“I started coding Ethereum in December with only £500 left, and my rent was £500 a month. I had already launched two startups, both of which were not going anywhere. I I even wanted to find a job in a bank. At this time, he gave me 1,000 pounds a month to continue working on Ethereum. I wanted to see if this white paper could be implemented, so I started writing code for a few months. Later, I became the co-founder of Ethereum.”
Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, creator of Polkadot, and visionary behind Web3. In a three-hour interview last week, he revealed the secrets of the future of blockchain technology. PolkaWorld will be released in several parts one after another, and this article is the first part!
Source: PolkaWorld
Before we get started, let’s take a look at some of the exciting perspectives and conversations!
You created the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and you founded Polkadot. In your opinion, what is Ethereum’s greatest achievement to date? ——Ethereum is the project that has created the most millionaires in history.
So, how does a great idea come to be? ——A good idea is one where you can clearly see the path to implementation.
Real thoughts on meme coins? - Bullshit.
What is Polkadot’s greatest achievement? —— Implemented a secure sharded blockchain.
So what is Polkadot’s biggest challenge right now? ——It is its sharding design.
Your childhood seems not to be an easy one, can you tell us more about it? ——I grew up living with a single mother whose husband was very violent. I remember that period clearly, full of feelings of abandonment. It makes me even more grateful to have a safe environment now.
People often say "Too early is always wrong." As an inventor, you always foresee trends early. Have you ever experienced misunderstandings or even setbacks because you were “too ahead of your time”? ——Is this really what Howard Marks said?
Read on and enjoy what Gavin has to offer!
Start with pleasantries
Kevin: Thank you so much for this interview, Gavin. Is that Japanese whiskey you’re drinking now?
Gavin: Yes, Yamazaki for 12 years.
Kevin: I heard you like whiskey and like Japanese culture.
Gavin: Yes! cheers! Kampai!
Source: PolkaWorld
Kevin: Is Kampai Japanese? I thought this was a Chinese saying.
Gavin: Kampai is Japanese for cheers.
Kevin: Do you speak Japanese?
Gavin: No, but I know some basic terms and can handle it.
Kevin: Do you live in Japan?
Gavin: Now I have a house in Japan.
Kevin: Why?
Gavin: Just because I like the culture here. Maybe it’s not suitable for living year-round, but Japan’s culture is really unique and it’s fun to live here.
Kevin: What do you like about Japanese culture?
Gavin: It’s actually very different from other places in Asia. The service was really great and it was very obvious that every detail has been carefully thought out. Completely different from the UK.
Kevin: So what do you think of Britain?
Gavin: You know, I grew up here, I'm British. So for me, it's kind of... not really a desire to spend all my time here, but I have a house in Cambridge and I enjoy living here. I also really like certain elements of British culture.
Kevin: For example?
Gavin: Like British Indian curry, which is great. I love traditional pubs, ales, and cheese. Another example is the pie, which is always delicious. There's also fish and chips and a Sunday roast, which are also very good. The UK is one of the more etiquette countries in the world, which I appreciate.
Kevin: Yeah, but for someone like me, if you're not native to the UK, especially if English is not your first language, like I'm from Switzerland, sometimes it's hard to understand what the British really mean, especially their humour. Feeling, right? British humor is really difficult to understand and very special.
Gavin: Yeah, I think humor is a great way to communicate. Often you will find that there is a lot of meaning in a joke. In some places, humor has become a part of communication. For example, humor can be used to express meaning slightly indirectly, or to find some common ground that everyone can agree on, instead of directly talking to death. This is a very natural way of communicating.
Kevin: Someone told me that this is also the case in Japan. I've heard that people from Osaka (and maybe Kyoto, but certainly not Tokyo) are more casual and have a better sense of humor.
Gavin: Yeah, it’s very different than if you were born and raised in Tokyo and then go to those places. In Tokyo, communication is usually more formal, whereas in Osaka, people are naturally playful and humor becomes part of their communication. And when one person is used to communicating with humor and the other is not, the difference becomes obvious.
Kevin: Do you think humor has more to do with culture, or does it have to do with how smart a person is? For example, understanding of humor?
Gavin: I think humor relies heavily on a shared point of view, a shared way of perceiving, a shared way of understanding the world. Therefore, it is not necessarily directly linked to intelligence. But to some extent, intelligence can indeed be used as a tool to create humor and build empathy between two parties in a conversation.
I've also thought a little bit about humor, as far as I understand it. Humor is often based on the idea that when you say a word, or perform an action, the target audience (i.e., the interlocutor) will interpret it in two ways, while other bystanders may only interpret it in one way. to interpret. This hidden interpretation is where the sense of humor comes from.
It's interesting because the target person realizes they can interpret the sentence two ways, and knows that others can only understand it one way. At the same time, they also know that the speaker of the words knows this. Thus, a special and exclusive understanding develops between the two parties to the conversation, to which no other person can participate. This unique sense of resonance is the essence of humor.
Gavin's Childhood
Kevin: Do you like to analyze a lot of things?
Gavin: Of course.
Kevin: Who are you?
Gavin: This was the question the Bolan asked Deran in (Babylon 5), and that whole episode was spent answering it.
Kevin: So let me start with that question as well.
Gavin: However, I prefer another question: "What do you want?" This is the question asked by the Shadow Clan to Delan.
As for "Who am I?" I don't know. I'm a bit of a free spirit. I try to avoid labeling myself, because often who you are is defined by how you relate to the world, people, and institutions around you. I don't like to answer this question with a simple answer because if people hear it, they tend to read too much into the answer and that's not really what I mean. Broadly speaking, "who a person is" cannot be summed up in one or two sentences. This is actually something that can only be felt gradually by observing a person's words and deeds, or in interviews like this.
Kevin: What is your mission?
Gavin: What drives me? This problem, I don’t know, there are several different factors, and there are also some things I want to achieve. For example, happiness, this should be a good goal. Such as satisfaction and being a good father. There’s also a sense of responsibility—responsibility for some of the things that I’m involved in, a sense of personal mission. In addition, there are some childhood dreams, things that I know will make me happy and may also make other people happy. These are more inclined to industries such as art and music.
Kevin: You mentioned childhood dreams. A few months ago, Kia Wong of Alliance DAO and I talked in a podcast about two qualities they believe are crucial when looking for star founders in tomorrow’s crypto industry. First, it is a certain degree of "autistic tendency" that helps people think independently; second, it is a kind of childhood trauma, which gives people a motivation of "I want to prove something to the world." As a highly successful crypto founder, do you identify with or possess one or both of these two qualities?
Gavin: I am not qualified to diagnose whether I have "autistic tendencies." However, my childhood was certainly not an easy one. So, I think I might be able to identify with the "childhood trauma" thing.
Source: PolkaWorld
Kevin: Would you like to talk a little more about childhood trauma?
Gavin: I grew up in a single-parent household with just my mother. This is largely her choice. But she had a violent husband at the time who was also my father, and that went on for a while. I don’t remember being beaten, but I have very strong memories of that period of my life, mostly a sense of abandonment. I don’t know if this qualifies as some kind of trauma or what type of trauma it is. But I think it gave me a particularly deep appreciation for a “safe environment.”
Kevin: More and more people are trying to understand their relationship with childhood. I've discussed this a lot with Jesse Pollack, Mike Novogratz, and others. Many people use some form of psychotherapy to understand the origins of their behavioral patterns. It's not just about explaining, "Oh, this is why I do this," it's more about self-improvement because we all want to be better. Have you ever done something similar, like feeling like your childhood served you well in some ways, but maybe not so well in other ways, and so you wanted to learn more about yourself?
Gavin: Like you mentioned before, I’m definitely someone who likes to think and analyze things. So it’s not like I haven’t thought deeply about my experiences at this stage of my life and how they might impact my current thinking or interactions. But if you ask me have I done any specific psychotherapy, hypnotherapy or anything like that? No.
Where do all those great ideas come from?
Kevin: You are the co-founder of Ethereum. You created the Ethereum Virtual Machine and the Solidity programming language, which provide tools for developers to build smart contracts on Ethereum. You also founded Polkadot. How do you come up with these big ideas?
Gavin: I don’t know either. I think the ideas just came out on their own.
Kevin: Interesting. That is to say, you don’t need to do anything deliberately, they just come by themselves?
Gavin: Yes.
Kevin: So would you start with a goal or a plan?
Gavin: No.
Kevin: Or did you wake up one day and suddenly feel, “This is what I want to do”?
Gavin: You could say that. Although "it has to be done" may be a bit of an exaggeration. But it was true that one day, when I was thinking about something, such as going for a walk, or taking a shower, or maybe just thinking randomly, I don't know why, the "jigsaw puzzle" of these thoughts gradually came together.
Essentially, it's not like someone, like Elon Musk, might decide clearly, "I'm going to Mars," and then start working backwards on what needs to be done: develop batteries, do rocket science, develop this, that, device Set a clear road map, whether written in your mind or on paper, and then implement it one by one. For me, this approach doesn't quite suit my style.
My approach is more of an incremental innovation. That’s not to say that I avoid making any big changes, but that I look for combinations based on things I already know and can see working, and components that I can imagine exist or actually already exist. , and see if you can get a result that looks meaningful and useful. And this result, in my opinion, at least has not been well achieved before.
Source: PolkaWorld
Kevin: I read a book written by the famous surgeon and author of Psycho-Cybernetics, Maxwell Malt. The book is called (Mind Control) and actually explains some parts of the creative process. He mentioned that most creativity actually comes from the subconscious mind. He says that when you see something clearly in your mind's eye, your inner creative success mechanism takes over and accomplishes it better than you could through conscious effort or willpower. So, how much of a big idea like EVM, or any big idea for that matter, comes from your conscious thinking? How many are the result of you having an idea, setting some goals, then relaxing and letting your subconscious mind do its work by thinking deeply?
Gavin: In my mind, an "idea" doesn't mean that I can just think of a vision, such as "Eliminate world hunger," and then I sleep and let my brain or subconscious do the work. It's not going to happen the next morning, right?
Because if the “idea” you’re talking about is a vision or a high-level goal, it’s not really an “idea.” Maybe it could be an idea for a movie, but it's not an "idea" in the engineering sense. So I don't entirely agree that the subconscious mind can be of much help in this regard.
I believe that ideas must be constrained by practical feasibility.
Focusing on an idea to "eliminate hunger" doesn't make much sense if you don't have the resources to solve the problem. Sure, you might say, "We could take an incremental approach, do this first, then that." But it's more of a top-down approach, starting with the end goal and then deriving how to achieve it. I think this approach is more like Elon Musk. He has huge wealth, I don’t know if he is worth tens of billions or hundreds of billions now, but he can just say like the president of the United States or the chairman of the Saudi National Fund, "Okay, I want to build a city there" or "I'm going to spend $3 billion to eradicate malaria somewhere." Then use a very formulaic, rational, and emotionless business approach to solve the problem and evaluate whether the resources are sufficient to achieve the goal. But as I said, this is not an "idea", it is just a "result".
A real "idea" is that you have a path, you have a way to achieve something. Maybe you don’t know the exact details, but you know it’s positive, potentially useful, and might help the world. You also believe that no one has thought of such an invention, or that no one has tried to combine existing basic elements in this way to create something new.
I think this is what most people really mean when they say "the inventor had an idea." They refer to a recombination of basic elements.
Is it wrong to be too forward? Is Gavin misunderstood?
Kevin: You mean, combine these things and think it will be useful to the world, right? But the problem with that is, with someone like an inventor, people just can't understand you for a while, maybe even a long time, right? I think it was Howard Marks who said, "Too ahead of the curve is a mistake." As an inventor, you always catch trends early. How many setbacks have you suffered in your life because you acted too early or were completely misunderstood by others?
Source: PolkaWorld
Gavin: Probably a lot, but I’m not sure. Can I really tell if someone has misunderstood me? Is the difference obvious between them misunderstanding you, ignoring you, or simply not being smart enough to barely, if ever, understand your concepts? I have no idea. I suspect so, but to a certain extent I agree with that view (that being too ahead of the curve is always wrong). But is this really what Howard Marks said? Doesn't sound like his style.
Kevin: Then I’ll have to confirm again later, haha
Gavin: But yeah, I think if you want to build something that has immediate value to the world, you have to explain it in a way that the world already understands. This is why most disruptive inventions usually start with a very simple, even naive application. A classic example is when the Internet was first used to send email. Like, "Okay, now you can send messages, and instead of them taking a day to be delivered, they're delivered in minutes -- assuming people are checking their inboxes every few minutes." "
The Internet later had a huge impact on the world, but today, the role of email actually accounts for only a small part of the Internet's overall impact. But it was necessary at the time, because people understood email, so they could understand that if information was delivered an order of magnitude faster, or even two or three orders of magnitude faster, that was obviously an improvement.
So, I would agree with this: you need to explain your idea in words that the market or your target audience can understand.
The problem, of course, is that sometimes it's easier to build something than figure out what exactly it's for.
Kevin: Isn’t this the problem with most entrepreneurs? They usually build a product and then find target users, not the other way around. They should ask themselves, “Am I solving problems for people?” But you could also argue that those who provide solutions to existing problems are actually solving a smaller problem than a completely new invention.
Gavin: Yeah, usually. And a lot of the time, they’re restraining themselves. They limit their intelligence and thinking space because they have drawn a clear boundary. For example, they only focus on making a car go faster or use less fuel. Maybe they can think of making the car fly, but that doesn't matter because their focus is just on reducing fuel consumption.
So, I agree, if you predetermine the outcome before you actually start ideating how to achieve your goal, you'll probably only be able to solve smaller problems.
If you take a broader perspective and are a little more "let go" of the specific results you want to achieve, such as just trying to find some ways to make things more free, more efficient, faster, then you may get better faster. Find some more revolutionary and substantive solutions.
Kevin: When do you feel you’ve been most misunderstood? You mentioned that this probably happened a lot, right?
Gavin: Well, I think it’s pretty common when doing JAM. This is the new protocol I'm doing now. But I think that's normal because it's really a complex protocol and the way it works is very different from what it used to be. It's not always easy to understand how it's different and why it's better. Largely because people may not really understand the limitations of existing methods. This is a big problem in cutting-edge technology development.
Even practitioners do not always clearly understand the current state of technology, or that the current cutting-edge of technology is not optimal. Only when you drill down and truly understand the existing problem can you gain a clearer understanding of why a certain solution might be effective.
Deep intellectual understanding is the key to driving major breakthroughs
Kevin: So how did you get started? Because if you follow the classic approach, you have a problem and then solve it. But if your idea is a little more abstract, how do you get started?
Gavin: If you start with "I have this problem and I'm going to find a solution," I think that works for smaller incremental problems.
For larger problems, you might need to be very lucky to stumble upon a solution. Or you can be like Bill Gates and just say, "I'm going to invest my considerable wealth into this problem." But assuming you're not extremely lucky or extremely rich, you may just choose to start with small problems. solve. Because there are many more small problems than big problems, and they are more subdivided and detailed, relatively few people pay attention to them. This means that these problems may be easier to solve and easier for you to detect and exploit.
Source: PolkaWorld
Therefore, I think this "top-down, define the result first" approach is more suitable for small problems than for big problems, unless you have extremely rich resources or extremely lucky values.
That's why I say you should start with the current situation and analyze the existing "components".
When I say "component," I mean something very abstract, not just something that you can literally use directly, like the Rust programming language, an Android phone, or a CPU. Also includes the following:
industries of mathematics
different branches of engineering
Human understanding of the world
Goods and services already on the market
Deployed projects
Open source software
All of these can be thought of as "components" that you can leverage when building something. By combining these components, plus some intellectual novelty or creativity, you build something useful that may be used to solve one or more problems. I think this is the essence of creation.
You can easily achieve this at a lower level. For example, I could write a new program that performs some kind of pair matching, and use this program to create a trading robot that might achieve some success in the near future. This is solving a relatively small problem.
And academic research usually operates at a higher level of abstraction. Academics still try to solve problems by recombining ideas, adding a bit of intellectual creativity and innovation, but they are trying to solve "bigger" problems (although these are not always widely understood, nor necessarily seems very important). These problems are not necessarily big issues that many people are concerned about, nor are they necessarily very practical problems that need to be solved. However, even so, they are still creating more useful human knowledge, which in itself is a meaningful thing.
There are many classic examples, such as some theoretical research in the early 20th century that led to the theory of lasers, which were eventually used to make CDs. Without these theoretical studies, CD would not have been invented. But by the time these studies were completed, no one knew what they were used for. They are almost "useless" for a long time, even decades. But when they were finally used, they sparked a revolution in audio technology.
I'm not saying you should lock yourself away in an ivory tower and only do highly abstract, seemingly theoretical things. What I want to express is that there is actually a spectrum between what is immediately practical and what appears to be purely theoretical. As for myself, I am probably in the middle of this spectrum.
I'm trying to come up with some new engineering understanding that doesn't mean "deploy it and you'll get a 10% increase in transaction volume tomorrow." On the contrary, I hope that when applied correctly, it may become part of the next generation system, bringing about a 1,000% or even 1 million percent increase in transaction volume.
Of course, you can't be completely sure of this because you're not chasing a specific outcome. Instead, you are pursuing deep intellectual understanding. I think that a better intellectual understanding itself can lead to great results, and not just one great result, but potentially multiple great results.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: (PANews)
Original author: PolkaWorld
"Exclusive interview with the father of Polkadot!" Is Polkadot Chain misunderstood? Is it wrong to be too forward? 』This article was first published in "CryptoCity"
