Conversation with the founder of Solana: How to stick to faith when the whole industry sentences Solana to ''?

In this interview, Solana co-founder Raj Gokal shared his entrepreneurial journey in the Cryptocurrency field, the collaboration story with co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, and Solana's growth and future vision. This article is from an interview by Silicon Valley Girl, organized, translated, and written by Bitpush. (Background: In-depth analysis of 'Why choose Solana' in the Asia-Pacific region, inventory of 8 major projects, financing, and investment growth potential) (Background supplement: Injecting Solana genes into EVM, will Monad trigger a new round of public chain replacement?) The full interview is as follows, organized for easy reading: Host: lRaj, you are building an exciting project, and Solana's current valuation is so high. Today, we want to talk about your entrepreneurial story and how you built Solana. Raj, your LinkedIn profile shows that you founded many companies before joining Solana. Can you share your entrepreneurial journey with us? Raj Gokal: I didn't list all the companies I founded because most of them failed. But this has always been my commitment to myself - to continue trying entrepreneurship in the tech industry in San Francisco and Silicon Valley until I find a truly successful direction. My earliest entrepreneurial experience was when I was in my early twenties, I co-founded a glucose sensor company with a good fren from college, mainly targeting consumers and athletes. Although it never entered the market, the company was acquired by One Drop. This was the starting point of my entrepreneurial journey. Host: Your first company was acquired? Raj Gokal: Yes, but it was mainly the credit of my co-founder. I left before the acquisition because I realized it would be a long process. This experience taught me an important lesson - finding the right co-founder is one of the most important things in entrepreneurship. For me, the core of entrepreneurship is to go through this journey with the right partner, and I never thought of going solo. My co-founder Ashwin continued to lead the company after I left, and about six years later, it was finally acquired. I hope that technology will be available soon! This experience also made me realize that in a highly regulated industry, if you want to reshape a key link, you must be clear about the value of your product and understand when you will encounter those vested interests who want to maintain the status quo. Host: Then you entered the health technology field? Raj Gokal: Yes, for the next six years, I was in the health technology industry. I worked at Omada Health, where I came into contact with Cryptocurrency. In the health technology field, I founded or participated in several entrepreneurial projects. I found that American health insurance companies and regulatory agencies (mainly the FDA) are extremely conservative and hold the decision-making power of the entire industry. Without their approval, any new product cannot enter the market or get paid. I have always wanted to use technology to reshape these fields because the giants in these industries have long avoided reform in various ways. But later I realized that the vested interests in the medical industry are too strong to be shaken in the short term. Of course, the situation is slowly changing, such as Apple developing many sensing technologies that allow consumers to access health data directly without relying on insurance companies. These changes require tech giants like Apple, Amazon, and Google to drive them. Host: How did you enter the encryption industry? Raj Gokal: Yes, the encryption industry is also strictly regulated, but there is a difference - many regulatory rules in the financial industry are centered around intermediaries. In the TradFi system, all transactions must be completed through intermediary institutions such as banks, while Cryptocurrency aims to decentralize, allowing us to reshape this industry more quickly. Unlike the medical industry, you cannot bypass doctors or licensed professionals, but in the financial field, we can directly achieve peer-to-peer transactions. This makes it more difficult for Cryptocurrency to be completely controlled by existing financial giants. Host: But the market Fluctuation in the encryption market is very high, how do you adjust your mindset? Raj Gokal: Any truly important innovation will experience dramatic Fluctuation when it enters the market. The same was true during the Internet bubble period, where many companies experienced roller-coaster ups and downs, but eventually, the companies that survived became industry giants. I believe that the more disruptive a technology is, the greater the bubbles and fluctuations it will experience. We now see that the development speed of technology is getting faster, and the rise curve of users is getting steeper. From electricity, telephones, the Internet, mobile devices to AI and Cryptocurrency today, the speed of technology dissemination has greatly accelerated. Therefore, market speculation is understandable because these technologies can indeed quickly change our lives. Host: But compared to the medical industry, the value of Cryptocurrency seems to rely more on people's 'faith'. If a celebrity spreads the word on social media that 'BTC is eyewash', the entire market may be affected. How do you view this? Raj Gokal: This is a good question. The value of BTC does rely on people's faith, but this is also one of its core attributes. BTC is the benchmark of the entire encryption industry, it is the first asset that proves the existence of a Decentralization ledger. Over the past few years, BTC has faced various challenges, but it has survived. Now, we see financial giants like BlackRock launching BTC ETFs, and CEOs discussing the value of BTC in public. In addition, some countries, such as El Salvador, have already made BTC a legal currency. These trends indicate that BTC has grown from a 'crazy idea' into a truly recognized store of value tool globally. Host: So do you think BTC has crossed the faith gap? Raj Gokal: Yes, BTC has entered the asset class similar to gold and art, it is a Decentralization, global store of value tool. Of course, the payment field is still in its early stages, but we have seen Visa choosing Solana as a Settlement network between banks, merchants, and card institutions. This indicates that even companies with huge technical teams and huge opportunity costs are beginning to adopt encryption technology. Host: How do you view the future of this technology and make judgments independently of the market cycle, thinking that future Settlement systems will be built on these on-chain networks? Raj Gokal: We see some companies have begun to lay out, such as Stripe restarting the acceptance of encryption payments. In the demonstration, John Collison showed USDC transactions on Solana, which were almost instantly completed. For them, the speed and reliability of networks like Solana are crucial. So, in the payment field, we have seen some progress. But in other use cases, there is still a significant degree of market Fluctuation. However, this reminds me of the popularization process of the Internet from 1995 to 2005. At that time, the Internet was not just a single product, and new things appeared every now and then. Initially, people needed an email Address because it was the way to access various services, and as time went on...