Know Your Orchestrator #2 | Stronk
Introducing the technical and professional profiles of each Orchestrator in the Livepeer project
This article is available also in these other languages:
Welcome to this second Know Your Orchestrator (KYO) segment. This initiative is being led by the team here at Live Pioneers, with the main objective of introducing the technical and professional profiles of each Orchestrator in the Livepeer project, as well as highlighting any goals they may have. We hope this will help foster ties between Delegators and their favorite Orchestrators.
If you still do not know what Livepeer is, you can read our article here:
🎤 Stronk Interview
1/ Live Pioneers: How did you get involved in running a Livepeer Orchestrator? Do you have a team assisting you, or are you a solo operator?
Stronk: Back in October 2021 Livepeer Inc acquired ‘DDVTech’, the company I work for. Since I had no clue how the Livepeer protocol actually worked, I started messing around with the software to get a better understanding. Back then my node was called ‘captain-chad’ and I didn’t take it too seriously. But after the first few ETH payments came in, I was hooked and slowly started expanding my setup.
Right now, I am a solo operator, but I am looking to add a frontend contractor to my team to help out with all of my many dashboards and prototypes.
Sidenote on DDVTech: The product we create is MistServer, a powerful (100% free!) open-source media toolkit. Together with the Livepeer network this forms the backbone of Livepeer Studio. Livepeer processes the video and MistServer controls the media flow from streamer to viewer.
2/ Live Pioneers: What’s your technical background? And how do you use your technical skills in your Orchestrator role?
Stronk: I often work on random projects to try and improve my full-stack engineering skills and graduated in Computer Science 6 years ago. After that, I also spent some time getting a degree in ‘ICT in Business’, but dropped out when it was time to write the master’s thesis. It was more appealing to get some hands-on experience with my own startup and after that, working on MistServer as a software engineer.
Knowing how to code and manage IT systems is extremely useful for running an Orchestrator. Improving and building on the Livepeer network is a key component in my strategy to stand out and attract stake.
It also helps with operating the Orchestrator in general. For example, for figuring out my pricing strategy I needed insight into what prices other Orchestrators are running. By running my own scripts which scrape the public net for data (performance, price, and stake), I was able to get a fairly accurate simulation of the selection algorithm and adjust my price accordingly.
3/ Live Pioneers: What features of Livepeer can you highlight that make a difference in the web3 ecosystem?
Stronk: After 7 years the project is still going strong, steadily building their way through bull & bear markets. And there’s Livepeer Studio, a video infrastructure provider which has customers all over the world. Content creators and viewers are being connected with each other through web3 technology. Another interesting aspect is the dedication of network participants. Livepeer Inc does a ton of work on the protocol, but contributions also come from node operators, stakers, and video builders.
4/ Live Pioneers: How would you describe Livepeer in simple terms?
Stronk: A decentralized marketplace for GPU’s. Anyone can rent out their hardware to anyone else who requires video transcoding or AI inference at scale, for cheap.
5/ Live Pioneers: How did you first find out about blockchain technology, and what prompted you to get involved in crypto?
Stronk: I always used to keep my distance from crypto. Then back in 2018 my brother gave me $300 worth of crypto after he saw some gains during that bullrun. I joined in on the fun, but it was only to try and make some money off it.
Serious involvement started later when I was approached to co-found a startup, with the idea of creating a system to be able to leave your cryptos behind for your loved ones. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out and after a year the project was disbanded.
6/ Live Pioneers: How did you find out about Livepeer?
Stronk: Livepeer Inc. had a service contract with DDVTech and one of our other customers Picarto is a big user of the Livepeer network. So, I probably first found out about them during a daily standup meeting shortly after joining the MistServer team.
7/ Live Pioneers: What was your first experience with Livepeer like, and what convinced you to take on the Orchestrator role?
Stronk: With the acquisition of DDVTech, me and my colleagues became core contributors of Livepeer. So, it made sense for me to become involved in the ecosystem directly and try to understand how all the pieces fit together.
Apart from managing the ETH wallet, it’s very similar to running and building on web2 systems.
8/ Live Pioneers: Can you briefly summarize what your daily work as an Orchestrator looks like? What types of maintenance, monitoring, and time commitments are required in running a node after the initial setup? Is it a full-time or a part-time job?
Stronk: It depends on your goals and how familiar you are with managing software systems. You can automate just about anything about running the software. I spend almost no time on monitoring or maintenance and rarely must intervene. There are tools and guides published by other node operators, who will gladly help you get over the initial hurdle of setting everything up.
However, attracting stake does require some thought and effort. In my case I spend a lot of time making contributions to the codebase, developing tools, dashboards, prototypes, and news posts every now and then. Depending on your strategy it can quickly turn into a full-time job, but now working on MistServer is still my full-time commitment.
9/ Live Pioneers: What changes are you eager to see come to the Livepeer ecosystem? And how could this benefit you as an Orchestrator?
Stronk: More job types! GPUs are in high demand. Running AI models is a nice addition as there’s a big market for it and you don’t need as much extra stuff on top to turn it into a product or service.
Currently, Livepeer exclusively supports generative AI, yet its framework is adaptable to various other model types such as smart clipping, scene detection, ad-break detection, translation, subtitling, and more. Keep an eye out for forthcoming updates within the Livepeer ecosystem.
10/ Live Pioneers: How would you describe your long-term vision for Livepeer, as well as the web3 ecosystem?
Stronk: As more web3 projects mature, hopefully we can turn around public sentiment on crypto by proving it’s possible to create a useful, competitive product with the compute power behind web3. DePin projects like Livepeer have the potential to go head-to-head with current tech giants.
DePin, short for “decentralized physical infrastructure networks,” has become an increasingly popular application of blockchain and decentralized technologies. To learn more about DePin, you can read here.
11/ Live Pioneers: Now to finish, we will ask you a bonus question that could be interesting for the community… which is your favorite travel destination?
Stronk: I’ve never actually left the EU so far so maybe this answer changes over time, but I love the Mediterranean history, weather, and food. So, for my yearly vacation you’ll usually find me somewhere in southern Europe.
☎️ How to contact Stronk?
Here you can find how to contact Stronk:
- Website: stronk.tech
- Telegram: Cpn_Stronk
- Discord: captain.stronk
- Matrix: @stronk:stronk.rocks
- ENS: stronk-tech.eth
Don’t forget to post your question in the comment section so our friendly Orchestrator will be able to answer you. And please, remember to share this segment with your friends!
If you are an Orchestrator and are interested in participating in these segments, please DM us on X, or email via this link here. Thank you!
Do you have any questions?
Live Pioneers is the first unofficial community for long term LPT holders and supporters of the Livepeer protocol ▶️
If you have any questions, or concerns, or want to submit feedback, you can reach out to us using our social channels:
- App: livepioneers.app
- Telegram: t.me/livepioneers
- X: x.com/livepioneers
- Blog: blog.livepioneers.com/lists
- YouTube: youtube.com/@livepioneers
