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If you enjoyed watching "The Social Network" and learning about how Mark Zuckerberg and his band of brothers worked together to bring Facebook to the top, you might enjoy reading "The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-Hackers is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum" by Camila Russo as well. Camila did an amazing job of relating how Vitalik Buterin came up with the idea of Ethereum (ETH) and found like-minded souls to bring his grand vision to fruition.
However, many of you may neither have the time nor patience to sit down and read the entire book, for it is a whopping 315 pages long! Also, while learning about the life journeys of Ethereum's co-founders may make for a holistic understanding on the genesis of ETH, I suspect that many of you, like me, are mainly interested in picking the brains of Vitalik and seeing how you can apply his entrepreneurial mind in your life. That was my motivation, so I extracted three life lessons from Camila's book to share with everyone here!
1) Have the Guts to Venture Alone
Vitalik's interest in Bitcoin led him to writing Bitcoin articles. From there, his passion blossomed and he grew interested in research projects related to crypto. One of these projects was Colored Coins, in which real-world assets such as stocks, real estate and gold could be integrated into the Bitcoin blockchain. Vitalik involved himself in the writing of the Colored Coins white paper - and finished it within two weeks. As if this wasn't enough, he was working on a project called Mastercoin at the same time. However, his efforts were met with resistance from developers from both the Mastercoin and Colored Coins. This negative feedback was actually the impetus to him formulating his thoughts on Ethereum and writing a white paper on it.
We could extract a different lesson here and point out how Vitalik could have been more preserving in his efforts with the Colored Coins and Mastercoin communities. He could have tried hard to accept the feedback from the other developers and reconciled his views with theirs so as to find a common ground and forge forward. However, I thought it was admirable of Vitalik to believe so strongly in his ideas and vision for a better world that he didn't mind conceptualizing the ETH white paper alone. That took fortitude, I thought. And we would all do better if we know when to stand by our ideas.
2) Have the Humility to Relinquish Control
When Vitalik released his white paper, many people viewed it positively and wanted to work with him. To cut a long story short, Vitalik began working with another seven enthusiasts (Mihai, Anthony, Charles Hoskinson, Amir, Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke and Joseph Lubin) to cofound Ethereum. It wasn't explained in the book but Charles Hoskinson was actually designated as the CEO since the very beginning when this band of brothers was formed. Nonetheless, Camila's book contained an interesting chapter on how Gavin Wood took up the challenge of coding a bare-bones version of Ethereum within a week - and succeeding! For his effort, Gavin Wood was made the Chief Technology Officer of Ethereum.
According to Gavin, Vitalik "came close to having the programming skills needed to get the job done." (pg 87) Thus, instead of sticking it out, Vitalik wisely delegated the coding matters to Gavin, for it seemed that the latter could do the job faster and more efficiently than him. He also agreed to have Charles Hoskinson to be the frontperson of this newly minted company. For me, this demonstrates how Vitalik wasn't overly attached to his vision and wanted to be the one to do everything. He empowered his other co-founders in ways that would bring about the most benefits for Ethereum. I dare say that not many inventors would be as big-hearted as Vitalik.
3) Have the Smarts for Networking
Vitalik worked hard at gaining support for Ethereum. He tirelessly travelled around the world to meet with government officials and business leaders so that he could explain the concept of Ethereum and extol its benefits. It was an idea that was corroborated in my review of the "Inside the Cryptocurrency Revolution". Now, I don't know Vitalik personally, but suffice it to say that he seems to be an introverted person who doesn't take to the limelight. Nonetheless, he was willing to put himself out there to meet people from all over the world because his belief in ETH overcame his introversion. How many of us would believe so strongly in our passion that we would go all out to garner support for it?
I hope this was an inspirational read for you! Let me know if these life lessons resonate with you.
Photo by Jievani from Pexels
