#501 The Technology of Belonging: Glen Cameron on Identity, Immigration, and Proof of Relationships

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Mehmet Gonullu: Hello, and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me currently in Spain. Glen Cameron, founder and CEO of Bonded, and TAV Glen, the way I love to do it, I like to keep [00:01:00] it to my guests to introduce themselves because no one can introduce someone else better than themselves.

This is my theory. Uh, just a, you know, kind of a teaser to to, to this episode. So, Glen and I, we met in an event, and the moment he. Start to explain what he's trying to do. It caught my attention. And then, you know, we decide like, why not tell the rest of the world about what you're building? So without further ado, Glen, the floor is yours.

Thanks Mehmet. And, uh, thank you for, for having me here. And, uh, I, I did notice at that event where I met you that you had a kind of radar of the room and, uh, that you were picking up, uh, interesting signals. So I'm glad to be one of them. Thank you. Um, so yeah, my name's Glen. Uh, I'm the founder and CEO of Bonded and also of Together Alone Ventures, um, bonded, uh, has been going only for about nine months now.

Um, and we started because of [00:02:00] personal pain points, uh, in regards to the proof and verification of people. And, uh, this is something I've been dealing with my whole life. Uh. I was born in New Zealand, educated in Australia, uh, and Hong Kong, and lived around the world. So I've been a very international person and worked all around the world.

And what's happened is, uh, I've seen the challenges that there are in terms of the movement of people and the verification of people that come from some sort of different domain jurisdiction environment. So, uh, we formed bonded. Bonded, um, a product, and it's also a protocol and I'd like to hopefully talk to you about both today.

Uh, I believe you understand it a little bit already, but I, I'd love to, to go more deeply into it, uh, bonded the, uh, the product is for immigration purposes and particularly for, uh, relationship verification, which is either a problem [00:03:00] the minute I say it, you know, really well. Or is something that you've never really thought about before.

And, uh, and then the protocol is, is what we call proof of human relationship. Uh, particularly in an AI world. 

Yes. I remember Glen, when, you know, as you said, like, uh, I'm, I have this curiosity to understand what people are building, and you told me a story and you know, or, or like, you gave me the use case in a way that really.

I would say no one I believe can not pose for a moment and think that, yeah, you know what, what Glen is mentioning is very true, but I believe, okay, you started with a certain use cases, but there must be something that maybe personally you faced or maybe you've seen someone close to you facing and said, you know what?

Like this is a real problem that no one. Thought maybe about solving it yet, or [00:04:00] it's kind of solved, but you know, like, it, it, it doesn't have, you know, good solution today. So let's, you know, build bond bonded. This is, you know, these are like kind of the stories I'm always curious to, to, to learn more about.

Glen: Yeah. Well there's a very personal use case, which is, is that, um, you know, I was born in New Zealand to have New Zealand passport. I haven't lived there, you know, since I was a teenager, but I'm still, you know, a citizen. And, uh, I think seven or eight years ago, pre COVID at least, uh, I wanted to take my wife who's born in a different country and I wanted to take her to New Zealand to, you know, see the country, meet family and what have you.

And, uh, this seemingly would've been an easy job to do if, if she was from, uh, a country which was, you know, aligned in New Zealand, let's say. Uh, so UK for example, I mean, she's Russian to be clear. So, um, there's that. [00:05:00] Um, and, uh, we applied three times, uh, for her to get a visa. Uh, and on the third time, after submitting 73 pieces of different evidence, the outsourced New Zealand visa officer in Beijing grounded her a two week visa to.

To visit New Zealand strictly two weeks in and out. I mentioned Beijing because we didn't know that our case officer was actually an outsourced person in a different country. I dunno if that's still the case, but seven, eight years ago it certainly was. And uh, so I thought to myself, okay, this is my own country.

I'm supposedly a professional, reliable person and so is sheath. Uh, so if that's the problem for us to move even just for tourism. So how is it for people all around the world who don't have the benefit of my passport or my language or my understanding of the system and how to, you know, meet the requirements of the system?[00:06:00] 

And so we did some digging and then we found a lot, um, Reddit and Facebook, uh, just full of people with stories. Far, far, far worse than mine. Uh, but that's where it came from. Then. 

Mehmet Gonullu: You know, Glen, it sometimes we, we mentioned as a joke, and I think, I can't remember a friend or someone you know in my circle was telling me, with all this digital transformation, with all the technology that we have today, for some reason still we have to carry this.

Uh, I don't know. It depends on each countries, but I think the standard is around 48 pages, uh, of, of this document that proves who we are and, you know, we have to pass that. And, you know, we, we are in the age of ai. Um, yeah, I look, I, I think the Spain is, is real, um, you know, across multiple countries, multiple geographies.

But [00:07:00] I'm interested to understand more. Glen is. Which technology you saw as a good candidate to solve, you know, these problems. These problems. Like if you want to explain in a nutshell, maybe without going at the nitty gritty of the technology itself, but on a high level, um, so, so we understood the problem.

Kinda want to understand from you the solution that you're 

Glen: offering. Well, there are many solutions in identity. Um, but there are not many solutions that are in relational identity. In fact, we always challenge people to find them and, and, and we can't find them. Uh, now the, the, the, the main issue I is that AI is both a friend and a foe.

Um, AI helps us to, to do a lot, but also it helps us to fake a lot and the growth in fake and deep, fake and, uh, misrepresentation. Scheduling of, [00:08:00] of the revelation of documents, uh, it is all something that creates a problem. Um, so that causes, um, assessment times to be, to be much longer. We have info that in the uk, despite what the home office in the UK say, um, the decisions can be anywhere from three months to two years in the US it can even be worse.

So how do we solve that technically? You asked me well. We looked at AI and said, well, AI has to be our friend. Uh, it doesn't have to be our foe. Uh, and it can be our friend by providing the massive data and particularly the pain point of the collection, attestation, translation and presentation of data in a compelling way.

However, it doesn't quite, um, solve the problem. And for this, we need Web3 and we need the principles of blockchain. Integrating blockchain into this solution traditionally is, is kind of problematic because, uh, there, you know, take the eu [00:09:00] there's the right to be forgotten and, and blockchain doesn't easily forget.

Um, but it is the temporal, uh, proof of the provenance of, of action over time. That that creates, uh, you know, what we call the time stamping of data. And the timestamping of data that is collected by AI but is verified over time. And what we know about most, um, deception is that it's usually not done over many years.

Um, and it's usually many years that we need to prove this information over. Uh, you, you, you know, couples and families might need to show documentation from the very first moment that they ever knew each other. And, and I, and I would stress that this problem is completely on the spectrum from not at all to completely over the top.

And, and it just really depends on who you are and where you are and what you're doing as to exactly how important it is. So we integrated, uh, we use the ICP [00:10:00] blockchain, uh, and we do that because, um, ICP is kind of uniquely capable in, in fulfilling GDPR, uh, in the sense of being able to forget, uh. We also then use AI models, uh, both to collect and to check fraud.

And, and I think the key, the key insight here is that AI can do many, many things, but it can't, I suppose, time travel. Um, I suppose we'd know by now if it could, uh, or maybe it has, I don't know. Um, but, but it doesn't really, right, so, so what we are doing is building verifiable proof over time. With the massive data that people wouldn't normally do, and we're making that data self-sovereign.

So it's in the hands of the people who, who own it, uh, and who create it. And it, look, it's true that meta and Google and what have you have, uh, have footprints of us and they are fundamentally progressive footprints. They're, they're not one static moment in time [00:11:00] and. What's interesting there is that's a better identity than a static document, a static passport, or even as you said, the 48 pages.

Uh, you know, progressive data capture is, is a better representation of the person and their relationships. However, at the moment, it's either not accessible, it may even be being harvested, uh, and. And so we, we wanted to focus on the self sovereignty that a Web3 solution could give and one that could integrate blockchain, uh, sorry to integrate AI as well.

Uh, so generally we call it AI is the body and or the flesh. And uh, Web3 is the skeleton. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Couple of you know, questions that, uh, popped up in my mind, uh, as you are explaining Glen, and maybe you have touched on, but just for clarity, uh, for me and for the audience. Yeah. So if someone is, [00:12:00] I mean, maybe a newborn baby.

Comes and you start to, you know, of course in the, uh, you know, not in the real physical sense, but if maybe his parents would do this on his or her behalf and they start to, to, to put, you know, every single, um, I don't know, like transaction, if you want to call it this way in the app, fine. But let's say someone like myself, I'm 45 years old.

Um, so do I, how do I start from, from. You know, do I import some data to the platform? Um, because again, doesn't that, and I'm not challenging, I'm just saying it feel free to challenge. No, just, just for the, just for the sake of, you know, me and maybe the audience to understand. Mm-hmm. So do we have a way to, let's say, verify then?

Import within the app, or do I have always to start like, as a newborn [00:13:00] baby? Yeah. Yeah. 

Glen: Well, that's so true actually. And let's take the case of, let's, let's take the, the initial use use case. The first product bonded, um, which we have ready at MVP stage now. So, uh. You know, relationship verification. When did you start to have a relationship?

Well, you certainly didn't start thinking about documenting at the first moment that you met somebody. I mean, that'd be be really super weird and creepy if you did, right? Yeah. Um, but there is always a moment when you know that you are going to have, in this case, an immigration journey. Um, you're aware that you're not going to need a visa, you might be moving.

We also know, by the way, and this is slight aside, but we also know that that journey. Long because it's not usually just one visa, it's usually two or three. It's a temporary visa, permanent residence visa, a citizenship that can go to 10 or even 20 years in somewhere else, Switzerland. So there is a sort of future that you want to to [00:14:00] collect and you wanna do it progressively.

You wanna do it passively, you don't wanna think about it. And you definitely do want to do it completely privately and and securely. But there's also a past you have now we can. We use devices. So we, we use the device and we retrospectively match, uh, what we find in the device to create unified relational timelines.

Now, what it can't do retrospectively is it also can't travel in time. So it can only collect what's there and, and accept the metadata that is associated then well, that's what people do now. So that's. Still good, but it's, it's, it's really the moment that you start moving forward that the solution really has power and, and applicability in the sense of being much more easily verified and a, a, a and, um, accepted.

So that, that's the, the main thing. But I would say, uh, one other thing is that, uh. [00:15:00] You know, this is one of our challenges, by the way, at Bonded, which is that people will quite happily give out all their information by using Google Maps. If you look at the settings and people's phones about what they're actually giving up.

Mm, I mean, usually it's, it's far, far more than, uh, than what we would, uh, collect. And by the way, we give the users the complete parameters to. Um, collect, kill, switch, dead man, switch bait, switch, all of that sort of stuff so that they have complete control over the, um, amount of data their device is gathering.

They also have complete control over the, uh, the, the storage on chain. I mentioned ICP earlier. We use ICP 'cause it's the only blockchain we can store on chain. And we need that for the, for the privacy, for the encryption, for the self ent space that they will use. A a and all put together, you know, um, we need to make sure that people understand that.

And I think this is actually happening by the way, moment. I think there is a swing back [00:16:00] towards self sovereignty. Um, and I think that it's gonna increase. I think the reason that people didn't do it was simply it was just too difficult. Um, so we need to be as easy as the solutions where they give up their sovereignty, uh, before they'll actually come back to it.

And if everything else is equal, we think they'd like the control. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Cool. So we sorted out from the user's perspective, like everyone, you, me, everyone else, right? So now how I, I'm not sure, like you, you have an MVP, um, uh, out there. How do you envision the, the other party who would accept this as proof to accept.

Yes. Yes. Have, have, have you started talking, you know, you, you know, to some of maybe, I don't know, uh, immigration, uh, departments, because it's not that I gotta ask you later about the other use case, but let's keep it in the immigration and getting visas. Okay. [00:17:00] So how do you envision their acceptance to this technology?

Glen: Yeah, well that's a great question and yes, we have spoken to them and we have spoken to lawyers who deal with it as well, and a number of other people around the space. Um, there's a few things here. First of all, uh, it's very important to remember that the assessment of human relationship currently is not a science, it's an art, and the burden of truth is on the applicant.

Now who is actually analyzing and assessing this stuff? Well, you know what? It's different people. There could be two people in the same room who come to a different conclusion about the same evidence. Uh, this is largely an analog process. It's not gonna stay that way. There's certainly a whole lot of development going on, on, on the institutional side.

Uh, most of it is what I call static ID stuff, which is even the EU digital, uh, passport is. Um, wallet. It is, uh, [00:18:00] is something that, um, it's fairly much the static. Uh, so if it's right once, you know, you can beat it once, you probably beat it again. And you may have something that you would've had in an analog way.

Your 48, uh, page passport may maybe replicated in the digital space. So there's a lot of static documents, there's a lot of KYC, there's a lot of ID stuff, and it's all fine. And, and we, we use it too, by the way, because that's one of the verses. By, by which we can use it, but it's not progressive and it's not relational.

And so when the assessment of relational data comes in, they have to assess that it meets their, uh, whoever they are. And, and this could be a country or it could be an internal lawyer who's getting something together. It, it needs to be meeting the standard that would pass the burden of truth. Now, how is.

Now. So here's what happens now, is that let's take a [00:19:00] government, uh, any government, and they receive, uh, an application and they'll get all the data. It'll be given to them anyway. So this happens anyway, and it'll be a whole bunch of data. And depending on how well, uh, organized they are, it will be readable and accessible, or not In any case, it would've taken a long time to prepare, whether it was by a lawyer or by by them themselves.

And that data is just a, a dump of data. And that'll include things like, you know, WhatsApp screenshots. And we have had feedback from immigration officials that not, not in every case, WhatsApp screenshots are accepted. Why? 'cause they're too easy to fake. Uh, now I would, I would say, and to be absolutely clear, people have such wildly different experiences with this stuff.

That if you tell one person who didn't have this experience, they can't believe it. They just don't believe it. But we have, you know, an army of people who've been, uh, uh, working [00:20:00] with us in terms of, you know, discovery. And we've found so many cases, it's unbelievable. Uh, so if the, if, if they're receiving a WhatsApp screenshot, uh, and they, they may choose to believe it or not, in the case they don't believe it, then you're gonna need more evidence of what type of evidence you're gonna have.

Well, we are not a B two G play. We don't want to get ourselves involved in, in that side of things. What we are doing is we are, uh, helping the easy, simple, preparation verifiable materials, and we are going to give tools by which they can be verified here. Uh, the phone or for bonded in immigration has a scrollable timeline.

Uh, I should have brought it, you know, as a scrollable timeline with, with, with, um, triangulated evidence, uh, from geolocation to text message interaction, um, to photographs. And we can infer also, [00:21:00] you know. Um, in your email, if you choose to share email, you booked a ticket to, to Egypt, uh, there's a chat about the pyramids, and then two weeks later, there's a photo of a pyramid with, you know, one or two people in front of it.

That's a story. Um, we hope to model by just presenting wonderfully good, solid, easily accessible, and easily, uh, verifiable information. To the point that it makes the assessment process fast and that assessment process can be done by, let's say a Visa case worker, uh, looking at reuniting a family where one partner is not in the same country, maybe their child is not in the same country, or it could also be done in another manner.

And this is, this is, you know, when you start doing these, these things sort of use cases come out of the woodwork. And this is exactly related to immigration, but it's something very new, which is, um. Proving yourself at the border, particularly in the United States. So, [00:22:00] you know, depending on who you believe detention at the border in the United States is up between, uh, 500 to 800% and interrogations are up too.

And look, personally, you know, I'm a New Zealand and Australian citizen, and, and every time I go to the uk, one out of every sort of five or six times I'll get interviewed. Uh. You know, depending on which gate I use, what have you, certainly in other countries, I get interviewed. I arrived in Germany, uh, a few months ago, and I, and I, and I was subjected to a 15 minute interview where I, I looked down the line and I thought, maybe I'm not the target you're looking for.

Uh, so this happens and the burden of proof is on you. Now, what? As I said, it's not a science, it's an art. So if the burden of pres on you, you better tell a good story. Now, if you have a prepared story that is verifiable independently. That is a good thing. A lot of feedback we've had from early beta, uh, partners is this is a kind of proof in your pocket type of thing, [00:23:00] and that gives a certain sense of, uh, security.

Not least because when you are tired and traveling and stressed and you suddenly get asked to produce documents from four years ago, you, you wanna be able to sure, be sure that you can actually get them out. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Look Glen, like, uh, all these are something I think, I believe, especially for people who are from the part of the world where I am based now, they, they have lived it, right?

So there is no doubt that there is a, a real problem to your point, and maybe I will be a little bit controversial here. Um, so I think. For me, this is what also attracted me beside the, you know, the human aspect of it as well, because, you know, like proving relationships. Right. Uh, so maybe this, and this is will be my next question later, but just before that.

Now, in fact, actually people, you know, can, even with the, with the traditional, [00:24:00] you know. Paper and pen procedures, you can forge documents. Right, right. So why I source this? Like something also, maybe it's not your primary use case I know, but it's, um, it's kind of one of the things that Will, will give.

Authenticity to me as a person that, hey, re hey, like I'm, I'm going, let's say to the us I'm going to Canada, I'm going to the uk, I'm going to Australia, New Zealand, whatever. And really, I have someone that I know, like this friend, I know him from childhood. He moved there when, I don't know, he was 20 years old.

So this will, you know, like, and it'll give this really. Uh, freedom for people to, to move around. This is something very exciting. The other thing controversial I want to say, and maybe some people, they, they, they don't know it actually, you know, so that information is out there. We use social media on daily basis.

We use. You know, Google [00:25:00] Maps, when you go to any websites, we see this consent collecting information about us. And I think, you know, in a way or another, this information is retrievable, but you know, what you did is put it on the blockchain, put the privacy, which is very, very important. You know, so it's, I I, because when I checked your website, you mentioned it very clear, it's your data.

We don't have access to it, which is brilliant. Right. We 

Glen: can't be, we can't be compelled, we just don't have it. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Absolutely. Uh. Now, I know this is the primary use cases, but I see there are like a lot of other use cases that can be applied. What, like is there any ambition for you to, to offer it in a different, I would say setups, maybe even not related to, to what we were talking about, just applying visas and uniting, you know, families and so on.

Oh, 

Glen: yeah, yeah. Well, yes. I mean, um, absolutely. Proof of human relationship in, in this [00:26:00] world is an identity It, it's a relational identity and it's an identity where we need to be able to act together. We have two di directions with this amendment. The first one is that there are multiple other products that either we will build and we have some planned, uh, or others might want to build using our protocol.

Uh, and we'll be completely open to that as well. The products that we have, uh, next are, are related. I mean, the, the closest relation is it was born out of our research that we did in the United States where, uh, and let's remember using this app is completely, you know, up to you. And when you get it out and when you turn it off or when you kill it, it's completely up to you.

But there are many moments where you might want to have evidence. Protection. And so, you know, we have a product, uh, that was born out of the, the [00:27:00] incredible amount of traffic stops that happen in the United States, uh, particularly disproportionately to African American people. And we read some data and it's contestants, so I dunno if it's, if it's 30 or 50 million, but there's somewhere between that amount of, uh, unscheduled traffic stops.

First question. License, registration, et cetera. Second question, what are you doing? Where are you going? Now, people don't have to answer, but if they want to answer, they might want to answer it with evidence That immediately moves the conversation on, uh, we, we, we are thinking about calling alibi. Um, but look, here's the thing, there's, there's other things too.

If we think about the nature of creation and human relationships and creation, um, you know. You know, while, while we might be fine to say that, oh, it's, it's a Lenon McCartney song, and it doesn't matter if Paul McCartney wrote it or John Lennon wrote it. Uh, the fact is that one of them probably did write most of it.

And in this, uh, diversified world, proving [00:28:00] the moment of creation of IP is part of the relationship, the development of the ip. Let's take it in music. Mm-hmm. Writing a song, people u people use their computers or they use their telephones. Uh, and writing a song I, i i is fundamentally a digital process these days.

Um, and the creation and attestation of rights, uh, and trackability of that is another example of proof, proof of human relationship. In this case, not necessarily to bind people together, but to clearly separate them and to be able to attribute value to the separate, uh, influences they had. Um, so we have products like that.

We have, uh. We, you know, this is also applicable to transgenerational wealth, uh, to, you know, citizenship and, um, to banking, to, you know, to, to, to, to mortgage and loan applications. I mean, there's a whole bunch of ways that, uh, personal, you know, [00:29:00] relationship is, is the basis by which something is assessed as being good and reliable.

It goes further than that though because as we move forward in the world, uh, we, we, we, we have all these individual identities, all these static individual identities. We don't have anything progressive that's learning what we want. Uh, although our individual AI agents will be learning what we want. But will they be learning what we want together?

And certainly being able to, to power, um, relational AI agents to operate not as too siloed, things stuck together, but as one generally put together and intermeshed, uh, is also really powerful. Um, so we look at, we look at the products and we, we look at, uh, at, at, at, you know, the future agentic use. Then we also look at something really, really simple.

Uh, how is it, what, what is a product that is sort of [00:30:00] the natural, you know, the natural pathway from this? And, and we think it's probably a relational passport. Uh, the self-sovereign relational passport is what we call it. And it's a document that proves the relationship and is able to act as a signifier of the relationship, much as a passport does for an individual.

Uh, and look, you know, we are social. The world is intertwined. There are more and more of us. Our relationships really, really do tell the story of us, but we need to have some tr control over it and how the knowledge about our relations are inferred and used. So products, uh, either together or alone. Um, a protocol that is adaptable and, and ultimately, uh, agent or not.

Ultimately a document that is essentially digital and is richer both relationally and progressively than a static individual ID document. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Fantastic. [00:31:00] One question though, Glen. Uh, so blockchain understand you. You're storing, you're using the ICP, um, you, you are also mentioning that it's Web3. Now I know there's a lot of, you know, intersections and, but Web3.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of them. I was one of them. When I see the world Web3, so what comes to my mind is the NFTs and, you know, yeah. Uh, and still, you know, the discussion of Yeah. Technology looking for use cases and so on. So why you also categorized, you know, uh, bonded in the Web3 category? 

Glen: Yeah, good question.

And, uh. I don't always say it 'cause I say blockchain and even these days people will run for the hills when I, when I say the word. So I'm very careful. Look, Web3 is, is critical in the sense that, uh, we, from the position of self sovereignty, from the position of no access to your data, from the position of [00:32:00] decentralized structuring of this entire solution, so that we are never, we are not a data controller from a, a business perspective is important, but it's.

It's more than that. It's an ideological, uh, position. And, you know, I'm quite a cheerleader for ICP. Why? Because it doesn't have a wallet. Um, there's a reverse gas model, so, uh, we can integrate with the Web two audience in the way that Web3 doesn't normally do. So what do we do when we find that Web two audience, which is much bigger?

You know, we give them, uh, their environment. Uh, their, their ability to, to record data, you know, on chain and to save data on chain that's only available to them. We're able to, in the future, run on chain ai, uh, in that same space, which, which is really important. And we, that also, we use a thing called vet keys and, and, and that also gives us the.

Which [00:33:00] is a, a new thing and, and it gives us a, a threshold sort of encryption, uh, privacy that we need. So are these typical uses of Web3? Absolutely not. In fact, we wanna put the meaning and integrity back into the Web3 Space. Web3 was born from great ideals. They got hijacked as all gold rushes do by, by things that were just, you know, either interesting or, you know.

Rewarding, uh, for a time, but most of it has sort of come and gone. And now I feel that the Web3 industry is stabilizing, becoming more serious and having more serious use cases. And, um, this is one of them. And we, we, we know that, uh, we know that there are going to be more. But the, the days of NFTs and, and defi plays and, you know, liquidity staking for its own sake and multiple derivatives and what have you, all that stuff is, [00:34:00] you know, for the birds.

It, it doesn't matter. What matters is that people use things because they're better to use and if it's better to use, it's gotta be yours. It's gotta be private. It's gonna be decentralized and beyond reach of centralized control, uh, it's gonna be cheap. Uh, it's gonna be easy. And so not all Web3 can do that, but we can, uh, with our choices.

Um, and, and, uh, we feel that we kind of part of a new wave of serious projects with, with integrity being the focus. And that's where we are now. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Completely makes sense. And you know, like the more there are, I would say founders like yourself, Glen, the better that, you know, I would say we, we rectify the trajectory of technologies, right?

Mm-hmm. Um, so I can claim that even this happening because, you know, Web3 blockchain is like kind of [00:35:00] something that. People sometimes are all in, but still there are the naysayers, right? Mm-hmm. But it's, I see it happening even with the ai, right? So even with the AI space, the problem is when people like exaggerate the hype out of something, so they create themselves the naysayers.

Uh, yeah. So. Yeah, but, but you know, always people like yourself, clan, and, you know, this is why I love to, you know, through the podcast to host, you know, the wise people, the ones who really are going and trying to, um, solve the real problems through. Proof technologies. I, I, I always tell people, don't get me wrong, I, I never criticize a technology because it exists, even if it doesn't have a use case.

But I always like, try to see how really I can leverage this tech in order to, of course, the, the list can go on and on, but enhance user experience, like it can save me money, it can save my [00:36:00] time, you know, it, it can give me some extra income. And the list can go and on and on and on. But so, so this is good to, to do that.

Now I'm gonna ask you something not related to bonded directly, but if someone goes and check your background, Glen, like you have like a mix of different backgrounds, like from pr, marketing, advertising, so how all this now blended together gives giving you, you're not the first time founder, I know this, but I mean.

But over the years, how this also shaped the way you plan for the business. You plan for, okay, where I want to take this startup, like what is the end goal? So I'm really interested of what are like kind of the lessons that all the years have taught you and how you are, you know, applying this today at bonded.

Glen: Yeah, so [00:37:00] well, I mean, I talk personally, um, I, um, I, I, I've had a very background and the reason, I think the first reason is I'm endlessly curious and, uh, and, and that has never really stopped. Uh, I also think that we're in a beautiful time now where technologies exist, where pretty much anything you can think of, you could probably find a way to meet the purposes of what you wanted to do.

Technology and I guess kind of always waiting for this time in my life, I used to have millions of ideas and, and think, gee, that'd be great to do. But there's a whole bunch of reasons why that would be compromised in a way that I don't think it is now. Um, when it comes to my history, um, look, I had, uh, you know, first 10 years of my life just bombing around the world and teaching English and playing guitar and just, just enjoying traveling.

Um, I, I, I had an, an incredible job, uh, with an incredible guy. Uh, I was for many years, uh, working very closely with the boss of a major ad agency at the [00:38:00] global level. So, um, you know, I got that job kind of quickly. I mean, it came through, you know, a couple of years working in PR and then suddenly just sort of catching a sort of rocket ship up to suddenly living in New York and, and, and traveling sort of, you know.

Up to 200 days a year all around the world and working, uh, with, uh, at the ad agency, which is called Achi. And Saatchi, this guy that I, I worked for with, he was supposed be my client, but he had ended up being kind of like my, uh, kind of inspiration. Well, uh, his name was Kevin Roberts and he's still around.

He's an incredible guy. And, um, so I just learned so much about. The comparative similarity of the world. Everything in all of the agencies around the world had similar problems, similar staffing issues, similar client squeezes, [00:39:00] similar creative processes, even similar ideas. I mean, it would be amazing.

You'd see campaigns coming out one part of the world. They were quite similar to a campaign coming out somewhere else in the world. What this did from moving around is of course have a really, really global network. And, you know, I've lived in 15 countries, uh, and I've, um, I've traveled to, well, I dunno, a hundred probably, and I've worked in at least 60, I would say.

I would never even have a clue, you know, on the ground, uh, running events and marketing and PR and uh, whatever, branding, all sorts of things because I became a kind of jack of all trades at that C-suite level, which was an incredible job. It was so incredible that when it wound up, I really didn't find much interest in, in, in the, the marketing industry, uh, because, you know, I've sort of understood it.

I, I had learned it and, um, I don't really like doing things over and over again. Um, so there's a few years of just consulting work and what have you, but once I started to understand [00:40:00] blockchain, I realized that the creativity that I had experienced for a long time. The business Nelson structure about how to, how to create products and ideas and visions that people would want to buy into were best expressed.

Um, not at that sort of corporate level anymore, but by people all over the world and that, that you could do things. And we've seen it now where the world is just sort of fragmented into a million different amazing sort of projects here and there. Most of 'em don't get off the ground, I suppose, because they, there are still, you know, the critical challenges of doing business that are required.

And, and I, I think that a lot of Web3 has tried to skip that, you know, phase I think that's over now, or mostly over. There's always something coming. Uh, but, um, but I, I, I decided [00:41:00] about 10 years ago, okay, now I can really. The things that I think every day, the curiosity that I have, the opportunity that I have, and the experience of the people and the networks I have can all come together and we can just think it and then we can make it.

And the gap between those two things has just shrunk to almost nothing. Um, so I, you know, it is an unusual career. I, I, I do, but I do think it's made me sort of, I hope, richer and. And sort of more, um, able to look at things from multiple different angles. And I, and I think that the more people that come into the Web3 space and the AI space who have had previous careers, uh, the better 'cause we, we need the richness of that context.

Mehmet Gonullu: Absolutely. A hundred percent. And you know, like, uh, while you were telling this, like I sought to imagine like, what, what. Like, it's, it's really exciting when you look back now and, you know, visiting all these [00:42:00] countries, working with multiple cultures and, uh, and this is, goes back to what you're trying to do at bonded also as well, you know?

Mm-hmm. Proving relationship, I'm sure like you had a lot of friends in, in, in these hundreds or so countries that you have visited. Yeah. And you know, like, again, back to, to the. Beginning of the conversation, like, this is how you started, this is how you attracted my attention, actually. Mm-hmm. Because you're saying like, how many times like we beat someone and then, you know, like we, we struggle later to prove that, you know, we, we've built this relationship there, or we had this especially, you know, it resonated with me because I'm, I'm living in Dubai.

Okay. I'm a veteran. I can call myself. 'cause usually Dubai and some, and you know, these, um, expat spots are known for, you know, the short span of relationship that you can build with people. Because I, I've seen now it's like little bit changing. So we start to see like people who are coming and staying more.

But when I came here, it was the [00:43:00] place where people comes for let's say two or three years. Work, collect some money and move somewhere else. Uh, it changed dramatically after COVID, of course. But you know what, I always think about it. Imagine I came in 2005, I'm sure like maybe I had like in my first place.

A lot of people that. Yeah, we built that relationship. But if you ask me, can you prove it, other than someone going to LinkedIn and checking that me and them, we work at the same time, in the same place. You know, I, I don't have a proof really. So this is really resonated, uh, a lot with me, Glen, and, you know, again, the experience that you have put, I mean, collected and put into what you're building.

I think this is going up to something. I gotta ask you something very quick. Are you also. Raising funds for, for what you're building today? 

Glen: Yes, we are. And uh, the challenge with that is, um, we have raised now, um, actually bonded is a part of together alone ventures, which is, [00:44:00] is the, the sort, the house for all of this stuff.

Uh, and, and policy ip. And we, our, our little challenge, I say little because I don't wanna make anything a big challenge 'cause then I might think it's not worth doing Right. Uh, but, um, our, our challenge is. We are dealing with identity, personal data privacy. Our MVP has to be kind of more than an m, you know, uh, you know, we, we can't have an issue.

So that means that, um, we are raising in that way where, you know, typically you iterate up an MVP over and over again. You know the way it works now, and you, you get your traction and you know, we have a great at traction in terms of partnerships, but we don't have traction. On that stuff yet. 'cause we haven't launched it to the market yet because we have to be absolutely sure that we've tested it for longer than a few months.

I mean, it really needs to be solid. And so the, the the, you know, the question to the investors say is, well, you know, show, show us the uses. And [00:45:00] we're like, well, we can show you the partnerships, we can show the feedback, we can show you the stories, we can show you the excitement, we can show you the wait list.

But until this is absolutely certain. Hey, maybe in a couple of weeks from now, it probably will because we're, we're working very hard. Um, my CTO Steph, by the way, is, you know, brings a lot of rigor to this thing. I mean, he's a guy who's got the 26 patents and 470 pending, for example. So this is a guy, he was the former director of, uh, scientific research at end chain.

So he's, um, you know, we are not that typical couple of founders type of thing, you know, so we are selling the vision. The deep tech and we're raising, and we have some great investors, you know, either on or coming, but we're still doing more. Uh, and, and, uh, you know, hello, whoever's still watching, please get in touch because, uh, this is something unique.

Some people argue that it's its own new [00:46:00] Web3 primitive versus human relationship. I don't know, but it's certainly very unique. It, and I challenge anybody to find something exactly like it and to think about the fact that, you know, we are 8 billion people and I always say, if you think about the ultimate crazy global term of this, it's 8 billion people times 8 billion minus one.

Mehmet Gonullu: Yeah. Abso no, but absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. So question where people can get in touch and know more. 

Glen: Sure. Okay, so the consumer website is www dot bonded two, the number two bonded two.com. Uh, my email, just email me glen GLEN one n@bondedtwo.com and, uh, uh, very happy to, to talk to anybody. You know, we're growing.

We love new information, we love feedback. We love challenge, we love connections. Uh, we're so, so happy to have made some [00:47:00] great ones, like with yourself, Nette. I mean, that's a, you know, a lucky, a lucky meeting for us. And, um, and, you know, we, uh, do not think that there's any limit to the amount of feedback we need to continue to, to roll it into, to making this exactly what people need, both at an infrastructure level, but also just at the product level.

Consumers need to use something easy and, and we want this to be so easy. 

Mehmet Gonullu: Absolutely. To your point, like, um, I always say when I go to any event, uh, I try, you know, maybe you've, you've noticed this Glen also as well, so it's not like to go and exchange business cards or like add me to link it in. So actually.

The main thing, and this is I learned from a lot of books and mentors that they told me the same thing is you go there and you try to. See how you [00:48:00] can help first and then you would be helped. And um, and I've seen the same from your side also as well, right? Because, um, for, for, for me, the podcast is a platform.

Yes. Uh, it's for my guest. It helped me also as well, expanding my network, and they were so happy to meet you, Glen, at that event. And I'm happy that you came today and we recorded this episode for the audience. You will find all, you know, the links, uh, in, in the show notes so you don't have to look right and left for them.

Uh, and this is usually how I end this, uh, this, uh, my, all my episodes. This is for the audience. Um, thank you very much for, you know. Watching or listening to us today, if it's your first time on the CTO show with maad, I ask you a small favor. Subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues 'cause we are trying to do an impact.

And if you are one of the people who keep coming again and again, the loyal fans, the audience, I really appreciate all your support. I appreciate what you're doing this year for the CTO show. [00:49:00] I'm, I know I'm repeating myself every single episode, but I can't thank. Everyone enough because we are in the top 200 charts across multiple countries, eight countries.

The last time I checked, this is something I didn't see before and this cannot happen without two factors. First, the audience that listens or watch and my guest including you Glen. So thank you again Glen, for being part of this and you know, your support means a the word for me. So thank you very much for tuning in and we'll be again very soon.

Thank you. Bye-bye.