Ep 93.1: Raising North Korean Entrepreneurs | Geoffrey See (former Chairman, Choson Exchange & WEF Young Global Leader)
North Korean women are entrepreneurs. Not the first thing you might think of, but a reality that STIMY’s latest guest - Geoffrey See - knows very well. So who is Geoffrey See? Here’s a quick run down 👇🏻 - Graduated from Yale University & the Wharton Business School; - Worked as a Bain consultant; - Co-founded Choson Exchange: a social enterprise that created the largest training program for female entrepreneurs in North Korea - which ended up being profiled in a Harvard Business School case study; - Helped launch a blockchain protocol that had a $2B coin cap at its cap; - Is a digital currency taskforce member and consumer protection report author at the World Economic Forum Global Council for Digital Currency Governance; - Is a Ethereum Foundation fellow and a Kauffman Fellow; and - Is now the CEO of Poko: a Y-Combinator backed startup focused on building DAOs to empower the next generation of investors, entrepreneurs and creators In Part 1, we cover his childhood & experience building Choson Exchange. Highlights: 3:22 A strange relationship with authority 5:28 Wharton Business School 8:15 First brush with North Korea 10:31 North Korean men in politics, women in business 11:17 What does “business” mean in North Korea? 14:51 Building partnerships with North Korean Universities 16:34 Overcoming paranoia 20:16 How to find champions 21:48 Doing due diligence on potential partners 23:48 What North Koreans thought of the “rule of law” 28:26 Choson Exchange’s financing model 30:06 Measuring impact 31:15 Keeping the faith 33:58 The people that helped Geoffrey the most (i.e. a former Foreign Minister, National Security Advisor to multiple South Korean Presidents & ex-Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Company) 37:05 Deciding to leave Choson Exchange 38:56 The difficulties of letting go Once you’ve listened to Part 1, head over to Part 2 to learn about how Geoffrey entered the web3 space and what he’s doing with Poko! 📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/93 💌 Weekly Newsletter on upcoming STIMY guests/interesting things to make you a more interesting people: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605 🙊 Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy