How I went from knowing next to nothing about crypto to taking a full-time job in web3, all in under 6 months

At the beginning of this year I knew next to nothing about the world of web3 or crypto. Six months later, I quit my job to take a full-time position in the industry.

What happened?

This is the story of some of the major moments within that half-year and the lessons I learned along the way.

Shifting the Web Back Towards Open-Handedness

this essay is available both in video (above) and text (below) formats // video available via auction on Zora

One of the most important objects of my life rolled in on squeaky wheels when my teacher brought a brand new computer into the elementary school classroom. Now, the school already had a few computers at the time, but those were green-and-grey text machines, rudimentary and clunky, unfriendly to children and teachers alike. These new computers were of an entirely different class, featuring user-interfaces (ooh!), software applications (ahh!), and most importantly, graphics (wow!!).

Growing up in the 90s, our first family computer was a Compaq Presario. It was a chunky desktop PC with speakers that attached to the monitor like oversized ears and a translucent purple faceplate on the tower that popped open to store CDs.

It was glorious.

That computer changed my life — and so did a piece of software that came with it called Microsoft Encarta.