Meet the Deconet Advisors: Joe McCann of NodeSource
Joe McCann is a creative technologist, hacker, and technology executive with over 18 years of experience. He is the CEO, founder, and chairman of the board at NodeSource, the safest and most secure Node.js platform, dedicated to creating a sustainable ecosystem for Node.js.
Joe has been a speaker at dozens of technology events including Open Source Strategy Forum, the Morgan Stanley CTO Innovation Summit, Goldman Sachs Spark Series, Google NEXT, and FinJS. A graduate of Portland State University, he serves on the board of advisors for several companies including the New Stand, Localeur, Circle Media, and Rivet Works.
Joe was kind enough to answer a few questions for us about how he came to advise the Deconet team, his background in crypto, and how he can help further our mission.
How did you hear about Deconet?
I first heard about Deconet through one of the investors in my Series B who is very passionate about what we are doing in the open source space, and more specifically around Node.js. She suggested I take a look at Deconet because she is convinced you are on to something. Turns out, she was right.
Tell us more about your background and experience in crypto.
I’ve been tracking crypto from a “value proposition” standpoint since early 2010, but I didn’t became super active until 2014.
My initial focus was less about the philosophical paradigm shift that Bitcoin and the protocol present, and more about Bitcoin as a store of value requiring no centralized authority. I’ve written and preached (at conferences) for the past six years that there is a major “unbundling” happening across power structures, commerce, industries, applications, borders, etc. And the crypto assets space is built upon this premise of decentralization.
When I started NodeSource we built the business to be decentralized. Our first two and a half years we had no office, and we’ve built the company’s DNA to operate similar to the Bittorrent network, where the more nodes you add to the distributed network the strong the network gets.
I see the trend towards decentralization in a much wider aperture than simply crypto assets.
This is the beginning of one the biggest secular changes in human history.
Why did you choose to join Deconet as an advisor?
Deconet has a bold vision to find ways for open source developers to get paid for their “free” labor today, while also ensuring enterprises and businesses can rely on freely available software to power their applications. Your approach is unique, as many have tried in the past and have had limited to no success in supporting the massively growing segment of open source developers.
As the CEO of the Node.js company NodeSource, this is something we are passionate about. We know that fixing these issues will be monumental for the future of software. Moreover, the tech behind Deconet has serious promise, and I believe that avoiding some of the product-related pitfalls that I’ve encountered building NodeSource can help accelerate the path to success for Deconet.
What do you plan to focus on as an advisor at Deconet?
I plan to focus primarily on the business side, but can bring insights to the tech side as well. My value comes from being one of a handful of entrepreneurs that has built a successful business on and around open source. Building a business around open source can be challenging, to say the least, given the fact that your biggest competitor in open source is the open source project itself — which is free!
Where do you see Deco.network in 3 years?
This is tough to say as the pace of change in technology continues to be exponentially exponential. If Deconet gains developer mindshare and has a compelling offering to the enterprise, backed by a solid protocol and set of clients on top of it, this company’s future is very bright.
Joe will be an invaluable resource as we begin to scale and bring our vision to a larger and larger audience. We are eager to bring his insights to bear on our project, and grateful he is willing to share his experiences (both the wins and the fails) with Deconet as we grow and work to optimizing the digital infrastructure system.
