Ali Yahya
General Partner, a16z crypto. On 1 show, 8 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorengineerscientisthost@alive_eth ↗a16zcrypto.com ↗
Ali Yahya is a General Partner at a16z crypto, where he leads investments in blockchain infrastructure and layer-one networks. He previously worked as a software engineer and researcher at Google X and Google Brain, where he contributed to TensorFlow.
1shows
8appearances
87statements
8resolved
6supported
0contradicted
75%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Ali Yahya said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Yahya: Proof of stake can theoretically match proof of work security
“Now the cost of actually participating in consensus and making the entire network work in real terms comes down dramatically. And it's just as secure, or at least theoretically can be made just as secure. And that's a controversial statement, but I will sort o…”
Yahya: Current blockchain governance systems will likely devolve into plutocracies
“Today's governance systems and sort of blockchains and crypto networks, the way that they exist today will likely devolve into plutocracy simply because the mechanisms for vote buying are so effective as you've described.”
Yahya: Stablecoin adoption will trigger widespread DeFi adoption
“We believe that that'll likely lead to this cascading Sort of trend of adoption, because once stablecoins become a more kind of mainstay of the way that the financial system works, that opens the door for a lot of the other more advanced and futuristic ideas t…”
Yahya: Federal stablecoin regulation will likely pass in 2025
“We strongly believe it likely, it'll likely happen this year.”
Yahya: Stablecoin regulation will commoditize Tether and USDC issuers
“It will, it'll, to some extent, commoditize the issuance layer because it'll be easier for new issuers To emerge and create their own stable coins that, that are also user, you USD denominated to the point that those new stable coins are somewhat fungible and …”
Yahya: Fully embracing AI would force Google to cannibalize search revenues
“And I think that's actually becoming true for AI as well. Like I think that it was very, very true that AI was a very sustaining innovation. Before, but it's gotten so powerful that, that there are many elements of it that are disruptive. Like if Google wanted…”
Yahya: AI direct answers will eliminate web advertising models
“And that entire business model goes away if you just have an AI that just gives you the answer that you're looking for.”
Yahya: Blockchains invert tech history by giving software power over hardware
“It's a kind of technology that inverts the power relationship between the software and the hardware. Whereas historically, the hardware has always had power over the software because whomever controls the hardware can turn off the software or change it in some…”
Yahya: Ethereum Layer 1 cannot handle Nasdaq-scale exchange throughput
“If you wanted to build something like the Nasdaq exchange on chain, there's no way you're doing that on Ethereum one. You probably need a blockchain that has the kind of the level of performance that a Solana or a Sui or some of the other kind of More modern o…”
Yahya: Decentralized systems will always be costlier and slower than centralized
“Decentralized systems will always be more expensive and less performant than centralized ones. There's just an inherent trade off there, and there's an inherent cost to decentralizing a computer system. And so it won't, Replace everything. There will be applic…”
Yahya: Decentralized storage will not drastically cut costs for most uses
“So the reason that we need decentralized storage networks is not because they're going to reduce the price of storage by orders of magnitude. At least for most kinds of files and for most use cases, I don't believe that that'll be the case.”
Yahya: CryptoKitties introduced true digital ownership for the first time
“CryptoKitties is one where, where people became very invested in owning this digital collectible which is, this is something that is fundamentally new. Never before would you be able to directly own something that's digital. This is the first time that that's …”
Yahya: Blockchains can make bribery and vote buying more efficient
“Blockchains can be used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of bribery and vote buying.”
Yahya: Programmable trust uses mathematical guarantees to replace human institutions
“Since the creation of the internet, we have begun to discover a new paradigm for trust. It is a paradigm that is programmable. It is enabled by software, and its guarantees come from something that is more fundamental than a human institution. It comes from ma…”
Yahya: A Google-sized company cannot be built on top of Google
“It is inconceivable that you could build a company the size of Google on top of Google in the same way that Google was built on top of TCP IP.”
Yahya: Crypto innovation wave may eclipse the current internet startup ecosystem
“We see this as the foundation for another golden wave of innovation on the internet that may be even larger than the current startup ecosystem on the internet today.”
Yahya: Crypto can decentralize emerging AI power structures
“Crypto can help decentralize the power structures that are emerging in AI.”
Yahya: Stablecoins generate $16 trillion in annual volume
“So there's something like 16 trillion dollars in volume on stablecoins per year.”
Yahya: SpaceX uses stablecoins for cross-border treasury management
“And stable coins are actually, like, apparently companies like SpaceX are already using Stablecoins for treasury management to move money from one country to another in a way that's much more efficient than using the.”
Yahya: Financial Web3 use cases will precede consumer crypto adoption
“It's now much more clear that the kind of the more financial use cases are likely to happen first. Those will act as a legitimizing force for the rest of the space, and then the consumer use cases, which we still believe in, Will take longer.”
Yahya: Worldcoin orb never transmits raw biometric data off-device
“In fact, like, the data itself never leaves the orb, and only a code or a cryptographic object that is derived from the biometric data ever leaves the orb, and from that cryptographic object that is not possible to infer anything about the biometric data itsel…”
Yahya: The Bitcoin network consumes more electricity than Denmark
“The Bitcoin blockchain alone, and it consumes like more power than like Denmark or something like this.”
Yahya: Measure blockchain scalability in instructions per second, not transactions
“So the right metric is not really transactions per second. It's really instructions per second. How many instructions of some computation can you process in any given period of time?”
Yahya: On-chain identity turns crypto interactions into iterated prisoner's dilemmas
“Whereas if you had identity and if you had reputation, you could turn all of those one-off prisoner dilemma style games into iterated prisoner dilemma style games, which are far easier to solve. You have like the long view of relationships. You can have a trac…”
The other half of the tape: Ali Yahya's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Brian Armstrong 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
the a16z Podcast 1
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ali's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a16zLEDGER | General Partner, a16z crypto | 8 +2 | 87 | 75% 6/8 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |