Cédric Waldburger is a serial entrepreneur, investor and blockchain enthusiast. His involvement spans from fintech and eCommerce, to social networks and SaaS. He co-founded DFINITY – a blockchain startup backed by Andreesen Horowitz – and eight other high-tech companies in Europe and the US. He joined DFINITY early on and is now focusing on the Growth. He leads the initiatives on Developer and Mining adoption, alongside with heading some of DFINITY’s partnerships.
Cédric Waldburger previously co-founded and worked for various businesses around the globe (Zurich, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, London and Berlin) where he held roles on the technology and management side. He enjoys contribution to the product team, on the marketing side and – most importantly – in an area he calls “startup common sense” – meaning all the processes, systems and structures that help a company independently of their product. Things like “how to hire efficiently”, “how the role of the founder changes when the company grows from 3 to 10 to 30 people”, etc.
His experience on both sides of the table (as a founder and investor) helps him bring a unique perspective and solutions to problems in a wide range of environments.
The man who lives out of a suitcase
Cédric Waldburger arrived at his motto “Less is more” through his business activities and the many journeys that he has undertaken and still makes in the course of fulfilling these, and decided to give up most of his possessions, including his home.
The fact that Cédric currently has no permanent place of residence and only has as many belongings as will fit into his small suitcase was not a decision that he made overnight, but was more of a process. It all started back in 2011, when he left Switzerland for a longer period for the first time to go and live in New York and, from that point on, he moved on again almost every six months – to Hong Kong, to London, and then back to Zurich. During this time, he noticed that he didn’t actually need a lot of the things that he had hanging in the cupboard at home. So he began to make a list of all his possessions and started sorting through them regularly, using his own 90-day rule.
This involved going through all his possessions once every three months and asking himself the following question for each individual item – “Did I need this thing at all during the past 90 days and will I need it in the coming 90 days?” If the answer was “no”, then the items were sold or given away. Through this process, he has managed to reduce his possessions over the past few years to just 64 items. Cédric particularly likes the number 64 because “it’s either 2 to the power 6, or 8 times 8. I’m a bit of a nerd, and I just think it’s a great number”. However, he is not fixed on the number 64. What is important to him is simply concentrating on the essential things.
Themes of and content of his lectures
- Minimalism / Less is more / 64 items
- Blockchain / DFINITY
Take-aways for the listeners
- Listeners are given food for thought about what things are really important in life and how many things we need to make us happy.
- Blockchain: bitcoin and blockchain explained using examples to make them easy to understand; a look behind the scenes of a blockchain company with over CHF 200 million in funding from renowned investors.