I, like, very legitimately thought that our business was unacquirable.

Stripe just, like, pours jet fuel on the business and accelerates us at a pace that would be completely impossible independently.

I think it will be taught differently in schools.

You know, people went through universities because I think they're learning a lot of skills that are irrelevant.

What would you recommend they study instead then?

Drop out and build a business.

Thank you. What would you recommend they study instead then? Drop out and build a business. Welcome to Web 3 with A16 Z Crypto. I'm Robert Hackett, and today we're sharing a special episode featuring Circle co-founder

Sean Neville, who co-created

the USDC stable coin, and Zach Abrams, founder of Bridge, a payment startup that's now part

of Stripe.

In today's episode, we get into the scrappy early experiments that led to today's stablecoins.

The many hurdles Sean and Zach have faced as founders, from regulatory and banking barriers,

to mids about product market fit.

They also explain why, despite so much recent progress, they believe we're still incredibly early

in the broader adoption of global on-chain payments.

It's a timely conversation at a moment when stable coins are becoming financial

infrastructure used by people all around the world. We originally recorded this live at our recent

A16 Z Crypto Founder Summit. Here it is my conversation with Sean and Zach. Probably a lot of people

here have interacted with a product that you created, Sean.

You designed USDC years ago, back when it was far from obvious that it would be a good idea.

It was a zero interest rate environment.

There was no business model for it.

...