Mike Novogratz: Lessons from a Decade in Crypto, Bitcoin's $1M Roadmap and Maxis vs Altcoin Communities

**Mike Novogratz** (0:00)
Bitcoin has two vectors that drive its valuation. One is adoption, right? How many people get orange-pilled? And the other is the macro environment, right? We have governments that can't keep their pants on. They spend more money than they should. And Trump said, I'm gonna cut the deficit. I got Elon Musk, he's gonna cut government spending. I got Scott Besson, who's gonna bend the curve of debt to GDP. And you know what? The deficit is gonna be higher, not lower.

**Natalie Brunell** (0:27)
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the show. Joining me this week is Mike Novogratz. He is the founder and CEO of Galaxy. I've been wanting to talk to you for a very long time, sir, so thanks for coming on the show. I'm here. All right, well, let's actually rewind. I would love to learn more about you before Galaxy, the early days. You just told me you were a helicopter pilot before, so can you just tell me about where you're from? How did you get to be where you are?

**Mike Novogratz** (0:51)
Listen, I grew up in a middle-class family in Virginia. My dad was in the Army. I'm one of seven, so we had seven kids, one bathroom, one brush.

**Natalie Brunell** (1:03)
No way. Really?

**Mike Novogratz** (1:05)
Classic suburban family. We thought we were wealthy. When you look back, we were pretty straight middle-class, but very rich neighborhood in terms of the parents were all engaged in your lives, our parents were in the military or the government, great public school. I was a wrestler in high school. I went to Princeton. I wrestled at Princeton and I did ROTC, which led me to be a helicopter pilot in the army. I was going to do something cool after the army, and none of those jobs actually paid anything. And I had a pension for spending lots of money. And so one of my dad's friends who had been like a very senior guy in the military, he said, go to New York, make some money. And then if you want to do something for the government, you can come back when you're 50 And so I went to New York and lived on a friend's couch. He got a job at Goldman Sachs and spent my first, I've had kind of three chapters of my career for my first 11 years was at Goldman Sachs.
I became a partner there. That was cool right before we went public. And then I did 12 years at Fortress, which was the first private equity slash hedge fund company ever to go public.

**Natalie Brunell** (2:14)
Pete Bridger, right?

**Mike Novogratz** (2:15)
With Pete Bridger in West Edens. That was very cool because when we went public, no one had done it. And so we walked around for about 18 months like rock stars. And then the 8 financial crisis hit us between the legs like a hammer. And we kind of went from rock stars to roadies.
But battled through, learned a lot of great lessons. Fortress got sold to a combination of SoftBank and Mobotila. And then I became a family office guy for a year. That was fun. And I was kind of trying to figure out what to do, if I was going to do anything, because family office is nice. People come, they pitch you ideas, they shine your shoes.

**Natalie Brunell** (3:02)
And that's when you've made it.

**Mike Novogratz** (3:04)
Yeah.

**Natalie Brunell** (3:04)
You can have a little bit more fun.

**Mike Novogratz** (3:05)
And but I always decided I'd go back to work if three things got fulfilled. One, can I work with young people? Two, do I learn something new? And three, do I have something to add? And crypto was kind of perfect. I had been kind of an unofficial crypto talking head. I was one of the first old guys in crypto, you know, that had some trade-fi experience. And so I thought I had something to add. I could give some knowledge to these young kids that were building the new future and try to convince my old friends that there was people worth listening to. And I was learning a ton because I had never been a venture investor. And crypto really at its core was about venture. Really, what are these technologies that are going to change the way people behave?

**Natalie Brunell** (3:50)
Well, you were very early to Bitcoin. You were like 20, what, 30, 30

**Mike Novogratz** (3:54)
Yeah.

**Natalie Brunell** (3:54)
Yeah. And this was with Dan Morehead, right, of Pantera.

**Mike Novogratz** (3:57)
Me, Dan, and Pete Brigger.

**Natalie Brunell** (3:58)
Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, I mean, what got you fascinated and down the rabbit hole when so many people in TradFi, even today, they're like really close minded to Bitcoin.