Episode 69: Navigating the Future: AI, Web3, and Building World-Class Teams w/ Jay Rosenzweig
GUEST:
Jay Rosenzweig is an internationally renowned social impact entrepreneur, humanitarian, trained lawyer, and leadership strategist. Founder of Rosenzweig & Company, Jay is an expert in designing, building and attracting world class teams. He consults to public and private companies, including large global corporations, emerging growth to mid-sized businesses, professional services firms, and private equity and venture capital firms. He invests in and advises several leading edge tech companies across North America and beyond. He has been immersed in global human rights causes for well over two decades, and has been internationally recognized for the Annual Rosenzweig Report on equality, which he has published for the past 18 years. He is Chair of the Board of Irwin Cotler’s Raoul Wallenberg Centre For Human Rights, and sits on a number of other purpose driven boards supporting causes ranging from healthcare, youth empowerment, refugee protection, and anti-gun violence. Jay invests in businesses whose mission is to foster a world that gives equal opportunities for all, including greater access to education, capital and mobility. Jay Rosenzweig is an Executive Producer of Sean Penn’s film “Superpower” about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine.
“What I was always attracted to from a recruiting point of view, even when recruiting for clients in the web3 space, was individuals who were able to demonstrate a track record of building.”
THE EPISODE:
Who should be making moves in ai and web3 technologies in Q4 of 2023? A mentor to Ashley and early supporter of the show, Jay Rosenzweig is a returning guest to the podcast. While he recalls (accurately) predicting that 90%+ of all NFT projects would eventually see major declines in values, he still believes the technologies and their underlying benefits will be around for a long time. In this chat, Jay unpacks how organizations might want to think about emerging tech in an uncertain economy, but fast-paced innovation landscape. He shares the trends he sees from companies and notes there are many opportunities for growth. He outlines how companies should be thinking about recruiting for important roles, and how employees can position themselves for success - especially if they have a future-focused mindset. Jay’s annual “Rosenzweig Report” on equality shows there have been important advancements for women in executive and leadership positions over the last year, though the numbers may still surprise you. He offers insights on how women can position themselves for the CEO title. Ashley is a big fan of Jay’s humanitarian work so they discuss a bit about what he’s been up to (it’s worth following Jay on Social to learn more).
LINKS + RESOURCES
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LINKS + RESOURCES |
GUEST: Jay Rosenzweig
Website
LinkedIn
Instagram
Twitter
GUEST COMPANY: Rosenzweig & Company
Website
LinkedIn
REPORTS & HUMANITARIAN WORK
Annual Rosenzweig Report
Irwin Cotler’s Raoul Wallenberg Centre For Human Rights
BlackNorth
Pandemic of Love (note correction, this org raised $100M vs. $1M as quoted in episode)
Rebalance Capital
+MORE
EPISODE LINKS & RESOURCES:
REFERENCED
Globe and Mail - ARTICLE (co-authored with Katie Taylor)
Jesse Draper’s Halogen Venture Fund - LEARN MORE
Diversity Recruitment - WHITE PAPER (by Jay Rosenzweig)
“Superpower” - LEARN MORE (Sean Penn’s film about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine)
CryptoSlam! - LEARN MORE
FURTHER LISTENING
Jay Rosenzweig - APPLE | SPOTIFY (From The Blockchain ep. 12)
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*NOTE: The transcript below does not include opening teaser and intro in time stamps. Begins at beginning of the interview… powered by AI (so may not be 100% accurate).
Ashley Smith (00:02.114)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. I am so excited for today's episode. I have a very special guest with me today. And it's one who I see a bit as a mentor and has helped walk me through the last couple of years in terms of my navigating a new kind of professional direction and he's an early supporter of the show and has actually been on the show before on season one, episode 12. I'm talking about Jay Rosenzweig.
He has such an interesting career and is involved in so many things. Definitely the term multi-hyphenate, I think, applies to Jay. So I am going to provide, before we jump into the conversation, a little bit of context about who is Jay. And I know that this does not cover it all. But let's try. Jay Rosenzweig is an internationally renowned social impact entrepreneur, humanitarian,
trained lawyer and leadership strategist. Founder of Rosenzweig and Company, Jay is an expert in designing, building, and attracting world-class teams. He consults to public and private companies, including large global corporations, emerging growth to mid-size businesses, professional services firms, and private equity and venture capital firms. He invests in and advises several leading edge tech companies across North America and beyond. Rosenzweig has been immersed in global human rights causes for well over two decades and has been internationally recognized for the annual Rosenzweig report on equality, which he has published for the past 18 years. This report has received endorsements and contributions from a wide range of leaders and personalities such as Justin Trudeau, Alyssa Milano, Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Cuban, Deepak Chopra, CEOs and board chairs of major corporations, artists, humanitarians, politicians and business leaders.
He is the chair of the board of Erwin Kotler's Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights. He sits on a number of other purpose-driven boards supporting causes ranging from healthcare, youth empowerment, refugee protection, and anti-gun violence. Rosenzweig is an outspoken advocate against anti-Semitism, racism, and all forms of hate and discrimination. He invests in businesses whose mission is to foster a world that gives equal opportunities for all including greater access to education, capital and mobility. Jay's work has been featured in many major publications, including Forbes, The New York Times, Fast Company, The Guardian, Business Insider. And the list goes on and on. He's an executive producer of Sean Penn's film Superpower about Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. I mean, this is a long bio, and I'm not sure there's many others who we could say cover such a wide range of niches and areas that you care about. Jay, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here with me.
Jay Rosenzweig (03:10.133)
Happy to be here again, Ashley. So happy.
Ashley Smith (03:12.842)
Yeah, I really appreciate it. I think you serve as such an interesting person in terms of my context, having kind of taken a dive into Web3, being introduced to you early on through a personal connection, and then getting to see all of the different things that you touch as an investor. You obviously have your finger on the pulse of technology and innovation, where things are going. I should say a savvy investor at that.
And then of course, all of these humanitarian things that you do and your primary business, you're recruiting business and building world-class teams. I'd like to touch on a few of these things today. I know we did discuss to some extent, some of these items in episode 12, which I'll link in the show notes, but I think I'd like to put this into a 2023 context and get some updates from you and just get to know a little bit more about what you're thinking about today.
from an innovation perspective and where the world is moving. So maybe we can start a little bit with the corporate side. When we look at companies, as they're doing their strategic planning, as they're filling important roles in their companies, what do you think they're thinking about when it comes to...
this new lens, this new world we're entering into in terms of tech and how companies are either being enabled or perhaps disrupted.
Jay Rosenzweig (04:50.497)
Well, what I've been finding over the last number of months, just given the economic certainty that we're currently facing, whether it's the higher interest rates or inflation, et cetera, companies are becoming a lot more cautious about their spending. They're actually focused a lot more than they were two, three years ago on managing expenses.
Ashley Smith (04:57.047)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (05:20.285)
So from a recruiting point of view, what I've seen is a little bit of a slowdown. You see some of the largest, you talk about large corporations, some of the largest tech companies over the last couple of years. I don't know how many cutbacks Meta's made, for example. I think they made, if I'm not mistaken, two cutbacks of 10,000 plus, not to mention some gradual cutbacks. Same thing with...
Google probably 10,000 similarly, but it's really across sectors even beyond tech. Clients are becoming a lot more cautious in terms of growth focus and more oriented towards focusing on the bottom line really to buckle up and whether what's happening currently and potentially a future recession.
encouraging prognostics from Goldman Sachs, I think it came out today or yesterday that they've lowered their expectation of a recession down to about 15%, which is very encouraging. But it's definitely a lot more of a cautious approach right now with large corporates.
And of course that spills into the smaller venture and growth oriented businesses as well, many of which I'm currently advising and have shares in. It's a lot more difficult now to be fundraising as an example. It's just a lot more of a tough kind of environment. But having said that, we still have clients
Ashley Smith (06:58.667)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (07:11.081)
who have very important and strategic needs and they're hiring us for them. And there's still our businesses out there that are able to fundraise, but you have to really be on your A plus game, whereas it wasn't necessarily the case a few years ago. In fact, I remember in our first podcast discussion, predicting that, you know.
Ashley Smith (07:30.106)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (07:37.309)
90 plus percent of these NFT projects would probably go south eventually. And I unfortunately think I was right from that point of view. But that doesn't mean that these technologies and the underlying benefits to them won't be around for a very long time to come.
Ashley Smith (07:46.356)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (07:56.914)
So when we consider that statement, how do you feel organizations should be thinking about these types of technologies, so blockchain technology being one of them, but let's call it more emerging tech and transformational technology in a landscape where they are being more cautious. But things could potentially change very quickly.
perhaps impact their day-to-day operations or create new areas of competition with artificial intelligence as an example. How should they be navigating that challenge? I mean, that's a big question, but you know.
Jay Rosenzweig (08:38.515)
I think.
I think if one were to look at things more over the long haul and in terms of long-term strategy, companies that actually have cash available are in a really, really strong position to invest in the long-term future. So rather than being overly cautious from a spending point of view and going with the crowd, now might be a really good time.
to invest in artificial intelligence technologies, invest in recruiting individuals who have a futuristic and highly talented perspective on where the world is going. So I do think that now is a good time to double down on the future if you're in the fortunate enough position to have the money to do it. There's also a great opportunity right now.
to even acquire smaller businesses or invest in smaller businesses because the valuations are going to a much more reasonable direction. So I feel it's actually a great time. As they say to the founders, now's a good time to put your head down and build. Now's also a good time for companies who have the cash to invest.
Ashley Smith (10:06.09)
I do wonder what types of conversations you have with these leaders of companies, whether they're executives or board members or owners even. When we saw such a shift in headline news related to blockchain technology as an example, from something being exciting, innovative to something that I think just became so associated with cryptocurrency.
and greed perhaps maybe is the right way to put it. You know, do people still think that this technology is worth paying attention to if they weren't necessarily immersed in it?
Jay Rosenzweig (10:50.217)
Well, there's sort of two camps, right? So there's one traditional camp of corporate types who were skeptical even during boom times. So you can forget about trying to convince them of anything related to the crypto space today because it's sort of like, you see, I knew this was a bubble that eventually would burst and it was all BS. So...
don't even bother with them, right? But those who have more of an open mind in terms of where the future is lying, you can have a conversation with that kind of client and convince them along the lines of what I described to really double down and invest in, because separating the wheat from the chaff,
is something that's happened quite a bit over the last while. So more and more, there's a greater percentage of credible businesses in the blockchain space that one can actually look at. So these are the conversations that I'm currently having. AI is all the rage right now, and I think justifiably so. If there's an AI machine learning
element to a futuristic business that I think corporations should be investing in, then all the more so they'll be listening. So, you know, there's a lot of businesses out there that have a blockchain element, but also AI layered over it. I think if you have that combination, it's easier to gain some traction in conversations with these businesses.
Ashley Smith (12:28.823)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (12:45.594)
What would you tell someone who's perhaps working on elevating their professional career? Maybe they've spent a good amount of time over the last few years enhancing their skill set related to some of this technological innovation. Perhaps maybe they work within some of those companies or organizations who are, you know, being more cautious.
valid ideas and things they'd like to pursue and work on and they're maybe feeling a little stuck in the corporate environment they're in. How would you advise someone like that to go out and find the best fit for themselves in this environment if they want to be working with a team that's really focused on the future?
Jay Rosenzweig (13:36.585)
Well, it's a tough environment, as I say. Businesses aren't hiring like they once did. So you really need to differentiate yourself somehow. What I was always attracted to from a recruiting point of view, even when recruiting for clients in the web 3 space, was individuals who were able to demonstrate a track record of building.
Ashley Smith (13:39.416)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (13:44.279)
Yeah.
Jay Rosenzweig (14:07.873)
within the context of any tech. So if I was looking for a chief technology officer, for example, we did a search for crypto slam, which I know you're familiar with. We recommended to our client not to be too excited about candidates who were strictly focused on the blockchain space.
but rather look at builders who've even built within the context of other functionalities and other sectors, but have more of a long term track record of growing and building technology businesses. So what I would generally recommend to anyone that's building their career, and it might sound counterintuitive in certain cases, is to...
build a broad platform of having demonstrated the capability of creating and building within whatever context rather than kind of chasing the most shiny object that you see in the short term. Because a lot of people have been burned by that, whether it's from an investing point of view or just putting all their chips in even from a career building point of view.
Ashley Smith (15:34.222)
Do you have any thoughts on sort of the global landscape of just the competitive landscape of companies right now when we think about North America for example and the economic situation and sentiment versus say China or wherever? Is there anything that our listeners should be thinking about when considering where...
I say we, North Americans are in the context of things we're not necessarily paying attention to.
Jay Rosenzweig (16:10.593)
Well, what I would say is the world just continues to shrink. And one of the silver linings of COVID is that the whole remote thing became a much more acceptable phenomenon. And that actually turned into a big advantage for us as a recruiting firm.
Because pre-COVID, what often happened was whatever city a client happened to be based in, they often would say to us, we will not look at candidates outside of our city. But in a lot of cases, 90% of the candidate, the best candidate for the best in class candidates came from different geographies. With COVID and having
proven that people can be equally as effective and sometimes even more effective remotely, it opened the candidate pool wide open to the very best candidates regardless of where they were. So what I find is there's not necessarily any hubs geographically where businesses have ideas that other countries may not have.
What I found kind of is the opposite, and that is that the world keeps shrinking, and there are just phenomenal opportunities for candidates and companies to thrive with individuals no matter where they may be placed. Having said that, I think the United States, places like Silicon Valley,
New York, L.A., Austin, Texas, Miami has become a tremendous hub. I think that the United States continues to be, despite a lot of the noise that you hear and a lot of the complaining even amongst Americans about the direction of their country, United States continues to be, in my estimation, a huge leader in the growth and innovation space.
Ashley Smith (18:37.035)
Hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (18:37.045)
Canada continues to play an important role as well. I'm sitting in Ontario, you're sitting in British Columbia, both tremendous hubs for tech and innovation and growing. So I continue to be extremely optimistic about North America in general, but...
Ashley Smith (18:51.351)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (19:02.517)
There are a lot of great hubs all around the world, whether it be in places like India or Israel's startup nation, the work that's going on there. I'm on the board of Tel Aviv University here in Canada and the innovation that they're doing is tremendous. But you find hubs really all around the world. But what I love most, and I think the world will continue to head in this direction is that you can have teams
Ashley Smith (19:22.306)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (19:31.869)
diverse teams from all around the world and build a tremendous company no matter where it started.
Ashley Smith (19:39.69)
Mm-hmm. I do want to make sure we touch a little bit on the work that you do with your annual report, the Rosenzweig Report. The 18th annual report came out March 2023. And I noticed that you noted for the first time women held more than 10% of the country, which is Canada's top corporate positions, which seems like a very low number, but is still an incredible and important milestone.
Is there anything you'd like to speak to on that? And I do wonder a bit about the cross-section of diversity, the need for more diversity and looking at it also through an innovation and technology perspective as we see a low number of women involved in some of these tech sectors.
Jay Rosenzweig (20:34.365)
Yeah, for sure. So you'll remember that I began doing this report in 2006. And basically what I do is I measure the percentage of women in top roles in the top companies in corporate Canada. And in 2006, when I first began doing this work, I thought that the percentage of women in these top roles would be low. I didn't realize how low.
It was 4.6% that first year. And I determined to do this work year after year to put a mirror really to corporate Canada with ironclad data. And the good news, as you mentioned, is the numbers have more than doubled. We've crossed the 10% threshold for the first time, but the numbers still remain very, very low. So there's a lot more work to be done.
And this year what I did was I dedicated the report to the brave women around the world who are literally fighting for their lives, including the brave women of Iran. And in my capacity as chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, it's an issue that we care very, very
Ashley Smith (21:47.414)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (22:04.041)
between economic empowerment and women's rights in general. In fact, I've spoken with some of the women who've been imprisoned in Iran. And they indicated to me that they were actually inspired by the suffragette movement so many years ago. Women in the United States fighting for the right to vote.
and these kinds of things inspired them. So everything really is interconnected. From a tech point of view, and even from a business point of view in general, it continues to boggle my mind that we haven't progressed quicker than I would hope for. And the reason I say that is because,
Ashley Smith (22:55.936)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (22:59.677)
I understand that there are a lot of business people out there who don't necessarily care about equality and the moral imperative of equality, which is the most important thing. But if you bring statistics to business people who are interested in their bottom line and growth and the like, study after study has demonstrated, whether it's Harvard studies, McKinsey and Company, that the more diversity you have around the table, the greater the business results. From a tech point of view.
to your question, study after study has shown that venture businesses started by women far outperform the venture businesses that have been established by men. And to that end, I personally have invested quite a bit and over indexed or indexed heavily, if you will.
Ashley Smith (23:46.772)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (23:58.217)
in female founders because I just find first of all, I'm happy to support but more importantly, it's just smart business and investing in amazing women like Jessie Draper's Halogen Venture Fund, which I think is the leading venture capital fund investing in female founders in the consumer tech space. The fund is doing incredibly well. There's no reason why you wouldn't want to do that even from a business perspective.
Ashley Smith (24:06.664)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (24:29.014)
I wonder what insights you might bring for just the recruitment side. Do you find that women are just far less likely to put themselves forward for some of these senior level positions and sort of any anecdotes around that?
Jay Rosenzweig (24:51.989)
Well, one of the things that I found is, so you have 10%, 10% of the top jobs are held by women, which is a very, very low number. But if you dive into that pool of 10%, what you find is, and I did an article, I penned a column with Katie.
Taylor a couple of years ago in the Globe and Mail about this very issue, which is extremely important to her. Katie Taylor being the former CEO of Four Seasons, hotels and resorts globally. She was the chair for many years of Royal Bank. If you dive into the 10%, most of these women are actually in functional roles. Chief Financial Officer.
Chief Human Resource Officer, et cetera, Chief Marketing Officer. In other words, they're not running businesses. So when it comes time to tap internally for succession for the next CEO, all of these individuals who are running functions but not businesses are typically not looked at as serious candidates for CEO.
So what Katie and I do and what we encourage in our article, which I'd be happy to send to you, is if strategically women are looking to climb the ladder all the way to the top role, they need to, at a certain point in time, put up their hand and anecdotally, Katie and others have told me they often don't do that and say to the powers that be,
I'm interested in running a business. I'm perfectly qualified to do that. And my ambition ultimately is to go as far as I can in this business. So let's work on a plan to make that kind of thing happen. So I think that's actually one of the very big and practical keys that we need to look at. And when you have more women at the top, it perpetuates other women because you often can't be what you can't see.
Ashley Smith (27:03.652)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (27:08.94)
Mm-hmm.
Jay Rosenzweig (27:16.165)
and it just naturally flows rather than anything needing to be forced due to individuals who just have too many blind sites.
Ashley Smith (27:27.139)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I want to add that I recently saw a job posting on LinkedIn for a very prominent Web3 company, probably one of the most well-known. And I just loved their posting, the way that they described the job description, what the demands would be. And it was a very senior position.
Jay Rosenzweig (27:40.97)
Yeah.
Ashley Smith (27:55.266)
after everything had a very prominent highlighted area that says apply anyway. If you don't match all of these things, apply anyway. If you're strategic, if you've been involved in growth, just apply anyway. And then they went on to talk about some of their diversity principles as well. But I don't think I've actually really, really ever seen something.
quite spelled out that way. And as a woman, I don't know if it's just me, but seeing something like that, I think, empowers applicants to reflect on what they really can bring to the table. And yeah, I loved it. So putting it out there for all you companies. And yeah.
Jay Rosenzweig (28:38.913)
That's brilliant. That's actually brilliant. Yeah. So I'll tell you what. Yeah. I'll tell you what. I've been telling my clients for years that the best thing they could possibly do is draft a great athlete to draw a sports analogy. Don't necessarily draft for position. Draft a great athlete.
because a great athlete can figure out whatever specifics need to be done, draft a great leader. And I do think that speaks, and by the way, like every time a client has gone in that direction, it's been a home run, but it actually works extremely well and extremely compatibly with the concept of diversity recruitment.
So we have actually a white paper that we've developed. I'm happy to share it with you on how to do diversity recruitment. It's very different from general recruitment. And it's not about making compromises, but it is about looking at people's backgrounds and capabilities in a much more sophisticated way. By definition, if a much smaller percentage of people at the top are female,
And by definition, if women are still being paid less than their male counterparts, by definition, they may have lesser titles than their male counterparts, but they may actually have much greater potential, much greater bandwidth, much better talent. So it's important as a recruiter.
and not enough recruiters are able to do this to look for candidates, even if you're looking on LinkedIn as an example, not necessarily based on the title you see, but dive a lot more deeply. But that's a much more labor intensive approach that a lot of recruiters aren't necessarily prepared to do. It means talking to a whole lot more people as well. But if you open the funnel in a much wider way,
Jay Rosenzweig (31:02.973)
you'd be surprised at how amazing you'll ultimately do in choosing a candidate whom you may not otherwise have even bothered approaching.
Ashley Smith (31:14.474)
Yeah, I love that. And I think it's one of those things you have to be proactive about and be, it should be top of mind, right? So I do want to make sure we talk a little bit about some of the humanitarian work that you do. Why don't you, whether it's related to any innovation or tech or not, why don't you share with our audience what you've been up to over the last year and a half?
Jay Rosenzweig (31:42.049)
Sure, happy to. As I alluded to, I'm the chair of Erwin Kotler's Royal Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. I think we may have talked a little bit about this on our last podcast conversation that we had. And that's taken me to all kinds of interesting places around the world, including this past year in the middle of a war zone in Kiev, Ukraine, which was an incredible experience.
we were able to meet with some of the leadership in the presidential palace where I presented to President Zelensky's chief aide, Andrei Yermak, our analysis of the Russian Federation's breaches of the genocide convention and draft statutes for the establishment of a special tribunal to investigate crimes of aggression and a 10-point action plan.
designed for the community of democracies to implement. We participated in drafting a two-page ad in the New York Times to knock off Iran from the UN Women's Summit, which we were successful ultimately in doing. Stignatories to that ad included people like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey and...
Malala, so a lot of women's rights work, as I alluded to earlier. And just last week was proud to march with many leaders in the black community in Washington, DC for the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington with Martin Luther King III and Reverend Al Sharpton.
and many in the Jewish community and many other diverse communities walking hand in hand in support of equality and equal opportunity for all. So that was a really, really amazing experience. I continue to be on the board of Black North where we've raised millions of dollars to invest in affordable housing programs.
Jay Rosenzweig (34:05.009)
and mentorship programs, and we've gotten hundreds of companies to sign a pledge to do better in terms of Black executives amongst their leadership ranks. And Pandemic of Love, our amazing founder, Shelley Tagilski, has raised by now over a million dollars through this mutual aid project she's done called, as I say, Pandemic of Love. And so the philanthropic work continues to be.
incredibly, incredibly important to me. In terms of the intersection of tech and business and uplifting those communities that have historically been disadvantaged, one of the venture capital firms out of New York whose board I'm on, I'm very proud to be a part of it's called Rebalance Capital. It's run by a great guy named Josh Tannenbaum and
We're investing in businesses whose mission it is to uplift those communities who've historically been disadvantaged from an upward mobility point of view and that's a fund that I'm really excited about and we're investing in really tech businesses that achieve that kind of result. So that's a little bit of the philanthropic work I've been up to but the last thing that I was involved in was this march in Washington just last week.
Ashley Smith (35:20.039)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (35:32.718)
Yeah, I saw your video on Instagram and looked like a really positive time and really good crowd of people. I'll make sure to link in the show notes any appropriate links related to the organizations that you work with. But I do wonder, are there any ways our listeners could actively support either any of the initiatives you're involved in or just the...
the concepts in and of themselves, like locally and in their region, how can people look at getting involved?
Jay Rosenzweig (36:08.105)
Well, in terms of locally in Canada, Black North just officially opened up a chapter in Alberta. So we could look at possible opportunities in British Columbia for sure. The work we do at the Raoul Wallenberg Center includes Canadian components as well as international. So if anyone in your audience is interested in
contributing to global human rights causes, whether it be the Uyghurs in China or Ukraine or Iran, whatever it might be, representing political prisoners. I'd be more than happy to include people who are motivated to help us. Pandemic of love, like there's always opportunities to, if you're in a position to contribute in kind.
or financially to many, many people across the world who are in need. As I say, through this mutual aid project that Shelley created, it's basically a Google sheet with a column for donors and a column for donies. And she's created this thing where a million dollars has so far been donated either in dollars or in kind.
She has made a CNN hero this past year. The work she's doing is incredible. And we now have developed actually a fund to film impact films. And the first film that we're doing and producing is actually related to Martin Luther King Jr. and his family.
and the path forward for social justice. So a lot of filming, as you might imagine, went on at the 60th anniversary, which was super cool. But certainly I appreciate you providing links to the audience and they can certainly have a look and see what's of interest and reach out. They can also check my website, which is myname.com. So exactly as it's on the screen, jrosensweig.com.
Jay Rosenzweig (38:30.781)
And one of the tabs includes a purpose tab, which lists all the various philanthropies that I'm involved in. So I appreciate that.
Ashley Smith (38:39.397)
I really don't know how you manage to do everything that you do. Do you have any secrets?
Jay Rosenzweig (38:48.253)
Well, I think a lot of it has to do with staying on an even keel, staying balanced, taking the time to sit still so that one can be in control of one's body and one's mind. All those things are very important in keeping your energy levels at a high level. They say that if you're...
If your energy level is able to be very high all the time and you're passionate about what you do, what takes a person 10 years to do, you could do in a year. So if you think about it in that way, if you live for a hundred years, it's as if you've given the world a thousand years of impact. Because really at the end of the day, all we have is.
time and energy, but time is rolling away for all of us at the exact same pace. Whether you do something, whether you don't, whether you lie in bed, you can never roll it back and alter back. So if all we have is time and energy, the one thing that we can affect positive, in the highest level possible, it's our energy. So I think that's a very big part of it and maintaining a balance and not wasting energy on
you know, dramas that are not really important at the end of the day.
Ashley Smith (40:19.498)
That's good sound advice. I wonder as an investor, how you choose to navigate opportunities. Are there any pillars for you? I would appreciate that you're probably gonna say something about the founders, but I am wondering, how do you see through the noise when it comes to
tech in particular, like and beyond the hype. How do you decide when something
likely will be significant, might be important, and might serve a purpose or solve a problem. I'm just wondering, do you find that a lot of opportunities you take on come through people you happen to know, or are you watching and then diving in? Sorry, that's a long-winded question.
Jay Rosenzweig (41:21.054)
It's, yeah, yeah. Nope, it's usually opportunities that come my way. I'm recommended by other founders who I've helped in the past or people who know me through any of the buckets that I've been through because whether it's even the philanthropic boards, there's often prominent business people involved.
through the recruiting work I do, I'm often talking with very senior people, even through the women's study. So typically the opportunities do come through my network. Once in a while, I'll seek out an opportunity like the crypto slam example. It looked like a really interesting business to me.
you might remember my strategy was always to invest in sort of the infrastructure picks and troubles related to the NFT space even during the boom. And I noticed that Mark Cuban had invested in that and I'm fortunate enough to have a relationship with him. So I reached out and said, Hey, this looks like a cool business. Would love to meet the founder and within days I was an investor. But
Yes, founders, the people behind it, the people around the business is something that's really, really important to me. Certainly, if there's an impact mission that makes it even more attractive to me. But I think what you're more getting at is, but still, but how do you know? And for me, there are a lot of intuitive aspects to that.
There's an intuitive aspect to when I'm interacting with someone, I could very quickly tell if that individual is someone I'm compatible with and I'd want to invest in and it's almost beyond words. It's not really something I can necessarily describe but I have this intuitive sense about individuals. I'd like to...
Jay Rosenzweig (43:41.917)
make an investment financially and otherwise.
Ashley Smith (43:46.086)
No, I don't expect we will get super deep into this next question, but I wonder just super high level. Are there any areas or industries that you think are most interesting when it comes to the use case of blockchain or smart contract technology that you think at the very least folks within that industry might want to pay attention to?
Jay Rosenzweig (44:12.726)
And I think we may have even talked about this in the last conversation. I do think that the healthcare space is an area that could really benefit from blockchain and having information immutable in one place, including one's healthcare journey. I think not enough attention has been paid.
to blockchain in that space. There's some obvious areas where the envelope's being pushed in any case and that's stuff like gaming and the like. But I think the healthcare space is one that people might be sleeping a little bit too much on.
Ashley Smith (45:07.282)
Mm-hmm. And it's okay that we talked... It's okay we talked about it a little bit last time. People can dive into that episode. But the fact that that's still top of mind for you, I think, is interesting. And the fact that it doesn't seem like it's been unpacked as much as it could have been by this point. There's probably some inherent challenges there. But the one thing I think that I'm observing is the real opportunities seem to lie in...
Jay Rosenzweig (45:09.566)
Yeah, yeah, go.
Yeah.
Jay Rosenzweig (45:19.403)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (45:34.946)
data, like storing data. And I'm hearing that a little bit on the real estate side to some folks who have some big ideas. And so a lot less, yeah, a lot less about people transacting things necessarily, but just having transparency and accuracy related to data and access, certain access to data. So yeah, I'll...
Jay Rosenzweig (45:38.333)
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Rosenzweig (45:46.534)
Absolutely.
Jay Rosenzweig (46:01.449)
Yeah, and by the way, that's...
Ashley Smith (46:04.074)
Let's see here, Jay.
Jay Rosenzweig (46:07.185)
Yeah, by the way, that's exactly what the premise of blockchain of crypto sign was all about. It's all about data. Yeah. And demonstrating data as it relates to this whole world. But yeah, I think real estate as well. And I know that scenario, you know, well.
Ashley Smith (46:17.702)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Smith (46:28.898)
Well, we'll see. We'll see. We're gonna have some guests on the show talking a bit more about that. I'm more of a conduit person versus an expert, but we'll try to get there. Well, Jay, you know, I can always talk to you for a long time and I appreciate your time so much. Any closing thoughts before we say goodbye? Anything you want to mention that you haven't brought up?
Jay Rosenzweig (46:36.202)
Yeah.
Jay Rosenzweig (46:52.661)
Well, I'm just excited to see what the future holds for you. I'm thrilled to be on the show and always here to support anything that you do. And good luck to you and we'll keep talking and we'll keep looking at areas where we can collaborate in common cause.
Ashley Smith (47:16.374)
I appreciate it always. Well Jay, it's been such a pleasure chatting with you. Everybody, I'll make sure there's links in the show notes to Jay's website, perhaps some of the tools and resources that he mentioned in our conversation today. And Jay, one last thing, is there anywhere in particular besides your website where people should find and follow you?
Jay Rosenzweig (47:36.865)
Well, you could find me pretty easily on Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn, of course. And I'd say probably good to look at two different websites. One is jrosensweig.com as I had said, but also rosensweigco.com, which is the name of my recruiting firm.
Ashley Smith (47:59.714)
awesome. And I will say everyone should follow Jay, especially on a place like Instagram. You'd think, what's this guy who owns this recruiting firm? What kind of fun stuff is he going to share? Well, he leads a very interesting life and you'll, I think getting some insight is informative, entertaining and it's neat to see all the things that you're working on Jay. So everyone, thank you so much for joining us on today's show. We'll see you again next week.
