Catherine Rutter - Host of LIfe in the Fast Chain

In this episode, Catherine Rutter joins me to discuss R3 Corda and her experience as host of the "Life in the Fast Chain" podcast. 
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Catherine Rutter
--- Twitter: https://twitter.com/breadandrutter
--- Podcast: https://life-in-the-fast-chain.fireside.fm/

Transcription

Brandon Zemp  0:00  
Hello guys, it is Wednesday, September 25. I have an awesome guest on the podcast today, Catherine rudder, she's a podcast so it's just like me she's the host of the life in the fast chain by our three. So this episode is also pretty cool because we go into a lot of detail on our three quarter and she kind of gives us the inside scoop on our three in their history and what they're doing now the projects they're working on and we also talk about the podcast also life in the fast chain which is also awesome and fast growing and I highly recommend you guys check it out. As always be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and share this episode with someone that you think would like to learn more about Bitcoin crypto blockchain anything in this industry. Alright guys, enjoy.

Hello, Catherine. How you doing? 

Catherine Rutter  0:52  
Hey, Brandon, I'm good. How are you? 

Brandon Zemp  0:55  
I am awesome. Hope your Thursday is going well that your weeks gone. Well.

Catherine Rutter  1:00  
 It is. It's been a little crazy this week, but I feel like I say that all the time. So I need to stop saying it because my mom is gonna be like, can you please stop? You're working too hard.

It's a good problem to have, I guess. 

Brandon Zemp  1:14  
Yeah, sure, that's a good problem to have. And I did promise you that you could come on the podcast. I believe that we had that on the record multiple times. I think you made sure that was on the record multiple times. 

Catherine Rutter  1:27  
I think I made you say it at least four times. But I can go back in fact check. Exactly I don't think that check is necessary. But

Brandon Zemp  1:36  
yet, here we are. So Catherine, since most people will probably recognize you from life in the fast chain. But they might not know much about your past. So instead of having to go stock you too much. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your backstory, and kind of how you got to where you are now.

Catherine Rutter  1:59  
Yeah. I think it's funny. And I said this before we started recording, but it's it's funny me having to talk about myself instead of asking the question, so I'm going to try. But so I came to my story is actually a little unique. I went to school at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. It's a small, small liberal arts school. And I was an English major Creative Writing concentration. loved that, of course, so many people would be like, Oh, do you want to be a teacher? like as if I couldn't be an English major, I'd want to do other. But, um, so I did not. But liberal arts education is amazing. However, I didn't have like a marketing major, which was something I was super interested in. But when I was there, I was on the lacrosse team. And I can't say I played much, but it was due on the cross.

Sorry,

Brandon Zemp  2:56  
did you get to play?

Catherine Rutter  2:58  
I mean, I did at times, but I was on the bench more than I was on the fields if I'm being on.

My coach loves me as a person, but not so much as a player.

Brandon Zemp  3:11  
Oh. They're D1 for lacrosse. That's cool.

Catherine Rutter  3:17  
Yeah, it's interesting because people don't really know that because it's such a small school. So it's either you you really know it and you know a lot about it because only or whatever or you have absolutely no idea what it is. So, but but they are the one there in the Patriot League, so it's fun.

Brandon Zemp  3:33  
I also went to a small liberal arts college too, in California. So I know that feeling where you're playing like, I was playing division three football. But like we had sports teams that were like division one. And then they're like, our tennis teams were really good. Our water polo teams and swim teams are very, very good. Our rugby team is like three, four years in a row was like one of the best teams in the country. It can USC, his ass and beating against all the big schools. So yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of weird. how some of these small colleges work you get like, you play in some of the smaller leagues. And then depending on like, what sport it is, or what event or what club you're playing in, like, the upper upper leagues with the big boys and girls. And it's interesting.

Catherine Rutter  4:25  
No, totally. And I also think just like the small school liberal arts school, there's such like a community around that. I mean, I loved it.

Brandon Zemp  4:35  
Yeah. Well, I was lucky enough that we were in a consortium of five different colleges. So it felt like

Catherine Rutter  4:44  
no doubt about it.

Brandon Zemp  4:46  
So we are the Claremont college Consortium. So we are a combination of five undergrad colleges, Pittsburgh college, Pomona College, Harvey Mudd scripts, and Claremont McKenna.

And ED

Catherine Rutter  5:02  
 I did not know that sounds familiar, but I don't think I

Brandon Zemp  5:04  
don't think Yeah, some of those schools are a lot older than Pitzer, and definitely, probably familiar, but they're all kind of small schools, but all put together, they all kind of share the same resources. It feels like a really big university still. So it's a really interesting experience.

Catherine Rutter  5:23  
That's so cool. That's such an interesting mix.

Brandon Zemp  5:26  
Yeah, and it's in California, so you can't beat that experiences.

Catherine Rutter  5:29  
And so for school, I, obviously I wanted to get into kind of marketing. And I was on the lacrosse team. But I also did, I had a three year internship for our athletic relations. So marketing stuff for all of Holy Cross athletics. And it's kind of embarrassing now that I look back on it because I was doing like sideline, any kind of reporting. And now I have life in the fast lane. And that's hopefully taking over Google for a while it was just me like sitting on a sideline or like in front of a green screen. Like, what's up Crusaders? I'm Catherine Redis. So it's pretty funny. For a while at like parties, I would have my my friends asked me like what's up Crusaders? Like,

damn it, 

Brandon Zemp  6:16  
you report on your party?

Catherine Rutter  6:19  
Oh, yeah, it would. I mean, after a point, I would, I would definitely pull out the beer microphone. is very fun. But so I had that internship for three years. And that's like, a lot of my time on top of lacrosse, and then schoolwork. And then by my senior year, I wanted to have another internship to get more experience. So at school, I went and I interned for an ABC News affiliate, in Providence. So I drove to Providence. And that was a great experience, because I wanted to get more kind of marketing. And I kind of thought that I would go into TV. But in between my junior and senior year year, there was this really, really small company that was trying to figure out kind of like what they were. And that would be our three at the time called our three CD. So crypto is exchanges ventures, and could get in trouble for saying this. But I think we didn't really know exactly what we wanted to be at the time everyone was just trying to learn. And I think that's probably consistent with a lot of people in this space. So what year was it? So this was 2015. And so I interned in the summer. And the intern is a funny word to use for my experience, basically, was just doing what everyone had said. So there were, I think, five like official employees of our three at the time. And then myself and Sarah Lynch, who was actually working here as well to today. She's on the partner team. But So Sarah Lynch and I basically, we're just doing anything we could to help these very senior your guys kind of builds this company. So we had,

we would be doing things like we're setting up the phone lines, the next moment, we're running out to Home Depot to get a curtain to cover this little room that we were in from the bathroom because the bathroom was right there. And so my solution was to hang a shower curtain so we can see it. And like saw things like that, at one point. pretty early on, we were painting the walls in this conference room. And I say conference room because we were in a windowless, airless conference room in Enzo, a company here in New York, who our CEO, David rudder is on the board, or was on the board of or something he was involved somehow. And so they were like, Okay, well do you solid, your your scrappy company of five, five senior people and two interns who have no idea what they're doing, will let you stay in our space for a little bit because we don't need this conference room. So anyways, that was an amazing experience, just we were working so closely as as interns to these super senior people. And Todd McDonald is actually now he is technically my boss again. So that's fun. And he's one of the co founders of the company. But it was it was just such a great experience, what we learned from them, while we're like painting the walls and hanging shower curtains and running, like setting up our sales force, our website or social media, everything. So that was an amazing experience. Then I went back to senior year, and I was like, that was cool, but I want to do marketing. And at the time, I wanted to kind of get into television. So that's why I took up this internship at ABC News and affiliate ABC WLNE. So that was great. And then I'm looking for a job after school. And at the time our three was about within the time I was at school, we grew to about I think 50 employees. So we had people in then we had an office in London, where Richard going to Brown, our CTO, he was brought on we had my Kern who was very heavily involved in Bitcoin years and years ago. Who is it's he's very, it's very funny talking to him and, and being able to learn so much from him because he's like a little famous in this space. So it's kind of cool having having him around. But I digress. So I came back, kind of hesitant, hesitant, not that I didn't believe in what everyone was doing, everyone was working so hard at. But I didn't fully understand what the goal was. So at this point, we had dropped our three head drops the CV, we're focusing on blockchain, they're like, okay, we, instead of just advising people on blockchain, which was kind of what they were first starting to explore. They pivoted and Richard gimbal. Brown, our CTO came in and said, we need to build a blockchain from the ground up. And it started with banks. And I, I want to highlight the fact that it started with banks, but it is kind of completely gone past just banks. And we can talk a little bit about Cortana, and the ecosystem and our three, a little bit later. But so anyways, the company

babbling, but the company was, like, should I take a breath? The company that we grow?

I'm getting to I'm here, I promise, I'll answer your question.

It was growing. And, and it was so cool. But I want it to be like in TV and marketing. And so I was looking at jobs, anywhere, but But here, in, in media and in marketing. And I did get a job in I'm going to say the town because what if someone's from a town, they're like, hey, that's a great place. But I do get a job. And I all a lot of my friends were coming to New York are going to Boston and going to these big cities, and I would have been in a in a very small place that I didn't know anyone which I would be okay. However, it is so political. And that space, I would say, and I work really hard every day here at our three, but I get massive rewards for that. And I just didn't feel that my hard work would be appreciated. And, and for many reasons, I didn't take it. But I still needed a job. At one point, I'm pretty sure my parents were like, okay, so you need to get a job, or like, like, you can't be in our house and you if you don't have an income. And I was like fair, so I did, I knew that there were some holes that are through that, that I could could fix and kind of fill. And I still was thinking that I would come here have have an income. And then I would go on my merry way to whatever place I wanted to work at next. And then so I pitched it to at the time hiring was so funny, because we were a total startup and I pitched it to a few people on why they needed me. And then I was starting on Monday. So I nowadays, we get so many, so many applications for jobs. And it's so crazy how much our HR is is. and recruiting has changed. But yeah, at the time, I was like, all right, knock, knock, this is what you need. And I kind of pitched pitch the whole social presence, to me being a millennial, knowing the best of this and that on for websites, and social media and all that stuff. So I still was not fully convinced that Arthur was going to be the place for me. And I was like, What is up with everyone I would come into to work. And I'd be like, Why is everyone like, like, freaking out like people would be like, we're changing the world. Like, okay, these people are like drinking the Kool Aid. And I was just so not bought in. But I didn't fully understand what we were doing. And that was the problem. And so I say that because now I am literally like bury me at this company. I am never leaving, I can't believe I even thought about leaving. So this whole thing, like come totally for full circle to the point where I'm like, I can't believe I almost resisted something that's been such a positive thing in my life. So that's how I got two or three and my role has, has changed a little bit. But I've I've stayed in marketing, I've in my time here. So now it's it's three years now. I have consistently maintained our three calm now have taken on quarter.net as well, which are two main marketing websites. I have a little bit of help from the team on that now because they're such big websites. And I control all of our social media. So our LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and I'm the host of our podcasts life in the best chain. That was a very long winded answer.

Brandon Zemp  15:41  
Now you're drinking the kool aid to

Catherine Rutter  15:44  
Oh my God, I'm drinking the Kool Aid 100% I'm like, I like a switch was flipped. And then I was like, yeah, I'm gonna work it. It's cool

Brandon Zemp  15:53  
to learn about humble beginnings with like a startup, especially in the block chain space and then see where they are now from where they came from. So I mean, that it's a great little, like, inside look into our threes past a little bit.

Catherine Rutter  16:08  
Yeah, it's different to then like a story that I think sometimes we it seems like we have had people being like, oh, are three backs by the big bad banks and this and that. And it's actually so inspiring watching because I really was there from the start, and in some way, watching the way the company's grown and the dedication and the love for the art community. It's it's been like so, so inspiring and amazing to watch. But yeah, it's it's cool. It's cool. Being a part of it from the beginning.

Brandon Zemp  16:45  
Yeah, that definitely creates much more of an attachment to the company and love for it and total, the community that you guys have there, too. I bet you guys are very, very close and do a lot together anyway.

Catherine Rutter  16:57  
Yeah, yeah, we do. And I think that's one of the cool things about the culture. It's very funny. So we'll have people walk into the office, like our sales people or this or that, and they're wearing full suits. And then the Deb's come in and they're wearing sweatshirts. And then like marketing team comes in. I'm wearing like, flowery dress, like, there's just there's so many different characters here. And it's just yeah, it's it's really cool. But because everyone gets along, I mean, I think unless there's company drama, I don't know. But it seems that like, there are so many different people, especially in our London office is so diverse, just, I mean, because you're in London, you can get people from all over. Not just here in New York, we definitely have diverse people, but obviously most American most inner

Brandon Zemp  17:48  
what's the benefit of having the an office in London.

Catherine Rutter  17:51  
So our CTO is there, Richard brown and he,

when he was first building out the team to build corrida from the ground up, he essentially was like, This is such a big undertaking, I need the team here. So the London office actually has has pretty much all of our deaths. Recently, we had a press release go out and news about the fact that we're going to open an office in Dublin for dads. So that'll be like kind of another developer hub. But it was always it kind of started off. Because Richard Kendall Brown was in London and and he's obviously such a such a big asset. We were like, well, he's building quarter like, gets what he wants.

Brandon Zemp  18:39  
Yeah, makes sense. He wants a little bit closer.

Catherine Rutter  18:41  
Yeah. Now it's obviously grown past just developers over there. We have our office over there. I'm probably getting in trouble if I get the numbers wrong, but I'm going to guess anyways, it's gotta be. It's gotta be like, at least like 120 of our employees are there and we have overlaid to 20 worldwide. So we also have an office in Sao Paulo. So we were in Brazil, we have a few people in Canada, we have a few people in India office, and we have another office. In Singapore, a bigger a bigger office in Singapore. Our main offices are London, Singapore and New York, though. So it is pretty crazy. How many people are in the London office, and they're expanding the dev team and Korean general very quickly,

Brandon Zemp  19:30  
which ones have you? Which ones have you been to

Catherine Rutter  19:33  
offices? So I've only been to New York and London, but I have been frequently between between the two. I would like to I actually wanted to go down to the south Paulo office. Before I kind of realized that it's a little dangerous down there, I think.

But we have a lot of really good clients. Things like my like blonde, talkative.

I don't know personality, I would be talking to like a, I don't know, I would put myself in an unsafe situation. For sure.

Brandon Zemp  20:09  
Yeah. Apollo is kind of cool. I mean, they as a country, Brazil's just kind of going through some some issues still. So it's all just you just got to be smart. And I personally love Latin America in general.

Catherine Rutter  20:23  
I'm so jealous of your experiences. You talked a little bit about this on life in the fast chain. I haven't been anywhere down there at all.

Brandon Zemp  20:31  
It's, it's pretty cool. Brazil, obviously they speak Portuguese there. So they hate being compared that speak Spanish. No, but there's still great people and they have amazing food, amazing attractions and places you can go and visit. I went to Florianopolis, Brazil, which is a bit farther south. Very, very cool. When during the wrong time of the year when it was cold, you got to go during the summer. Got that the seasons are pretty much Lyft. Same thing with when Osiris and Argentina love Argentina, beautiful country again, they're going through a lot of issues as well. So you just gotta have your, your head up the whole time kind of looking around. Yeah, you gotta be smart today. But some great places to go for sure. Definitely. Like she lay, which I'm trying to go. I haven't been yet in Santiago. And then I've been to Colombia a couple times. Love Colombia. Such a great place. super safe, gorgeous. People are nice. Panama. Panama is awesome. They're not really Latin America. But Panama still pretty cool. The party doesn't ever stop. And

Catherine Rutter  21:43  
I need to add this to my list because I've traveled because of being in London for work. And I have some family over there. Like I've been to London a lot. I've been to a lot of places in Europe. But I really have to check this off these off my list because I would love to go to all places you're saying even Argentina, I would really like to go to it that's on my list.

Brandon Zemp  22:03  
Yeah, I'd love to give you recommendations. If you ever make it down that way. It's just such a long flight.

Catherine Rutter  22:09  
Because I don't think of it being so long. But it is long. It takes so long to get down there from from New York. How long does it take from where you are?

Brandon Zemp  22:17  
So I had to fly into Panama. Panama was kind of like the international gateway between North and South America. So I'd fly from from Vegas is about six and a half hours to fly to Panama City. And then from there, I could fly all the way down to Buenos Iris. She's like seven and a half hours. So it's in my layover was like an hour. So I got like a solid 14 hours almost straight in the air. So it's it's it's tough when you got to get used to it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The first time you do it, you're going to hate it. hate it. But if you do it a couple times you get used to it.

Catherine Rutter  22:59  
Yeah, I'm not a good plane sleeper. I think I'm so jealous of people who can like get comfortable on planes and sleep we went to for one of our conferences last it was last year. Yeah, it was a year ago in March. So year and a half whatever. In Tokyo. and Japan was such a cool experience for for me, but I couldn't sleep on the flights. And I had to work when I was there. So I was so tired. But it was beautiful. And it was amazing experience. I'm absolutely not complaining. But I'm not a good plane sleeper. That was cool experience. Have you been to Asia?

Brandon Zemp  23:34  
I have not been to Asia. But I'd love to go to Asia.

Catherine Rutter  23:37  
And see we're flip flopping. So now I can tell you where I've been. I mean, it's not like I've been many places in Asia. I've literally only been to China and Japan. When

I was in Beijing, I actually went for Do you know what Operation Smile is?

Brandon Zemp  23:55  
It's sounds very happy. But sure that it's

Catherine Rutter  24:00  
no it's it's me? Well, yes, it's for for smiles. But basically, it's just a, I went on like a mission trip to a very rural city at like, it's like a two hour flight from Beijing. And that was a crazy experience in itself. But it's basically for people who can't afford cleft lip and cleft palate surgery, this isn't even an ad for them. I need to get more involved with them now that I'm like a full grown adult. I was doing this when I was in, in high school. And so we spent a bit of time in China, in Beijing. And I, I don't know. I think they're for charity. So there was like, not so much of like the fun stuff I could do. So if I went back, I would probably want to like I would have all my spots that I would have to hit. But I did like Japan a lot. Just the culture. There were some like funky cultural things there. But I really liked the bowing when I came home from from Tokyo. I would be talking to people and I would say Oh, thank you and I would bow because I was used to so scared that I was gonna mess it up and you talk to you and come off as a rude American. So I probably over about, but when I came home I

Brandon Zemp  25:27  
yeah. I kind of had a similar experience, not with the bowing part. But when I went to when I was on my our Argentina trip when I came back. So I was gone for a couple weeks, I come back and I land in Vegas. And I was going through customs and the guy was asking if you'd be like, check my bag and I was saying something in Spanish that can you remember now, I was just it you like pick it up when you're it's like one of those things that as an American, when you go down there you like also start picking up a little bit of it, whether you'd like studied it or not. And then even if you have studied it, then all comes back to you. And then as soon as you get back to America, you're still thinking in Spanish a little bit.

Catherine Rutter  26:11  
Oh, no, totally. I literally had experience. I was at a dinner. And so I went to Paris recently, and I love Paris. I love France. But I went to dinner and I was asking for the check. And I was like lady she wants to play. And I was like oh my gosh. I can like a like a bistro. They're probably like this freak has been talking in English. It's like I don't even know much for I studied Spanish. But I don't know much of in French. So I it's a came out of my mouth. And I was like I sound like such a tool.

Brandon Zemp  26:47  
I really like to grow to actually, Singapore.

Catherine Rutter  26:52  
Me too. Me too. We have a fairly big office there. I would love to go there.

Brandon Zemp  26:57  
I feel like everyone nowadays has a big office and Singapore like I really need to see like what's up. I mean, everyone's telling me I need to go there. And just it seems like such a hub for for business and totally connecting with people and just culture wise, it seems very fun and interesting. So yeah, it's another place I just got to go to at some point.

Catherine Rutter  27:18  
Gotta travel. Millennials love to travel. We're proving that right now.

Brandon Zemp  27:22  
Yep, we are. Let's pivot all the way back to our three here. How did the podcast get started? How did life in the fast chain come into fruition? How did it happen?

Catherine Rutter  27:34  
Yes. So I,

as I mentioned in my literal soliloquy, before I did a video stuff for our mark, our athletics relations team, and I wasn't just on camera, I also learned how to edit all of that stuff. So I would do we would record it. And then I would go back into the office. And then I would edit all the videos on Premiere Pro Adobe software. So then when I went to my internship at ABC, the ABC News affiliate, I kind of brought that into so I was editing clips for their segments and stuff that was really cool. Because it's just, like, right away, you get the gratification of seeing something that you edited and on on the screen. And, you know, like, hundreds and thousands of people are watching it. So that was very cool. And so I learned that pretty quickly. And then when I was at our three, there, there was always like, oh, like, let's let's show podcasts, we have super cast, and everyone was saying it. But because my experience with just editing and pre prod, post prod stuff, production stuff, I knew it was going to take a lot of effort. And I don't think I didn't think at the time that all those who wanted to create a podcast really understood that. So I but this was fairly early on, I was pretty is hard to believe now. But it was pretty like this stuff. So I, I was really saying anything that was just waiting for people to kind of realize that it was going to be a big lift. And then someone brought it up in a meeting again. And at the time, we didn't even have a marketing function. It was just myself and my co worker, Chase Gordon, who does a lot of our design stuff to here. And now he does, and he does PR, but we were kind of just maintaining everything. It wasn't we weren't, we weren't, we didn't have any strategy behind what we were doing, other than the fact that we were maintaining the brand. And so I was maintaining the websites and the social media, and doing a bunch of other stuff with our like marketing, automation tools and whatnot. And then he was doing a lot of PR brand stuff. And I was in a meeting with him. And then our boss at the time, Charlie Cooper, who's still here, he works for external affairs. And he still does PR stuff. But at the time, someone brought it up and we were in a meeting. And Charlie, I was like, you know, I have editing skills, like if someone wants to be the host, or if someone wants to, to do a podcast like I will totally support. And he kind of encouraged me music. Well, why would you do all the work? And like, why wouldn't you just be the host like you You like to talk? I guess like, we'll try it out. So that's kind of how it started. Because I was just going to support the cause. And then it kind of took on a life of its own, which has been amazing. I was so nervous at first, when I first started recording these episodes, because I my first guest was my current who helped like was involved in Bitcoins. So early on my second guest was Colin Platt from watching inside from 11 Fs. And he was he specialized specializes in derivatives, I was like, I am so over my head. And I was so stressed about it at first, but I kind of just realized I didn't want to sound like dumb because I know what I'm talking about. I know the benefits of blockchain. I know the benefits of quarter that's my whole job is kind of showing the benefits of what we are doing as a company. And that's kind of all that that matters. I know the space, I just was so intimidated by having super, super smart people on the podcast. Good. It's still intimidating. But that was like my main hurdle at first when I first started it to the point where I was almost like, Oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this. And having a mini panic attack. But But here we are. So I did I did not do that. That's how it kind of started and is continuing continuing on.

Brandon Zemp  31:56  
Yeah, I kind of had a similar like experience like starting my podcast. It's, it's one of those things where it's not quite like a phone call. Because it's so much of like an interview. Like to like really get into like the flow of things I had to bring on, like my friends as guess. Some of my friends that were knowledgeable about blockchain as much as I were. And I was just like, oh, screw it, let's just talk. whatever direction it goes. Let's just kind of talk about whatever. And that kind of helped me get an idea of how to either interview someone or just have a conversation on a podcast and get a feel for like, like, what the flow should be like what the format should be. I think that's like the trickiest thing if you've never done it before, because it's not like interviewing something like reporter. Yeah, I'm not right. Catherine, what did you eat this morning? Was it spicy? No one cares.

Catherine Rutter  32:59  
No, totally. I think it's, it's interesting that we had like a similar experience, because it's not the same like you kind of especially with podcasts, you let the conversation go where it goes? No, it's pretty cool.

Brandon Zemp  33:09  
Exactly. And I think I think for the most part, I try and do that just let them talk as much as possible. Because I mean, that's kind of why they're tuning in or tuning into that episode. hear from that person. So yeah, running, letting Catherine run on and talk about whatever is a good thing. So

Catherine Rutter  33:30  
totally, I think also, just speaking on like the trials and tribulations of podcasting, but I really, when in this space, the people that are that we're so fortunate to work amongst, or, or know of, they're so smart, and they really know what they're talking about. So me being nervous about me sounding silly, that's stupid. Like we want the person the smart person to talk. And your job is just to let them talk and share their knowledge. So I think I put way too much pressure on myself at first. But it's it's just different and and fun. And that's the point of podcast, you kind of want to be like a fly on the wall.

Brandon Zemp  34:12  
Absolutely. You also learn a lot to like,

Catherine Rutter  34:16  
my gosh, yeah.

Brandon Zemp  34:16  
Like I'm pretty knowledgeable on like blockchain, whatever. But I mean, I've had some, like, really cool guests on a number of times, and I just see feel myself like leaning back drinking my tea, like just listening and learning. I'm like, jeez, I'm back in college. Again. This is like a lecture. This is great.

Catherine Rutter  34:35  
I know. It's so crazy how I think I know so much about about the space and this and that. But when you have people on just even their experiences, from learning about the technology and everything. And I don't know, I just learned so much. It's totally it's like going to school over and that's why I'm always like, Hey, guys, to my friends. do not care about boxing, guys, so I'm just a heads up. But I had a really good guest on and they're like, okay, God.

You're gonna learn something

Brandon Zemp  35:08  
that I think they do. Eventually, I think they see it enough. And then they're like, okay, let's listen to Katherine's thing. Come on, guys. fingers. What are some cool things that you've learned from like some of your guests? Because I know you guys have had some pretty cool ones come on, as well. I'm sure you've learned a ton. But like, Is there anything like interesting that like that you learn that you didn't like know previously?

Catherine Rutter  35:33  
I have learned so much. It's such a good question. Because, I mean, I could, I could probably talk for hours about all the stuff that I've

like, please don't.

But I guess just one of the main, I guess it's like a theme. So this is kind of cheating and not fully answering. But the theme that I've kind of appreciated more now that we have guest is just the convergence of all these technologies and learning about what blockchain can enable for AI, or IoT, and vice versa. So few episodes that were pretty interesting for me would be more recently, we had ripe on the podcast. And they basically are using blockchain and AI devices to track their they have many different use cases, but to track tomatoes for sweet green. And so like basically from like when they're planted, and then in transit. And then when they finally get to sweet green, they're also working with the Dairy Farmers of America. But so you basically can extend the life cycle of the tomato, so they they don't go bad as quickly. And then kind of further from that one thing I kind of I never, I just never would have thought something's and I think that's the bigger thing. I know that blockchain can enable, and, and it can enable other technologies and can enable all these other things to happen. But it's the things you don't think about. So the next step for that was Raja Rama. Chandran was the one who was on the podcast, and he was talking about, let's not just talk about tomatoes, but let's talk about getting your your fridge, like an artificial intelligence fridge on a blockchain. And so it can kind of alert you to when things are going bad. And you can kind of place things in different areas of the fridge based on what it is and it can extend to your foods, then you save money. Like that was just a cool example. Because I wouldn't have ever thought of like tomatoes going to like an actual fridge. And, and kind of along that theme. My current is so amazing. And I've learned so much. And he tells really good anecdotes about kind of being involved in in Bitcoin very early on. And I think this is just a side note, I think it's very funny because he used the email, Satoshi. And so he has all these emails from Satoshi from like years and years ago. That's just a side comment. But he has really cool stories about I guess another he talked about one time, this is another thing I learned about. And it's more of ideas of what's to come in the future. It's not anything super concrete yet, but he just talked about locks and your locks being kind of logged on a blockchain. And what you could do with that, so like, let's say, your house locks, whatever. So if that's on, I'm going to totally butcher this. I really,

like listen to me mess it all up. But if it's on

your locks on a blockchain, and you have a house, and you have a mortgage and you haven't paid your mortgage, and it can kind of it knows that you haven't paid your mortgage yet. And then the house can actually physically lock you out of the house, for example. And just things like that, where Yeah, like, that makes sense. I could maybe come to that at some point. But it's a use case, I just don't think about,

Brandon Zemp  39:15  
yeah, there's all kinds of implementations. Once you really start thinking about it. I mean, especially with AI and blockchain and VR and all the things. Like it'd be really cool to have a fridge that is never empty, because I always clear out my fridge. It'd be nice to always come back and have the same amount of cheese in the fridge, the same amount of beer in the fridge, like nothing change, like, that would be great. And then just like, have Amazon delivered to my door, that'd be fantastic. Like,

Catherine Rutter  39:50  
your fridge.

Brandon Zemp  39:51  
I'm down for that. As long as the fridge isn't like spying on me, like watching me eat the cheese like

Catherine Rutter  39:59  
late night, you come home and you're just eating shredded cheese.

Brandon Zemp  40:02  
Yes. And then blackmail me if I don't order more food. Like that's, that's what I worry about.

Catherine Rutter  40:08  
That's scary. Some of this stuff. It fascinates me what the future will hold. Obviously, I'm in a very forward thinking company. And it's great. But like I'm also super scared of, of what's to come like, I'm not one of those people who are like, unplug your Alexa's. And like they everyone's listening to you. Because to be honest, my Alexa is hearing nothing important or interesting. But other things do kind of freak me out about the future.

Brandon Zemp  40:33  
Yeah. No, that's actually something I tell people all the time. It's technology is not a bad thing. And I mean, people have always been scared of what technology is going to do. But it usually always works out because we learned best practices with our technology. Like people were afraid of being electrocuted by wires when they're flying, being a flying across the US by telephone telephone lines there that we were going to electrocute everybody, but reality like it's you forget they're even there today. Yeah. And same thing with plenty of other technologies and like Alexa, for example, or Google Home, which which I have as well, it's if you're going to have a private conversation somewhere. Are you going to have it in the kitchen with your Alexis, are you going to just step outside for that, like, there's like little things you can do. Because I mean, having one in your house definitely gives you a lot of the gives you the ability to make your life more efficient, to get things done to get access to information very quickly to consume information in audio form, like this podcast in total, like, if you're worried about someone knowing what kind of cheese you want to buy today at the store, then maybe you step out of the kitchen. Like I think the privacy solution is like 10 steps away. Or you could Yeah, so I mean, and then like with your phone and like being worried the NSA is watching you just turn your phone upside down or just leave your phone somewhere else. Like, you don't have to hold on to your phone all the time. So I think it looks simple solutions for like the things that we fear with technology a little bit. So I try and tell people all the time, like just take some like precautions, don't you don't need to worry about it all the time. Like throw a pillow over your Alexa or blanket or something like if you're stupid, paranoid, but like, you don't need not have it. You should definitely have.

Catherine Rutter  42:31  
Yeah, I agree. I mean, the way so it can be whatever the future can be scary. But like when is it not been? I mean, that could be a silly comment. But even I mean, the internet, I'm sure when the internet was first, like, really becoming more well, by mine. Well, I just had like eight different versions of what I actually wanted to say. But more widespread was the word I was like. I'm sure there was hesitation with that. And like, same thing with flying people wouldn't fly. And I mean, obviously there's dangers coming with fine but but think about how many flights take off in a day, I'm having when I'm in London for work, I'm going to be there for end of September all of October, and I'm having six of my friends come visit me it's at one point. And they are all taking different flights at around the same time. I'm like, how many flights are there from New York. And like they're all land around the same time. So anyways, people are always scared of the future and technology and all this stuff. But one of the main things I'm such a I'm like that person in a bar where someone says blockchain or Bitcoin or crypto or something, and I turned to them like, oh, and I actually worked at a company. I'm Catherine and then I start talking very often they're like, why did I say this? But I always did my friends. It's like, like, the way credit cards changed the way you pay for things. It's only gonna I mean, it's going to massively improve our lives in ways and create so many efficiencies like you're saying with with the cheese.

Brandon Zemp  44:15  
The plan, what plans are interesting about a lot of interesting experiences with blockchain and planes lately,

Catherine Rutter  44:21  
talking about plans. It's interesting and and they're actually not my next guest. Coming on the podcast. But the one after that we had these guys in our office who are young, they're still in college, they entered this. We have an entrepreneur in residence program here. And they enter this program with this idea about like logging plane parts on blockchain. And because I, these two students, their company, they've now built this company called arrow tracks. And it's pretty interesting. They're at Villanova. And they spent the whole summer kind of building up this, this use case and why it's important and all that stuff. So it's kind of funny, it all is connected.

Brandon Zemp  45:05  
Yeah. What they really need to do though, is they need to consolidate all their seating to a blockchain. Because right now you can buy seats like on it on multiple different sites, and that they're constantly like overselling constantly overselling their flights, like when I was flying to Hawaii, I had that same issue because I couldn't get my seat until I got to my gate. And then they never got to the gate and let you get your seat until like 20 minutes before the flight. So there's like this long line of people waiting to get an assigned seat. And if you're in the very back of the line, will you were screwed. Because there were like two three people like overbooked and I'm like, this would never happen. If it was like on a blockchain is on a blockchain, you'd be able to accurately know that all the seats have been booked on any of these sites, everything would be able to come to consensus. It's a really good example of world issue. That could be solved with blockchain. It could make things a lot cheaper, it can make flights more efficient. And then things would be faster, you'd be able to get on more flights. Organized is yet annoying.

Catherine Rutter  46:14  
money they wouldn't lose money to on like overbooking fights and then being like, Oh, well, if you stay an extra night, then we'll give you this many points or whatever. And then they will

Brandon Zemp  46:24  
be up they won't be in the news, dragging people off f lights and having

Catherine Rutter  46:29  
a pencil. It's only good. It's only good.

Brandon Zemp  46:32  
Since we're already kind of talking about all the things we like between cheese and blockchain. What would What do you find most interesting about crypto in the block chain space?

Catherine Rutter  46:44  
What I well what I actually find most interesting about crypto, this is not going to be a great answer. But it's just it from my perspective, from being a marketing I'm in I'm in the Twitter world, constantly reading things about our three about a theorem about Bitcoin about XRP about everything. And I just find the trolls to be so interesting. I know. That's an unconventional, sir. And you're waiting for me to say like something like, oh, the price isn't bitcoins over 10,000 or whatever. But uh, but I do think it's so funny. This like community of crypto trolls. This is a very marketing answer of me, by the way.

Brandon Zemp  47:30  
No, I it's not a bad answer. I mean, if you kind of look at it, like there's a community of trolls online, really created by the internet. And I remember seeing a lot of this stuff really begin to pop up on the Xbox 360 when I was younger, because that's when like online gaming, like on a console really took off. And you'd be playing like either battlefield or Call of Duty or Halo or whatever. And you're on. I don't know, have you ever really played video games or anything? But

Catherine Rutter  48:02  
I did. I had three brothers.

Brandon Zemp  48:05  
So they were probably well aware, like grew up in middle school in high school. And you get these people that come on to these chat rooms. And they're just trolling the whole thing. Like they're just there. They're doing voices, they're trying to piss you off. Like, it's just awful. Like they're there. They're not there to like compete, they're not there to like play. They're there to just like, screw around those early internet trolls, for sure. Especially in gaming. And for whatever reason that is really crept over to to blockchain and a lot of these platforms that I don't know, they just thrive in that environments. Interesting.

Catherine Rutter  48:44  
Yeah, totally. And I mean, there's obviously so many more interesting things than that. But it's pretty consistent with my job and what I have to be doing because I'm constantly like looking for news news in the in the blockchain and crypto space. They're so interconnected, obviously, because blockchain wouldn't exist without without these crypto, but But yeah, I just find it so funny. just constantly seeing this the other day, I was in a meeting and I got like, a little distracted because of a literally fight on Twitter, that like 20 people were chiming in on I was like, This is better than the Bachelor. This is so interesting. So

pretty non traditional answer. But

Brandon Zemp  49:32  
yeah, I try not to engage in too many long form conversations on Twitter, because they can go on forever, and they get wild. So

Catherine Rutter  49:42  
Wild!

Brandon Zemp  49:43  
yeah. And they're relentless. Like everyone wants to one up each other on Twitter, and it just it doesn't stop like, it's, it'll stop.

Catherine Rutter  49:52  
People don't back down.

Brandon Zemp  49:54  
Exactly. 

Catherine Rutter  49:55  
Yeah.

I mean, obviously, the space is, is super interesting. The one thing is that my me being in New York, there are a lot more like you can't trade on, you can have a bunch of different crypto that you could probably, obviously elsewhere in the world. So it's pretty limiting. So that's kind of interesting. And kind of on that note to the way that regulators are getting involved in the space is I'm getting into a more serious answer. But it's it's crazy, because they really have to kind of catch up and how do you even deal with with blockchain? And crypto is from that perspective? I don't know. That's an interesting thing for me.

Brandon Zemp  50:43  
Yeah, very, very true. Have you ever bought any Bitcoin or any crypto Have you dabbled in it? Or do you just

Catherine Rutter  50:50  
yeah, I mean, I feel like it's one of those things where I don't bet at all. But I can understand why like sports betting is kind of a thing because it makes you so much more invested. And I don't know if I would be as invested if if I didn't have just a little here little there. But I do have Bitcoin Litecoin and at the core. Yeah, yeah, but not much it just like kind of watching what happens and obviously was super interesting last year, but it kept everything just kept rising and rising and rising.

Not as not as fun when it when it started to fall. But

Brandon Zemp  51:29  
it's not as fall. But you know, the trolls definitely come out for sure. So it's it's still entertaining.

Catherine Rutter  51:36  
That is so true, though things entertaining. But yeah, just a little bit. Nothing too crazy. Do you have a preferred source to get your news from

preferred source? That's a good question.

Brandon Zemp  51:49  
You kind of Google Bitcoin and see what pops up.

Catherine Rutter  51:52  
I feel like this is a little bit of a lame response. But honestly, Twitter, because you can get so much I I'm really being consistent with my role here at our three. But you can get so much information from so many different sources. So instead of just having like one website that I go to, whether it's coindesk, or this or that, like I it's all there. And so I can kind of dabble and I follow just the new sources I want and

Brandon Zemp  52:21  
kind of pick it up mixer. On Twitter, Twitter is a great place to get news. I'm like, for a lot of time I google Bitcoin, right, Google Ethereum and just kind of see what pops up for like general stuff, but you really can't trust the news. Nowadays, it's just so like, messed up on so many levels. So I just don't watch the news. I don't watch TV very often. I don't go to Google and look at articles as often unless I'm looking specific. But when you go to the nice thing about Twitter is you can go directly to whoever it is and see what's up. I can go totality Putin's Twitter and see what he's talking about, like what he's typing. Like, that's how the best way to get information is directly as much as possible. So

Catherine Rutter  53:08  
yeah, I agree, and also with some reporters, and I would say, I would hope that it's a little bit, the space is a little bit more pure than like politics. And like the News reported on on politics, but but if you do have like, let's say, someone writes an article that maybe is polarizing, or you don't agree with or whatever, but they say that they're not biased. And then you go to their profile, and let's say it's on, it's a bad news piece on a theorem or something. And it's supposed to be a non biased piece. And then you go to their Twitter profile, and they're personally attacking a theorem, any chance they get, you probably going to reassess how you take that that news piece. So I think it's just you can find a way to curate your feet. And so you get what is most pure, at least?

Brandon Zemp  54:04  
Yeah, the meat, the media problems are coming to crypto as well as things get more and more competitive. Oh, you're starting to see that with a lot of the blockchain projects like a theorem like iOS like Cortana, like Tron, and some of these guys are more forward than others. And a lot of them are polar opposites to each other. And you'll see them bash one blockchain over another and so it Yeah, the news even for crypto, like whether you on coin Telegraph, or coindesk, or whatever, it's sometimes a little skewed and hard to determine what's true or not. Because that competition is beginning to creep up. So again, I always tell people just go directly to the project and make your own decision. Like one project so against other projects sucks because they're all competing at every Yeah, hard on a project once everyone on their blockchain Tron project wants everyone on their blockchain and vice versa. Everyone says a theorem can't scale and Ethereum says it can't scale. But in the future, it will. So yeah, I

Catherine Rutter  55:15  
mean, I can 100%. And I think

we've, we've dealt with that a little bit at our three two with kind of false claims where I'm I'm, obviously I'm controlling a lot of our accounts, and it takes a lot of effort for me not to things never do and I never will from the artery account. But it's hard when when you're seeing things that are just not like factually not true. And normally, that's not the case, I will say, but, but it's tough kind of seeing some news where you're like, I'm like, I wish that they kind of reached out for a comment or something. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't don't really care about your kind, or whatever. But this space is, is definitely it's definitely creeping creeping in

Brandon Zemp  56:06  
what what accounts does our three have you guys got a Instagram and Twitter?

Catherine Rutter  56:12  
Yeah, I'm ramping up the Instagram a little bit because I kind of was in a weird place where I didn't know exactly what I wanted the Instagram to, to be like, because obviously there's the the answer grammars, it's I'm not going to be posting everything I had post on LinkedIn or Twitter, it has to be like picture kind of based. So I'm starting to ramp that up a little bit. With a lot of life in the fast chain stuff. And also with just pictures of kind of company culture and things we do around the office. So we have Instagram, which is the same as the Twitter handle, which is inside underscore our three, we have Twitter, which I post on the most. We have LinkedIn, we have a Facebook, I pretty much just do I don't want to close off the Facebook audience, but we don't get much traction on Facebook. So I pretty much just take what I post on LinkedIn and put it on Facebook, and the people who are on Facebook that do engage with our stuff is awesome. It's just a smaller, smaller group of people. And and then we also I'm talking on like main are three accounts. We also have a quarter based Twitter, which is more like community developer focused, I have access to it, but I'm not the main poster on it. Because I don't think I don't, I don't think it makes sense to have me like tweeting dev focused things, but it's more like what about the community and open source projects and, and all that. So that is the social we have I'm trying to think if I'm for Oh, we have medium. So for blog posts, we have a quarter medium, so again, more technical blogs, and then in our three medium. And then we additionally have Vimeo and YouTube for for video. And those are three

Brandon Zemp  58:04  
sounds very well rounded.

Catherine Rutter  58:08  
We try to make it well rounded. I hope it looks that way. The funny

Brandon Zemp  58:11  
thing is like, I almost never get engagement on Facebook anymore. It's like no one uses it. Yeah, like everyone has a Facebook but no one uses it. No one really posts on it, or no or no one engages with it. Everyone's on Instagram, or they're on Twitter. Like I don't see anyone anywhere else. It's interesting.

Catherine Rutter  58:31  
Note, I totally agree with you. And I mean, to be honest, the reason I used to use Facebook, essentially to hold on to my photos so that I would have them in like on something. And then I just stopped using it all together other than like, I'll check it sometimes if I think I'm like missing a friend's birthday. Or if there's like a an event nearby. I have used it because people still I found in New York specifically I guess maybe it's just my friends but people will just send a Facebook invite for events. But other than that I'm I'm personally rarely on it. But I do post to it for our three accounts stuff,

Brandon Zemp  59:12  
Twitter, Twitter's like the place to be. It's like we're all the cool kids are now because everyone wants to hear what you have to say.

Catherine Rutter  59:19  
I know, I know, it's such a good way to get your own voice kind of out there. From an AR three perspective, we're obviously posting about our three the community quarter, enterprise and court open source at some points. And but for my personal Twitter, it's, I have literally like no followers, but it's kind of a fun way to engage with people in the community. Who want to follow you

Brandon Zemp  59:48  
bread and rudder, correct?

Catherine Rutter  59:51  
Yes, it's at bread and rudder. I actually at one point when I was creating it, I really wanted to somehow incorporate butter in some way. And then I made it like I made it rather fly like as a joke. And then it seemed a little too like fairy kind of Frou Frou and I was like well, I love bread.

Brandon Zemp  1:00:12  
Hey, there's a lot you could do with your left side like rather you waiting for.

Catherine Rutter  1:00:17  
That's so good!

that, that would be kind of hard to, to. Like, if I spelled it out. I feel like people would be like what you'd have to say it out loud

Brandon Zemp  1:00:29  
long for like a username. It'd be good for a bio though. Like, have you followed me a rudder you waiting for or like, here's my life.

Catherine Rutter  1:00:40  
I love that my mom's old old email used to be rutterchaos rather like

that's pretty consistent.

Brandon Zemp  1:00:51  
This this podcast has been awesome. So far. It's gonna be really good. Once edited. Right? Before we kind of wrap up and everything. What do you have coming up on the horizon? I know that you're taking off somewhere for September, correct?

Catherine Rutter  1:01:07  
Yeah. So I'm going to London, I'm going to be working out of our London office from September 19 to October 29. ish. And I'm there for that long because we are going to save us. The conference is hosted in London this year. I think next year, it's going to be in Boston. So it'll be closer. But we have a big booth there. And that is September, I think it starts September 23 to the 27th. And then our big flagship conference is quarter con. And that is in October, that's October 23 and the 24th. And so since there's not so much time in between them, and there's so much preparation to do for quarter con, we've kind of figured that a few of my co workers and I would just stay over in London rather than come back for less than a week and then have to fly back over there. So that's a big, big one, especially from multimedia standpoint, from my perspective, there's going to be so many people at both conferences, especially obviously quarter con, it's, it's the people in our community who are interested in the arc three ecosystem and the quarter platform. So there's so many smart people that I hope to be able to try and interview for the podcast, maybe get some some video. So we're I'm creating a multimedia plan for that right now. And that's, that's been a big lift, but it's going to be so great and exhausting, but it'll be good. That's my main thing I'm working on in the future. 

Brandon Zemp  1:02:42  
Very cool. Sounds like it'll be a blast for sure. 

Catherine Rutter  1:02:45  
Yeah,

yeah. Come on over.

Brandon Zemp  1:02:47  
Well, I probably won't make it for September, but probably could do something in November. If you want to do a follow up episode for sure.

Catherine Rutter  1:02:55  
Hey, yeah, if you're in New York, I will be in New York for November.

Brandon Zemp  1:02:58  
Yeah. Awesome. Well, Catherine, thank you for coming on and taking the time out of your wide open day. I really appreciate it.

Catherine Rutter  1:03:08  
Thank you for having me on. This is so fun. I'm never the guest. So I definitely, definitely. But it was very fun.

Brandon Zemp  1:03:15  
Yeah, it's fun to mix it up every once in a while.

Catherine Rutter  1:03:17  
Oh, yeah. And then next time we can do just like a collab. collab episode. Maybe we interview people together. I don't know.

Brandon Zemp  1:03:24  
Whoa, whoa. That sounds cool, woah. That's a big step.

Catherine Rutter  1:03:30  
big step.

Brandon Zemp  1:03:33  
Yeah, definitely.

Catherine Rutter  1:03:34  
Yeah, I run this in the life in the fast chain.

Brandon Zemp  1:03:37  
Definitely goes into life in the fast chain. Catherine's awesome. She has the same amount of energy, I promise on that podcast. And just great guest. I listened to it in the car. It's fantastic. Again, thank you for coming on is awesome. Having you and all I'll follow up with an email for sure.

Catherine Rutter  1:03:55  
Yeah, you're the best. 

Brandon Zemp  1:03:56  
All right. I'll see you later. 

Catherine Rutter  1:03:58  
Thank you.