralized applications to run freely, and transactions will never stop.

Solana grows in the midst of a market crash

Anatoly launched Solana four days after the stock market crash on March 12, 2020, when both Bitcoin and the S&P 500 fell 70%. Solana officially launched on March 16. “That was an interesting time because it was below everyone’s expectations,” he said.

Although the worst thing that could happen was the market crash, from Anatoly’s perspective, “it seemed like the best time to start a business. Because this crash can’t happen again, so you have a chance to start at the bottom. In terms of opportunities, DeFi was just starting to heat up. It really felt like this opportunity was too good to be true.”

A wonderful collaboration with SBF

Anatoly is working with crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) at FTX. How did the collaboration come about?

“We have a co-investor in FTX,” Anatoly said. “I just started talking to SBF and showing him, hey, look, Solana is the next generation blockchain, it’s very cheap, very fast, decentralized. It scales in every direction. It’s the early adoption stage of the blockchain industry, and we can actually make crypto accessible to a billion people,” he added.

Image: Anatoly and SBF chatting at the dinner

Although SBF is not an engineer, the two have similar ideas. "SBF was able to change the timeline for FTX Exchange to adopt Solana as the underlying public chain from several months to a few days, acting quickly, which is why I think we work well together."

At a time when many in corporate America are going home exhausted from get off work, and poor mental and physical health are becoming side effects of the pandemic, what does Anatoly’s approach to dealing with stress and burnout look like?

“When you can actually get something done, you get energy. If you stay up too many nights at 4 a.m., you’re obviously going to feel tired. But this is different from burnout. You work really hard for a few weeks, then you take three days off, and then you go back to work. But because I got something done, that’s what keeps me going,” Anatoly said.

The changing attitude of the United States towards the crypto industry

Anatoly currently lives in San Francisco and has no plans to leave. "What has changed in the past decade is that companies have almost become products themselves. Risk-averse investors only invest in growing companies that have already built successful businesses. At the time, few investors put money into crypto assets," he said.

But the U.S. stance on crypto assets is changing, not only through cultural shifts but also through politics.

New York City’s newly elected mayor, Eric Adams, has vowed to pay his salary in Bitcoin for the next three years, demonstrating the city’s openness to innovation.

What’s interesting about the crypto industry is that it’s dominated by a few major players who are constantly collaborating with each other. “This is not a zero-sum game,” Anatoly is clear. “The market is growing so fast that your competitors will succeed faster,” he explains, “and every success is driving the market forward.”

Anatoly shares a sentiment with crypto investors who want regulators to step in.

“The lack of crypto regulations is driving people away from the place with dreams. The lack of regulation and uncertainty makes it very hard to start a business in the U.S. It’s a huge problem,” Anatoly said. “So these people are just moving overseas simply because the regulatory environment in the U.S. is so uncertain. For seed-stage companies, compliance is the most pressing issue.”

Mastercard recently introduced Bitcoin on their payment network. Does Anatoly see this as a bigger step for the crypto industry or just an attempt to catch up with the trend and not lose customers?

“It’s definitely a good thing. Because internally there’s a lot of compliance, the operational way of dealing with the custody of the private keys of crypto wallets. That requires a lot of good engineering, people and compliance. Hopefully those people are closer to the regulators and can explain it to them in a way that they understand it’s just a bunch of technology and they don’t need to be scared,” he said.

Canadian politician and prominent venture capitalist Kevin O'Leary recently said crypto assets will become the 12th sector of the S&P 500. Anatoly agreed: "100% yes. All of finance is 20% of global GDP. If DeFi can replace 1% [of the jobs involved in keeping the financial system running], there will be a lot of jobs that don't need to be done. In other words, you can now work four days a week and have the same standard of living."

For the development of Solana ecosystem

The beauty of Solana is that it gives NFT artists the tools to scale globally without having to go through expensive gallery shows. There are so many up-and-coming artists who want to get in on the action, but there’s no simple step-by-step guide on how to get started. Anatoly has the answer.

“Solana is energy-efficient, it’s green. It doesn’t cost anything. All the tools are free. So you can even search on Google, how do you start a Solana NFT project? It’s open source software, and you can create NFT art for free and build a community.”

With over 350 projects built on Solana, from DeFi and Web3 Dapps to games and NFTs, what is Anatoly’s management style?

“It’s an all-out development management style,” he quipped.

Speaking about the human footprint he hopes to leave as a legacy, Anatoly hopes to "avoid as much suffering as possible in the rest of the world." As a husband and father, Anatoly hopes to teach his children to " find a purpose and a dream that drives them. Because that will give them a fulfilling job that can accomplish something great. "

Anatoly Yakovenko has definitely found his purpose in life and has valuable lessons that others can learn from.

“I really enjoy developing and exploring problems in operating systems, and that hobby is exactly what drives success. If I was passionate about painting or surfing, maybe it wouldn’t be materially successful, but I’d live an equally fulfilling life.” He pauses. “ Don’t try to chase the market, but really find what you’re good at. Find something that keeps you up at night. That’s the most important thing. ”

As the Solana ecosystem gradually expands, Anatoly will continue to write a new chapter in DeFi, and his dream continues.