Why me?

I am motivated and fascinated by the priority to allow users to own their own data and content. I will bring that drive and a unique set of experiences to Bluesky. I believe my self-starter attitude, relentless work ethic, comfort in ambiguity, practical thinking, and ability to effectively manage many projects would be a value add to Bluesky. But, I’d rather show you than tell you.

First, I built Fairchain V1 during my gap year. Fairchain is a title management platform for physical works of art hosted on Ethereum. This platform aims to change the art ecosystem by encouraging artist royalties and establishing true provenance. I was the fourth person on the team and the only full-time engineer for my first nine months. I designed, implemented, and filed a patent for a novel solution for anonymized title management.

During my gap year, I also worked remotely for startups Recidiviz and Hook. My intent was to get a feel for other environments and problem spaces to be able to work more effectively across a range of spaces. At Recidviz, I worked on an independent project to synchronize their data pipelines using Cloud Composer. At Hook, I learned how to code in Go, redesigned their error logging, and helped on other ad hoc tasks. In addition to my technical work last year, I find value in learning and teaching in all domains. I was a ski instructor in Park City, Utah. I became a PSIA Level I certified instructor and taught people how to ski from ages three to eighty.

Prior to taking the year off, I coded at Google for two summers, apprenticed in an art conservation laboratory in the basement of the campus museum, and walked on to the indoor and beach Division I volleyball teams at Stanford. At Google, I developed my backend software skills and saw firsthand the deficiencies of big tech. In my lab, I learned how to be methodical and intentional when handling and examining fragile artifacts. I even got to touch a piece of the alleged meteor that killed the dinosaurs. On the indoor volleyball team, I learned how to meaningfully contribute to a team when I was the least skilled one in the room.

In addition to finishing my classes and figuring out my job for next year, I am researching how to create my own rum brand, b.s. rum, and designing an airdrop of an NFT for the Stanford Class of 2022. Over the course of this year, I also created my own token, $BREAD, wrote a decentralized exchange on top of Ethereum for my token, created a full-stack web application called Capsule to act as a digital attic, and have onboarded dozens of my friends to crypto by setting up their wallets and helping them buy a currency of their choosing. I share all these projects and experiences to emphasize how many hats I can wear.

My experience at Google drove me to explore startups and smaller, focused companies. My experience at Fairchain has made me realize I want to work on projects and products that are engineering-focused. Bluesky is solving a novel, technically challenging problem.

Now, why Bluesky?

After spending a lot of this year learning about the crypto and web3 space, I am sure I want to work on innovative projects in that world. I believe so much of the future depends on distributed protocols in lieu of platforms. Bluesky is one of the only companies I know that is truly running with that mission.

I am also skeptical that centralized social networks have contributed a net positive effect on society. I want to ensure that we can learn from the mistakes of web2 social media to create a safer, more positive web3 social media experience. 

I thrive on a small team. At Bluesky, I believe it is possible to work nimbly and implement thoughtful software. Twitter is the platform for web3 thought leaders and innovators to share ideas so it only makes sense for those leaders to own their thoughts. I want to help build and shape what this technology would look like. I believe Bluesky is the best place for me to do that.