Now that your cousin doesn’t ask you questions about bitcoin anymore, is it the end of all things blockchain? Maybe it just means that it’s time to think about innovating at the protocol level and come up with new use cases. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Outlier Ventures CEO and founder Jamie Burke will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.
Burke bet on the blockchain industry quite early as he set up Outlier Ventures back in 2013. The firm’s investment strategy is much more interesting than your average investment thesis.
According to Burke, blockchain is key when it comes to decentralization. At some point, the web and the internet became too centralized. Most people now spend their time on social networks and other walled gardens.
This isn’t the first centralization wave. Web portals and AOL’s navigator have more or less disappeared. But the same thing seems to be happening with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms — they can’t moderate everything even though they algorithmically promote the wrong things.
And it all comes down to trust. Tech CEOs have attracted so much power that they can control your mood or your opinion by tweaking a couple of settings. By building deep tech projects on top of some sort of blockchain, those projects become decentralized. A small group of tech CEOs can’t decide for everyone.
And this applies to IoT, AI and robotics startups. These startups will need a strong set of moral rules. And the best way to build this language is by building a decentralized infrastructure layer.
If you think those are fascinating questions that we should talk about today (and not in ten years), then you should come to Disrupt Berlin to listen to Jamie Burke.
Buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on November 29-30.
In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.
Jamie Burke
CEO and Founder, Outlier Ventures
Jamie is CEO of Outlier Ventures, Europe’s first blockchain venture capital firm, set up in 2013. Since then he has pioneered the convergence thesis that views blockchain as foundational to Deep Tech like AI, AR / VR, IoT and 3D printing scaling securely and eventually converging. As a global thought leader, he assists startups and corporations on the space with an emphasis on AI, Industry 4.0, Smart Cities & Mobility.
Grab your tickets below to join us at Disrupt Berlin this November.