This article has been written by Josh Adams, Head of Marketing and PR at Theta Labs.
Mitch, our CEO, and I recently spent a couple of days attending Raise Summit in Paris. I have attended many events and conferences in my career. Most of them in recent years have been exclusively crypto events. I won’t lie to you or sugarcoat it, frankly, many crypto events just aren’t worth the investment and certainly are not worth sponsoring. Even when speaking opportunities are available, often the attendance for these speaking slots is very low. Too often, you are speaking to an empty room or sitting in a nearly empty room watching a speaker. It is embarrassing for everyone involved.
Like most conferences, the action happens in those spontaneous moments outside on the conference floor. Those chance meetings where like-minded people, whether it’s investors, builders, or even competitors, can have a human moment together. Conferences at their best have always been a meeting place for like-minded people, often over a lukewarm glass of cheap white wine, and a tote bag of free merchandise. I hope that part will never change!
I think I can speak for Mitch as well when it comes to this, but RAISE felt very different. When I have attended crypto conferences in the past, I have always been impressed by the technology and the tenacity of the builders there. Whether it’s bringing equities onchain or an innovative way of staking cryptoassets, often crypto conferences produce solutions to problems or scenarios I hadn’t even imagined.
RAISE, an AI conference, felt different in that the scenarios and problems were immediate and obvious, but the solutions were exciting and sometimes awe-inspiring. Whether it was software to better organise and track developer workflows and results, or neuroscience research & AI voice-restoration for people suffering with ALS, the problems felt bigger, and the solutions felt bigger too.
I am not exaggerating when I say I was genuinely excited to walk amongst the booths and see so many AI projects in person: who they are, what they are, and what makes them tick.
It was also a very humbling moment for us at Theta. I have never been more convinced that our distributed and decentralised model for compute is necessary. Our global network of GPUs is exactly the model that will help serve the growing demand for inference that extends beyond the horizon. But frankly, the AI industry is an impressive space with impressive people, and there is no shortage of people bringing their A-game. It was a reminder of how hard we have to work just to keep standing still. We cannot rest on our laurels.
But God, we’re so glad we went. When RAISE Summit reached out and invited us to attend it was a no-brainer. We simply had to be there. When we met their team on site, they were gracious and accommodating, and we had a lengthy chat about the future of the event and our potential place in future iterations of it. Having attended this year, it has reframed mine — and our — view on events. Perhaps, just maybe, conferences could be more than warm white wine, free merchandise, and human moments. To be continued.
Spontaneous moments on the fringes of conference, a sharing of experiences, a chance to see the shopfront of the entire AI industry — it was all worth it, and an experience I thoroughly recommend.
Josh Adams
Head of Marketing & PR at Theta Labs
