Jesse Walden on the Web3 Creator Economy

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About Jesse

Jesse Walden is a co-founder and general partner at Variant, a first-check crypto fund investing in the ownership economy. Jesse led the firm's investments in Uniswap, Phantom, Mirror, Flashbots, Foundation, and others.

Previously, Jesse was an investment partner on the first crypto fund at Andreessen Horowitz and later led a16z Crypto Startup School, an educational program to help get builders started in the crypto space.

Prior to that, Jesse founded two startups aimed at helping creators capture more value directly: Cool Managers and Mediachain Labs. Cool Managers, founded in 2011, was an artist management firm that leveraged new tech platforms to help artists like Solange and Blood Orange reach their fans directly and run their businesses independently. Mediachain Labs, founded in 2014, was an early blockchain startup that built the Mediachain protocol for tracking ownership of digital media assets on public blockchains. Mediachain Labs was acquired by Spotify in 2017, where Jesse led blockchain R&D as a product lead.