Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth)

Forward Deployed Recruiter @tempo // prev Talent @Paradigm

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

The talent pool in crypto feels perpetually thin.

There are only ~50-100 top people on the market at any given time -- and everyone is fighting for the same people.

In parallel, some of the best talent with experience in crypto has either (1) retired or (2) started their own company.

Meanwhile, the influx of new talent into the space is relatively low. We're starting to see it from payments/TradFi world, but these folks are learning crypto from 0 to 1 and it'll take a few months to ramp.

The net result: a very thin, competitive talent pool. Max pain.

Has been this way for 2-3 years and will continue unless we find a way to expand the pool and/or attract more folks from web2 tech.

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@LexSokolin Maybe ... but 12 months is a long time to feel like your company / career is not growing or be out of work entirely.

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

The exodus of crypto talent to AI is accelerating.

Have talked with 5 candidates in the last week who are pivoting. Talked with 3 the week before. Almost every strong recruiter is looking outside the industry.

The crypto industry has huge growth & adoption via stablecoin/payments, yet only a handful of companies are hiring at a legit pace. And 70% of them are in NYC/SF.

Institutional & enterprise adoption takes time... so most of the industry is waiting to see what additional services are needed as adoption plays out.

In the meantime, the money and talent are flowing to where there's opportunity: AI research, products, and infrastructure.

If we're going to keep our talent, we need to give them a reason to stay.

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@vikpai Yeeeeep

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@stablenomics Confirmed - every BD role we work on has a NYC bias or requirement

[Miles 🌞 @milessuter]

We just shipped stablecoins on @CashApp.

Everything runs from your existing USD balance - no separate wallet, no managing multiple chains, no extra setup, and importantly no fees.

Send and receive USDC on SOL, ETH, POL, and ARB.

The most seamless integration in the world imo.

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

Almost every founder we work with (including myself) goes through this.

Executor —> Manager —> CEO

And 60% of a CEO’s time goes into recruiting A players.

That’s the only way to really scale

[Ayman Al-Abdullah 🧱 @aymanalabdul]

As a CEO you only have three modes:

Managing people
Recruiting people
Doing the work yourself

You choose the mix

But most CEOs don't choose. They fall into the Founder Mix and never leave.

Founder Mix: 90% doing, 10% managing, 0% recruiting

This is where every company starts. You're building the product, closing deals, answering support tickets, fixing the website at midnight. You might approve a contractor’s work, but the management is minimal

This is where I spent my first year as CEO of AppSumo

This is the right mix at $1M. It's the wrong mix at $3M

But founders get addicted to doing. Because doing feels like progress. You can see it, touch it, ship it. So they keep doing even after they can afford to hire

Then something shifts. The company grows. People show up. And the founder slides into the next trap

Manager Mix: 80% managing, 20% recruiting, 0% doing

Back to back meetings. Reviewing every decision. Approving every expense. Sitting in on every standup

I thought leadership meant being in every room. I thought if I wasn't managing it, it wasn't getting done right

The reality? I was micromanaging a team that could've run without me. And I had zero time to recruit because I was too busy managing the B players I'd already hired

The Manager Mix is the most dangerous because it feels responsible. You look busy. You feel needed. But the company is slowly dying because you're spending all your energy maintaining what exists instead of upgrading it

This is Manager Hell

Time to upgrade to CEO Mode:

CEO Mix: 60% recruiting, 20% managing, 20% doing

This is where everything changed for me

I stopped going to most meetings. Started spending the majority of my time finding, interviewing, and closing A players

Within 12 months, half the problems I was "managing" disappeared. Because the right people were handling them

And when something critical broke, I didn't delegate it to a committee. I worked with the leader and we fixed the problem together the first time so they could fix alone the second time because I had the time. Because I wasn't trapped in meetings all day

60% recruiting. 20% managing. 20% doing

That's the mix that took AppSumo from $3M to $80M

Most CEOs are stuck in the Founder Mix or the Manager Mix and don't even know it

Ask yourself what percentage of your week goes to each mode. If recruiting isn't the biggest number, you already know what to fix

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

How engineering teams get constructed going forward will be one of the great debates for the next 2-3 years … love the apprenticeship model at @NotionHQ @ivanhzhao

[Brian Halligan @bhalligan]

The talent shortage of 2030 will be caused by companies not hiring and training juniors in 2026.

@ivanhzhao shifted to a barbell 🏋️‍♂️approach for hiring on the Engineering team at @NotionHQ: junior ICs paired with very senior architects.

-The senior architects provide direction the model can't

-The juniors are AI-pilled by default.

-A senior managing 2–3 juniors managing 2–3 agents each compounds way better than a senior managing 4–6 agents directly.

Links below👇 for the full episode

[a16z crypto @a16zcrypto]

Looking ahead, forecasts for tokenized assets vary a lot but they all point in the same direction: growth.

McKinsey: $2–4T by 2030.
Ark Invest: $11T by 2030.
BCG/Ripple: $9.4T by 2030, $18.9T by 2033.
Standard Chartered: $30T + by 2034.

The gap between $2 trillion and $30 trillion is more about definitions than adoption.

Different institutions are measuring different things. McKinsey focuses mostly on bonds, loans, funds, and equities. Standard Chartered adds commodities and trade finance. BCG and Ripple include deposits and stablecoins alongside more traditional asset categories.

Despite these differences, the broader trend is consistent: Asset tokenization is expected to expand.

[a16z @a16z]

Compliance officers are one of the fastest growing occupations in America.

Compliance is a bigger business than you'd think. Every dollar that leaves or enters a business: paying employees, reporting revenue, and moving capital are subject to compliance.

As AI clears the "good enough to trust" bar and sales cycles speed up, there may finally be an opening for startups.

Full piece from a16z's @jamdac and @astrange: https://t.co/niRB3jPioN

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

Doesn't even include growth of volume on @tempo

[Alex @obchakevich_]

Stripe has reached $223M in stablecoin volume on EVM chains @0xPolygon, @ethereum, and @base.

The majority of the volume flows through Polygon and Ethereum.

Given this trend, it is entirely realistic to expect $600M to $1B in cumulative volume by the end of 2026.

And that’s a conservative estimate - if @stripe begins to more actively push stablecoin payments into its core product, the numbers could be significantly higher.

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

“It seems like there is more human work to do than ever…”

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@charliekerr Bearish any company that doesn’t have aggressive use of Claude in May 2026

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

When the best companies in the world poach your rising stars, you know you’re doing something right.

Find hidden gems, given them lots of opportunity and scope, provide enough coaching and mentorship, and then let ‘em rip

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@charliekerr Which companies?

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@its_iLan You must live in New Jersey 👀

(I say as someone who grew up in NJ and also feels a twinge of shame)

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

I swear the amount of times I need to reset my password for @Ticketmaster makes me never want to use it again

[Jake Kerr (jakerr.eth) @JacobKerr17]

@willwarren @abandeali1 I feel super fortunate to have entered crypto under your leadership! Incredible vision, values, and conviction in the space + historic impact 🙏 thanks for everything!

[a16z crypto @a16zcrypto]

BREAKING: The Senate Banking Committee has voted to advance the CLARITY Act. Next stop: the Senate floor.

[Charlie Kerr @charliekerr]

We're hiring @Uniswap. NYC, or willing to move (we'll help). Senior + Staff Backend. Product Design. Brand Design. Platform Eng. Protocol Eng. Data Eng. BD/Partnerships. DM's open.

Role details -> https://t.co/arS35074p8

[Conduit @conduitxyz]

Welcome home @Ronin_Network! Ronin is the chain that Axie Infinity, Pixels, Cambria, Angry Dynomites, and many other games call home. Today, they have completed their migration to Ethereum.

We seamlessly led and executed Ronin’s state migration from a sovereign L1 to an OP Stack chain, the largest in history.