Stonks Go Moon

What happens when intimacy becomes a transaction? When validation feels like a drug and “love” turns into labor? Author Justin Bridges (pen name) joins Rocco Strydom to unpack his explosive new novel, Service, a thinly veiled fiction about a tennis pro who spirals through sex/love addiction, hits bottom, and finds recovery. We dig into:Masculinity myths, dopamine loops, and why “rescue” isn’t love...

While global ride-hailing giants take up to 25% from every trip, Bro Cabs takes zero. Founded by Persy and Msizi, this Johannesburg-based startup is flipping the power dynamic in mobility by putting drivers first — a radical move in an industry dominated by global platforms like Uber and Bolt. From challenging e-hailing laws in Parliament to running grassroots activations across Joburg, Bro is bui...

Startups love to talk about product, markets, and money. But when hypergrowth hits, people ops is where things break, hiring goes sideways, culture frays, and compliance gets ignored until it’s too late. In this episode, Dr. Michelle Griffin, founder of Griffin Resources, joins Rocco Strydom to unpack how companies can stay human while scaling fast. The conversation kicks off with Accenture’s rece...

Algorithmic trading is finally getting democratized. Robert Grzesik, founder of Botspot and LumiWealth, has built a platform where anyone can turn plain English prompts into live trading bots — no coding required. In this episode, we dive into how AI is reshaping the trading landscape, why execution is becoming instant, and how the line between idea and deployment is shrinking fast. What You’ll Le...

Half-built businesses often collapse under their own success. Without governance, compliance, and succession planning, big wins become fragile legacies. My guest today, Remco Coerman, has spent more than 25 years advising entrepreneurs, investors, and family offices across Africa and the Middle East. He helps build the scaffolding behind businesses, ensuring wealth and impact survive beyond the fi...

AI at work is more than chatbots. Ravenna is rebuilding internal support systems with modern helpdesk and automation tools designed for Slack, Teams, and everyday workflows. After raising $15 million from top investors like Madrona and Khosla, co-founder and CEO Taylor Halliday (ex-Zapier Engineering / AI lead) joins to talk product, market fit, and what AI really means for operations. In this epi...

Most athletes are more than players. They are brands, investors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists. But until now, getting reliable data on endorsements, reps, front office contacts and off-field ventures has meant sifting through rumours and broken links. AthleteAgent.com, formerly OSDB, has rebranded and launched a subscription product that aims to solve that problem. Think IMDb for sports peopl...

Most marketing is smoke and mirrors: follower counts, empty impressions, “we went viral!” moments that never move revenue. My guest, Ethan Monkhouse, says the agency game is over. As founder of Naviro (Naviro.ai), he’s building a live-intent graph that tracks who cares, not who clicks - decoding millions of behavioral signals to engineer real digital revenue. In this episode: Why “going viral” usu...

AI got centralized. Crypto promised the opposite. What happens when you mash them together? On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, Rocco Strydom speaks with Shashank, co-founder of Gaia, the decentralized AI network now running 700,000 active nodes and powering trillions of inferences. From ex–Chief Investment Officer to Web3 builder, Shashank bridges founder and fund. In this conversation...

When your guest doesn’t show, what do you do? You call in AI. Streaming from South Africa to the world, Rocco Strydom is joined by Chatty aka ChatGPT, for a first-of-its-kind Stonks Go Moon episode. In this unfiltered conversation:The state of generative AI video: from VEO3 to challengers like Lumiere and Pika Labs. Why current AI video is more “showpiece” than “solution” and when it could actuall...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Gabriel Jiménez, founder of Ugly Cash, to unpack how he built a stablecoin-based financial platform, first in Venezuela’s hostile regulatory climate, now reaching users across Latin America, Africa, and the U.S. In this conversation: Tackling 188% inflation and a collapsing bolívar by building crypto solutions where t...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast , host Rocco Strydom talks with C urt Hopkins , CEO of MCQ Markets , about how blockchain is moving from crypto-native hype into the heart of global finance. With over $100 billion invested by banks in blockchain infrastructure since 2020 , and giants like Goldman Sachs and HSBC running tokenized trades, Hopkins explains why Wall Street is finally embr...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Preston Van Loon, co-founder of Prysmatic Labs and core Ethereum developer, to celebrate Ethereum’s 10-year milestone of 100% uptime and look ahead at the future of the network. Van Loon, who helped lead the Prysm client during Ethereum’s historic transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, explains what makes Et...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom talks with Ali Din, CEO of Premier NX and former executive at ADP and Indeed, about why the mid-market is the overlooked battleground for AI adoption. Ali makes the case that AI is no longer optional for companies caught in the middle — too big to be scrappy, too small to have innovation labs. He explains why financial planning and...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Arrash Yasavolian, CEO of Taoshi, to explore how AI, crypto, and decentralized finance are converging to open elite trading strategies to everyone, not just hedge funds and insiders. Built on Bittensor, Taoshi is creating one of the top-performing AI trading networks in the world, turning the prop trading model on its...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Bigga$tate, the Chicago mogul, rapper, and celebrity publicist turning viral moments into global business plays. From being homeless as a kid to closing WWE sponsorships for his new single Safari, Bigga$tate breaks down:How he turned rejection into fuelWhat artists don’t know about brand deals and perpetuity clausesWh...

On episode 200 of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom welcomes Brian Kenny, Co-Founder and CEO of Momntum, for a conversation about what’s really broken in customer service and how AI can fix it. Brian shares how Leila, Momntum’s emotionally intelligent AI, is changing the game by not just responding to customer queries, but actually building relationships. From remembering your last ap...

How do you tokenize equity legally without ending up on the SEC’s radar? In this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Joris Delanoue, Co-Founder of Fairmint, to unpack how streaming equity, token warrants, and the Open Cap Table Protocol are transforming the financial infrastructure behind startups. With over $1B in tokenized equity already flowing through Fairm...

In this episode, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Michael Mo, CEO of KULR, a NASA-grade energy management and manufacturing company turning heads with its Bitcoin-first treasury strategy, blockchain-secured supply chain, and AI-enhanced exoskeleton robotics. Topics we cover: How KULR tech powers the Mars rover, ISS & Artemis missions Why KULR is investing 90% of its surplus cash into Bitcoin...

On this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Lucas Poelman, co-founder of PeachWeb, the world’s first no-code 3D website builder. Lucas went from pro tennis player to tech founder, building a platform that’s changing the internet as we know it, one floating fish at a time. PeachWeb lets anyone create stunning, interactive 3D websites without writing a single lin...

In this episode, we sit down with Johanna Cabildo, CEO and Founder of Data Guardians Network (D-GN), to unpack one of the most important—and overlooked—questions in AI today: Who trains the AI, and who benefits from it? Johanna is on a mission to flip the data economy. Her platform empowers users to own, train, and monetize their data through decentralized agentic avatars—a radically different mod...

AI isn’t just a buzzword anymore—it’s a business imperative. But most leaders still don’t know where to begin. In this episode, Rocco sits down with Kathleen Perley, Rice University professor, founder of Demystify AI, and author of AI Made Simple: Results Made Real. Kathleen breaks down how to actually integrate AI into your organization, without the smoke and mirrors. Topics include: The biggest...

In this episode of the Stonks Go Moon Podcast, host Rocco Strydom sits down with Max Pace, CTO of BlockTrustIRA, to unpack one of the most compelling intersections in finance today: crypto and retirement. Topics Covered: How BlockTrustIRA lets you stack crypto tax-free in your IRA or 401(k) Why traditional retirement providers are falling short How BlockTrust’s quant-driven strategies protect agai...

In this episode, Rocco Strydom sits down with Nikolay Filichkin, Chief Business Officer of Compute Labs, to explore how compute infrastructure—specifically GPU clusters—is becoming an investable asset class. Forget equities and tokens. We're talking teraflops, tokenized ownership, and IRR on silicon. Topics covered: Why GPUs are the new gold in the AI age How Compute Labs connects institutiona...

Today’s guest is Akash Gupta, VP of Core Wallet at Ava Labs, the powerhouse team building on the Avalanche blockchain. With a background that spans Meta, Uber, and startups out of the MIT Media Lab, Akash brings Web2 scale and discipline to the frontier of Web3. At Ava Labs, he’s spearheading the mission to make crypto invisible yet indispensable — starting with Core Wallet, a next-gen platform in...