Hi, my name’s Jackson.

In a past life, I wanted to be a filmmaker.*

Then, I wanted to work on Wall Street.**

Now, I want to build a new Wall Street.***

* = grew up middle class in Los Angeles with (brilliant) writers as parents.

** = went to a college filled with the Andover/Exeter East Coast “Elite”.

*** = rejected an utterly rigged system, and now live in the San Francisco tech echo chamber.

Went on a lot of side quests, skipped a ton of dialogue, got lost a few times, and went treasure hunting every chance I got.

Always in the pursuit of more XP.

Azura

(Solo) Founder

Spinning the startup roulette wheel.

‘23 - now

Azura is the first “interfacing layer” for decentralized finance (DeFi), designed to make accessing DeFi assets and protocols as seamless as using traditional financial applications.

Started as a Bloomberg-esque “trading terminal” when I was 19. Scaled to over $10m in annualized revenue less than 6-months after launching our beta with close to $1b in lifetime trading volume.

Saw an opportunity where others saw chaos. Ran toward the FTX dumpster fire.

Privileged to now work with some of the smartest investors and engineers in the world.

University of Chicago

Economics & Data Science

Pell Grant recipient and Odyssey Scholar.

‘21 - ‘22

All I can remember from my time here was:

Deciding to reject conforming to the MBB/IB pipeline.
Sharing a dorm with Carl Sagan’s ghost.
My introduction to Milton Friedman economic theory.
An excruciatingly difficult Balkan Folklore class.
Learning that “merit” is just your family’s networth.
Smoking handrolled cigarettes on the roof of Hutchinson Commons (s/o Alberto).
Meeting the best group of friends I could ask for.

10/10, would gamble sacrificing a full-ride scholarship again.

Analytica Group

SaaS Monkey

Fun fact: the money I made from this now allows me to pull the “$1/year salary” stunt with Azura.

‘21 - ‘22

My first “proper” business. Not your average lemonade stand.

Dead simple tool enabling Slack & Discord users to query capital markets data.

Bootstrapped to roughly $680k ARR in less than a year. Ran from my dorm room with the help of Carl Sagan’s ghost.

Ultimately abandoned to start a lemonade factory (Azura).

Denka Private Equity

Fund Manager

0% management or performance fees, worked for free. Friends and family only. Don’t ask why the term “private equity” is in the name.

‘19 - ‘21

Running this thing gave me gray hair.

Oh, and my 2019 tech investment research led me to:

Convert most of my personal networth into Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Monero.
Move from Windows and Mac to Whonix and Tails (among other paranoid, anti-Big Brother measures).
Start reading (and understanding) some of Kaczynski’s points.
Position my entire life to hedge the inevitable democratic and capitalist fallout that will be catalyzed by the advancement of AI.

Started when I was 16. Peak AUM of $742k. Outperformed the S&P.

Long/short traditional equities. Mostly Big Tech stocks, S&P ETFs, treasury bond ETFs, and the Military Industrial Complex™.

Proud survivor of the March ‘20 stock market crash.

Neuberger Berman

Apprentice

Until I was in, like, college I mistakenly thought this was an “internship”… and then I went on WSO.

‘19 - ‘19

First and last time I wore a suit.

Spent the summer under the wing of one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, Larry Zicklin—former chairman of the Neuberger Berman Board and an adjunct professor of business ethics at Wharton, NYU, and Baruch.

Perhaps the single most enlightening experience to-date. Taught me to question everything, but finance and Wall Street especially.

Notably remember briefly meeting Steve Eisman (Steve Carell played him in The Big Short) and confusing a pair of Goldman Sachs analysts when I told them I was in high school.

Prop Trading

Chronically Online

Scholarship kid at a private school in Los Angeles. Grew up around a lot of wealth, but had none of my own—so I decided to change that.

‘14 - ‘18

Roving digital goods merchant.

Started trading TF2 and CS:GO skins when I was 11 or so. Found a bug on a few CS:GO skin marketplace sites that allowed me to spoof my location with a VPN, get quotes in foreign currencies, and arbitrage the difference.

Other notable events:

Market making Purple Sweets at the Grand Exchange in OSRS.
Resold some sneakers and hypebeast crap, but ultimately graduated to flipping the license keys for sneaker botting software (anyone remember Balko, Dashe, or Cybersole?).
When I was 15, I lost over $60k from betting on crude oil futures at the Mad Greek Cafe while on a Death Valley camping trip.
Fumbled generational wealth not once, not twice, but more times than I can count (missed Bitcoin at $1,200 & $3,900; missed Ethereum at $14 & $120—and these are just the ones I remember).

Side Quests

Tomfoolery

I always believed in optimizing for “the best story to tell”. Side quests are a great way to do that. You have to be whimsy-maxxing 24/7. Experience all the things!

‘02 - now

Have done my fair share of side quests. Memorable ones include:

Directed and wrote avant-garde and experimental short films (see here). Wanted to be a blend of Kubrick x Lynch.
When I was 17, I started a financial literacy program that served several thousand underprivileged LA youth.
Thought I could replicate this at-scale and tried to build a financial literacy EdTech startup in college (spoiler: it was a bad idea, lasted for a few weeks tops).
- Applied last-minute to Y Combinator’s W22 batch with my buddy William, got an interview immediately, was grilled by the co-founder of Twitch for 10-minutes before being given the ultimatum: “If you have conviction, drop out to join YC or walk.” We walked.

Hi, my name’s Jackson.

In a past life, I wanted to be a filmmaker.*

Then, I wanted to work on Wall Street.**

Now, I want to build a new Wall Street.***

* = grew up middle class in Los Angeles with (brilliant) writers as parents.

** = went to a college filled with the Andover/Exeter East Coast “Elite”.

*** = rejected an utterly rigged system, and now live in the San Francisco tech echo chamber.

Went on a lot of side quests, skipped a ton of dialogue, got lost a few times, and went treasure hunting every chance I got.

Always in the pursuit of more XP.

Azura

Azura is the first “interfacing layer” for decentralized finance (DeFi), designed to make accessing DeFi assets and protocols as seamless as using traditional financial applications.

Started as a Bloomberg-esque “trading terminal” when I was 19. Scaled to over $10m in annualized revenue less than 6-months after launching our beta with close to $1b in lifetime trading volume.

Saw an opportunity where others saw chaos. Ran toward the FTX dumpster fire.

Privileged to now work with some of the smartest investors and engineers in the world.

University of Chicago

All I can remember from my time here was:

Deciding to reject conforming to the MBB/IB pipeline.

Sharing a dorm with Carl Sagan’s ghost.

My introduction to Milton Friedman economic theory.

An excruciatingly difficult Balkan Folklore class.

Learning that “merit” is just your family’s networth.

Smoking handrolled cigarettes on the roof of Hutchinson Commons (s/o Alberto).

Meeting the best group of friends I could ask for.

10/10, would gamble sacrificing a full-ride scholarship again.

Analytica Group

My first “proper” business. Not your average lemonade stand.

Dead simple tool enabling Slack & Discord users to query capital markets data.

Bootstrapped to roughly $680k ARR in less than a year. Ran from my dorm room with the help of Carl Sagan’s ghost.

Ultimately abandoned to start a lemonade factory (Azura).

Denka Private Equity

Running this thing gave me gray hair.

Oh, and my 2019 tech investment research led me to:

Convert most of my personal networth into Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Monero.

Move from Windows and Mac to Whonix and Tails (among other paranoid, anti-Big Brother measures).

Start reading (and understanding) some of Kaczynski’s points.

Position my entire life to hedge the inevitable democratic and capitalist fallout that will be catalyzed by the advancement of AI.

Started when I was 16. Peak AUM of $742k. Outperformed the S&P.

Long/short traditional equities. Mostly Big Tech stocks, S&P ETFs, treasury bond ETFs, and the Military Industrial Complex™.

Proud survivor of the March ‘20 stock market crash.

Neuberger Berman

First and last time I wore a suit.

Spent the summer under the wing of one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, Larry Zicklin—former chairman of the Neuberger Berman Board and an adjunct professor of business ethics at Wharton, NYU, and Baruch.

Perhaps the single most enlightening experience to-date. Taught me to question everything, but finance and Wall Street especially.

Notably remember briefly meeting Steve Eisman (Steve Carell played him in The Big Short) and confusing a pair of Goldman Sachs analysts when I told them I was in high school.

Prop Trading

Roving digital goods merchant.

Started trading TF2 and CS:GO skins when I was 11 or so. Found a bug on a few CS:GO skin marketplace sites that allowed me to spoof my location with a VPN, get quotes in foreign currencies, and arbitrage the difference.

Other notable events:

Market making Purple Sweets at the Grand Exchange in OSRS.

Resold some sneakers and hypebeast crap, but ultimately graduated to flipping the license keys for sneaker botting software (anyone remember Balko, Dashe, or Cybersole?).

When I was 15, I lost over $60k from betting on crude oil futures at the Mad Greek Cafe while on a Death Valley camping trip.

Fumbled generational wealth not once, not twice, but more times than I can count (missed Bitcoin at $1,200 & $3,900; missed Ethereum at $14 & $120—and these are just the ones I remember).

Side Quests

Have done my fair share of side quests. Memorable ones include:

Directed and wrote avant-garde and experimental short films (see here). Wanted to be a blend of Kubrick x Lynch.

When I was 17, I started a financial literacy program that served several thousand underprivileged LA youth.

Thought I could replicate this at-scale and tried to build a financial literacy EdTech startup in college (spoiler: it was a bad idea, lasted for a few weeks tops).

Applied last-minute to Y Combinator’s W22 batch with my buddy William, got an interview immediately, was grilled by the co-founder of Twitch for 10-minutes before being given the ultimatum: “If you have conviction, drop out to join YC or walk.” We walked.