The Future Is Now: Kristoff De Spiegeleer Of ThreeFold On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Persistence, Rome wasn’t built in one day. Hold to that vision, no matter what happens. Go all-in with the heart. Many people think too much with their minds. But speaking from the heart and why it is important is so much more powerful.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kristoff De Spiegeleer.
Kristoff De Spiegeleer is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of ThreeFold and FreeFlow Tribe with over two decades in the cloud computing and crypto/blockchain industries. He is a serial entrepreneur who has spent the last 15 years founding multiple successful companies at the forefront of cloud computing such as Symantec, Western Digital / Hitachi, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Belgacom and Telenet, and Terremark/Verizon. He is a leader at the forefront of the blockchain industry with numerous technical achievements over the years including creating the first cloud system, the first proof of block stake blockchain, the first peer-to-peer cloud, and more. Kristof holds an M.Sc. in Electro Technical Engineering from Ghent University in Belgium and a postgraduate in management and economics from the University of Leuven, Belgium.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Well, I’ve been programming since I was 9 years old. We started with those Comodo 64s, it was quite an amazing machine that got me extremely passionate about computers.
When I came out of university, the Internet was becoming really interesting. It was still very primitive at that time, there were no web browsers or servers, but you could feel the promise of a platform that allows for the free exchange of information and value. It was a free-flowing movement, there were no big firewalls, everyone was helping each other and that got me very excited.
I was very quickly hired by one of the first internet service providers in the world — PSI Net, and that was a very lucky move as it was the beginning of the Internet in Europe, there were no data centers. I was hired to run a network operation in Switzerland, which brought me to participate in the making of the first data centers in the U.S. That got me really excited.
So we brought that concept back to Europe, and we were lucky to be part of that golden period between 1996 and 2000, there were lots of opportunities and money available for us to do the most amazing projects. We did a few world records at that time with the team for hosting the Nasa, the World Cup, UEFA, and ICQ. It was really the start of the Internet.
In the year 2000, we decided to go into startup mode to build Internet storage and cloud automation technologies that would be more efficient, scalable, and usable. Throughout the years we ended up building bits and pieces of the internet and cloud the world uses today. Our technologies were acquired by Oracle, Verizon, DataSymantec, and more.
About 10 years ago, my wife got very sick which triggered my mid-life crisis moment. At that time, we had to decide on whether we would continue building successful startups or use our knowledge and experience to build a better world. And this is when the idea of ThreeFold was seeded with the mission to build a new internet infrastructure that is completely open-source, decentralized, equally accessible, and sustainable.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
That’s an amazing question. Of course, throughout a career, there are a lot of events that make your life interesting, but there is one specific moment that I’ll remember forever.
Around 2002, it was very hard, the Internet bubble crashed, and it was a difficult period. At that time we were in a startup and we had developed quite some technology. I was still learning how to handle my investors and board at that time, and we ended up in a situation where we didn’t deliver on their expectations. Luckily, we were very transparent to our team, so everyone understood the risks in what we were doing. We had developed an amazing product around cloud automation and storage backup, but we didn’t meet our deadline and had to license two-thirds of our organization. That was tough. These people were beyond just a couple of colleagues, these were my friends with whom we built technology for many years. I remember we had to lay off part of our team with this “letting go” conversation. Sometimes we cried, but we had to.
But then something absolutely amazing happened. That team came together and made a song called “We will survive”. And they started singing that song altogether. What followed was insane as more than half of the people that were laid off kept on working for many months to give the company a chance to pull through and deliver what we had been working for. That was amazing.
This changed a lot in me as I realized that if we can build something with passion, something that goes beyond just business, something that matters, everything becomes possible. I realized the power of community, the power of like-minded people working together as one.
Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on?
I believe there are three major ones.
The first one is storage.
With our experience, we understand that storage must connect over multiple sites, in a way that it can never be corrupted nor lose data, while always remaining fast enough. It has to be decentralized and distributed, but not with technologies such as blockchain. That would just not scale. We decided to use technology used for spatial communication called — forward error correction code. It allows you to store shards of data over multiple locations in a way that is ultra-efficient and quantum-safe, meaning that even the most powerful computers in the world wouldn’t be able to hack into it. After 10 years of development, we finally did it. Our quantum-safe storage is the most secure, private, distributed, scalable, efficient, and sustainable storage system in the world. It is literally unbreakable.
Secondly, anything that has to do with networking has to change. Today global networks are owned by a few companies, and they are incredibly centralized, unsafe, and slow. We need a new network technology that functions like an overlay network that interweaves people and computers in such a way that there are no intermediaries involved. Our Planetary Network solution finds the shortest paths within end-to-end encrypted overlay networks to ensure that communication can never be intercepted. We’re actually solving major security and efficiency flaws of the current Internet infrastructure. On our network, everyone has a unique IP address that is independent of how you connect. So, whether you use 4g, your neighbor’s wi-fi, or satellite connections, your network will always be the same IP looking for the shortest path to communicate on a planetary scale.
The third piece is computing. We have to ensure developers and enterprises can run applications at the far edge with optimum security. So, we created a stateless operating system that requires no installation or upgrades. Everything that runs on our cloud is hashed and fingerprinted, providing 100% control on data location and access. Such a model makes it very hard for hackers to intercept anything and by using our Smart Contract for IT, users can deploy any current or future IT workload that runs on Linux anywhere around the world without the need of a service provider such as an AWS.
All together, these three elements create the first peer-to-peer edge cloud in the world.
How do you think that will help people?
Not to play on fear, which I don’t like, but today the Internet is very centralized, and it doesn’t take much to shut it down. It has become a very important part of our life, we communicate with each other globally right now, and it’s one of the stabilizing factors of our world today. But it is super centralized, it is actually very easy to break it down and it’s a miracle it didn’t happen yet. All you need is to cut a few cables or launch a major cyberattack.
So the first thing we can do is to deliver hundreds of local Internet networks that can talk to each other, each of them being completely self-sufficient with their own naming system, information, money, billing system, etc. It would be completely decentralized. That would allow us to never lose our internet, even if on an island, and you would always have your information available in case of a disaster, for example, people would still be able to fetch the information they are looking for, communicate with each, do their business, exchange money, etc. And this has never been done before. A decentralized Internet co-owned by everyone.
Secondly, still today half of the global population remains unconnected to the Internet despite it being a human right. While it’s widely available in westernized cultures, it still remains unaffordable to people in emerging countries. But thanks to our decentralized Internet model, we can provide Internet infrastructure and access at a fraction of today’s cost as everything remains within a country’s borders. And by doing so we can provide equal access to information, education, e-commerce, name it. And I believe that allowing everyone to be equally equipped to partake and succeed is incredibly important. This is a model that can liberate people from being a product of the centralized “free” platforms of today.
Also, with our model people can never lose access to the Internet. You can now become a participant on the Internet, which provides you with economic benefits. So instead of paying money to use services, you could earn money for expanding the Internet. A combination of earning and making sure your city or village always has access to the Internet and all its information, no matter what happens to the rest of the world, as it is decentralized. I think this is super cool.
How do you think this might change the world?
To have a decentralized digital backbone co-owned by all of us, which can host everything digital. This can change the way we do business, communicate, and exchange information on this unbreakable internet. It is an opportunity for humanity to build a new foundation built on better values such as respect, neutrality, sovereignty. It can be done in such a way where people are safe and information is verified transparently. Going back to a system owned by all of us and where we help each other, which is fundamentally different than what we have today
Today it’s like a war on data as it became more valuable than oil and that’s what needs to go back to the people. Our data should be ours and on an Infrastructure we co-own.
Let’s paint the picture of the future. Imagine thousands of internets owned by different groups of people under Decentralized Aware Organizations (DAOs), and on each of those internets, there is all the information necessary to do personalized education, business, collaboration, exchange, etc. And all these internets can communicate with each other. Such a model goes across all geographical and cultural borders to restore balance and provide opportunities to everyone.
Today billions of people don’t have access to the internet because of their station of birth. On one hand, it is unfair to them, and on the other, the world is losing billions of inventors and talents. Our internet can scale to anywhere electricity and network exist to provide access to the internet, education, and financial inclusion to everyone.
And not to forget about climate change. Our internet is 10x more energy efficient than any other infrastructure and we’re offsetting our emission 3x to regenerate the planet with millions of students around the world.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks of this technology that people should think more deeply about?
With new technologies such as the Metaverse or Neurolink-type stuff, we’re getting immersed in a technological world and it’s quite scary to me, it already seems a bit like Black Mirror to me. We’re going into the Matrix, with our information and moods being controlled by a couple companies.
On a decentralized Internet that can be different and of course, we need to be careful. For example, the values need to be embedded in the system. On our system, we don’t want to see anonymity as people need to be responsible for their words and actions. We believe in authenticity. So we need to rethink values and rights. We need a system that eliminates greed or ego, for new systems to be built that will keep us out of the matrix.
It will be important to get a maximum of people involved to collaborate. I don’t believe in AI or smart contracts to replace people. I trust in the good of people. We just need better tools and platforms.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
I would say there were many tipping points. Sometimes it has to do with money, not having enough cash, the more we lean and mean the more we are forced to reinvent ourselves and do things with less and look for the shortest path, keeping things very simple.
And then there are things happening in the world like what we recently saw with Ukraine. Data centers and towers were attacked first and they lost a lot of data. People, therefore, look at the internet in a very different way. But there is no alternative yet, apart from what we are working on. I hope there are more, to be honest. But blockchain by itself cannot scale for such a use case. Blockchains can be brought down easily actually very easy, and it needs to be rethought.
So yeah there are many tipping points with climate change, potential world wars, etc.. that push us to rethink how we do what we do to deliver what the world truly needs.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
We believe in DAOs. We redefined the term though and called it “Decentralized Aware Organization” instead of “Decentralized Autonomous Organization” as we then put more trust in the awareness of people to know what they have to do. This unbreakable internet we have created can be deployed anywhere and interconnected, and this will be key for mass adoption. We already see it today with thousands plugging in hardware to our grid. We don’t have to be involved. So we’re now thinking about how to provide even more decentralization tools and languages for people to be able to expand it in their own regions.
And the fact that anything that runs on Linux can run on ThreeFold, people can port and build what they want without limits. With our partners and friends, we have about 20 solutions across Blockchain, IoT, Metaverse, Education, e-Banking, and more as starting kits for the peer-to-peer revolution.
Also, we’re working with Real Estate development projects and countries to expand local, edge, peer-to-peer infrastructure as an alternative to building data centers.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I can’t mention one person only. Many exceptional people stood up and did things when it was really needed. One of our friends did a video years ago explaining how important it was for him, investors providing us financial support when we really needed it, people getting so inspired they would quit their job to open doors to countries and powerful opportunities for our community. Lots of people have stood up for this project as they see it as an opportunity to improve lives. It is truly decentralized, and we never considered ourselves as a company but more as one big family.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
It all starts with ourselves. I used to be a frustrated engineer when I started as I thought the world was a strange place and tried to prove to everyone I was worth out of ego and frustrations. I’m happy I managed to let these things go and realized I had to change to become a more loving person, dare to speak up for what I believe is right, even if it is a big fund or government official in front of me. But I think that going into our own power allows us to be truthful to what we believe is right and puts us in a strong position from both heart and mind.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
First persistence, Rome wasn’t built in one day. Hold to that vision, no matter what happens. Go all-in with the heart. Many people think too much with their minds. But speaking from the heart and why it is important is so much more powerful.
Secondly, the Pareto rule. Always seek the 20% effort that brings 80% results. Don’t focus on perfection, it doesn’t exist. It’s better to be out there with something that is incomplete and shows potential.
Third, positivity. It is incredibly important to always keep the vibration high in every context. A positive attitude attracts positivity.
Fourth, always be honest and transparent. Never play games. Honesty always wins.
Last, take care of yourself. Your body. Your mind. Eat well, exercise, no matter how hard it may be. Your body is your temple.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Technology is not there as a purpose but as a tool for humanity, so I don’t believe in a smart contract ai driven world in which we have to fit. So for us all to be happier we need to trust ourselves much more. This internet can provide us with capabilities to tap into our power. We need to make the choice that we have the choice. Most people got so scared today because of many contexts but I believe we can always switch it.
I think it’s important to make sure we always enable others around us to become stronger. It’s a movement for the people around us, it’s a movement of giving. We have to build the infrastructure, the tools, the applications for our friends around us. It’s a movement to take back our sovereignty and freedom. But it all starts with being ourselves and trusting we can do the right thing.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same way of thinking we used when we created them” — Albert Einstein. Why? We need a fundamentally different system, going away from client-servers or master-slaves, so that’s why I love that quote so much as everything we have today needs to be re-thought. The current systems are broken. This quote always pushed me to think about how to do things differently, to a point where it gave me a lot of confidence.
Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them
I’ll be a bit disruptive here… We see money as frozen time energy, it’s a tool to do something good with, not a tool to do more money. So, if you’re looking for more money, please find another project. We want to do something truly meaningful to our planet, by providing a new unbreakable internet that makes everyone equal while regenerating our planet. Everyone will create value in such a system, but no one will profit out of others. The world needs change, and we are delivering on the promise of new systems built on strong values.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.