Why I chose Web3 and Chainlink

I just made an exciting career change to join Chainlink Labs, a market leader in the blockchain industry, what many call the Web3 ecosystem. I imagine many friends and former colleagues will be curious about the thinking behind my decision as well as want to understand what Chainlink does. So here we go…

I left LinkedIn this past summer after an amazing ten years. After a few wonderful months of hanging out with family and friends and catching my breath, I started to turn my attention to what would come next. The bar was high given how much I loved working at LinkedIn.?

Why Web3 and what is it?

The first consideration in my job search was to be clear what I was trying to optimize for. After a lot of soul searching and conversations with mentors and friends, I concluded that shaping and having an impact on a disruptive and growing industry was my #1 objective. It became pretty clear to me that Web3 would be the new computing paradigm for the next decade plus. It feels like 1997 Internet to me… early but not super early, chaotic and exciting, and massive potential to transform all industries. The global computing standards of the future are being built as I write. I was excited to enter Web3 and see if I could make a positive mark.

I have a feeling many who read this are not yet familiar with the term Web3 (or Web2 or Web1 for that matter). So first a few definitions.?

Web1 was one to many. Websites distributed info and content through channels that they owned.

Web2 is many to many. It enables many people who had only been consumers to also be creators. Powerful centralized platforms provide valuable features like distribution and convenience but sometimes at a tradeoff to control and economic ownership.?

Web3 is also many to many. Unlike Web2, it aims to be more decentralized and does so by creating new and novel reward structures for participation. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized and immutable public ledgers, underpins this industry. In the past few years,? we have seen a Cambrian explosion of applications and use cases (DeFi, NFTs, DAOs) with the emergence of programmable smart contracts thanks to Ethereum and other new blockchain platforms.?

At some point in my search process, everything just clicked for me. I started my career in the mid to late 1990s as a co-founder of a Web1 internet company. I just concluded 10 years at one of the world’s most transformational Web2 companies - LinkedIn. And as I thought about my next step, Web3 just felt like a perfect and natural third act to my career.?

Why Chainlink Labs?

Once I committed myself to joining the Web3 industry, my next step was to identify the segments within Web3 that I thought had the most potential and that played to my strengths. Imagine you were transported back to 1997 and you could pick where you wanted to play with the newly formed Web! What would you do??

I spent months reading everything I could get my hands on regarding crypto/blockchain/Web3 and listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts. I am also grateful for the many people who graciously taught me so much about this new industry. I ultimately concluded that there were two segments that I felt were going to explode, that satisfied my intellectual curiosity, and where I was equipped to make an impact.?

These two segments were oracles and NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

Ok, once I had my focus on the industry and the segment, then I set out to figure out the best company in each segment. That part was frankly quite easy. Why? I’ve learned throughout my career that market leaders with true product market fit and strong moats have tremendous fuel to last many years, often decades. So I went straight to the clear market leaders.?

Chainlink Labs is the team building the #1 (by a long shot) leader in decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink.?

You’re probably wondering, what the heck is a decentralized oracle network? I had the same question when I started my journey too. So let’s unpack it.

Smart contracts are programmable agreements between two parties that automatically take place on a blockchain. One super simple way to think about it… if x, then y.?

Here are some examples…

-If Nasdaq hits X level, then buy Y?

-If inflation exceeds X%, then sell Y

-If it doesn’t rain X days in a specific location, then insurance company pays out Y to farmers

-If a sports team wins X times, then game does Y

-If carbon offsetter creates X amount of reforestation, then pay out Y carbon credits

As you can see, this list could go on and on. The only limit is human imagination! Since all of this is programmed, there is speed, efficiency, and far less counterparty risk than traditional paper contracts.

The key thing to drill into here is that “X” is essentially real world-data. By their nature, blockchains and the smart contracts built atop them are unable to connect with real world-data and systems. How do these smart contracts securely and reliably get off-chain (ie. “real-world”) data?

Enter Chainlink.?

A smart contract could theoretically get this real-world data from existing data sources. But that approach defeats the whole purpose of the decentralized ethos of blockchains. Remember, decentralization is paramount to the blockchain world - perhaps its most important feature. So why go through such extraordinary lengths for decentralized applications, only to have one single data provider who could potentially manipulate or exploit the situation, posing massive risk for all parties. Another way of saying it… you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

Chainlink oracle networks are made up of independent oracle nodes run by world-class DevOps teams from organizations like Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems, Swisscom, and others, which ensure that the highest quality data is delivered in a decentralized, accurate, and tamper-proof way.

Chainlink Price Feeds have now crossed over $75B in total value secured in DeFi (decentralized finance).?This is just market data and DeFi is a market in its infancy.

The opportunity for decentralized oracle networks goes well beyond market data.?

There are countless other services required to help developers build feature-rich decentralized applications. Some of them include on-chain randomness, automation, and cross-chain interoperability.?

I love the variety of all these use cases and that I’ll get to see and learn so much about the smart contract economy as so much of it is powered by Chainlink.

In addition to this unique vantage point into Web3, I’m also inspired by the vision and impact to society. The company’s vision is stated as a simple equation: Truth > Trust. In today’s world, we rely on trust and promises which can often be broken, inefficient, or hard to enforce. Chainlink is uniquely positioned to change that and deliver facts and truth through cryptographic guarantees.?

Hopefully this post answers the question, why Web3 and why Chainlink!?

If you’d like to learn more about crypto/blockchain/Web3, I wrote a post that shares the resources I used to move down the learning curve that you may find helpful.?