Somi Arian Podcast

My guest on today’s podcast is Chika Uwazie, one of the co-founders of Afropolitan, which is set to become a global digital network state of the best that Africa and its diaspora stand for, from art to tech, health to media, finance to sports, and more. The idea was inspired by the works of Balaji and his book “The Network State”.  This was a super interesting conversation that I hope you’ll enjoy...

My guest on today’s podcast is Tim Walther who runs Volkswagen Group’s initiative to enter the Metaverse and Web3 space. It is always fascinating to see what large brands are doing to come into the space and to hear more about their strategies.  I hope you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did. 

My guest on today’s podcast is Seth Goldstein, the Founder of Bright Moments, a DAO that specializes in IRL NFT minting experiences. Bright Moments’ mission is to create physical environments where art can be co-created and co-consumed.  This conversation ended up being so much more than just a chat about Bright Moments. Seth has such a wealth of knowledge and experience in the Web3 space that I l...

My guest on today’s podcast is Josie Bellini, a multimedia artist and one of the earliest NFT advocates. She is also the Founder & CEO of CyberBrokers, a series of 10,001 NFT collectables that provide membership and access to metaversal experiences. As a CyberBroker holder myself, I’ve been a big fan of Josie for quite some time so it was a real pleasure to speak with her after all this time. In t...

My guest on today's episode is Zeneca, the Founder & CEO of ZenAcademy. He is now also a holder of a small amount of equity in InPeak and is one of our fantastic educators on the platform. Zeneca has become a great friend to me and this is actually his second appearance on my podcast! We talked about NFT royalties, Zeneca's involvement with the Blur Marketplace and their approach to royalties. We...

My guest on today’s podcast is Kevin Rose, Co-Founder of PROOF Collective and Moonbirds, one of the most successful NFT communities in the Web3 space. I’ve been a member of PROOF since shortly after I minted my Moonbird and it’s been fascinating watching Kevin and the team build the community from the ground up.  In this conversation, I took the opportunity to pick Kevin’s brain on web3 business m...

My guest on today’s podcast is Chris Wallace, former PROOF Artist and now the Founder of UltraDAO, a Web3 creative studio building a passionate community of creators, collectors, and fans interested in decentralised IP and brands.    Chris and I discuss generative art and the potential that Web3 holds for the future of art and decentralized IP, as well as the opportunities we have today that allow...

My guest on today’s podcast is Chris Mason, a Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Cornell University. Many of you know I’m very interested in everything science, genetics, and physics and the cross-section of these fields with AI and Blockchain. Although these days most people know me for my work in Web3, I remain super passionate about the broader world of science and technology...

My guest on today’s podcast is Donald Hoffman, a cognitive psychologist and popular science author, and a professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Donald is probably best known for his TED Talk and popular Book, The Case Against Reality.  Many of you probably know that I’m deeply interested in understanding the nature of reality and its relationship with technology....

My guest on today’s podcast is Dirk Lueth, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Upland, the largest virtual property strategy game mapped to the real world and one of the first attempts at building what we now call a metaverse.  Dirk has a really fun and interesting story of how they came up with the idea for Upland. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too. 

My guest on today’s podcast is Jason Feifer, Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, Podcast host, and author.  Jason and I discuss his most recent book, “Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change, Adapting Fast and Future Proofing You career.” Jason states that success is about adaptability, which is something that we as humans have to learn, rather than are born with. He takes us...

My guest on today’s podcast is Evan Varsamis, the Founder and CEO of Mintify, a comprehensive suite of digital assets for traders, collectors and enthusiasts in the NFT scene.  Evan shares his entrepreneurial background with us and explains what determined his decision to build Mintify and what the future holds for them.

My guest on today’s podcast is Justin Rezvani, Founder and CEO of Zion, a decentralized, open-source, utility-based social media protocol that is built on top of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, with the mission to defeat censorship. I first heard Justin on What Bitcoin Did, by Peter McCormack. Like many other Bitcoiners, Justin is not as interested in NFTs or Ethereum in general. We’ve had an interes...

My guest on today’s podcast is Jimmy Song, Bitcoin Developer, Educator and Entrepreneur and one of the most popular personalities in the bitcoin community. I had listened to Jimmy on many podcasts and I knew that he was really against the rest of the crypto space, including Ethereum, and the whole concept of Web3. Naturally, I really wanted to talk to him as there is nothing better than being able...

My guest on today’s podcast is Aliana Percival, the Founder and CEO of Women Who Code, a global nonprofit dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers.  She’s built this organisation from the ground up to 300 thousand members at this point. She’s a super impressive and inspiring woman and I’m so pleased that I got a chance to speak with her.  In this interview, we cover Alaina’s sto...

My guest on today’s podcast is Lane Rettig, a former Ethereum Core Developer and now a Core Developer for Spacemesh.  I have previously had Tim Beiko on my podcast who runs the core protocol meetings for Ethereum. So I wanted to have the perspective of someone who has now left Ethereum too.  As someone heavily invested in the Web3 and NFT space and the Ethereum ecosystem, I’m always interested in...

My guest on today’s show is Avery Akkineni, President of Vayner3. Avery works alongside Gary Vaynerchuk on all things NFTs, Web 3 and immersive digital experiences.  Some of you may know that I produced and directed a documentary called The Millennial Disruption in 2017-18 that featured Gary and it went on to win several international awards. At the end of that documentary, I mentioned to brands a...

My guest on today’s podcast is Duncan Cock Foster, Co-Founder of Nifty Gateway, one of the leading marketplaces for digital art and collectables. Nifty Gateway was founded in 2018 and within less than a year it was acquired by Gemini.  In this interview, Duncan explains some of the fantastic initiatives they are developing at Nifty Gateway, in particular their publisher collaboration program which...

Hume is a Web3 label focused on developing virtual artists, what we call metastars. Hume has developed the first Web3 metastar Angelbaby. Hume is backed by notable investors including gmoney, Collab Currency, Delphi Digital, Sfermion, Distributed Global and others.  Jay Stolar is the Co-Founder and Chief Artist Officer at Hume. He is a songwriter and producer who has written for Aloe Blac, Selena...

My guest on today’s podcast is Sebastián Brocher, an artist, entrepreneur, engineer, and Founder at StudioUno, CryptoArte, and ChimiChurri. I met Sebastián on the PROOF Collective discord and when we started to talk about generative art I decided to invite him on the podcast and introduce him to my audience.  I really enjoyed this conversation and can truly say that I learned a lot about generativ...

Krish Jagirda is the Co-Founder of Internet Game. In this super interesting Web3 gaming initiative, players can have fun playing, while also having the possibility of winning prizes like high-value NFTs.  I discovered Krish through Gmoney’s team since Gmoney will be hosting their game in the coming season and he has invested in their company. So I was curious to learn more about the concept and th...

My guest on today’s show is Jean-Paul Faraj, Head of Community and Partnerships at Unstoppable Games, an ecosystem that allows players to generate real-world value while enjoying the experience of gaming.  Now the interesting thing about this interview is that, as shocking as it may sound, I’ve never played video games in my life. And yet I have some philosophical views on gaming and what it means...

My guest on today’s podcast is Olivier Briggs from the GET Protocol, an innovative company that aims to solve the problem of ticket fraud and scalping using blockchain technology. In this episode, you will learn about smart tickets and how they can revolutionise the way tickets get into the hands of fans and benefit the artists and performers while minimising the need for intermediaries. 

My guest on today’s episode is Kevin Thrams, who works as a Product Manager at Prysm.xyz, a super interesting tech start-up that allows people to buy NFTs together as a group. This is a fantastic way for friends and family or even random investors to come together to purchase valuable NFTs. It makes it possible for them to mitigate the risk of buying these assets alone, while still having exposure...

My guest on today’s podcast is Ryan Carson, former COO of PROOF Collective and someone who has been deeply involved in the WEB3 space from the early days before creating his own NFT Venture Fund, 121G.  I first learned about Ryan when I won the raffle to mint a Moonbird. He was active in the Moonbirds' Discord and Twitter and came into the ladybirds' channel and spoke to us. He was very attentive,...