Ep. 72: Jeffrey Booth on deflation, blockchain, and progress.

Watch our interview with Jeff on Youtube.

Jeff Booth is a visionary leader who has lived at the forefront of technology change for 20 years. In January 2020, Jeff released his first book titled “The Price of Tomorrow – Why Deflation is Key to an Abundant Future”, in which he offers his provocative thesis about the current state of our economies and what must happen to enable a brighter future.

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Show notes

• Jeff got his start as a technology entrepreneur, creating a company called BuildDirect which he eventually scaled to half a billion in market cap. He continues to be extremely interested in the process of improving the world through entrepreneurial problem solving.
• One of the key lessons Jeff learned in the process of building a successful company was just how much of it depended on internal, not external factors. More often than not the key to fixing a problem was to amend something in the way he approached the business.
• The financial meltdown of 2008 was a turning point for Jeff, as it was for so many others. He witnessed both how close the economic system came to collapsing and how profoundly government policy corrupted capitalism in the aftermath.
• Specifically, people working hard to save their earnings were annihilated while those accumulating debt were saved.
• This got Jeff to thinking about how profoundly money effects every aspect of economic life, and what the consequences are when some single authority is able to manipulate it.
• As Jeff is an investor and advisor to many tech companies, Thomas asks him what sorts of technologies he's working on advancing today.
• The answer is 'all kinds'. He advises to SaaS companies, agriculture companies, and many others.
• In general, Jeff likes to ask himself three questions to decide whether a technology is worth pursuing: 1) can it genuinely change the world; 2) does he really love the founders; 3) does he have any unique skills which could be helpful to the company.
• Trent asked which technologies make Jeff most excited about the future today. His answer is that it's not one technology in particular, but the emergence of so many which are converging and influencing each other.