The Internet Changed Everything. Now Money Is Next | Matthew Le Merle

#083. What if the financial system your kids inherit looks nothing like the one you grew up with? According to Silicon Valley venture capitalist Matthew Le Merle, that's not a hypothetical - it's already happening. Matthew is the co-founder of Fifth Era and Blockchain Coinvestors, and has backed over 750 blockchain and AI companies, including 75+ unicorns. In this episode, he breaks down why the digitalization of money is the next great transformation — and what it means for parents raising kids today.

We cover:

• Why blockchain is to finance what the internet was to communication - and why you don't need to understand the technology to benefit from it
• How to invest in innovation the right way, including why venture capital follows a power curve, not a normal distribution
• The money values Matthew and his wife Allison passed on to their five kids - and why "money is energy" is the framework that changed how he thinks about wealth
• Why the skills that will matter most in an AI-powered world aren't content-based - they are creativity, critical thinking, and the ability to keep learning
• The real reason your kids are better positioned for the future of finance than you are

Show notes and more at:

https://moneydadpodcast.com/session083

Transcript

Justin: [00:00:00] today's guest has seen the future of money up close and invested in it. He's backed over 750 blockchain companies, including 75 plus unicorns from Silicon Valley. But what I really wanna know is, what does all of this mean for our kids and their financial future? Matthew Le Merle, welcome to the Money Dad podcast.

Matthew: Great to be here, Justin, and looking forward to the next, uh, 30, 40 minutes with you. 

Justin: , I'm looking forward to this conversation. , Let me s- let's start off with y- you know, you and your wife Allison have raised five kids yourself in, in Silicon Valley, right in the middle of all this innovation.

Before we get into the big ideas, how has being a parent shaped how you think about teaching the next generation, whether it's about money or about investing? 

Matthew: It's a really good question, Justin, and, uh, I think if I look back... So my, my children are now in their late 20s and 30s, so maybe I'm a little bit, uh, uh, older than many of your listeners.

[00:01:00] Um, but it does mean I've been through that cycle, and none of us go through the cycle until we go through it. It's something you have to experience and live. And, um, in retrospect, my children were quite influential on the path that I ended up taking, but not in a planned way. So, you know, I had, uh, had a first career in technology and consulting, and back then my clients were people like Microsoft and Google and eBay and big financial institutions like Bank of America and BlackRock and so on.

And, um, somewhere in there, I started to do, and Allison and I started to do early-stage technology investing here in Silicon Valley. 

And we decided to focus on internet and fintech, which were areas we understood. Allison had her own career and became the CFO of the world's largest asset management firm, BGI, Barclays [00:02:00] Global Investors, which is now part of BlackRock.

Um, and so, so we were both investors, but we began to invest more in technology and innovation. And for various reasons, I also added in digital content. 

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: Um, and some of the reasons for adding in digital content were because my kids were so passionate about video games at the time. 

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: And this was the early days of console games and the first of the platforms.

And so we began to lean into that, and we backed a lot of video game companies, casual, social, mobile, and, uh, learned a lot about it. But that's an example where now, you know, dialing up to today, 2026, a lot of what I know came about because I was watching the next generation and what they were engaged in and exploring and interested in.

And I do think that for the type of investor that we [00:03:00] are, Justin, which are venture capitalists, you need your finger on the pulse of what the next generation is, is getting involved in and thinking about and doing. And I'm sure many of the parents in your audience, um, if they have teenage children, those teenage children are probably significantly ahead of them in terms of using some of the technologies that are gonna transform the world and that represent very interesting investment opportunities.

Justin: Your, your kids must have loved when you invested in all these video game companies, um, being able to bring those back, bring those back to the home. 

Matthew: Actually, I had them be beta, , beta group players. So- Oh ... for example, we backed a company called Telltale, which in its time created Sam & Max and Game of Thrones and a host of other games, Borderlands.

And the kids would actually go to the studio and play the unfinished games and give their feedback. So that was fun. Oh, [00:04:00] that's, 

Justin: that's interesting. That, 

Matthew: that's interesting. That's just an example.

Justin: Yeah. Uh- Yeah ... and now a lot of, my listeners might hear the word blockchain and their eyes might glaze over.

Can you give us the simplest possible explanation, maybe the kind that you give to a, you know, a 10-year-old, of what blockchain actually is and why it matters? 

Matthew: Yes. So I don't actually begin with blockchain to answer that question, Justin. I... For your audience, I would start off with the internet. 

And I would say, look, all of you listening in are probably old enough that you sort of remember a paper-based world. Some of you, if you're as old as I am, and you have adult children, you definitely remember the days before the internet really transformed everything. So what did the internet do? It digitalized communications and content, and today we take all of that for granted.

You know, Justin and I are speaking to you. Uh, we're not [00:05:00] co-located. We're using technology. It's being transmitted to you. You could be in your kitchen or in your study or in your car listening to this right now, and that was the power of digital enablement of communications and content. And we, we haven't finished that process, but we're quite advanced.

It changed every industry. It changed every business. You know that, and you know the world's most valuable companies are internet companies. They have names like Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Facebook and Google. The issue is we haven't yet digitalized value, payments, finance, investing. So the, the world of finance is very paper and people intensive.

And so even if I wanted to send Justin some money in real time right now, he's in Toronto, and it wouldn't be that easy. But if Justin wanted to buy my house from me, we'd be in to a 60-day [00:06:00] process with a lot of paper and signatures and other things. And so for your audience, what you need to appreciate and understand is we're now gonna digitalize finance, and we're gonna make it just as easy to do financial activities in real time at very low cost, very rapidly, uh, potentially on a mobile device, just like you now do your communications and content.

And that future now is coming fast. So far I haven't mentioned blockchain, and I- Mm ... I don't know that I need to, because the equivalent is for everyone listening in right now, Justin, they sort of understand the internet, but we didn't explain to them TCP/IP- 

Justin: Mm-hmm ... 

Matthew: frame relay, and the technology stack that underpins the internet.

They didn't need to know. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: And the same is true of blockchain. You don't actually need to understand hash key, uh, hash rates and, and blockchain computation. You just need to [00:07:00] appreciate that we are digitalizing, uh, uh, and proving the ownership and the provenance of value, just in the same way as the intern- internet stack has enabled us to digitalize communications and content, and about six billion of the eight billion people in the world take it for granted today.

Justin: It, it is so easy to take for granted that... I mean, you're right. Looking back at, at my age, I, I think back to a time where, yes, I can remember distinctly the time between pre-internet and after internet, and how far it has come in, in these years. I, I remember-- It's funny, like I remember, , studying in school about this case study of this company called Amazon, where at the time it, it seemed, incredibly ambitious of what they were th- trying to do when...

And trying to displace all of these big, retailers with a physical location that you can go and, and people... Oh, you can order things off the internet [00:08:00] and have it delivered to you. So, um- Yeah ... and, and, you know, early days they were losing money, but now you look at how, where they are today, it's incredible how they are the world's largest, , retailer.

A-and so, you know, you've said, yeah, digital money, commodities, assets are inevitable, and that all the world's financial infrastructure needs to be upgraded now, you know, to be digitized. What do you see that most or many people are missing? Where the, uh... And some- somebody say, "Well, yeah, , I can send electronically send payments right now if I want to pay so and so in, in, in the UK or in the US or in Canada."

What am I missing here? What, what else-- How f- how much further do we need to go? 

Matthew: Yes. So it's great, Justin. It's a great way of asking the question because the parents listening in are hybrid. They have a foot in each world and I'll explain what I mean by that. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: You know, obviously the [00:09:00] grandparents listening in were, grew up in a entirely paper-based and people world, and so digitalization has come at them in their lifetimes, and they probably use it more or less The children who this, uh, Money Dad podcast is partially about, the children are not yet programmed to understand the way we currently do things.

Um, and so they're the ones for whom it will be easiest to embrace the new technologies. So let's, let's just pick a, one of your audience members. Let's pretend they're 40 years old. 

If they're 40 years old, we actually think they're digital natives, and we think that they grew up in a world where they take for granted digital communications and content, and they use their, tho- those platforms and those products, and they understand them.

But because they're dig- 40 years old, they also grew up in a financial world where they had to go into the [00:10:00] bank. They know how to use service tills. Mm-hmm. They've... They may well have rented and maybe even bought a property or a car or furniture, and they know how to do that, and they know what that looks like, and they've got probably four to six credit cards and debit cards in their wallet right now, and they know how those work.

The children don't know any of that, right? Right. And for us for that person, the digital native in your community, in your listening right now, they do actually know how to make both things work for them. And so even though they can compare, they can say, "I sent an email. It arrived straight away. I try and send some money and it takes three days or two days."

Yeah. I know money transfer in Canada may move a little faster, but if you try and send it to New Zealand, it will go a lot slower. Yeah. It'll take a week. So you sort of comp- compare the two and you can see digital communications is [00:11:00] faster, cheaper, and easier. Digital movements of value is slower, more expensive, and much more work, and you have to take the phone call, do the KYC, AML, confirm the details.

That's the equivalent, Justin, that's the equivalent of me... of you trying to send an email by Gmail, and Google calls you up and says, "Hey, Justin. We wanna confirm that the name that you have written at the top of this email is correct. Are you sure you want to send this message?" 

Justin: Right. 

Matthew: And, and, uh, and, uh, are you giving us, , approval to send this message now?

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: That is what happens in money, right? So it doesn't happen in communications, but that's what happens in money. So for the , 40-year-old listening in right now You take for granted the friction of the financial system because you've understood [00:12:00] how to make it work for you. 

But what you have to be clear about is your children don't need to, will never need to, and should not be asked to understand that complicated, costly, and difficult way of doing things.

What's coming fast now is in the mobile app, they will be able not only to buy things in real time, so the communications, the content sharing, and the transaction will all be integrated natively over the internet and in whatever devices we're using. But it will probably be AI powered and enabled, and it will be much more like a digital communication, right?

So conceptually, if you and I want... If you wanna buy my house and I wanna sell it to you, why can't we do that in a day? Conceptually- Yeah. Right ... why can't we do that in a day? If, if the [00:13:00] titles were digitalized, if the on-on- the onboarding and the credit decision-making was real time, we could get the mortgage, the insurance.

Why does it take 30, 40, 50 days? Mm-hmm. And in the future, it will not. It will be very, very fast. So Justin, I think part of my answer to your question, I know that was a very long answer, is how you see the future is somewhat impacted by who you are and what you understand. And the great thing as a parent is your children are not necessarily gonna go down the same path as you, so you should not presume that they will ever need to know what you have had to learn.

And conversely, you should watch closely for how they do things quicker and cheaper and easier than you do. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: You know? 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: I remember the days when I went to the library and I looked something up in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 

Yeah. You know, you and I don't do that anymore. Our children are [00:14:00] not even gonna Google it.

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: You know? They're not gonna Google it. The agent's just gonna give them the answer. 

Right? Right. And they're probably not even gonna say it or write it. They're probably gonna think it. They're gonna think something, and they're gonna get the answer delivered to them. It's that... That's sort of more like where we're heading.

Justin: Uh, I, I remember a time when I was a child, and there were door-to-door salesmen selling those encyclopedias. Mm-hmm. And I remember I begged my parents to buy me, you know, tho- those books because I thought, I have a... I would be able to have access to all of this knowledge and all this information, and it could be at our house instead of having to go to the library to go get- Right

you know, information. And you think about now, where everything and anything that we want is literally in the palm of our hand on our mobile phone. 

Matthew: Right. 

Justin: But now it's- With AI, it is now going to completely transform [00:15:00] that. And, um, and as you said, it's not necessarily just gonna tell you the information, but it can act independently of you to be able to transfer that information.

You know, maybe it's creating businesses or creating products, um- Mm-hmm ... from that information. So, incredible. A- and I love that analogy that you, that you gave about, you know, it it's like as if you're someone from Google and you're trying to send an email and someone's verifying that information and, and you own it.

So that's a great analogy. , You are, a bestselling author. You've authored a number of books around the ideas of innovation, investing in blockchain. Your last book, uh, The Intelligent Investor: Silicon Valley, brought together a lot of practical wisdom from 50 of Silicon Valley's leading angels and venture capitalists.

What made you wanna capture all that collective knowledge in one place, and who did you write that for? 

Matthew: So thank you for asking that. Um, so even though I told you, uh, uh, a little [00:16:00] bit about how we see the transformation of the digitalization of society and the world at large, I didn't mention blockchain.

We do view blockchain as an enabling technology without which we can't do all the things we want to do. And I should, uh, just explain that just for one second, Justin, and then I'll talk about the books. The internet is an incomplete solution. The technology stack we use for the internet is very good at moving things like information and messages and communications, but it, it has some fundamental flaws that mean you can't just move money over the internet.

Um, and those flaws have to do with security and identity and provenance and some other things which are very important in financial terms. With a, with a message, I can send it to you, Justin, and we don't have to have an argument about whose message it is. Yeah. But if I send money to you, it really matters that it was my money and [00:17:00] that you did receive it, and no one else hacked in or stole the money, and the money wasn't duplicated, it was real, et cetera, et cetera.

So- ... so blockchain was developed by this person, Satoshi Nakamoto, to be a complementary technology that would allow the internet to be fit for purpose for moving value, uh, peer-to-peer cash over the internet, and that was why blockchain was created. And right now, blockchain is the best technology we have To secure and make fit for purpose the internet stack for moving value.

And it also, um, opens up some other great opportunities, um, around provenance and identity, which we probably won't talk about today. So we got, we got very excited when we saw it. We inve- began investing 10 and 12 years ago, and that was not driven by, uh, watching our children so much as by realizing that the [00:18:00] digitalization of money was now gonna come fast.

Um, and that's where the unicorns you referred to in your introduction come from. And we wrote a book about that, which is... Anyone can look up Blockchain Competitive Advantage. We also had written a book before that about the coming digital age and the different ways individuals can participate, which includes investing, but you don't have to just invest.

You can be a founder of a company, you can be an employee in a tech company, you can be a- someone that puts some money into some venture funds or funder funds like we have. Mm-hmm. Or you can be a direct angel investor, et cetera. So there's a lot of ways to play, um, and that's all laid out in of- actually our first book, uh, Build Your Fortune In The Fifth Era.

Now, you mentioned the silicon in- investor silica, uh, Silicon Valley book, and there's a very specific reason we created that, Justin, and it's because the, the world's most famous investment book perhaps is [00:19:00] called The Intelligent Investor. And you're nodding, and maybe some of the people listening in right now have read that book as well.

It's, uh, an old book, but it's still very good and, uh, uh, Warren Buffett famously was a proponent of this book, and it talks about value-based, uh, investing and how do you determine the value of public equities. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: The problem is there is nothing about technology or innovation in the entire book. In fact, um, uh, Benjamin Dodds, who co-wrote the book, was very clear that his whole approach to investing was irrelevant for technology and innovation because, you know, wh- uh, his tool set, if you will, was built and focused on public equities.

And in fact, the only things about innovation in that book are, I believe, in appendix seven, and there's two, like, two [00:20:00] pages in a 700-page book. Right. So Alison and I started thinking about, well, what have we learnt about innovation-based investing? Which is very different. Um, uh, investing in innovation and technology and startups is completely different from investing in public equities or fixed income.

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: And we started thinking about should we write a book about what we've learned about technology investing after 30, 40 years in Silicon Valley? But we said ... W- we ended up saying, "Why write that book? 'Cause that would just be our point of view. Instead, why don't we just interview 50 or 60 of the best investors we know and ask them all the same questions and see what answers they give us and put that into a book?"

So if you do pick up that book, it's an empirical journey through the perspectives of 50 in- or 60 [00:21:00] investors, and I do think you'll learn a lot if you look at the book. Mm. Uh, we called it Intelligent Investor Silicon Valley just to be cheeky. 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: It's sort of, you know, um- But I guess, Justin, that begs the question, what do-- did we learn about early investing?

I don't know if you- Right. Yeah. No, I- That, that's what I, and that's what I, and 

Justin: that's what I wanna know. 

Matthew: Yeah. So the fir-- there's a lot that can be said about this. Um, one thing I would say is your children will use products and services that don't even exist today, and the reason why they will be able to do things better, cheaper, quicker, easier than you ever did is because of innovation.

Innovation powers human progress, and that's always been true. So we could be talking about inventing the wheel or figuring out how to to build a waterproof shelter. It was innovation, [00:22:00] and humans are quite unique that we're able to innovate and improve our circumstance, whereas most animals operate within the constraints of their circumstance, right?

So- 

... 

Matthew: There are a few animals that know how to use tools, but human beings, we innovate a lot. And so that's the first thing. If you want to invest in what's gonna im- be important and valuable in the future, I think you have to be an innovation-focused investor. Everything else is the past.

You know, today's biggest companies are big because they they delivered to you the products of the past, which you're still using today. But most of them are not very good about building out the products of the future. And, and that, by the way, is a second point. If innovation powers the future, and as an investor, you might wanna participate in that future, the second thing is established companies are not very good at innovation.[00:23:00] 

And Alison- Mm ... and I wrote a whole book about that as well. So you can, if you wish, focus on public equities and today's large companies, but probabilistically they're more, more likely to fail at bringing the next wave of innovation to the market. Mm. Disruptive, innovative companies tend to be the ones that do that.

So then the third point is how do you invest in early-stage disruptive, innovative companies that will change the future, some of them, uh, you know, some of the time? And the answer is, don't think like a public equity investor because public equities... And now I'm gonna go a little bit academic. They are efficient markets with normal distributions where the entire theory of investing builds off that foundation.

So everything we learn about investing in public equities and fixed income- 

... 

Matthew: Builds [00:24:00] on top of a notion that it's an efficient market in which getting superior returns is very hard, and you need to do things like diversify and worry about, uh, uh, you know, the selections of the mix of industries and businesses that you hold.

In innovation, it's a power curve distribution, which means a small number of big outcomes and lots of failure. Right. You can call that a hit-driven business if you wish. So if you get through the first two points, I believe I want to invest in innovation because it's gonna be the future, and I'm not gonna do it by investing in established companies because I think that it's more likely the disruptive companies will capture the value and be the better investments, then you're gonna have to figure out how to enter the world of a hit-driven business.

And, and the key things we discovered over time was the way to [00:25:00] operate there was to seek out access to the best investors and asymmetrical information which... But, you know, the theory says you can't have asymmetrical information in a s- in a efficient market. Right. In other words, you can't get an edge by knowing something someone else doesn't know in an efficient market.

But in an inefficient market, there's definitely asymmetrical information. There are people that know what's going on, and what's gonna grow faster, and what's gonna grow slower. That is the nature of an inefficient market. Mm-hmm. So for us at here at Fifth Era, we built our investment strategies essentially around those two, those two foundations.

Number one, get access to the best investors in the area you're interested in And that may be easier or harder depending upon who you are and how much money you have. You can follow them. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: It's a little bit different to be in the [00:26:00] inside circle with them. That's a little bit harder. But most of them today are visible, they share their perspectives.

And you should be careful, the average venture capitalist doesn't get a good return, but the exceptional venture capitalists get very high returns. So get close to them, follow them, try and co-invest with them. And then the second thing is seek out insights and perspectives that most of the, the world hasn't yet understood- 

And see if you can invest behind those themes. Um, and there will be a lot of failure, but you'll still be fishing in the right pond, so to speak. 

Justin: Interesting. Fascinating. 

Matthew: So I said a lot again there, Justin. I ho- I hope that's helpful. 

Justin: , That was. Now, I wanna, I guess I wanna pivot now to, this show is about giving kids the best shot at financial success.

Right. So why should parents raising kids today care [00:27:00] about blockchain, not just as investors, but as parents preparing kids for the economy that they're actually gonna live in? 

Matthew: Yes. That's great. Um, let's see. Firstly, this is not my area of expertise, Justin. Yeah. I'm just a parent that had five kids and made a lot of mistakes and tried to do the best that I could.

Yeah. And the good thing is I look at my children, I'm proud of all of them. They're all doing very well, and they've all... Actually, most of them are choosing to be in the innovation or investment space. Uh, my youngest son, who we're very proud of, is choosing to be a vet, 'cause that's his passion. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: Um, I'm not an expert at how you raise children.

, And I may be old fashioned too. I think it's more important to establish the values as the head of your household, and to provide the opportunities for your children to learn and to learn how to learn, than it is to tell them what to do. So the values and the [00:28:00] construct that you establish within your family, and giving them the opportunities to experience things and learn, I think has always been more important than telling them what they need to know.

All right? And I think in a innovation-based world, it's even more important. I think the world is just beginning to ask the question, if AIs are gonna do most of the work, , what skills would a human being need to have in order to be successful in the future? Mm-hmm. And if you start reading those threads, and Justin, you've probably had some of those people speak here at Money Dad.

They're gonna say things like creativity, teamwork, leadership. These characteristics are more important than the content, because the AI will be better at the content than the human being. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: Right? So going back, as a parent what are some of the values? And it may sound stupid, but giving your children early an understanding [00:29:00] of money and what money can do, but that money is, has to be...

you have to work to have money, and that money is... I don't wanna say it's precious. That sounds like The Hobbit. Yeah. My precious. But, but you know, that, that- Yeah ... the money is not something that you, , have an entitlement to. And you shouldn't pr- presume that your parents will always give you everything you want, and that you don't need to do anything to get that.

Mm-hmm. Right? So giving children chores, giving children things to do, letting them go and have the paper route or cut the grass so that they understand that- that money is energy and that when you, uh, work you receive benefits, and those benefits may help you get the things you want, but that also it's scarce and that you need to be thoughtful and you shouldn't just overload on stuff you don't want.

You know, these types of values. [00:30:00] So it's just an example. 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: When the internet first came in, there was a big discussion around, , uh, whatever we call it, internet blockers in the home. You know, net nannies. 

Justin: Okay, 

Matthew: yeah. These were pieces of software that you could put on your computer so your children couldn't access inappropriate content.

Right, yep. And there was a discussion about that, and there were parents who said, "I don't... I just let my children go wherever they want." And there were other parents that said, "I'm not even gonna give my children internet access because I'm so nervous about what they might s- find." And then there were parents that said, "No, I'm gonna put a, a nanny, a net nanny," that was one of the branded products- Mm

"a net nanny onto their computer so I can watch what they're seeing, and if they're putting porn searches in I'll know," right? 

For Alison and I, we didn't do any of those three things. We instead focused on, let's tell the children about values. You know, what, what is good behavior and [00:31:00] bad behavior towards other people, and let's at least give them an idea that not everything they hear and read is good stuff, and not everything is necessarily appropriate behavior.

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: And then we did let them have internet access, and our hope was that they would self-select into the good goods and they would self-select out of the bads. 

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: So listen, Justin, this is not my ev- area of expertise, but I think, I think it's important to expose your children to innovation and change.

I think they'll seek it out anyhow because they're, just like the digital natives more naturally, uh, took to the internet and mobile than their parents- 

... 

Matthew: Though their parents are not necessarily incompetent at those things, I think the next generation will be very, very comfortable with an AI agent and with real time movements of value.

And so for them, things like blockchain and AI agents will [00:32:00] not be alien or complicated or difficult, they'll just be using them.

, The challenge as a parent is how do you establish a framework of values so that they don't go down the wrong paths, right? 

Justin: Right,

a- and yeah, your, point about- The important thing is to establish that framework of values, right?

So if you've set those values in place, you don't necessarily need to, .. i don't know if concern is the right word, but, you know, by setting that framework of values that you as a, as a family unit have established are, are important to your family, whatever that, those values are, then that, those, you know, those values or those principles are, are what will help guide our children, um, into making sure that- 

Matthew: And actually- Yeah.

Yes ... just exactly. It's, it's not my area of expertise. Mm-hmm. I think teachers help a lot. Schools hopefully help a lot. Um, but parents can do their [00:33:00] part as well, you know. , And I sort of believe that the fundamentals are the most important thing. So ... Are you well-educated? Do you enjoy learning, lifetime learning?

Are you able to use the information that you've learnt? Are you able to make smart decisions? Do you understand the difference between something that's bad v. something that's good?

And are you able to navi- navigate a real world and human beings that aren't always acting in your interest? You know, around the topics like money.

Do you understand that money is simply energy and that you have to do things to capture it and then, yes, you can use it? Um, and that's the parallel of the three talents, right? You know, the parallel of the talents. How do you choose to use your money, and do you use your money wisely, and do you understand how to multiply money v.

simply consume money? . 'Cause money is energy and you can use it to make more money. [00:34:00] Right. You know, but it's your choice. And these are examples, but there's a lot more. You know, if, if you do have money, do you understand that money is a mag- a magnet for bad people and bad actors? Right. You know? Yeah.

So, so not everything that comes at you once you have money is gonna be good, and you should be sophisticated and you should do your due diligence, and you should not, you know, uh, uh, presume that everyone's interests are aligned with your interests. Due diligence in the world of investing is the most important thing.

And vested interests are often hidden and you have to ferret them out. You know, why, why does this person say this is a good investment and is it a good investment, and do they have a vested interest for saying that it is? You know, and, and so on and so on. Due diligence, at least in the type of investing I do- 

Justin: Yeah

Matthew: which is venture capital and private eq- uh, private market investing, due diligence is the most important thing. 

Justin: Right. And it's applying that critical [00:35:00] lens, , to your, to your investments and, and- 

Matthew: Yeah ... 

Justin: and that critical 

Matthew: lens. And, and for a child that may... You know, you're not gonna sit with a child and say, "Have you done your due diligence?"

Justin: Right. 

Matthew: But to ask the child at the dinner table, "What did you think about that? You know, we, you know, we went to the beach together and you didn't have enough money for the ice cream," you know. "What did you think about that?" And they're gonna say things like, "Oh, I was disappointed and I wish you'd given me the money."

And you're gonna say, "Well, yeah, but you didn't cut the lawn- Right ... so you didn't get the money." 

Justin: Right. 

Matthew: And then they're gonna say, "Yeah." And then if they're smart they'll say, "But you know what? The guy's ice cream was too expensive anyhow. He was trying to charge twice as much as usual." And you can say, "Well, why do you think he was able to charge twice as much for the ice cream on the beach?"

Mm-hmm. And, you know, and, and it may sound like a, a trivial thing- But, you know, they're smart. They're human beings. They will get there. So- Mm-hmm ... I remember, I'm gonna... Justin, this is, uh, from my family. This is, um, [00:36:00] McDonald's meals, right? 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: You, you remember this? 

Justin: The H- the McDonald's Happy Meals? 

Matthew: Uh, yeah, Happy Meals.

Yeah. It was sort of like Happy Meals arrived, and all of my kids would spend all the time insisting that we eat at McDonald's. And at some point we asked them, "Why? Why do you think McDonald's is giving you these toys in the Happy Meal?" 

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: And it was interesting because they, they were smart enough to realize eventually it was just a bribe.

And then the question is, "Well, you know, they're bribing you to go there to eat your, the meal. Do you think the meal's a good meal?" 

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: And they did quite like the meal, and then the film came out, right? The Oh, 

Justin: the- ... McDonald's- ... the one with the, um, 

Matthew: the guy- Yes ... 

Justin: who ate McDonald's 

Matthew: for- Yeah, exactly. And we took them to the film.

Right. And now they could put the parts together. It was sort of like, well, the Happy Meal was a bribe. The food I just watched on the show is really bad for me and it's full of sugar. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: And then you ask them the question, "Do you still [00:37:00] wanna go to McDonald's? 'Cause if you do, we'll, we'll let you get the Happy Meal, but you know they're bribing you to eat their food.

Is that the food you want them to eat?" And the children b- stopped wanting to go to McDonald's. And we didn't... We never told them, we never told them, "You can't go to McDonald's." But they all watched the film and they got to the same place at the end. So- 

... 

Matthew: you know, as a parent, especially when you're talking about money, establish the values, give them some experiences, let them fail as well as succeed, and then the real really important messages will begin to... They'll have that foundation, and they'll understand, um, as what, as you and I understand, that money is energy and that you can use it wisely to make more money, but, and make innovations that change the world in a positive way, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, but you shouldn't take it for granted, and we really don't have an entitlement to it. And- Yeah ... and then we get onto the [00:38:00] universal wage discussion. 

Justin: All right. The universal basic income. Yes, that- Yeah ... I can see that coming, uh, down the pipe. Um, before we get down there, but I wanted to go back to, you know, so i- in your role as managing partner of Blockchain Co-investors, which is a, the leading b- blockchain venture fund of funds that are invested in, in all the, uh, those companies that I'd mentioned at the top, and you've invested in over 75 blockchain unicorns.

When you look at that portfolio, what kinds of jobs, careers, or financial opportunities are emerging that today's kids could actually grow into? 

Matthew: Wow, that's sort of a big question. Um- firstly, within the world... So we invest in AI and blockchain- Right ... and as well as other technologies.

And in the world of blockchain, we have, uh, infrastructure companies that [00:39:00] are building out the infrastructure of a future digital world, and they have names like Coinbase and Robinhood and Anchorage and Tether, and people may know some of those names, they may not. But we also have crypto projects which are decentralized, distributed, so- software projects.

Um- The infrastructure companies are essentially just the next generation of fintechs. Mm-hmm. So they're using advanced computing and the internet to essentially digitalize financial services and investments and so on. So just as, um, you know, old-fashioned branch banking eventually got complemented and then s- substituted by online banking and then mobile banking, so we're now just moving that to the next stage.

Just as, to use a different analogy, just as we went from [00:40:00] mainframes, disconnected mainframes to mainframes that were networked together to off-site proprietary mainframes in data centers to third-party data centers, and then we took it to the cloud- Mm-hmm ... and today we have decentralized clouds soft, uh, computing solutions.

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: So finance is moving down that same path. Um, so what are the jobs that in those types of companies? I think they are companies, so they, they do have all the same types of jobs. They have a head of HR, they have people that do marketing, they have people that create products and manage products, and they have, uh, facilities managers and all these types of things.

Um, you saw Jack Dorsey at Block just said, "AI's coming and I need to shrink my workforce." 

And that's in the, in the press . He's- 

... 

Matthew: Making a dramatic maybe one-third cut to his sales force. So even though the jobs, I [00:41:00] think, will still exist, there'll be fewer of them, and I do think that could be a threat.

Um, but I think there'll be great opportunities to operate in those types of environments and, and the jobs will have recognizable names, but they'll all be powered up with computing and AI and agent technology and capability. Now, decentralized distributed projects take you in a whole different space.

These are software projects where communities of people collaborate together to accomplish something they're trying to do together. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: Um, and theoretically, that opens up the opportunity for everyone to do work and participate, uh, in a variety of projects and get rewarded for doing so. So that just then begins to challenge the nature of what's a job and what's work, right?

So, so in answering your question, you know, what types of jobs and work will be available [00:42:00] to our kids- I think you have to make this distinction, what sort of environment are they working in? If they're working in a traditional corporate environment, you know, in a company that's been formed, the jobs are gonna, I think, be somewhat recognizable- Mm-hmm

but powered up with technology. But it's possible that the world is shifting to a completely different model of doing work that doesn't require the creation of the corporation. And if that were true, then m- you... the answer to your question would be very, very different because the definition of work and the definition of a job would be completely different.

Right. And we're seeing that a bit. So Justin, , in the teenage, uh, age group, they're quite capable at multitasking. The good ones are very good at it, and they may even have multiple jobs already, you know? 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: Mm-hmm. And, and some of them will be saying, "Well, I wanna be an influencer."

And you'll say, "What's an influencer?" And they'll say, "Well, I influence communities [00:43:00] of people to accomplish things by going out and having experiences and sharing them with these other people." And you say, "Well, that sounds ridiculous, right?" Right. But really good influencers make a lot of money. 

Justin: Yeah.

Matthew: Absolutely. Right? Justin of Money Dad Podcast probably does... has a portfolio of things he does. Do you? 

Justin: Mm-hmm. Do I? You probably... Yeah. I do. I do, 

Matthew: sure. 

Justin: Yeah. But I, I wouldn't consider myself an influencer. 

Matthew: Right. So, so going all the way back to the beginning of the question, there's a lot I don't know, but my bet is the people best prepared To find jobs, capture value, et cetera, in a fully AI-powered world of the , workplace of the future.

They're gonna be very good at the fundamentals. They're gonna be... Everything we said earlier on, right? They're gonna be very good at learning. They're gonna enjoy learning. They're gonna know how to leverage what they understand. They're gonna be able to [00:44:00] influence networks of people through technology. I, I just added that one in.

Yeah. They're gonna be good in teams. They're gonna, , be flexible and creative and, and those are characteristics, they're not content, right? Right. So, so did you focus on teaching your children to have the values and the characteristics that will define success? Or did you just make sure that they understood the curriculum, understood the content, and got the A's?

Justin: Yep. 

Matthew: Right? And, and I, uh, I went to Oxford, so Oxford would always say to you, it's, "Oxford is not about what you learn, it's about teaching you how to think." 

Justin: Yep. That is the most critical part. Think- teaching our kids how to think, not what to think, um, in this ever-evolving, ever-changing, fast-moving world that we live in.

Matthew: Yeah. 

Justin: As we kind of close off here, I know most of your kids have all grown up [00:45:00] now. What's, the money habit or mindset that you have passed on to them or that you would, you know, want to pass on to them that is most important to you?

Matthew: I think the thing that I'm most proud of, I would say, is that they are independent, energetic individuals finding their own paths, um, and that they're also multi-capable. Uh, so, you know, we... they all did very well academically. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: They went to good universities.

They did well. But they also are quite able to pick up a piano or a guitar and play some music and entertain people. I think they like being with other people, and they like hosting events and community orientation, et cetera. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: Uh, they happen to mostly be very good at [00:46:00] sports. And so they have a, a breadth which, uh...

So what does this have to do with money? Honestly, I, uh, we did not teach them, any rules around money other than the things I've described, which is Alison would always say, "Money is simply energy, and you should not get too attached to it, but you should know how to use it in the context of whatever it is you're trying to accomplish or to be."

And I think that's a healthy way of thinking about it. 

Justin: Mm. 

Matthew: You don't wanna be a hoarder. 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: And at the same time, you don't wanna be so c- consumer-oriented that you, you just fritter everything away and don't ever think about, more thoughtfully about what you're doing with money.

Justin: I think it comes back to where, you know, money is, it's not the f- key focus. It's, it's almost like making sure that you've provided them with the principles- Yeah ... the values, um, helping them [00:47:00] understand that money is energy- 

Matthew: And it's an output variable too, Justin.

So that- Yeah ... and it's an output of doing the right things. It's not the input. So what I mean by that is, Arnold Schwarzenegger famously said, "Look, I came to California with nothing, and America embraced me, and I've done exceptionally well in multiple careers, and I'm very grateful for that." Um, but he worked really, really hard.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right? Let's just be clear. Oh. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger worked harder in the gym than anyone else the world had ever seen. Yeah. And then he worked really hard in Hollywood. And, and everyone says that, by the way. The, the people, the actors and actresses and directors that worked with Arnold al- always said he was the ultimate professional in his- in his film career. And I suspect he worked really, really hard in his real estate and business undertakings. 

Justin: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew: Um, so that's Alice and I, our story. We, we started with very little, [00:48:00] you know, uh, in, in England. We, we went to great universities. We were lucky to come to America. We were even luckier to come to Silicon Valley.

We worked really, really hard, and we found ourselves at the center of the innovation economy, and it's... And we've been very, uh, fortunate as a result. 

Justin: Yeah. 

Matthew: Um, and I think the values are, are hard work, focus, , thoughtfulness. It's these things. It's not- It's, you know, I... So in crypto, we have this problem that everyone thinks you can just trade your way to fortunes.

And of course, for some people they will, but for most people, they're just gonna lose all their money. So- 

... 

Matthew: You know, I, I don't like the get rich quick, uh, uh, philosophy or, or value. I think, I think you have to be thoughtful, work hard, and be disciplined in order to be an investor. That's my view. 

Justin: Matthew, this has been an incredible [00:49:00] conversation.

, You've made, you know, something like, whether that's blockchain or something that feels incredibly complex, uh, feel like something that our families can actually engage with and, and discuss. Where can my listeners find your work, your books, or follow what you're doing at Blockchain Coinvestors? 

Matthew: Yeah, thanks for asking.

Um, it's been on thefifthera.com is the primary access point, and we do share a lot of content. Uh, we have written books. The books you can just f- look up my name, Matthew C. Lemmel, Matthew Lemmel, on, um, Amazon or Apple, uh, and you'll, you'll again find the content. And, um, and we're always happy to answer people's questions, but a lot of the questions you're asking, Justin, are not my expertise.

Um, but if it comes to investing in innovation technology, including blockchain and AI, that's all we do. 

Justin: Wonderful. So we will have, uh, those references in the show notes as well. So yeah, Matthew, I just want to thank you once again for this [00:50:00] conversation. , It's one where, you speak on innovation and blockchain and AI and all of that, and, and thank you so much for your perspective on, , helping parents raise money smart kids, , by thinking about, , money in the form of energy and, and all the valuable insights you provided during the way.

So thank you so much. 

Matthew: Thank you very much, Justin. I hope it was 

useful.