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Riyaz is an incredible engineer. I never worked with him directly in undergrad but his reputation certainly preceded him -- which is saying something, because t

Riyaz is an incredible engineer. I never worked with him directly in undergrad but his reputation certainly preceded him -- which is saying something, because there were a LOT of insanely talented engineers walking around Soda Hall (I, of course, was not one of them). I got to know Riyaz more after we graduated and was impressed not just by his technical chops but also by how humble and grounded he is. I can't think of a better pick to serve as CTO, a role which requires not just technical acumen and mental agility, but also the ability to work with a wide variety of stakeholders. I've always been bearish on crypto/blockchain but seeing Riyaz make the jump is making me think twice. A16Z made a great hire here.

DantesKite 5y ago
Tell me about it. Some of those students were absurdly talented. I've never met a higher density of talented individuals in my life.
anonporridge 5y ago
Don't let the loud moon boys who take all the attention in the crypto space deceive you. There's a ton of serious and incredible work going on that rarely gets the spotlight. Plenty of scams and irrationality too of course.
- mannymanman 5y ago
  Could you give some examples of the incredible work you mention? I think Solana is pretty cool, and am looking to learn more about the space.
  - xrd 5y ago
    Read about Level 2 solutions like zk snarks. It's really fascinating stuff. I enjoy the podcast called "Zero Knowledge." The last one with Professor Alessandro Chiesa is really great, but that's not the best one for beginners for sure.
  - nl 5y ago
    Alogrand has some pretty nice tech. It feels like a v2 - instead of being held together with tape and fencing wire it's a well engineered properly thought out solution. Things like their on-chain language not being Turing complete so they can scale it better than the Ethereum disaster.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    I'll second looking into layer 2 projects. Most of the new blockchains constantly being spun up are little more than schemes to make the founders rich. Even if the stacks are technically cleaner and nicer to work with, it's really hard to imagine any new blockchain bringing anything significant enough to the table to overcome network effects of established leaders. Specifically be wary of coins like Solana, Cardano, and maybe even Ethereum, which Gary Gensler of the SEC has indicated are probably all unregistered securities and he looks to be gearing up to come after them. I'm in the bitcoin only, simple, rock solid foundation with complexity built in higher layers camp, so I'll mention a couple of interesting things going on. The taproot softfork was recently approved by the network and will go live on mainnet next month. Read up here, https://blog.keys.casa/what-is-taproot-bitcoin-upgrade/ https://blog.keys.casa/what-is-taproot-bitcoin-upgrade/. The lightning network is starting to get some real momentum after years of development. People are using it in unexpected ways, like building an e2e encrypted chat network (https://sphinx.chat/ https://sphinx.chat/) that piggybacks on the network, or the LNURL-auth protocol (https://xn--57h.bigsun.xyz/lnurl-auth.html https://xn--57h.bigsun.xyz/lnurl-auth.html) that allows websites to provide persistent user accounts that are authenticated with a user's lightning wallet and require no other personal information. There's recently been some proposals (e.g. https://github.com/JohnLaw2/btc-iids/blob/main/iids14.pdf https://github.com/JohnLaw2/btc-iids/blob/main/iids14.pdf) to do some magic to stuff a truly massive amount of scaling within the limited bitcoin blocksize. Protocol changes needed for trustless drivechains/sidechains seems to be gaining traction, https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0300.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0300.mediawi.... The Rootstock sidechain will potentially bring the ethereum virtual machine to bitcoin as a sidechain. I know Ethereum also has some interesting layer 2 work, but I'm not as familiar with what's happening since I don't personally buy into the fat, complex base layer approach, the much more centralized nature of the network and development, nor the planned transition to proof of stake.
- jsemrau 5y ago
  I jumped head first into crypto about 18 months ago. You are right, there are a lot of earnest, passionate, and talented people in that space. It does feel like it's 1997 again.
  - tayo42 5y ago
    crypto like coins? or something else?
    - jsemrau 5y ago
      Tried to soak in as much as possible ranging from buying/selling crypto, over mining, farming, and folding, and being an SPO for Cardano, to reading whitepapers and becoming a value-adding community member. I haven't tried yield farming yet.
      - frosted-flakes 5y ago
        I assume you mean crypo-coins, and not cryptography based on this comment.
        jsemrau 5y ago
        Yes. Cryptography I only covered in uni, and while it's an interesting domain, its not for me.
deleted 5y ago
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amusedcyclist 5y ago
I still refuse to own crypto because its still just a purely speculative investment but there are some insanely talented people working on it. Plenty of turing award winners working on crypto at Algorand for example. Maybe after the hype dies a bit, we will see some real value be generated OR maybe even very smart people can fool themselves into working on useless projects.
- _8j50 5y ago
  What is speculative about people earning money in exchange for labor and investing that in crypto? Crypto is currency not goods that they would need inherent value. It is not so much specilation but demand, supply and investor confidence. Stocks and forex are just ad much speculative. Tesla is not valued more than all other car makers because if inherent value but because of speculative value and investor confidence for example.
  - amusedcyclist 5y ago
    That is correct, I also don't own Tesla for that same reason.
- kupfer 5y ago
  In addition, I think everyone holding PoW crypto is partly responsible for it's absurd waste of energy and the associated CO2 output. If the price goes up, it only gets worse. I won't use anything PoW again.
canttestthis 5y ago
Could you tell us more about him? What was his reputation?
johnnyfived 5y ago
Kinda funny your last sentence, as personally for me, hearing an engineer say they don't believe in blockchain tech makes me devalue your opinion.
- paulgb 5y ago
  We’ve endured a decade of speculation on how it would change everything and the most apparent use case today is digital baseball cards. Forgive me if I’m cynical about it.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Hah, I'm the opposite. Money is an economics and societal problem (it's about trust, isn't it, trust that pieces of paper with numbers on them are worth something), not a tech problem, so software engineering expertise alone isn't enough. IMO.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

DantesKite 5y ago

Tell me about it. Some of those students were absurdly talented. I've never met a higher density of talented individuals in my life.

anonporridge 5y ago

Don't let the loud moon boys who take all the attention in the crypto space deceive you. There's a ton of serious and incredible work going on that rarely gets the spotlight. Plenty of scams and irrationality too of course.

mannymanman 5y ago
Could you give some examples of the incredible work you mention? I think Solana is pretty cool, and am looking to learn more about the space.
- xrd 5y ago
  Read about Level 2 solutions like zk snarks. It's really fascinating stuff. I enjoy the podcast called "Zero Knowledge." The last one with Professor Alessandro Chiesa is really great, but that's not the best one for beginners for sure.
- nl 5y ago
  Alogrand has some pretty nice tech. It feels like a v2 - instead of being held together with tape and fencing wire it's a well engineered properly thought out solution. Things like their on-chain language not being Turing complete so they can scale it better than the Ethereum disaster.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  I'll second looking into layer 2 projects. Most of the new blockchains constantly being spun up are little more than schemes to make the founders rich. Even if the stacks are technically cleaner and nicer to work with, it's really hard to imagine any new blockchain bringing anything significant enough to the table to overcome network effects of established leaders. Specifically be wary of coins like Solana, Cardano, and maybe even Ethereum, which Gary Gensler of the SEC has indicated are probably all unregistered securities and he looks to be gearing up to come after them. I'm in the bitcoin only, simple, rock solid foundation with complexity built in higher layers camp, so I'll mention a couple of interesting things going on. The taproot softfork was recently approved by the network and will go live on mainnet next month. Read up here, https://blog.keys.casa/what-is-taproot-bitcoin-upgrade/ https://blog.keys.casa/what-is-taproot-bitcoin-upgrade/. The lightning network is starting to get some real momentum after years of development. People are using it in unexpected ways, like building an e2e encrypted chat network (https://sphinx.chat/ https://sphinx.chat/) that piggybacks on the network, or the LNURL-auth protocol (https://xn--57h.bigsun.xyz/lnurl-auth.html https://xn--57h.bigsun.xyz/lnurl-auth.html) that allows websites to provide persistent user accounts that are authenticated with a user's lightning wallet and require no other personal information. There's recently been some proposals (e.g. https://github.com/JohnLaw2/btc-iids/blob/main/iids14.pdf https://github.com/JohnLaw2/btc-iids/blob/main/iids14.pdf) to do some magic to stuff a truly massive amount of scaling within the limited bitcoin blocksize. Protocol changes needed for trustless drivechains/sidechains seems to be gaining traction, https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0300.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0300.mediawi.... The Rootstock sidechain will potentially bring the ethereum virtual machine to bitcoin as a sidechain. I know Ethereum also has some interesting layer 2 work, but I'm not as familiar with what's happening since I don't personally buy into the fat, complex base layer approach, the much more centralized nature of the network and development, nor the planned transition to proof of stake.
jsemrau 5y ago
I jumped head first into crypto about 18 months ago. You are right, there are a lot of earnest, passionate, and talented people in that space. It does feel like it's 1997 again.
- tayo42 5y ago
  crypto like coins? or something else?
  - jsemrau 5y ago
    Tried to soak in as much as possible ranging from buying/selling crypto, over mining, farming, and folding, and being an SPO for Cardano, to reading whitepapers and becoming a value-adding community member. I haven't tried yield farming yet.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      I assume you mean crypo-coins, and not cryptography based on this comment.
      - jsemrau 5y ago
        Yes. Cryptography I only covered in uni, and while it's an interesting domain, its not for me.

deleted 5y ago

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amusedcyclist 5y ago

I still refuse to own crypto because its still just a purely speculative investment but there are some insanely talented people working on it. Plenty of turing award winners working on crypto at Algorand for example. Maybe after the hype dies a bit, we will see some real value be generated OR maybe even very smart people can fool themselves into working on useless projects.

_8j50 5y ago
What is speculative about people earning money in exchange for labor and investing that in crypto? Crypto is currency not goods that they would need inherent value. It is not so much specilation but demand, supply and investor confidence. Stocks and forex are just ad much speculative. Tesla is not valued more than all other car makers because if inherent value but because of speculative value and investor confidence for example.
- amusedcyclist 5y ago
  That is correct, I also don't own Tesla for that same reason.
kupfer 5y ago
In addition, I think everyone holding PoW crypto is partly responsible for it's absurd waste of energy and the associated CO2 output. If the price goes up, it only gets worse. I won't use anything PoW again.

canttestthis 5y ago

Could you tell us more about him? What was his reputation?

johnnyfived 5y ago

Kinda funny your last sentence, as personally for me, hearing an engineer say they don't believe in blockchain tech makes me devalue your opinion.

paulgb 5y ago
We’ve endured a decade of speculation on how it would change everything and the most apparent use case today is digital baseball cards. Forgive me if I’m cynical about it.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Hah, I'm the opposite. Money is an economics and societal problem (it's about trust, isn't it, trust that pieces of paper with numbers on them are worth something), not a tech problem, so software engineering expertise alone isn't enough. IMO.
deleted 5y ago
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