Ep23: WTF is zkTLS & its Role in the Age of AI⚡️ Summary @HarshaKaramchat, co-founder of @reclaimprotocol, joined me to break down how Reclaim was built on fundamentals rather than hype from pivoting across 30+ projects to landing on zkTLS as a verifiable data primitive for the next generation of consumer apps. Harsha walked me through how their YC experience shaped their product-building muscle, their obsession with data-backed pivots, and the quiet superpower of doing unscalable things to find signal. He also shared insights on how Reclaim is being used by major lending and Web3 companies, and how its zk infrastructure is key to unlocking data portability, privacy, and trust in a post-AI world. We dove into the tension between user convenience and data ownership, the rise of verifiable AI content, and why personalization at scale won’t be possible without verifiable credentials. Key Takeaways ✅Reclaim was born out of a core insight: people want to prove credentials without doxxing their identity. ✅The team made 30+ pivots, shutting down internal projects fast if data didn’t show traction. ✅@ycombinator DNA shaped their commitment to experimentation, user-first insights, and doing things that don’t scale. ✅ZkTLS is a technical moat that makes consumer-grade verifiable data possible today. ✅AI’s rise has made verifiability essential—from gig workers getting loans to authors proving real-life context. ✅Hyper-personalized apps, dating platforms, and tokenized communities are inevitable use cases. ✅Reputation in the AI age will rely on past digital footprint, not just identity or credentials. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Harsha and Reclaim 01:30 Why Reclaim was born out of data-backed pivots 03:45 Convincing a team through data, not opinions 06:10 Web2 DNA in a Web3 company 09:20 Why doing things that don’t scale still matters 13:52 The insight behind ZkTLS and verifiable credentials 16:30 Why data ownership is the next unlock 19:10 Can AI create urgency around privacy? 21:30 ZkTLS as a core primitive for new billion-dollar startups 24:50 Deepfakes, identity, and proof-of-human 28:10 AI + verified data = future of content reputation 31:10 Personalization is impossible without verifiability 34:30 Final words on belief, conviction, and building in public