"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels... They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Steve Jobs

In the world of entrepreneurship, there is perhaps no one more revered than Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. With Jobs deceased and Apple being one of the most valuable companies in the world, who are the new misfits pioneering the revolutionary companies of tomorrow? While there are a few notable public examples, few have an untold story like Andrew Masanto.

Andrew Masanto
Andrew Masanto Andrew Masanto

Masanto, who has until now quietly co-founded several disruptive tech unicorns, has deftly navigated many hurdles and transformations throughout his life. Originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, but raised in Australia, Masanto encountered racism, bigotry and bullying during his formative years. "I remember one of my teachers threatened to kill me as he slammed my head onto my desk and put a screwdriver to my temple" he states. Due to this abuse, Andrew was forced to change middle schools. In his new school, he battled the odds to ultimately become one of the three student leaders of the new school as well as winning first place in the NSW Catholic Schools Public Speaking Competition. Masanto would eventually go on to obtain two degrees - a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws - from the University of Sydney. The University of Sydney is where Masanto began to thrive, receiving First Class Honors in both degrees and becoming one of the youngest tutors to teach at the prestigious institution, all while he was still a student. "It was weird teaching my college friends, but also kind of fun", Masanto says. Soon after obtaining his degrees, Masanto set his sights on humanitarian work. He traveled to Africa, where he became a monk trainee whilst building a school in rural Ghana.

Like his schooling years, Masanto's career has also seen significant challenges and strange pivots. After a brief stint in investment banking in Sydney, Masanto quit finance to become a lawyer in London with magic circle firm Linklaters. He soon became disillusioned with the legal world, and delved into a range of side hustles in his free time. "I felt like I was happier as a broke monk in the African wilderness than I was working as a lawyer in London," Masanto recalls. "I also felt as though the other lawyers didn't like my hustle or my thinking. I felt out of place.".

Masanto's discontent at the law firm initiated a decade long era of vocational exploration. During this time, while performing several odd jobs, Masanto created Altitude Shoes, a direct-to-consumer website, and Higher Click, an SEO and PPC advertising agency. It was through these initiatives that Masanto established himself as a prominent digital marketer, winning awards from several affiliate networks. "Being able to reach millions of people through digital marketing gave me the feeling, for the first time, that I could have a direct impact on millions of people via the internet", said Masanto. Continuing this momentum, Masanto helped his brother launch a brand incubator which would spin off multiple direct-to-consumer brands, including PetLab Co., currently the fastest-growing pet company in the United States. As he became more successful, Masanto began to re-engage with academia, being a guest lecturer at several universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Columbia and his old college, the University of Sydney.

Masanto was also drawn to another misfit industry - Web3 and blockchain. He was an early adopter of the technology - he bought Bitcoin in 2011 and was the highest bidder in the first ever NFT auction house in 2017. This interest eventually led Masanto to co-found two of the top 100 cryptocurrencies: Hedera Hashgraph, the now most energy-efficient distributed ledger technology, and Reserve, a decentralized stablecoin and app which has become one of the most widely used Fintech Apps in Argentina and Venezuela, with a total transaction volume surpassing $3.7 billion.

Despite his rapid success, Masanto's life and interests do not follow a linear path. He has taken several detours along his journey towards economic success. "Life would be shallow if it was all about making money," Masanto states. In line with this, in 2015, Masanto enrolled as a full-time student at ICON Collective music school in Burbank, California. "Becoming a music school student and living in a student dorm again after achieving economic success may have seemed left field and unexpected, but it felt right", Masanto states. Masanto graduated second in his class and won the award for the best collaborative music project with two other collaborators. Based on this experience, Masanto wrote a thesis on the importance of collaboration in art. The thesis formed the basis of the ANONA manifesto, which formed the theological underpinnings of an international collaborative movement called ANONA. ANONA stands for 'Art-Non-Artist' - a combination of artists (musicians, painters, dancers etc) and non-artist contributors (celebrities, fans, businesspeople etc). ANONA artworks provoke critical thought on social norms, and have trended across several countries, especially during the pandemic. Their music videos "Not Enough" and "Melt" have won awards and raised awareness by way of commentary on issues such as social standards of physical attractiveness and abusive relationships.

Not content quite yet, Masanto continues his Web3 entrepreneurial endeavors today. Inspired by conversations first held with inventor Dr. Miguel de Vega in 2019, Masanto most recently co-founded a Web3 protocol called Nillion with Dr. de Vega. Nillion is based on the development of a mathematical breakthrough called Nil Message Compute (NMC), an algorithm that uses multi-party computation (MPC), rather than blockchain, to create a decentralized infrastructure. Additionally, Masanto is a co-founder of NFT.com, a new NFT marketplace, launchpad and community which has been featured in publications like Forbes, NFT Evening, CoinTelegraph, Decrypt, and more. As a personal investor and collector, Masanto and his family own some of the world's most coveted NFTs, including the record-breaking "Right Click And Save As Guy" (purchased alongside Cozmo de' Medici / Snoop Dogg), one of the ten rarest Bored Apes, an Ether Rock, Rare Pepes and one of the rarest Solana Monkey Business NFTs.

But Masanto is not one to let business interests dominate his life, "Life can't all be about work", he muses. Masanto also spends significant time working in the world of biohacking and longevity, founding the group biohackinggroup.com, which boasts over 10,000 biohacking enthusiast community members. He hosts dinners focused on health, longevity and biohacking, many of which are often attended by renowned figures. But perhaps most distinctively, Masanto has a yearning for "soulful, raw, and fascinating adventures" away from "the playgrounds of the rich". He can instead be found backpacking through India, residing with monks in Ghana, living with a middle class host family in Japan, camping in the Sahara Desert and traveling the world seeking other unique experiences. It seems that the migrant misfit has come full circle and now seeks out experiences where, quite frankly, he does not fit in.