Re:Envisioning Web3 | Community Spotlight Fireside Chat with Celeste

Host: Jed (@jed_131) with cohost Lyss (@Lysss302) · Fri, 18 Sep 2026 · 1:31:46 · 5 speakers

TL;DR

• Friday's fireside turned the spotlight off founders and onto a community member: Celeste (@CelesteWAO), roughly 4–6 weeks into the regen community, told her full backstory — losing her father at 10, becoming "the man of the house" at 21, and finding her way into Web3 after a school reunion.
• Jed opened with a clip on leadership and listening ("the goal of listening is that they feel heard"), which set the tone for the whole hour [9:07].
• Celeste explained why she reps a male PFP — galaxy-colored hair, the right aura, and a life spent doing the jobs people didn't expect her to do [27:58].
• Infinix (@OverlordInfinix) came up unplanned and delivered the space's emotional centerpiece: a PS2, God of War, his father's bedtime story about an exiled prince, 12 years as a marine engineer across 37 countries, and a plan that ended with him retiring his mother and finally building the game [1:08:33].
• Both Celeste and Infinix landed on the same thesis for Web3 gaming: make it fun first, tokenomics later — with Pixelmon as the cautionary tale [58:49].
• Housekeeping: Saturday's space is "Who's Behind the PFP," open stage [1:28:15].

Highlights

[9:07] The listening clip. Before any conversation started, Jed played a clip on how leaders should actually talk to their people — go to the field, ask "what else, go on," and receive feedback graciously. The punchline that framed the rest of the space: if you get defensive or correct people, "they'll tell you what you want to hear, or tell you nothing, because that's the condition you created." Jed noted he'd nearly had that exact conversation on a call that morning, before ever watching the video [11:57].

[16:27] Celeste's childhood. Celeste opened with her father's brain cancer — watching him lose his right hand, then his leg, then his sight, then his speech, while she read her history and geography homework aloud beside him so he wouldn't be alone in it. The family bought him a radio because he loved music. She said the memories gave her goosebumps in real time.

[22:53] Three months into a job in Portland, one phone call. Her grandfather — the man who pushed her to take the US job in the first place — died of a heart attack. She flew home and never left. "Now I have to be the man of the house now. Though I'm a girl, but I have to be that." Then three days locked in a room crying, and on the fourth day, a decision to change her life. Her practical addendum: cry, but drink more water afterward, you've lost a lot of it.

[24:20] The reunion that became a company. Celeste and Infinix were classmates who barely knew each other beyond one detail: he scored 100/100 in mathematics, she scored 100 out of 15. Fifteen years later they met at a reunion, he was talking crypto, she got fired up (possibly drunk, she allows), and that was the beginning of Aura.

[27:58] Why the male PFP. The galaxy colors in the hair read as energy and aura to her; the look read as confidence. It fit a woman who'd spent her life doing the carpentry, the electrical work, the driving — "I don't have a helicopter, but if I would have owned a helicopter, I would have driven that too." She still gets DMs saying "I thought you were a bro." She's fine with it.

[43:12] Founder-forward building. Celeste laid out the split at Aura — she's the face on X, Discord and spaces; Infinix handles dev, 3D, and the Web2 side on YouTube and Instagram. Her rule: trust before product, and no cold DMs, ever. Jed said it's exactly how he builds, and drew the parallel to 15 years on Wall Street where he was, by his own account, the one guy down there who wasn't a salesman [45:01].

[53:01] The sleep segment. Celeste delivered an earnest PSA that everyone needs eight hours minimum — immediately after mentioning an 18-to-20-hour workday. Jed called it: "I call cap. There's no way you sleep eight hours a day" [53:21]. Her defense — maybe three days ago — did not survive the arithmetic [54:04]. She closed the bit with the only honest version: don't be like me, please, get the sleep [55:49].

[58:02] Jed's $100M offer. Prompted by Lyss bringing up massively funded Web3 games that nobody wanted to replay, Jed made his pitch to the room: send him a hundred million dollars and he'll cook something better than Pixelmon. Celeste then gave the serious answer — the only question that matters is whether the game respects the gamer's time, and games built to satisfy the financial layer die the moment the incentive does [58:49].

[1:08:33] Infinix's story. 2005, a PlayStation 2 his father brought home, God of War, and the two of them fighting over the controller. His father asked him to imagine building a game from their own favorite story — and died that same year. The story was the bedtime one: an exiled prince, fourteen years in the forest, a tyrant who abducts his wife, and an army that builds a bridge between countries to get her back. Then engineering college, odd jobs, scholarships, marine engineering, 37 countries, from 60°C in Saudi to −20°C in Russia, a PlayStation carried onto the ships for one hour a day no matter the shift [1:12:53]. Inside a half-football-field engine, mid-decarb, he made a plan: ten years to earn enough to retire his mother. It took twelve. He did it, put the money in bonds, told her she was done working, and started building the game [1:13:30].

[1:20:26] Burningbush asks for the catalyst. He wanted the single moment Celeste became the person on the mic. Her answer: there isn't one. It's the whole thirty-two years — the relatives who told a fatherless, brotherless only child to bow, and the day she decided she'd bow to God and the universe and nobody else [1:22:02]. Jed's contribution to the emotional register of the moment, one line after she mentioned her age: "I'll just say Celeste's 32" [1:26:41].

[1:31:24] The outro. Jed, a self-declared non-gamer, closed the space with "The Ninth Realm" from the God of War soundtrack for Infinix and Celeste, with the disclaimer that if he'd picked wrong, that was on him.

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

• "The goal of listening is not to prove that you heard, the goal of listening is that they feel heard." — leadership clip played by Jed [10:29]
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• "I know how it is to live in dark, and the person who has never faced darkness will never, you know, appreciate the light. So it's my duty to spread light wherever I go." — Celeste [37:20]
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• "Don't just put your money on the product, put your money on the founder." — Celeste [43:12]
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• "I call cap. There's no way you sleep eight hours a day." — Jed [53:21]
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• "Don't be like me, guys. Just get that sleep, get that fucking sleep." — Celeste [55:49]
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• "Maybe someday I will play this game with my own children, and that day we will make more memories just like I created with my father." — Infinix [1:15:25]
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Who said what

• Jed (@jed_131) — host. Opened with the listening clip, kept the stage tight, drew out Celeste's story with gentle, specific questions, and repeatedly returned to his thesis that "the sickness" — the inability to stop building — is the thing he's bullish on. Offered Celeste and Infinix connections, visibility, and his phone number.
• Lyss (@Lysss302) — cohost. Framed the Friday fireside, asked the "day in the life" questions, and brought the gaming depth: Diablo, Fallout, Bethesda jank you forgive because you're connected, and a standing offer to beta test Aura. Also runs the "reset, refocus, recharge" mantra that Celeste's "break the code" slotted right next to.
• Celeste (@CelesteWAO) — the spotlight. Told her story without flinching, explained the male PFP and the name Aura, laid out her no-shilling, founder-forward approach to building, and argued gaming should be judged on whether it respects the gamer's time.
• Infinix (@OverlordInfinix) — cofounder at Aura, came up mid-space. Answered the financial-layer question via Tekken esports and Axie, then gave the origin story: his father, God of War, twelve years at sea, and a ten-year plan he's now executing on.
• Burningbush (@BurningBush_eth) — asked the sharpest closing question of the space (what was the catalyst?) and noted how rare it is to see a founder interviewing community members rather than the other way round.

Worth a full listen

• [1:08:33]–[1:16:19] — Infinix's uninterrupted ten minutes. The PS2, the exiled prince, the ships, the engine you can stand three people deep inside, and retiring his mother. No summary carries it.
• [16:27]–[27:42] — Celeste's backstory in her own voice, including the goosebumps mid-sentence. The pacing is the point.
• [53:01]–[58:49] — The sleep bit sliding straight into the $100M gaming pitch and then into a genuinely good argument about why funded Web3 games keep failing. Funny, then sharp, with no visible seam.