Scott Lawin of Candy Digital: Why Building Financial Products Requires The Exact Same Engineering Mindset As Designing Physical Structures

New technologies have changed the way we engage in and watch sports. Sensors, Wearable Tech, Video Assistant Referees (VAR), and Instant Replay, are examples of new technologies that have changed the way we play and watch sports. In this interview series called, “The Future of Sports; New Emerging Technologies That Are Disrupting The World Of Sports,” we are talking to sports leaders, athletes, sports tech experts, and sports equipment companies who can talk about the new technologies that are reshaping the sports world.

As a part of this interview, we had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Lawin of Candy Digital.

Scott M. Lawin is CEO/COO of Candy Digital, Inc., a next-generation sports and culture digital asset platform, providing authentic objects and experiences that deepen fan engagement and connect people to their passions. Before launching Candy, Mr. Lawin founded Parametric, LP, a private investment and advisory firm focused on early-stage opportunities in blockchain, fintech, art and real estate. From 2010–2017, Mr. Lawin was Chief Operating Officer of Moore Capital Management, a $15bn global alternative investment management company. Prior to joining Moore, Mr. Lawin he served as Chief Operating Officer of the Liquid Markets business at Fortress Investment Group following a 12-year career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Mr. Lawin serves on the Boards of Art Money and Srinidhi Investment Group, and is an Advisor to the MIT MET Fund, Stonyrock Partners, Dore Partnership, 24/7Office and Streetlinx. He is the Founder of Museum of the Street, Vice-Chairman and Director of Hudson River Park Friends, and an Advisory Board member of JUST Capital and The Kitchen.

Mr. Lawin earned his BS in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993 and is a Founding member of the Dean’s Advisory Committee for the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. He and his family reside in Tribeca in New York City.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I grew up in the Midwest and was the first person in my family to go to college. I went to MIT to study nuclear physics, graduated with a degree in architecture, and then started my career in finance at Goldman, Sachs. I never dreamed of being an investment banker, but I paid my own way through college and needed to pay off my student loans. I also knew nothing about business, and figured Wall Street would give me a two-year crash course as an analyst. What I learned was that working in the faced-paced world of global markets suited me, and that building new financial products and businesses utilized the engineering skillset I had learned to design and build physical structures. After 12 years at Goldman, I left to join Fortress Investment Group to build the Liquid Markets hedge fund business as COO with my partner and current Board member Mike Novogratz. We scaled the team and business quickly, took the firm public, and then navigated our way through the global financial crisis. I left Fortress in 2010 to become COO of Moore Capital, where I stayed until 2017 when I left to focus my time on investing in and advising early-stage Fintech companies. I was introduced to Bitcoin and blockchain technology in 2016, and in 2020 partnered up with Mike’s firm, Galaxy Digital, to launch a sports collectibles joint venture with Fanatics, which today is known as Candy Digital.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

On an early morning flight to pitch the CFO of a Fortune 500 company on a competitive financing transaction, I discovered the associate I was working with had mistakenly brought the wrong presentation books for the meeting. Knowing we had one shot at the pitch, I took a deep breath and told my colleague that we would just have to channel Bruce Lee and “give the presentation without giving the presentation”. We showed up at the meeting with the pitch books containing the wrong analysis, placed them on the table, and then proceeded to talk the CFO through our proposal without cracking the decks. We ended up winning the business, and it served as a great reminder for me and the team that being quick on your feet and staying calm when things go wrong can help snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu

I’ve always looked to this quote to give me perspective on any large or daunting task I am faced with, either professionally or personally. Any significant challenge can be broken down into a series of smaller problems, and the key is not to be paralyzed the enormity of the issue, but to take action and start chipping away at the small stuff. Before long, the big problem seems much more manageable, and the confidence gained from small victories gives you the momentum to see it through to the end.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

At Goldman Sachs I had the privilege of working with Michael Mortara, a larger-than-life Wall Street character who ran the Fixed Income division. Mike was a legendary figure of “Liar’s Poker” fame who helped create the institutional mortgage-backed securities business and embodied the best of Wall Street through his intelligence, humor, and philanthropy. Despite being one of the most senior partners in an 8,000-person firm, Mike knew the names of all the security guards and cleaning staff, greeting them whenever he came and went. In an environment known for its hierarchy, the importance Mike placed on making a personal connection with his employees, regardless of their status or role, has stuck with me to this day.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

“Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse is a book I have read many times over the years when life feels complicated and uncertain. The spiritual journey Siddhartha undertakes in the novel is a reminder that understanding of oneself and others is not attained not through intellectual methods, or through the pursuit of material wealth; rather, it is the totality of experience that allows one to gain true perspective on life.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have traveled around the world, hired great people, met heads of state and helped build significant businesses over the past 29 years. Throughout that time, I have relied on a strong work ethic, a sense of humor, and an insatiable curiosity to keep me engaged and thinking about what’s next and how I can be part of it.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had in life and have a strong conviction that I have an obligation to give back and help others. I started to get involved in the non-profit sector immediately after college and have focused my time and giving on organizations that support the Arts (The Kitchen), Parks (Hudson River Park Friends), and Children (FIVER Foundation) in New York City. I try to lead by example by supporting and being actively involved in causes that I believe have a direct positive impact on the city and its inhabitants, and hope that others are inspired to do the same.

Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about the sports technologies that most excite you at the moment? Can you explain why you are passionate about it?

The three sports technologies I am the most excited about are NFTs, volumetric video, and virtual reality. Our business at Candy Digital is focused on developing the next generation of sports collectibles to connect people to their passions. Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) allow people to own a unique piece of authentic digital content that connects them to the League, Team or Player they love. Unlike a traditional sports card or piece of memorabilia, a digital asset can be a more dynamic collectible that functions as a tool to reward fans for their participation and engage them in the history and future of the game in new ways.

Volumetric video is a new way to capture the action on the field or the court using 3D voxels instead of 2D pixels. As this technology matures, it will allow fans to directly control the way they view their favorite sports, putting their view of the game inside the helmet of their favorite quarterback or from the pitcher’s mound during the World Series.

As virtual reality applications and communities become more pervasive, they will allow fans from all over the world to gather to watch their favorite sports as if they were there, and to transform their living rooms into virtual stadiums to watch the game in real time from the sidelines.

How do you think this might change the world of sports?

NFTs and AR/VR technologies will bring a new generation of sports fans from around the world into the space, giving them the ability to experience the game in an entirely new, immersive way.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Complexity. The name itself — “non-fungible token”, while technically descriptive, is somewhat opaque and immediately puts some people off. Likewise, the user experience of creating a digital wallet and owning a crypto-enabled asset is also challenging for many. In order to unlock the true potential of the technology, consumers will need simple on-ramps to discover, purchase, and interact with digital assets. That is what we are focused on building at Candy.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the sports industry today? Can you explain? What can be done to address or correct those concerns?

• Equity — compensation and resource differentials between men’s and women’s sports
• Access — the cost of access/participation for everyday fans is too high
• Prejudice — reprehensible/racist behavior by fans

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. “Be yourself”. When I started my career, I thought I needed to keep my personal interests separate from my work persona. While that didn’t hold me back in my professional achievement, I realized it made for a lonely climb because I was missing connections with my colleagues around the things I was passionate about. As I grew in my role, I became more confident sharing the things that I enjoyed outside of the office and that helped forge long-lasting friendships.

2. “Follow your passion”. My career path was marked by a stark difference between the things I loved (art, music, architecture) and the things I did for work (finance and business management). While I was good at my job and my business pursuits were financially and intellectually rewarding, they weren’t always something I could get excited about. I’m fortunate now to be building a business that brings my passions for art, technology, and collecting together in a new market. The difference is palpable.

3. “Take risks”. Despite managing trading businesses with risk-taking at their core, I myself am not a big risk taker. There were numerous times throughout my career where I had an opportunity to change directions but chose the “safe” path. That path has worked out pretty well, but I wonder if I would have been able to have a bigger impact had I jumped into a creative industry sooner.

4. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good”. I pride myself on being extremely detail oriented and having an opinion on all aspects of how something is designed and executed. While that can be helpful in making sure we are developing the best products, it can also be exhausting. I’ve learned to dial back my involvement in the minutiae to make sure things keep moving and that people feel empowered to make mistakes and learn from them.

5. “If you want to run fast, run alone. If you want to run far, run together”. I grew up with the mantra “if you want something done right, do it yourself”. While that worked well early on in my career as I learned to execute all the aspects of the business I was in and take on more responsibility, I quickly realized it was non-scalable. Taking ownership of everything meant working around the clock and never being able to satisfy everyone, least of which was me. I learned the hard way the importance of delegating and how to hire people more talented than I was to build something much bigger than I could alone.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I believe the key to future success for every individual and for society as a whole is through the broad-based improvement of education standards and availability. Basic knowledge of math, science, art and culture unites people in common truths and helps us understand how similar we all are despite our differences. One of the great tragedies of our time is that we seem to have forgotten the importance of investing in our education system. I would love to inspire a movement that would create a new public education framework to attract and reward the most talented individuals across the country to educate our children regardless of income, location, or demographics. Getting to place where our educators are compensated and revered the same way our sports heroes and business leaders are would fundamentally change the course of our country.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Satoshi Nakamoto. As the creator of Bitcoin, he/she/they have unleashed one of the most powerful technology/philosophical movements in history. I believe the concept of secure decentralized ownership has the potential to fundamentally change the structure of the world, and I would love to understand the creative spark that brought Satoshi’s white paper to life.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

For more information on Candy please visit www.candy.com and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Discord.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!