# The Invisible Labor of Creating Community | Simona Pop and Kartik Talwar at Pragma Lisbon 2026

- Speakers: [Kartik Talwar](https://streameth.org/speakers/kartik-talwar), [Simona Pop](https://streameth.org/speakers/simona-pop)
- Channel: [ETHGlobal](https://streameth.org/ethglobal)
- Date: 2026-09-09
- Duration: 55:31
- Topics: ETHGlobal, Pragma Lisbon 2026, Lisbon, 2026, Simona Pop, Kartik Talwar, HUMAN Protocol, developer community, community building, Ethereum ecosystem, hackathons, open source, AI and developers, founder journey, fireside chat, Pragma Lisbon, Ethereum community building, developer community strategy, web3 community growth, ETHGlobal history, crypto hackathon community, Ethereum builders, community operations, developer ecosystem, open source community, founder community
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-vEk0RFw7eSQ
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEk0RFw7eSQ

## Description

In a live HUMAN Protocol podcast recording, host Simona Pop interviews ETHGlobal Co-Founder and CEO Kartik Talwar about the invisible work behind a durable developer community. Talwar reflects on ETHGlobal’s history, its early Ethereum Foundation support, and the standards learned from organizing events at global scale. Community quality, he explains, depends on thousands of decisions that participants rarely see: reviewing every applicant, helping teams find the right environment, gathering feedback at high volume, and creating clear pathways from a first hackathon to a serious company. Pop asks how ETHGlobal defines quality when event size, application volume, and the surrounding market continue to change. Talwar describes maintaining a consistent bar by reviewing applicants individually and creating an environment where builders can compare themselves with exceptional peers.

The conversation follows projects and people from early experiments through products that shaped the Ethereum ecosystem, showing how trusted communities compound over time. Talwar discusses staying close to builders, recognizing what “good” looks like, surviving uncertainty, and expanding without abandoning careful curation. He also considers open source, software-driven business infrastructure, and the falling cost of building every layer of a business, which creates new demands for developer platforms and community operators. The central lesson is that community is not an audience metric: it is ongoing operational labor that helps talented people meet, test ideas, learn faster, and continue building through changing market cycles. They also discuss the difficult years between visible successes. ETHGlobal benefited from early timing and Ethereum Foundation support, but endurance required careful curation, staying close to builders, and continuing to serve developers through difficult market cycles.

00:00 Introduction and Live HUMAN Podcast
01:43 Kartik Talwar’s Academic Background
03:57 From University to Open Source Software
04:45 Learning Startups at SV Angel
06:40 Learning What Great Founders Look Like
08:44 Why the Hackathon Format Matters
10:51 Giving Builders Access to New Technology
11:47 Hack the North and Practical Education
13:32 Feedback Loops for Developer Platforms
14:25 Measuring Time to First Project
15:30 Hackathon Feedback Improves Products
17:22 Giving Builders More of Thirty-Six Hours
18:20 When Local Nodes Took Hours to Sync
19:27 From Better Tooling to Better Products
20:46 CryptoKitties and the First NFTs
22:09 Gitcoin Founders Meet at a Hackathon
22:53 A MetaMask Bug Fixed in the Room
23:19 How 1inch Emerged From Hackathons
26:38 Building Through Every Bear Market
28:03 Reviewing Every ETHGlobal Applicant
29:17 Helping Builders Find Their Peers
29:38 Playing the Seven-Year Community Game
30:38 Showing Real Work During Bear Markets
33:05 Reviewing Every Project and Trend
35:00 Early Ethereum Foundation Support
37:20 Scaling Events After COVID
40:33 The Clash Between Ideals and Reality
42:05 Open Source and Community Compounding
42:36 Supporting Every Layer of a Business
45:01 The Opportunity in Crypto Infrastructure
46:18 Faster Experiments and Product Feedback
48:28 Patterns Across Hundreds of Companies
49:36 Open Source as a Community Model
50:01 Why Closed Ecosystems Backfire
51:42 Competing in the Same Room
53:04 Short-Term KPIs Create Silos
53:53 Long-Term Foundations Versus Easy Wins
55:01 Final Thanks and Podcast Sign-Off

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🇵🇹 *Pragma Lisbon 2026*
Pragma Lisbon 2026 was held on June 25th at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion in Lisbon, Portugal and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Lisbon 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxB4xW8JYdk

ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. 

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✅ Follow Simona Pop
X: https://x.com/Sim_Pop

✅ Follow Human Protocol
X: http://x.com/_humanprotocol

✅ Follow Kartik Talwar
X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik

✅ Follow ETHGlobal
X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​
Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal
Website: https://ethglobal.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA 

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