From AI Researcher to Solana Builder: Gabriele’s Crypto Journey | OnlyDevs Podcast

In this conversation, Gabriele (co-founder of Magic Block) joins Shek and Harkirat Singh to share his journey from AI research at IBM to building on Solana, and why Magic Block is pushing the limits of blockchain infrastructure.

Careers page ( Magic Block ) - https://www.magicblock.xyz/careers
Gabriele’s Twitter: https://x.com/PiccoGabriele
Website: https://www.magicblock.xyz/


Timestamps

00:00 – Intro
00:40 – Gabriele’s journey: from coding in high school → crypto
02:27 – AI & geolocation: startup to IBM research
07:27 – Magic Block’s origin: from gaming → Solana infra
09:58 – Open-sourcing an on-chain gaming SDK
14:50 – Solana’s scalability challenges & evolution
17:17 – Ephemeral rollups explained
21:49 – Unlocking new apps with optimized write access
23:59 – Tackling low-latency + state sync issues
28:34 – Open-source efforts for real-time infra
30:50 – Use cases: gaming, DeFi, deep infra apps
32:13 – High Performance Engineering Culture at Magic Block
35:22 – Why open-source contributions matter in hiring
37:26 – Side projects as signals of strong builders

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