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Ernst & Young Global Ltd.

3 minute read 13 Sep 2023
Related topics
Entrepreneurship
Private business
Technology
Blockchain
AI

EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2023 speaker Shuo Chen discusses rethinking money in a changing geopolitical and technological landscape.

In brief
 
  • Given the impact of banking turmoil, are there better ways of doing transactions? 
  • Given geopolitical conflict, can we trust in the same centralized authorities that we used to rely on?
  • Given the explosion in use of generative AI, can we conduct smarter transactions?

In June 2023, the world’s leading entrepreneurs gathered in Monaco for EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™, the ultimate global competition for entrepreneurs. Thought leaders from EY Tech University and the EY Luminary Network led interactive “Future of” sessions to discuss critical business challenges and today’s hot-button issues that will greatly impact our collective future.

How EY can Help

Shuo Chen, General Partner at IOVC, Faculty at UC Berkeley, spoke on the Future of Money and how we can leverage technology to make smarter transactions. Below are key takeaways from Shuo’s presentation to define the future of money.

 

How is knowledge of AI and blockchain the new intellectual currency?

 

“Despite all the new AI vocabulary you might hear, understanding AI adoption comes down to this question: what human capacity is it replicating?” says Shuo. “Blockchain mimics the systems for keeping records of transitions that we are accustomed to. The one differentiating characteristic that blockchain has is the fact that it's distributed.” Shuo breaks down the fundamentals of AI and blockchain technology so we can better understand its impact on the future of money. 

How do we separate the signal from the noise? 

“Even though it feels like AI just exploded this year, it's really been around for almost seven decades. In contrast, blockchain has really only been around for 15 years.” Shuo discusses how to understand whether a technology is hyped or not and the leading indicators to pay attention to. 

Why do entrepreneurs embrace the power of “no”? 

“The founder of Rescale, Joris Poort, designed transformational intelligent computing software for digital R&D while he was a wing engineer at Boeing. In building this software for his department, he saved the company about $180 million,” says Shuo. He approached the C-suite about looking for further opportunities for implementation. The C-suite said, "Thanks for the idea, but we're not going to move forward." Watch Shuo share how Poort turned this rejection into a massive opportunity. 

How can entrepreneurs supercharge their impact? 

“What makes the most successful entrepreneurs unique is that they tend to be fractional founders. They have that full-time role but continue to experiment with projects on the side.” Shuo expands on who fractional founders are and why they make such successful entrepreneurs.  


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Summary

AI and blockchain is changing the old financial order and can be leveraged to bring new opportunities to your business.

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Peter Bos

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