#36 - Arjun Khemani

Balaji (0:00)

Welcome to The Network State Podcast. And so Arjun, you are 22?

Arjun Khemani (0:05)

I'm 19

Balaji (0:05)

You're 19, okay. So 19 means you were born in 2006 So you were born five years after 9-11. The financial crisis, you were only like two years old, right?

So, you know, with video games, people spawn into the battlefield in the middle of, you know, like a MOBA, you know, everybody's shooting at each other, and there's like this giant thing, and someone spawns into the middle. And so I think of you kind of people, the Gen Z types, as spawning into the middle of this totally chaotic situation. And I just want to tell you, it wasn't like that in the 90s and the 2000s. I don't know what your perception is that, or maybe you perceive this chaos as normal.

Arjun Khemani (0:45)

I mean, I was born with a lot of things that I take for granted, right?

Balaji (0:48)

We were in the US, where you were? India?

Arjun Khemani (0:50)

In India.

Balaji (0:50)

Okay, yeah.

Arjun Khemani (0:51)

So, you know, I've like, for as long as I remember, I know like having a computer, a smartphone kind of after a while.

Balaji (1:00)

What's your spiel? Give your life story. You're a Zcash guy now, but give your spiel.

Arjun Khemani (1:04)

Sure. So, you know, I was a pretty normal kid, I would say, when I was up to like 13

Balaji (1:10)

You're still a kid, but go ahead. Yes, fine.

Arjun Khemani (1:12)

Until on COVID, when I was like, you know, doing whatever teenagers would do, play Fortnite, you know, and then COVID hit and then I just like-

Balaji (1:23)

Where were you then?

In India. How come you have an American accent? You have a global accent.

Arjun Khemani (1:28)

International. No idea. Just talking to a lot of people. Okay. So I-

Anyway, COVID hit and then I just started reading a lot of books, like The Beginning of Infinity, Naval's Book, The Navalman Act. And then I just started questioning a lot of things I take for granted and just like started questioning the meaning of it all, right? Like, why am I in school? Like, I don't want to be just growing up, studying engineering like everybody else. And, you know, you know how the Indian mentality is.

Balaji (1:57)

There's nothing wrong with studying engineering, but- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Arjun Khemani (2:00)

But, you know, that kind of life.

Balaji (2:01)

It's like if it's only a canalized path, you want to have some options. Of course.

Arjun Khemani (2:05)

Yeah. So anyway, I got completely radicalized, I guess I would say. And then-

Balaji (2:11)

You got woke? No, exactly. No, not that way. Yeah, yeah. Well, you got enlightened.

Arjun Khemani (2:17)

Enlightened, sure.

Balaji (2:17)

Right, go ahead, yep.

Arjun Khemani (2:20)

And then when it was time to go back to school, because when I was online school, I would just like mute the site and then write for my blog, run on Twitter. But then when I had to go back to school, I was like, this sucks, I'm out of here. So dropped out of school, worked on Airchat for a while, up in the wall, and we sunset that, I guess a couple of years ago now, and then sort of got involved with Zcash.

Balaji (2:43)

Great. Okay, so let's talk Zcash, right? So, the Zcash Network State. Okay. So my view is, there's many problems that Zcash solves. Some of them are obviously privacy, simplicity, quantum resistance, quantum resiliency, let's say.

Arjun Khemani (3:04)

Up to some certain point.

Balaji (3:05)

Up to some certain point, right?

And it has at least a roadmap for resiliency, right? And like Sean Bowe has a good post on this. And then scalability of attack you on, right? And then it's also got some degree of lindiness or what have you, given that it's been around for 10 years, got a good security track record. It's got a good exchange integration, community, all that kind of stuff. And Zcash is interesting because Solana guys like it, Vitalik likes it, I like it, Novel likes it. And it's something where I think we can build a coalition around privacy. And you've certainly experienced this yourself. It's funny to say, how does the youth think about privacy and so forth, right? I'd love to hear your thoughts and I'll give a thought.

Arjun Khemani (3:52)

I would say I don't hang out with a lot of people my age, right? So I don't know what regular people my age think. But for me, I think privacy is super important. Like I don't dock my location anymore. You know, I used to when I was a kid. Right. Didn't really realize the downside of it.