An Interview with Jessica Billingsley, Founder, CEO & Board Chair at Akerna Corp.

In this episode, the yWhales team speaks with Jessica Billingsley, Founder, CEO & Board Chair at Akerna Corp. She is an accomplished innovator, executive, and board member in the international technology sector. In 2018, Billingsley founded Akerna, an enterprise software company that has created a global technology ecosystem for cannabis. 

 

About Guests

Jessica Billingsley has been running tech companies since she was 22 and grew up with entrepreneurial parents. She graduated college at the end of the dot com boom. She first heard about bitcoin in 2012 and opened up a Coinbase account. As she began to understand the difference between crypto and blockchain she invested in a cannabis company. After investing the company asked her to pick the software and in response she invented Akerna. 

 

You’ll learn about:

• Jessica’s background
• The Cannabis industry
• Jay’s background
• Jessica’s family
• Where Akerna is currently 
• The Feudal system
• Early adopters in in blockchain tech
• The evolution of Akerna
• Theories behind Web3
• The future of Akerna

 

Resources: 

Connect with Jessica Billingsley: LinkedIn | Website

Connect with YWhales: Website | BitClout | Twitter

 

Timestamps

[02:05] Jessica’s background with crypto

[05:10] Why Jessica invested in the cannabis industry

[07:24] The early years of Akerna

[09:15] The next dot com era

[21:17] Jessica’s family business 

[24:06] TCPI

[31:09] The feudal system

[32:15] The rise of tech giants

[36:27] What is the blockchain?

[39:44] The future of Web3

[44:06] Stable coins and bank adoption 

[45:45] Will the cannabis industry adopt blockchain applications?

[51:03] Referral fees

[54:04] The Metaverse

 

DISCLAIMER: yWhales is not affiliated with YPO but at this time only allow for YPO, YPO Gold, and YNG members due to privacy & confidentiality. Support and production for today’s episode was done by Truth Work Media. Nothing in the podcast constitutes professional and/or financial advice, nor does any information on the podcast constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters discussed or the law relating thereto.