EP29: Diego Gutierrez - Building Entrepreneurial Communities in Buenos Aires
b"LE29: Diego Gutierrez - Building Entrepreneurial Communities in Buenos Aires\\n\\nIn this episode, Justin speaks with Diego Gutierrez, co-founder of Rootstock, Koibanx, Sistema-D, the Buenos Aires bitcoin community, and much more. \\n\\nDiego has been an entrepreneur his entire life. Since he was 12, he helped create neighborhood publications to communicate the news of the neighbors. \\n\\nWhen he was 17, he got into tech entrepreneurship. \\n\\nAge 19: Created the first website for the main newspaper in Argentina (1995)\\n\\nDiego realized early\\\\ that communities would be an important part of the web.\\n\\nDiego takes 2 year leave after the 1999 internet bubble \\u2013 went to live on a sailboat for 2 years.\\n\\nDiego and Wences Casares lost hope in the internet \\u2013 this time around, with bitcoin, they pledged not to let that happen again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wences_Casares \\n\\nWhat is internet usage like in Buenos Aires? China? Diego explains based on his experience and recent travels.\\n\\nDiego talks about getting into bitcoin, and how he became more and more fascinated by it. \\n\\nTo learn about bitcoin, Diego decided to try everything: read about it, buy and sell on local bitcoins, mine using a GPU, and create a meet up.\\n\\nIn the first meet up, Diego met Rodolfo Andragenes and Franco Amati \\u2013 and the three of them continue to today to be the most galvanizing resources in the Buenos Aires community. \\n\\nBitcoin Meetups in Buenos Aires: grew from a 25 person meeting to 100 people, in McDonalds. The First Latin American Bitcoin Conference (Dec 2013) had over 1200 attendees.\\n\\nCreated Koibanx, an alternative investment banking structure utilizing cryptocurrency in Latam. \\n\\nIn Argentina, people usually save their money under the mattress, in foreign currencies, to protect from inflation. People even buy cars as a way to protect their wealth. Not the best investment, but can protect you from 30% inflation per year. \\n\\nDiego helped found Sistema-D\\n\\nDiego ran into Nick Szabo in a bar in Palo Alto and discussed the idea of RootStock. RootStock has a number of co-founders, including Sergio Lerner (who we interviewed on Liberty Entrepreneurs) http://libertyentrepreneurs.com/2016/01/le12-sergio-lerner-rootstock-and-smart-contract-platforms/, Gabriel Kurman, Ruben Ariel Altman, Adrian Eidelman, and Adrian Garelik. \\n\\nAt 19:20 in the podcast, Diego explains Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Rootstock on a basic level\\n\\nFor entrepreneurial success, Diego believes that ideas, execution, aren't enough. Timing is also a very important element to entrepreneurial success. \\n\\nTeams are the most important: highly skilled and highly motivated. How do you find them? Usually their eyes are bright. They have that light in their eyes. \\n\\nAfter experiencing a number of failures, Diego advises not to spread yourself too thin, and find good partners.\\n\\n\\u201cYour life starts when you know yourself.\\u201d\\n\\nRootstock is hiring: cryptographers, senior software architects\\n\\nRootstock will be opening offices in cities across the world.\\n\\ndgx@rootstock.io\\n\\ntwitter: @dieguito\\n\\nLaBitConf: November 5th and 6th\\n\\n\\nThank you for listening to this Liberty Entrepreneurs podcast. Our guest today was Diego Gutierrez. Interview and editing by Justin Blincoe. If you enjoyed this podcast, please check out our website, http://libertyentrepreneurs.com/, follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LibertyEntrepreneurs/ or Twitter https://twitter.com/libertyepodcast, or rate us on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/liberty-entrepreneurs/id1057809945?mt=2. Until the next time..."