Local boss defends Kraken’s culture after CEO comments on “women’s intelligence”

Through that, I discovered bitcoin and got really excited because it was the Venn diagram of those two worlds: non-government-issued money that was also computer code. So, I dived in head first and started doing some consulting in crypto and ended up working with some really interesting people.

Meanwhile, it was very apparent that it was pretty hard to get bitcoin in Australia, so with a group of other people we started a bitcoin brokerage called BitTrade, which was acquired by Kraken in January 2020, and that’s how I arrived at Kraken.

When I joined, the prime goal was to create an Australian dollar on-ramp and localise the business. Kraken is a completely remote company, so we’ve got a bunch of people working for Kraken who are based in Australia, and a good portion of those work on the Australian-specific business.

As a major international crypto exchange, what’s your view on the local competition? Is there enough space for as many players as there are?

The recent stats from ASIC’s investor survey suggests there’s a huge crypto uptake in Australia, so there’s a really healthy amount of competition as a result. Global exchanges have always been available to Australians, and Kraken already had a really healthy local business here before we set up a local footprint.

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I think in general, not just specific to Australia, there will be some kind of consolidation because like with any new market, there are always many players and then differentiation starts getting harder. So, I think it’s inevitable that there will be fewer players.

A number of tech companies have been laying off staff recently due to the market downturn. Has Kraken had to lay off any staff?

Compared with some other exchanges out there, we have kept our powder dry – we’re a word-of-mouth growth business. We have a place in the market as a really trusted, secure player. We haven’t been out there sponsoring sports stadiums.

So we’re still hiring. Yes, every business has to be careful in times of downturn, but we are well-rehearsed. And Jesse [Powell] has been out there talking about the fact that Kraken knows how to stock up the stores for downturns because they’ve seen it before, it’s one of the longest-running exchanges. I think we’re in a really good place.

Kraken doesn’t do any sports sponsorships in Australia?

To date, we have not done any major sports sponsorships globally, though there will be a little change there in the coming months because I think there’s an argument for us to make sure that our brand is as well known as some others.

There’s a rash of exchanges out there trying to differentiate, and we think we are differentiated in the sense that we are one of the most trustworthy exchanges in the market. But time will tell, and I think the time is probably ripe for us to bring our brand to people more forcefully.

This week, the government announced they’d be proceeding with a token mapping exercise to help with crypto regulation in Australia. What do you think of the government’s regulation efforts?

We’ve been involved in a lot of the consultation, and we will continue to be involved, and I think it’s been a really positive consultation process. We’re regulated in numerous jurisdictions so we’re well versed when it comes to interplay with regulation.

I think the token mapping exercise is an interesting one. It’s a bit fraught, though, because with tokens and crypto, innovation is occurring in this industry at such a fast pace that I don’t think any mapping exercise will ever be able to keep up with it. And we only have to look to Japan to see some of the limitations that really heavy-handed regulatory brings.

So any token mapping exercise would have to be flexible enough to be able to consider the rapid innovation that occurs in crypto. NFTs are a great example of that – would we’ve been talking about this three years ago? Maybe if you’re on the edge with CryptoKitties, but these days it’s pretty much the first thing people talk about.

You’ve mentioned Jesse Powell a few times, what are your thoughts on Jesse?

Jesse is a really interesting innovator. He’s a crypto OG, he understands the technology, not just from the perspective of entrepreneurial sense, but at a technical level. He’s got a view that this is a hyper-innovative and critical infrastructure for individuals, and a tool that allows individuals to engage in what will be the future of not just finance but the future of the internet.

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Kraken is a global business, and every different geography has a very different topography when it comes to financial freedom. Jesse absolutely believes that crypto can break down barriers to financial freedom. And fundamentally, if the future of the internet is built on blockchain, which we think it will be, then it’s more critical than ever to make sure that individuals have access to it.

So I think that that point of view from him is really inspiring. I think it’s really captivating, and I think he’s a strong voice when it comes to making that argument.

He attracted some coverage recently due to some culture documents which got released on Kraken’s company’s culture being steeped in ‘libertarian philosophical values’. Do you have any comments on that? Do you agree with the broader perspective that he brings to culture in Kraken?

As a person working in an organisation with people from all over the world, 70 different countries, I think it’s an incredibly diverse company. Kraken’s corporate culture is extremely inclusive in that respect.

I think that there might have been some comments out there in the media that perhaps characterises Jesse in a particular way. From my personal opinion and the people that I work with, Kraken’s an extremely productive and open place to work, and I think that maps to crypto culture to a certain extent, and if you want to call that libertarian or not, perhaps that’s the right characterisation.

The comments that you’re mentioning are ones questioning if people can use pronouns, questioning if women have equal intelligence to men, and questioning who can use the N-word. Do you think those are appropriate comments for the CEO of a major crypto company to be making?

Well, I don’t know if the comments were ever in context.

Would they be more appropriate if they were in context?

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What I’m suggesting is that the accusation those comments might be inappropriate or not is almost impossible for outsiders to understand because the only thing that I’ve seen is an article by another publication, whereby quotes were lifted at random from communication. So I think it’s a fundamentally inaccurate representation of what Jesse has said in public and private.

Talking about Kraken from my personal experience, and my experience of dealing with Jesse is that he’s an extremely open and fundamentally analytical person. And it’s a very respectful workplace actually.

If the goal of Kraken is to bring cryptocurrency to the masses and get more people engaging with Web3, do you think that a company with a self-defined libertarian culture, and a ‘if you don’t like it, you can leave’ approach, is the sort of company that can really engage people broadly with Web3?

Kraken’s products and the way that it provides unparalleled degrees of security for its users, an excellent platform for crypto assets, and an extremely strong and secure portal that we provide our users – people will look at the company’s offering through that lens.

Some people may have a view on whether a CEO’s personal comments matter to them, and some won’t. The same way some people will buy a Tesla because it’s the most efficient electric vehicle you can buy, irrespective of what they think about the CEO’s personal comments.

I think a lot of people don’t necessarily always believe what they read and come to businesses with an open mind, and that’s what I would hope people do when it comes to all their choices. Kraken is a great example of a committed company that is building extremely strong products for people, strong experiences, and have their best interests as digital citizens at heart.

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