It’s Not You, It’s Crypto: Execs Leave Silicon Valley To Join Crypto Startups
December 23 2021 - 6:59PM
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A few years ago it was an executives’ dream to work at Google,
Amazon, Apple, and the other Big Tech firms of Silicon Valley, but
now that dream has evolved into crypto startups. Whether it is to
join a blockchain-related company or start a new one, high-paying
executives and engineers are leaving the valley of big salaries and
CEOs at an accelerating rate. The New York Times reported the
exodus of Big Tech executives and the boom of crypto products like
NFTs is seen as a possible reason for it. But if the fantasy of
Silicon Valley talent used to be that cushy position involving good
money, what do crypto firms represent to them now? Could it still
be just about money? Big companies like Google are getting worried
about keeping the talent in. Allegedly, they have started to offer
additional stock grants for the employees who are likely to choose
a crypto startup over them, although the company refused to comment
for the paper. Evan Cheng, co-founder and chief executive of a
blockchain-related startup called Mysten Labs, commented about the
change of hearts: “Back in 2017 or so, people were mostly in it for
the investment opportunity,” and added that “Now it’s people
actually wanting to build stuff.” Execs Are Silicon Valley’s Exes
Here are some of the executives that have broken the Big Tech guys
frozen hearts: Sandy Carter used to be Amazons’ vice president, now
she’s Senior Vice President and Channel Chief of Unstoppable
Domains, a company that uses blockchain domains to connect Web2 to
Web3. Former chief financial officer of Lyft, Brian Roberts, left
the company to join the popular OpenSea Jack Dorsey, of course,
left his position as Twitter’s chief executive to dedicate himself
to Square, now renamed Block because of the blockchain. David
Marcus, the head of cryptocurrency efforts at Meta, is leaving the
company and reportedly joining a cryptocurrency project of his own.
Surojit Chatterjee, Google’s former vice president, is now
Coinbase’s chief product officer. Related Reading | Deloitte
Survey Shows 76% Of Finance Execs Think Physical Money Is Nearing
Its End Will The Exodus Continue? Absolutely yes, said Sandy
Carter, the former Amazon vice president. She thinks that “It’s the
perfect storm,” and added that “The time is just perfect to jump in
on it.” Meanwhile, Brian Roberts told The New York Times in an
email: “I’ve seen enough cycles and paradigm shifts to be cognizant
when something this big is just emerging, … We are Day 1 in terms
of NFTs and their impact.” Back to the question of why exactly is
the talent leaving Silicon Valley, a part of the decision might be
related to the salaries, but another side of it is ideological and
enthusiastic: engineers are tired of dealing with bureaucracy, many
feel the desire to build something, plus the ethics and moral
aspects of Big Tech firms don’t help either. Ms. Carter noted that
some of this talent is being lured by the empowerment of
decentralization against the dominance of large companies. It is
appealing to not be part of the ones controlling personal data to
generate a large income. “Software engineering culture has always
leaned toward anti-authoritarianism” explained Dan
McCarthy from the firm Paradigm. He, who spent seven years
recruiting talent for Google, paints the scenario of working for a
FAANG company (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google): your
impact on the product you’re building may be negligible, nothing
you’ll work on is truly yours, … That’s setting aside all of the
ethical quandaries related to privacy, security, and ownership that
are inherent to those companies and grating to anyone who
self-identifies as anti-authoritarian on any level. He further
explains the attractiveness of crypto startups token-based vesting
model, where “employees accrue an ownership stake in the company
over time just like stock options”, but including the benefits of
“no exercise cost”, tokens being “governed by a transparent,
immutable smart contract”, plus they retain “liquidity continuously
over time”, and other positive aspects. He notes several other
luring points, like the openness of DAOs in comparison to the lack
of transparency and invasive behavior of big tech, and the
possibility of causing “real-world impact”, which he defines as
“the ability of one person to influence the direction of a project
or technology.” Related Reading | Cardano Founder Spills The
Beans on “Fakeness” of Silicon Valley
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