What made you join VIAZ as an advisor?
I have known Peter/Steve Meronek for many years and am impressed by his business acumen and scrupulous sense of fair play. He also knows how to build a business which has wide appeal. When he told me about Viaz I was impressed by the great application of blockchain technology to a real-world problem. I expressed my disappointment that I was working full-time on my project at Google. Otherwise, I would have jumped at the opportunity to help out. When Steve offered to make me an advisor (and I got the OK from Google), I jumped at the opportunity.
How was it working with BitTorrent before the acquisition?
Working at BitTorrent was a wild ride. Some very smart people there and really smart projects, but they had a hard time coming up with a good business proposition and were consistently changing direction, often antagonizing potential business partners. They even tried to change their name once, but people got wise to that. I hope that the acquisition by Tron works out for them.
How did you get introduced to cryptocurrencies?
I’ve been studying crypto for a while and have been skeptical of many of the early ventures around the technology. The advent of the ability to code contracts on the Tezos blockchain make the technology much more useful and will make business transactions much more transparent. Viaz is a great example of how the blockchain can make a positive contribution to real-world problems.
We have heard you have worked with Stephen Hawking?
I first entered Stephen Hawking’s orbit when I got to know one of his research students in my first year at Cambridge. I was able to help him out with some of his work and got some credit. Later I studied with Prof Hawking on as part of my undergraduate course. I almost accepted a job as his assistant afterwards, but in the end, I went on to do a PhD in machine learning in the Engineering department, since I wanted to work on something with a more direct application than cosmology.
How do you currently manage your schedule as you are a part of Google and VIAZ?
I work full time a Google, but I have a lot of experience with startups and it’s great that I can lend my expertise on advising Viaz outside regular work hours. Although I’m not doing any coding, I’m happy that I can help out identifying opportunities and potential risks.
Join the conversation: https://t.me/ViazOfficialAnnouncements
