62 episodes

In this podcast, hosts Vikram Ramakrishnan and Faizaan Shamsi, partners at the software consultancy QuantLayer, talk to investors and builders of the cryptocurrency arena. We discuss how industry participants think about crypto assets, how they uncover fraud in the market, and which technologies will turn the budding, nascent crypto space into the revolutionary powerhouse early market participants had hoped for.

QuantLayer Podcast Vikram Ramakrishnan and Faizaan Shamsi

    • News

In this podcast, hosts Vikram Ramakrishnan and Faizaan Shamsi, partners at the software consultancy QuantLayer, talk to investors and builders of the cryptocurrency arena. We discuss how industry participants think about crypto assets, how they uncover fraud in the market, and which technologies will turn the budding, nascent crypto space into the revolutionary powerhouse early market participants had hoped for.

    Bringing Traditional Tooling Services to Serverless

    Bringing Traditional Tooling Services to Serverless

    As software teams begin to migrate to serverless, they will require more in the way of serverless specific tooling: cost tracking, alerting, monitoring, and so on. Here, we look at a number of serverless tooling providers and discuss what they bring and how they will compete with traditional tooling services.
    Topics:
    Installable versus Hosted Platform On Hosted Platform Tooling providers
    - CloudZero
    - Dashbird
    - Hasura GraphQL Engine
    - IOpipe
    - Iron.io
    - lumigo
    - Node Lambda
    - SCAR
    - Sigma
    - Stackery
    - Thundra On framework On security
    - Protego
    - Threat Stack On Installable Platform Links:
    Hosted Platform - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=hosted-platform&format=card-mode&grouping=category
    Tools - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=tools&format=card-mode&grouping=category
    Framework - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=framework&format=card-mode&grouping=category
    Security - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=security&format=card-mode&grouping=category
    Installable Platform - https://landscape.cncf.io/category=installable-platform&format=card-mode&grouping=category

    • 27 min
    AWS, GCP, and Azure: The Tradeoffs of Serverless Architectures

    AWS, GCP, and Azure: The Tradeoffs of Serverless Architectures

    Serverless has caused a massive shift in approaches to application design. On this episode, we explore what serverless gives teams, and the tradeoffs involved in going the serverless route. We cover players like Amazon AWS, Google GCP, and Microsoft Azure, and what else is in store for the space.
    Topics:
    What Serverless is On their benefits Monolithic versus microservices architectures How might development teams work on serverless applications versus traditional ones On tradeoffs of Serverless Business benefits of Serverless The drawbacks Links:
    Serverless - https://serverless.com
    What is Serverless? - Squadex - https://squadex.com/insights/what-is-serverless/

    • 34 min
    Databases and NoSQL: MongoDB’s Approach to Companies with Scaling Data Requirements

    Databases and NoSQL: MongoDB’s Approach to Companies with Scaling Data Requirements

    Relational databases versus NoSQL is of interest today given growing data requirements for businesses. Real-time, internet of things, storing geodata, financial data are examples where traditional relational databases don’t make the cut required for modern systems. We discuss the successes and failings of relational databases, and how MongoDB’s approach to NoSQL data structures allow them to serve specific customer problems with specialized solutions. We look at some customer case studies and finish up with their business model.
    Topics:
    What MongoDB is Their database Their overview What are the benefits Customer case studies On their solution Growth Strategy Links:
    Last 10K - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1441816/000144181619000067/mdb-013119x10k.htm
    Last 10Q - https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1441816/000144181619000187/mdb-073119x10q.htm
    Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1441816/000104746917006446/a2233574z424b4.htm
    Ycharts financials - https://ycharts.com/financials/MDB/income_statement/quarterly
    MongoDB - https://www.mongodb.com/

    • 38 min
    Cloud Computing at the Edge: An Overview of Fastly (FSLY)

    Cloud Computing at the Edge: An Overview of Fastly (FSLY)

    Edge computing is a topic that isn’t getting enough coverage. We’ve covered CDNs like CloudFlare before, but we wanted to look at Fastly, an edge computing player that went public early in 2019. On this episode, we cover edge computing topics like rapidly purged caching. We run through a few case studies of the value edge computing brings some of Fastly’s customers. We discuss major risks that the company might face and postulate on why we think they’re trading at a discount compared to other SaaS companies like CloudFlare ($NET) and Elastic ($ESTC).
    Topics:
    QuantLayer Mission Statement Analysis Case studies they mention in their prospectus On their section called, "Our Solution: The Developer's Edge" How they categorize their strenghts Who are their competitors and how to they sit there Major differences versus Cloudflare On their sections called, "Factors Affecting Our Performance" Faizaan's major concerns about Fastly Links:
    Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1517413/000119312519150526/d702138d424b4.htm Latest 10Q - https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1517413/000151741319000022/fsly-10qx93019.htm Fastly is An Under Appreciated Growth Story - https://www.cmlviz.com/2019/11/12/FSLY/fastly-nyse-fsly-is-an-under-appreciated-growth-story.html Fastly Blog - https://www.fastly.com/blog/build-on-fastly-with-code-blocks-and-tutorials

    • 39 min
    Financial Services APIs and Silvergate Capital

    Financial Services APIs and Silvergate Capital

    There has been a lot of interest around developer-first banking APIs recently. On this episode, we go over recent tech IPO Silvergate Capital (ticker $SI), which is a digital currency focused bank and settlement network. We discuss their business, particularly around digital currency initiatives and their Silvergate Exchange Network (or SEN). We get into the weeds of what it means to claim to be an API first financial services company.
    Enjoy the episode.
    Topics:
    On Silvergate Capital QuantLayer mission statement analysis Overview of Silvergate Capital Digital Currency Initiative Silvergate Exchange Network What their API offers Growth strategy Risk factors Links:
    Prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312109/000119312519288512/d568616d424b4.htm Silvergate Capital - https://www.silvergatebank.com/ Banking APIs - Open Banking Platform by Silvergate Bank - https://www.silvergatebank.com/api/developer-tools.html Silvergate Sandbox API - https://silvergate.portal.azure-api.net/docs/services/5aec9e3121b53188f5be9853/operations/access-token

    • 34 min
    Chips, Chips, Chips: Canaan Mining, NVIDIA, AMD, ASICs, GPUs, AI and ML chipmakers

    Chips, Chips, Chips: Canaan Mining, NVIDIA, AMD, ASICs, GPUs, AI and ML chipmakers

    Recently, there has been a lot of recent interest in customized semiconductors. Bitcoin mining has highlighted the interest in ASICs, or application specific chips, and as we move up the customized application layer stack, discussion of AI and ML chips becomes necessary. On this episode, we look at Canaan Mining, a chinese Bitcoin mining chip manufacturer. And we look at them in the context of growing trends in AI and ML chips. We compare and contrast AMD and NVIDIA and discuss the new growth in startups in the traditionally capital intensive space. We finish up with what you should be on the lookout for when considering investing in chip manufacturers.
    Topics:
    Canaan F1 On their mission statement Quick overview on Canaan Industry overview Overview of bitcoin and blockchain mining economics AI and ML chips What CPU is What GPU is What ASIC is What TPU is On their risk factors Links:
    History and Corporate Structure - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1780652/000119312519276263/g773846g13c91.jpg
    Canaan.io - https://canaan.io/
    IPO prospectus - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1780652/000119312519276263/d773846df1.htm#rom773846_1
    Canaan Creative - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan_Creative
    SEC Form F-1 - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sec-form-f-1.asp
    Specialized AI Chips Hold Both Promise and Peril for Developers - https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/processors/specialized-ai-chips-hold-both-promise-and-peril-for-developers
    NVIDIA Gross Profit Margin - https://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA/gross_profit_margin

    • 41 min

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