Getting to Know the Keep Team: Jack
We continue our series of “Getting to Know the Keep Team” with our Community Manager, Jack Knutson.
Laura: You’ve been an active and excited member of our community from the very beginning. Can you tell us how you first heard about the Keep project and team?
Jack: Before I joined the Keep team, I spent almost all my free time researching different crypto projects. There is a lot of information out there and new projects are constantly emerging, so you have to devote a significant amount of time to stay up-to-date on everything. I had been following District0x since their beginning, and in their first quarterly report, they mentioned Keep as a partner. After reading the small snippet of information about Keep available in that report, I was immediately intrigued and joined the Keep Slack shortly thereafter.
L: What were your first impressions when you joined the Slack community? How has it evolved?
J: When I first joined the Slack community, it was very small — less than 200 people and maybe even less than 100! It was great to see how active the first few hundred members were. The first thing that stood out to me was how involved Matt was with the community members. Matt always made time to answer questions and to listen to suggestions from the community (and he still does!). This is so important to me. It shows humility and an understanding that the community is the foundation of the project. Matt’s level of engagement with the community was different from what I experienced with other projects — and I liked that.
When I join any community, I go through as much of the discussion history as the platform allows. It is vital to see dedication and transparency between the team and the community. During those first conversations of the Keep Slack you could see how the community helped the Keep brand. They were an integral part in many aspects of the Business Primer, and the community was responsible for the slogans “A privacy layer for Ethereum” and “Bitcoin gave you currency. Monero gave you private currency. Ethereum gave you Smart Contracts. Keep gives you private Smart Contracts. Built for every situation in which a smart contract interfaces with sensitive data.” Matt, Laura, and the community were bouncing those ideas off of each other to mold them into what they are today.
The community has grown exponentially since the end of December, but it still has a similar feel. Matt is still present and answering questions, and now has a little extra help with the additions of Eliza, Hope, and myself. We take great pride that our community isn’t filled with “moon kids.” Our community has grown, but is still very civil, fun, inquisitive, and patient. They understand why we aren’t rushing; we are building the foundation for long-term success.
L: You were brought on because you were helping us do the job of Community Management before you were hired. Could you tell us about what got you so excited about the project that led you to help us answer questions, guide members to resources, and speak up about common topics before you started working with us officially?
J: When I found Keep it was an ‘Aha!’ moment. I knew I had found “The One.” Distributed Ledgers and Blockchains are very exciting but also have some significant hurdles to overcome if there is to be mainstream adoption. One of those hurdles is allowing private data to exist in a public space. Blockchains offer the promise of immutability which is powerful, but no one wants personal or private data stamped on a blockchain forever where anyone can see it. Keep can make the possibility of doing private computations on a public blockchain a reality.
I was looking for a way to be more involved with projects that I thought were promising and Keep was, and still is, my favorite. I had been struggling with alcohol addiction and pretty much destroyed my life. I was able to get sober and have been in recovery for over two and a half years, but as a result, I lacked the luck of buying crypto early or having any significant capital. There is a vastly undervalued asset we all possess, and that is our time and effort. I didn’t have any connections with anyone in this space and just decided to jump in and help in any way I could.
When I first joined the community, Matt and Laura were there to answer questions, but not always. I believe it is imperative to have timely responses and to make every community member feel like they are being heard. It is essential to facilitate and encourage the community to speak up when they have questions or ideas. Seeing as I was available why wouldn’t I answer the question if I could? I did it because I saw an impressive team with a great project that could use a little extra help, so I jumped in. After a few weeks of being present and helpful, I asked if I could help the team in some way. I was not expecting to get a job offer!
L: What were your first impressions when you met the Keep team in-person in San Francisco for the onsite?
J: Oh boy, my friends and family are super supportive of me, but there were some strange looks when I said I was going to go meet eight strangers from across the country who are as passionate about “magic internet money” as I was. Ha! I had been talking with the team through Slack and had a few Skype calls, it was exhilarating but also nerve-wracking. Honestly, I was intimidated. Here are these super bright and intelligent individuals I was about to meet for the first time. What if they didn’t like me? I had been in the safe bubble of my computer and internet studying cryptocurrencies as much as I could for years, but I was about to meet these individuals in real life.
It turns out all of that was in my brain (at least I think? Laura?). Everyone was so welcoming and genuine. I knew at that moment that I had won the lottery of companies to work for. Not only did I meet eight amazing, fun, kind coworkers, but I also met eight people that I can call my friends.
L: What did you do before you joined the Keep team?
J: Right before I came to Keep, I was a personal banker a large regional bank. For some reason, many banks in the area don’t create and manage political campaign finance accounts, but I figured out a way to accept them. Word got out that I was the guy to see and became the Twin Cities campaign account guy. Before that, I had been in sales and in the service industry. Most of my friends were and still are a part of the excellent food scene we have here in the Twin Cities. From bussing tables to bartending, I did it all.
L: What about the Community Management role interests you the most?
J: Since I was a kid, I genuinely believe I was put on this planet to help people. That, paired with a passion for currency economics and a love of technology that makes community management in this space the ideal place for me. I love being here for people who are just as enthusiastic as I am about everything that is going on. Our space is changing daily and that makes for some exciting yet challenging circumstances. There is an overload of information thrown at people and part of my job is making sure they get the correct information. Community Management to me is being the ultimate fan of your company while being an advocate for the people to facilitate understanding between the team and the community. I’m here to foster a trusting and lasting relationship between the two while growing and directing them both towards success.
L: There are many members of the community you interact with regularly and you’ve been a member of our Slack since the earliest days. Could you tell us more about your favorite or most interesting experiences in the community through the course of the project so far?
J: It would have to be having the opportunity to interact with a lot of our members personally and getting to know them. When you’re on the internet you are dealing with people you don’t know anything about. It’s really easy to look at the numbers and forget that every single person is unique and has a fantastic story behind them. We have been recently reaching out to our members individually to learn more about them and I have met so many incredible people from all over the world. The greatest thing is that with all these diverse backgrounds we have many people who we would have never met and are here because they are interested in what we are doing. Keep is our common bond and it’s incredible to share that enthusiasm. I look forward to attending Keep sponsored Meetups, and other social events and getting to meet our community in real life!
L: It’s important for you to be connected to our technical team as we grow and built. Could you tell us more about what you’re doing to stay connected and what you’ve learned?
J: As a Community Manager, you have to have an excellent understanding of the project you are working for. It’s critical that we can convey technical ideas simply. Keep is a complex project and the ideas behind it are sometimes hard to articulate. It is crucial for me to stay up to date with the development team so I can continue to expand my understanding of Keep and then help the community when they have questions.
Our developers have weekly meetings, I attend those to see where they are in their progress, what kind of challenges they’re facing and hurdles they’re overcoming. I still spend time searching through information, but now I’m looking for new cryptographic techniques and other tools that can help us in our development.
Not only is it important to be well-versed on what’s going on with our project, but it is also essential to stay up to date with the space as a whole. I got to attend BPASE (Blockchain Protocol Analysis and Security Engineering) at Stanford earlier this year with the team. This conference is unlike many that are held today; it is strictly academic. It is a time for people to show off their accomplishments and advancements in the space. It was three days of intense presentations. It’s great to read about project updates on Medium and Twitter but it so much better being in person and able to ask a question with the developers themselves. Also, being able to discuss it with the team right then and there. You can read about my experience at BPASE in our blog.
In the future, when I have a little more time to dedicate to it, I would like to learn Solidity and coding in general. Even without a ton of knowledge you can look at a smart contract and see the logic in the code and have a general understanding of what’s happening. I would like to have a more intimate knowledge of how to create, deploy and interact with smart contracts myself.
L: Could you tell us more about your background, where you’re from, etc.?
J: Unlike most of the Keep team, I’ve been stationary for most of my life. I was born, raised and still reside in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I attended school and college here in the Twin Cities and started in the foodservice industry along with my friends. While I was finishing up high school, a friend introduced me to the idea of the Petrodollar and dollar hegemony. I was immediately enthralled and began to focus a ton of time to research on the topics. Every open-ended assignment that I had was devoted to further research and writing on those topics. This is what lead me to currency economics and an interest in where world reserve currencies were headed. Bitcoin came on the scene shortly after in 2008, and I had grandiose ideas of digital currencies dethroning the dollar. The financial systems were, and still are, unstable if not broken and here was a novel idea on how to take back control of our money systems. As we are well aware Bitcoin and digital currencies didn’t dethrone the dollar (yet!), but it peaked my interest and started me down the long path of researching Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Outside of work I love exploring the diverse and ever-expanding food scene we have here in the Twin Cities with my girlfriend, Emily. Many of my friends are still successfully working in the food industry and we eat at their restaurants often. In the summertime, if I am not working, you can find me at a local golf course trying to improve my game. I am a so-so golfer, but it is my zen time.
L: Anything else you’d like to add or share?
J: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I want to reiterate how valuable your time and effort are. You don’t need a large bank account or a ton of connections to break into this industry. Sometimes just simply asking how you can help or get involved is all that is needed.
Learn More
For more information about the Keep Network:
- Join us on Reddit.
- Check out our whitepaper.
- Read our business primer.
- Subscribe for email updates.
- Follow us on Twitter.
- Join our Slack.
- Join our Telegram.
