Preethi Kasireddy

Kasireddy graduated from the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California (USC) is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, planned by a group led by Judge Robert Maclay Widney and opened to students in 1880.Open the full entry’s Viterbi School of Engineering in 2012 with a B.S. in industrial and systems engineering. She then worked as an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs for less than a year, where she learned how tech company financials work.⁠[1][2]

A cold call from Andreessen Horowitz led her to its deals team, where she worked with the firm’s general partners on deals including BuzzFeed, Stack OverflowStack OverflowStack Overflow is a programming Q&A website and the company that runs it, founded in 2008 by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood; it builds technical knowledge through community questions and answers and sells knowledge-management, data-licensing and advertising products to businesses. Prosus acquired it for $1.8 billion in 2021.Open the full entry, Envoy and Smartcar, and became interested in blockchain.⁠[2][3]

She taught herself to code in about nine months, then left Andreessen Horowitz to join CoinbaseCoinbaseCoinbase is a U.S. operator of crypto asset trading platforms, founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, whose listed parent is Coinbase Global, Inc.; it went public through a direct listing on Nasdaq (ticker COIN) in April 2021 and joined the S&P 500 in May 2025. It provides crypto trading, custody, staking, and stablecoin-related services, launched USDC with Circle, develops the Ethereum layer-2 network Base, and acquired the crypto options exchange Deribit in 2025; its venture investing operates as Coinbase Ventures.Open the full entry as a software engineer, designing and building front-end interfaces and APIs for integrating EthereumEthereumEthereum is an open, general-purpose smart contract blockchain that launched in 2015, and its native asset is ether (ETH). The project was proposed by Vitalik Buterin and advanced jointly by eight co-founders; the network now uses proof of stake and centers on the EVM, the account model, a rollup scaling roadmap, and the open EIP process.Open the full entry into Coinbase’s brokerage platform. After leaving Coinbase she taught herself to write code that runs on Ethereum while contributing to blockchain projects.⁠[1][2]

She describes herself as an autodidact who taught herself most of what she knows, from math and physics to coding and crypto.⁠[4]

On May 23, 2018, TruStory, founded by Kasireddy, announced a $3 million seed round led by True Ventures, with participation from Pantera CapitalPantera CapitalPantera Capital is an investment management firm focused on digital assets and the blockchain industry, founded by Dan Morehead in 2003. Its investments span corporate equity, early-stage tokens and liquid digital assets, and it manages a bitcoin fund, venture funds and multi-strategy blockchain funds.Open the full entry, Kindred Ventures, Homebrew, Coinbase VenturesCoinbase VenturesCoinbase Ventures invests in crypto technology and Web3, participating at the early stages of startup teams in areas including blockchain protocols, infrastructure, decentralized finance, and developer tools, and provides support through operating experience and partnership resources.Open the full entry, Wonder Ventures, Abstract Ventures and Alexia Tsotsis’s fund Dream Machine, and individual investors including Fred EhrsamFred EhrsamFred Ehrsam, whose full name is Frederick Ernest Ehrsam III, is a technology entrepreneur and investor who co-founded Coinbase, Paradigm and Nudge. Formerly Coinbase’s President, he later expanded from crypto investing into fields including brain-computer interfaces. Media coverage in 2026 linked him to Primavera Infinita, a company pursuing oil projects in Venezuela.Open the full entry, Scott BelskyScott BelskyScott Belsky is an American entrepreneur, author and early-stage investor who co-founded the creative portfolio platform Behance; after Adobe acquired it in 2012 he served as Adobe’s chief product officer and chief strategy officer. Since 2025 he has been a partner at the independent film studio A24 and founder of A24 Labs, and since September 2026 also a Product Advisory Partner at Union Square Ventures (USV).Open the full entry and Jessica Verrilli. At the time she was running the company alone while hiring operations staff and engineers.⁠[2]

TruStory was designed as a platform for users to research and validate claims made online, in blog posts, white papers, websites and social media posts, starting with crypto projects; it would use crowd validation, including scientists and researchers, with participants who validate claims or flag problems earning tokens, reputation and influence, and dishonest participants losing all three. Kasireddy said the goal was to “bring authenticity back into the digital and decentralized world” and that the company would “fund ourselves through the development of our tokens” rather than through an ICO.⁠[2]

On July 15, 2018, Andreessen Horowitz released the video “An Intro to Crypto: Building Companies, from People to Code” (about 27 minutes), a panel from the Intro to Crypto event that Andreessen Horowitz and #Angels held in April 2018. Kim Milosevich, chief marketing officer of Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund, moderated a discussion with Coinbase vice president of operations Tina Bhatnagar, TruStory CEO and founder Kasireddy and Earn.com co-founder Lily LiuLily LiuLily Liu (Chinese name Liu Yuanli) is President of the Solana Foundation, a co-founder of Anagram, and a member of Ledger’s board of directors; she helped restructure 21 Inc. into Earn.com, which Coinbase acquired in 2018.Open the full entry.⁠[5][6]

The panel covered what it takes to build companies in crypto, “from people to code,” around questions such as “Why crypto? What was the biggest surprise in the space? Do the same skills from other domains apply?”⁠[5]

On July 16, 2018, audio of the same panel was released as the a16z Podcast episode “a16z Podcast: Building Companies in Crypto, from People to Code.” The episode was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019, as “a16z Podcast | Building Companies in Crypto, from People to Code.”⁠[7][8]

The TruStory team built its own blockchain on Cosmos.⁠[3][9]

In spring 2019 TruStory was positioned as a social network where experts research and validate claims, with private user testing planned for March and a public launch that summer, aiming to “build a trust layer for the internet.”⁠[1]

Kasireddy explains technology from a beginner’s perspective in her blog and videos, covering topics such as Ethereum’s move to proof of stake, rollups and upgradeable contracts. “There are very few people out there who can explain things with a beginner's mindset,” she writes.⁠[4]

She offers the course “Intro to Cryptocurrency” and is the instructor of DappCamp, a one-month bootcamp for Web 3.0 developers.⁠[9][3]

Personal website: https://www.preethikasireddy.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

X: Public account: https://x.com/iam_preethi (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preethi-kasireddy-41383528/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/preethikasireddyvideo (opens in a new window).⁠[9]