Raj Gokal — Co-founder, Solana

**Raj Gokal** is the co-founder and COO of **Solana Labs**, the company behind the **Solana** blockchain, one of the highest-performance Layer 1 blockchains with transaction speeds of 50,000+ TPS and sub-second finality. Previously a product manager at tech and healthcare companies, he co-founded Solana with Anatoly Yakovenko to build a blockchain fast enough for mainstream applications. Solana has become the leading 'high-performance' alternative to Ethereum.\n\nRaj evaluates blockchain technology through the lens of performance, developer experience, and whether the technology can support consumer-scale applications — not just DeFi but payments, social, gaming, and physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).