Interplanetary Protocols
Molly Mackinlay serves as the Head of Engineering, Product, and Research Development at Protocol Labs, an open-source research and development lab. One of their notable projects is the IPFS Project, which is a peer-to-peer network and protocol designed to improve the speed, security, and openness of the web. Additionally, they are involved in protocol design and development for the Filecoin Network, which is a distributed storage marketplace aimed at preserving humanity's information.?
Before Molly’s Protocol Labs Journey, she also worked at Google, where she was involved in important products like Google Search, Google Books, Google Forms, and Google Classroom. She earned a Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. Molly is dedicated to making technology better and more user-friendly, and her work is still shaping the digital world today.
#FridayFutures Highlight 31: Molly Mackinlay, Head of Engineering, Product and Research Development - Protocol Labs
How did you transition from a traditional background like Google to the exciting but unconventional world of projects like IPFS??
I've known about IPFS since its early days, dating back to when the project first began. At that point, I had absolutely no knowledge of blockchain technology, I’ve never heard about it. My introduction to IPFS occurred during the first Stanford seminar conducted by Juan Benet, and it was a part of the seminar tracks I attended. Listening to that seminar, I immediately thought, "This is how the internet should operate – more efficiently, with users having greater control over their data. It just makes perfect sense."
My journey with IPFS began during my initial days at Google, where I joined the Chrome team. My work there primarily involved Portable Native Client, which is the precursor for WebAssembly—a technology that has now gained worldwide popularity, including its use in our own projects, such as FPM, built entirely on a lossless basis. That's when I first became acquainted with IPFS, and it was one of those moments when I thought, "This aligns perfectly with an ambitious vision."
Having recently graduated from Stanford, I was already familiar with some of the people who were becoming involved in the IPFS community back then. However, my personal focus was on becoming an effective product manager. My transition led me from Chrome to working on Google Apps for Education, which includes well-known products like Google Classroom, utilized by both teachers and students for in-class and out-of-class coordination. This became my passion area, and I was thrilled to be part of the team from its inception, contributing to its launch, building native apps, and scaling it up. This experience opened my eyes to the tremendous impact we could have on people's lives and what was achievable in a relatively short period.
Moving on to Google Search was a significant shift. We were no longer building something from scratch but rather refining an already substantial platform that touched the lives of hundreds of millions of people daily. I was responsible for rolling out new search pages, and these pages were directly accessed by, I believe, two to three hundred million people each day. However, despite the scale, it felt like more of an incremental change.
During this time, I intermittently contributed to open-source projects, offering my assistance where I could add value. I actively participated in early discussions on how to map out our work for the upcoming quarters. I also had the opportunity to collaborate with the team during various team weeks, contributing to the best of my abilities.
After 5 years at Google, I grew increasingly excited about embarking on a more ambitious journey. I yearned for a "zero to one" experience in the realm of internet capabilities and its influence on the applications built upon it. I believe that by making fundamental changes to this foundation, we could profoundly shape the future and enhance the capabilities that individuals, like ourselves, could expect from the everyday tools we rely upon.
I desired to dive deeper into this realm and undertake a truly ambitious project. I held a deep appreciation for the open-source community, and the openness inherent in Web3 excited me tremendously. In the world of Web3, anyone could actively participate, lend a hand, and make valuable contributions. The aspect of open source was exceptionally appealing to me.
Taking a leap of faith, I left Google and immersed myself in this new endeavor. Initially, my intention was to explore this path for a while and assess whether I could indeed contribute and make a difference. Surprisingly, within six months, I found myself in the role of project lead for the IPFS community.
This marked the beginning of a swift journey, during which I closely observed how everyone was utilizing IPFS and facilitated the flow of this information to those dedicated to enhancing the system. I joined the IPFS project at its nascent stage, and since then, it's been an exhilarating ride, progressing from an IPFS contributor to leading the IPFS project, playing a pivotal role in the launch of the Filecoin network, and now, having the privilege to lead a remarkable team dedicated to pioneering groundbreaking engineering and research.
What are IPFS and Filecoin Networks and what sets them apart from familiar services like AWS and traditional cloud storage?
IPFS, which stands for the InterPlanetary File System, is a concept that harkens back to the visionary thinker J.C.R. Licklider, who mused about intergalactic networks—though I can't pinpoint the exact year, perhaps the late 1970s. The essence of IPFS lies in constructing a file system that reimagines how we address, share, and rely on data, particularly data that must scale to accommodate the needs of interplanetary civilizations. Perhaps, in the future, we might even aspire to inter-solar system civilizations. In any case, as we grapple with the constraints of light speed, especially when retrieving data from distant planets or other sources, it becomes imperative to build a network that operates efficiently with local copies of the same data.
The key shift in IPFS's approach is a departure from the traditional location-based addressing paradigm, which is prevalent in current HTTP systems. IPFS introduces a paradigm shift where data is addressed by its content, its very essence, represented by a digital fingerprint—a departure from the typical approach of specifying a particular machine on Earth in a particular region to fetch data. It's akin to saying, "Here's the digital fingerprint of what you want, and anyone can provide it to you, with the assurance that it's precisely what you're looking for."
IPFS offers a suite of tools. It automatically creates digital fingerprints for the data you add to it and develops data models for content addressing of different data types. It provides capabilities for fetching and retrieving data using its content ID, and it even offers a file system interface for more conventional data loading, such as photos or documents.
Now, Filecoin adds an extra layer beyond IPFS. It allows you to offload the responsibility of content-addressed storage to other participants in the network. In a peer-to-peer world, a challenge arises when the node hosting your data goes offline. This situation prevents others from accessing the content you've shared. To overcome this, many groups seek to distribute the responsibility for data storage among multiple parties. Filecoin introduces an incentive system that compensates others for maintaining your data.
This concept of decentralized storage evolved organically within the IPFS ecosystem, with services like Pinata, and others emerging. These services allowed users to pay for data pinning and retrieval. With Filecoin, this idea matures into a decentralized marketplace of storage providers. The network helps identify and distribute data across various storage providers. Trust becomes less of an issue, as Filecoin employs decentralized proofs to ensure correct data storage, thus eliminating the need to place trust in a particular storage provider. It's a marketplace that empowers you to choose based on various factors, such as the provider's region, reputation, and additional services like computing or retrieval.
This is how Filecoin and IPFS complement each other, offering a robust solution compared to services like AWS. Furthermore, they pave the way for exciting developments like compute networks and CDN networks, which leverage the capabilities of Filecoin to bring additional services to the data already stored within the network.
What's your hot take or unpopular opinion regarding data permanence, storage, or any topic within your domain?
I think we should empower users to take control of the system. Users should have the final say regarding their data and be able to verify that their data preferences are being respected. In essence, we should scale the infrastructure to accommodate the wide range of data types users may care about.
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Much of this data is likely to fall into the category of open-access data. I envision a future where collective funding mechanisms support the data we collectively value. Imagine if all users of Wikipedia contributed to its storage. Instead of donating to Wikipedia for the organization to manage storage, users could contribute resources directly to the storage infrastructure. This approach would allow us to efficiently manage large datasets like Wikipedia.
However, there will always be chunks of data that must remain private. Users will want end-to-end encryption and tight access controls to ensure their data remains secure and inaccessible to anyone else. These privacy tiers should complement the existing access tiers, which typically focus on speed and retrieval times.
Filecoin can play a pivotal role in providing these privacy and access control tiers. For instance, you could have a public tier for low-cost storage of slow-to-retrieve public data, practically free at the moment. Conversely, encrypted data that requires quick and frequent access will incur additional costs. This tiered model helps users understand the trade-offs associated with decentralized storage and its associated overheads.
Looking ahead, I have a somewhat audacious perspective for the future, though it's both thrilling and slightly unnerving. I believe it's possible to build self-sustaining systems on platforms like blockchains, particularly ones that can offload their storage and fund the aggregation of their data models. Such systems could continuously evolve by adding to their data models and even creating incentives for loading data back into the system.
In fact, I believe it's already possible today to construct a self-sustaining AI system on Filecoin. Such a system could utilize Filecoin for storage, with contracts covering the cost of storing their data models and enabling incremental updates. These systems could create bounties to motivate the loading of data back onto the blockchain, facilitating further actions and operations. This may seem somewhat extraordinary and even a bit unsettling, but it marks a new horizon where we can initiate and execute long-running AI refinement processes or generative AI tools within our ecosystem.
Without Filecoin and IPFS, are there any other platforms that could support this self-perpetuating AI, or do you consider them integral to this network?
I'm aware of several blockchain networks that focus on AI capabilities. The concept behind projects like Mirror is to integrate AI modules into the network, and not only modules that can execute themselves but also modules that can influence real-world systems in some manner. I recall a talk by Illia Polosukhin, Point that touched on this idea—granting AI modules on the near blockchain a level of agency. As far as I understand, Filecoin doesn't facilitate this level of direct interaction. Ethereum, on the other hand, might offer such capabilities, although you'd need to fit all your data storage within the Ethereum mainnet, which comes with significant gas costs, making it prohibitively expensive.
The remarkable innovation introduced by Filecoin is that processes or groups of processes, even collections of individuals, can collectively pay for data storage. This is an immensely powerful concept that we hope will be used for various collective endeavors. Imagine the collective storage of Wikipedia archives and other valuable datasets. Moreover, Filecoin allows you to employ this concept for compute jobs to store their own outputs. This eliminates the need for human credit card numbers, which are typically required for services like AWS or Ethereum. Such systems are usually tied to individual account holders, and if that individual were to disappear, the data would vanish, leaving everyone dependent on that single person with no recourse.
Now, you can program systems that have the potential to self-scale. As they generate more economic output in the decentralized world, they can fund their own expansion. This represents a significant leap in the capabilities of decentralized systems, and we've only just begun to explore its full potential.
Is there any person, project, or company that’s inspiring you right now?
I'm continually inspired by some of the badass people I work with, such as Marta Belcher. She serves as the General Counsel and sits on the board of the Filecoin Foundation. Her incredible speed, power, and capability never cease to amaze me. I'm constantly in awe of her talent for identifying remarkable connection points. She is an invaluable resource from a policy perspective, especially as groups strive to refine their policies related to data storage networks.
Marta's outreach efforts extend to groups that may have little knowledge about Web3. She plays a vital role in educating and facilitating their entry into this domain, providing support, and fostering connections. Her ability to empower and educate others in this space is truly inspirational.
Additionally, I draw inspiration from the founders throughout the Web3 ecosystem. Within the Protocol Labs network, we have numerous founders who are diligently building and scaling their companies and applications in the Web3 realm. They are instrumental in bridging the gap, and I believe the success of our world hinges on their efforts.
One noteworthy project that captures the essence of this progress is called Mona. This project is dedicated to crafting virtual worlds, akin to metaverse spaces or video game realms but with exquisitely designed environments. Within these virtual realms, users can explore, place objects, engage in various activities, add game mechanics, mint NFTs, and even integrate existing NFTs. What's truly remarkable is its open and inclusive nature, distinguishing it from the closed and restrictive metaverse systems developed by other companies. It's exciting to witness builders and creators in the Web3 space applying open principles and composability to their work, fostering collaboration and contributing to an increasingly open next layer of the Internet.
How can we stay in touch with you?
One of the easiest ways to reach me is on Twitter @momack28. I'm also active in Filecoin Slack channel and can often be found in various Telegram channels. On Telegram, you can reach me at @momack2, and I'm always open to chat there.
However, what truly excites me the most is meeting people in person at events. I know that the Web3 community will be coming together later this year in Istanbul. There are some fantastic events lined up, including Zoo Connect and Lab Week, which coincides with Dev Connect. During Lab Week, you can expect a gathering of like-minded individuals, with numerous groups showcasing their work, engaging in fascinating design discussions, and exploring ways to take things to the next level. It's an excellent opportunity to connect with the community. If you're interested, simply search for "Protocol Labs Lab Week" online, and you'll easily find the relevant information.
Additionally, if you're keen on getting involved with Protocol Labs or any of our projects, you can visit the respective websites. Protocol Labs, IPFS, and Filecoin. These websites offer valuable resources for joining our community, whether you're looking to become a storage provider, or storage client, or simply want to engage with the new Web3 foundation for data.
I'm always excited to welcome new community members and developers and to help connect them with the right people as they embark on their journey into the world of Web3 and data.
Have thoughts on this week’s topic or question for me or Molly? Post your thoughts in the comment section. Until next week.??
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