Gabby Vorbeck is the co-founder and COO of Altana, which builds authorization infrastructure that lets AI agents pay, invest, and operate safely with money. A crypto native since 2017 and fluent in five languages, he has spent his career at the meeting point of web3 protocols, consumer products, and the partnerships that make them grow.
The record backs it up. At Timeless, he co-led the launch of a social wallet with ConsenSys’s Linea that drew over 200,000 participants and $500,000 in transaction volume in six days, then grew the user base to 750,000 in seven weeks, all supported by a network of more than 50 university blockchain clubs he built from scratch. He later led business development at The Innovation Game, a Cambridge protocol for open algorithm innovation, and spoke at ETHDenver 2024 on solving the cold start problem. His motto, coniunctis viribus, stronger together, runs through all of it.
What are you working on currently?
Altana. We give agents the ability to act on any open protocol, so they can actually go do things onchain instead of being stuck with whatever someone integrated for them ahead of time. We’re one of the sponsor tracks on BNB Chain’s Build the Era hackathon right now (see my latest post).
What’s a belief you hold that most people in your industry would disagree with?
The agent economy isn’t waiting on smarter agents. Everyone is optimizing the brain, and nobody is fixing the hands.
Overhyped/underhyped?
Overhyped: agent demos that stop before money moves.
Underhyped: everything that has to be true for agents to move money to every app.
What do you want the future to look like?
Agents interacting permissionlessly anywhere on the internet, moving capital without borders, and its owner still in control at every step. That only holds if the architecture is rooted in self-custody, which is what web3 set out to do in the first place. Ownership and sovereignty. Agents are here to make life easier, and none of that should require trusting them to do the right thing.
What do you spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about?
Predictability. Not smarter agents, not more autonomous ones. Agents whose ability is constrained to exactly what you asked for, especially when it’s your capital they’re touching. And then, being able to do this with any protocol out there.
About ADIN
ADIN is a highly AI focused pursuit (bringing algorithmic venture with the full force of AI agents). ADIN is also just as much about the people. We’re building a network where early-stage funding happens faster, fairer, and with more incentives for the people on the bleeding edge. If you want to be part of that, apply here to be a scout or investor and follow ADIN as we keep opening doors.
You can follow Gabby on X and LinkedIn.
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