The Future Is Now: Colin Gounden Of VIA On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Don’t bend to peer pressure. I was working in Paris (pre-internet days) and a colleague who knew I was from Canada asked me “What’s the capital of Canada? Toronto or Montreal?” I said, “Ottawa.” He said “Never heard of it.” He then asked the lady who shared our office and she replied “Toronto, or maybe Montreal.” The guy turned back to me very smugly and said “See!”
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Colin Gounden.
Colin Gounden is CEO and co-founder of VIA, having recruited the top 20 global utilities and the U.S. Department of Defense as co-developers and now major users of VIA’s Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™), a data privacy-enhancing blockchain-based platform. With seven patents issued and ten pending, TAC™ is the bridge that securely connects infrastructure data, distributed across many locations, to AI solutions. Previously, Colin was the first investor and board director of five MIT and Harvard spinouts, focused on energy and deep science technologies.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path? –
Career is a funny term. It makes me think I’m a pharmacist or dentist who studied one subject and specialized in it my whole life! Over 30 years, I’ve done a lot of different things. I’ve been a software programmer, a partner at a PE firm, and a board director of a drug company.
The thread is that I’ve never been fixated on either financial income (how much will this pay?) and instead focused on emotional income (do I love what I’m doing?) and learning income (is this new and challenging?).
I studied molecular biology at Harvard, but I always loved computers and took whatever courses I could in that area. That led me to join IBM out of college instead of pursuing a PhD in biochemistry. From then, there always seemed to be new opportunities for my exploration and contribution.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Over 30 years, there are a lot of stories. Early on at my first startup, I was trying to make payroll in the first few months. I was in my 20s and while I had worked for IBM, that didn’t teach me about business elements like cash flow, balance sheets, and accounts receivable.
We had a big contract with a bank that was pending and I thought if we could sign that, we’d be in a good position for months for payroll. I went to the CIOs office at 7:30 a.m. In those days, building security was lax and anyone could more or less just walk in. I waited until his administrative assistant came in around 8:30. She asked if I had an appointment and I responded ‘no.’ She said the CIO was all booked up that morning, and I said that I would wait anyway.
The CIO came in at 9, saw me, and agreed to give me ten minutes. I told him I needed his signature on a contract which, since we’d been discussing it for some time, he agreed. I then asked him when I could get a check. He said, well, 45 days. Maybe 30 if we pushed it. I was shocked … and I needed the cash. He then explained about accounting and cash, etc. I literally said to him “You’re a bank. You have the money.” I must have looked so desperate that he agreed to pay in seven days, an agreement that I could live with. I could never get away with that today because I know better. The big lesson I learned is that necessity is the mother of invention. There’s always a way to do something if you’re motivated enough.
Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
The biggest technological breakthrough our team at VIA is currently working on is Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). I think that when we look back 20 years from now, ZKPs will be seen as one of the biggest innovations of our time. Simply put, ZKPs are math that helps balance privacy and knowledge. You can prove to someone that you know or did something without having to share the details of you, your knowledge, or the action. It’s at the core of Bitcoin, for example, and enables true peer-to-peer collaboration.
How do you think this might change the world?
ZKPs enable true peer-to-peer collaboration. Increasingly as a society, we are comfortable asking people that we don’t know to send us something, drive us somewhere, or stay in their homes. In a traditional world, we have Amazon, Uber, and AirBnB to help mediate if something goes wrong. Who mediates in a true peer-to-peer transaction? ZKPs solve this problem. We believe ZKPs enable a whole new model for collaboration and “C2C” businesses that were previously untapped.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
It’s complex. Most people have a phobia about math to begin with so something like ZKPs are not a thing everyone will want to learn about. I think where the issues will lie is where it gets misrepresented or people who don’t understand it try to work around the proofs. As ZKPs become more and more familiar to everyone, I believe these fears and questions will begin to dissipate and more people will begin to adopt and take interest in them because of the benefits they can have.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
I was in Switzerland earlier this year and we were discussing our JARVIS product with commercial real estate companies. We had a number of back to back meetings where everyone, in their own way, was saying “we need data from our tenants, but they don’t trust us to share it with us.” This is a great use case for ZKPs. We realized that being able to confirm a specific energy usage or carbon footprint for the building owner without the tenant revealing any specific information about them or their usage is a great fit for a ZKP and can help change the way we consume and manage energy.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
Well, articles like this help. We are also working with leaders in the space who have experience but work in other industries and academics to validate our math.
What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?
We have blog posts and, maybe a bit controversially, we have open sourced some of the code and put together videos of how what we do works. We believe this helps build awareness and trust in the community, as well as an understanding of how they work.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My co-founder Kate has always been an incredible inspiration and moral compass for me in a way. There are three Harvard Business School case studies on the founding of VIA where she’s the protagonist with the bright idea and I’m the one getting in the way. Maybe she should be the one being interviewed here!
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
VIA is a great example of this. After I sold my second company, I spent time at Harvard and MIT (I live in Cambridge, Mass.) looking at deep tech startups that could have a big, positive impact on the world. After a while, it seemed that in order to really make an impact, you have to have a mission and be rigorous enough to stick to it, even when bigger money comes your way. We started VIA with a mission to make communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable, and managed to stick to that. Even in how we go to market, we have chosen to be particularly strong proponents of underserved communities. For example, we are focused and investing heavily in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Mississippi rather than the traditional New York and California clean tech markets.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.
- Do what you love. Years ago, I sold my company and after a year, left and sold all my shares. That happened to be three days before the market bubble burst. I decided to leave and sell, not because I was timing the market (that was just luck), but because I stopped loving what I was doing. I agonized over the decision to leave and sell but in hindsight, I shouldn’t have worried so much. This has repeated itself several times. At VIA, we have a value: “Love in = Love Out.” That is, do what you love and it will show.
- Relationships matter. Recently, we ran into an issue where a third-party couldn’t get us access to data that we needed. We contacted another party we had been working with who got us access in under an hour. In this case, it wasn’t money or self-interest that made them so responsive. We had gotten to know them personally over the past few months and when we asked for a favor, they were enthusiastic to support us. I always say that emails are answered in the order in which someone likes you, not the order in which they were received.
- Inquire more, advocate less. I mentioned the story earlier about visiting customers in Switzerland. By listening to the needs of the customers, we found something of higher impact and value to them rather than trying to slog away at providing something they weren’t sure they would use.
- Be kind to strangers. I’ve had a lot of airline stories where being nice to the check-in staff was well rewarded. I remember one time trading jokes with the person at check in. Later, my flight was canceled and I was waiting in line to figure out an alternative. That original staff member saw me, pulled me aside, got me on the next flight, in first class, without me even asking for it. He didn’t have to do that. I like to think that a little kindness paid up front made an impression.
- Don’t bend to peer pressure. I was working in Paris (pre-internet days) and a colleague who knew I was from Canada asked me “What’s the capital of Canada? Toronto or Montreal?” I said, “Ottawa.” He said “Never heard of it.” He then asked the lady who shared our office and she replied “Toronto, or maybe Montreal.” The guy turned back to me very smugly and said “See!”
- I learned an important lesson that it doesn’t really matter what others think or say. Just because many people believe or say something doesn’t make it right. That’s true in technology too. When I started using an Internet tech stack in 1996 for my first startup, many customers asked why. They used Novell IPX / SPX instead of TCP/IP and Microsoft Windows instead of a browser. They wanted to know why we weren’t standard. A few years later, we sold that company for $98M (a small fortune back then). We were lucky because we had invested in doing something we thought was right rather than listening to conventional wisdom.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think the idea that VIA is promoting now around individuals taking control of their energy data and using their individual actions to support renewable energy is the movement I care most about. New York City was minutes away from a blackout last summer. They avoided that by calling up energy consumers and asking them to turn down consumption. We think getting more people involved in the process on a real-time basis could help meet the gap between renewable energy supply and energy demand.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I like the Paul Saffo quote related to your article’s title. “The future is now, just unevenly distributed.” I use that a lot to look to find a solution that is already solving a similar problem somewhere else in a different context versus having to invent and test out something brand new.
Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
VIA’s been in Web 3 (blockchain and smart contracts) for more than 5 years. We’re just hitting the inflection point for really big adoption (single digit millions to double digit millions). We’ll make investors look brilliant for backing our growth to get to that $Bn+ valuation mark and, at the same time, doing it with a terrific sustainability mission.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
You can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter (@colin_gounden). You can also connect with VIA on LinkedIn as well.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Thank you!
The Future Is Now: Colin Gounden Of VIA On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
