Leaders Series: Kathleen Breitman @ Tezos
Issue 3 — March 3rd, 2017
This series highlights the unique stories of leaders from various communities across the growing digital currency and blockchain technology industry. The goal is to showcase the fantastic work these leaders are all doing at different levels of their respective organizations, and to encourage more people at all stages of their careers join the revolution we’re creating, together!
Kathleen Breitman is COO at Tezos
When did you get into bitcoin?
I first got into Bitcoin back in 2012. I had a lot of cypherpunk friends telling me about it and I thought it could potentially become a digital asset native to the Internet. At the time, I didn’t really see a clear way for me to contribute. However, in 2014 I was working at a management consulting company and a lot of the clients started asking about Bitcoin. I had more knowledge than most of the people at the company so I raised my hand and started to contribute there.
In 2015, I thought, “Hey, if I really have any type of expertise I should pursue a start-up because I’ll have more upside there.” R3 seemed like the best positioned startup in the private blockchain space, where I had a bit more expertise because of my exposure to capital markets. I left R3 in September 2016 to manage the release of Tezos, something I’d been working with for the better part of three years. The Tezos project anticipated many problems that other public blockchains have been shown to suffer from and they needed a full-time business operations person to manage affairs prior to launch.
What did you do before you got into this?
I was working at a large macro hedge fund when I really got interested in Bitcoin. Prior to that, I spent my first year out of school working with a VC to help some distressed portfolio companies. It was not the most inspiring experience but it prepared me adequately for the emotional rollercoaster of working at a start-up.
What’s the most interesting experience you’ve had thus far?
This is less applicable at Tezos, because I’m mostly looking internally and my team is extraordinarily efficient, but when I was into “blockchain” , I found it striking that talent in one discipline scarcely translated into a critical advantage in thinking through the technology broadly. Blockchain technology, and public ledgers in particular, are truly one of the most interdisciplinary areas growing rapidly today. Though some people have made massive contributions based on their areas of expertise, I’ve also seen both senior executives and respected cryptographers completely trip up on basic facts because they didn’t strive to think rigorously about concepts outside of their area of expertise. It was encouraging since I could capitalize on this observation but it was also disheartening to see such a lack of intellectual depth.
What problem is your company solving? Why do you feel passionate about this?
I work with Tezos, a smart contract platform. We’re solving a tragedy of the commons problem by providing a way to facilitate protocol dynamism through an on-chain governance mechanism. This means we can let users come to consensus about protocol upgrades and push them to the network. Part of the value that we’re adding to the ecosystem is also our use of formal methods which may prove key to trust smart contracts sufficiently to underpin critical business logic.
As I think about the evolution of Bitcoin, we need better onramps and better UX for applications. I noticed that my friends and family are easily confused by Bitcoin apps on their phones or computers. Hopefully this is something we’ll get past. Once people find it less cumbersome and more intuitive, we’ll see adoption grow.
What opportunities do you think are going to be surprising in the next few years? And where do you see things heading over the long term?
In the short term, what’s going to be surprising is the use of public blockchains for enterprise applications. People were very turned off by this proposition just a year ago. This yielded a lot of the private blockchain use cases which were neutered versions of public technology peddled by technically deficient folks. More people are getting acquainted with the notion of putting information and value on these on these public networks and the cryptography that can facilitate this.
In the long term, some people have grossly overestimated the value of “blockchain”. The business press — and many enthusiasts — routinely talk about blockchains like they’re magical entities capable of solving any problem by the flick of their wand. Some folks seem to confuse “a blockchain could be part of the solution to complex problem X” with “blockchain solves X!”, and that’s very disappointing.
I do think smart contracts are going to grow in scope and will eventually serve critical functions in the financial system — however they will not disintermediate or replace risk taking entities such as market makers or central counterparties.
Over the long term, I see the ability to innovate and keep up with technological progress as a key factor in the success of public ledgers. For what it’s worth, Tezos offers pecuniary incentive to attract improvements which will put it at a critical advantage over other models in the space.
As you think about this industry, what changes do you think bitcoin or blockchain will accelerate in our world?
Bitcoin can offer a humanitarian contribution. Looking through history, bad monetary policy and capital controls have inordinately impacted peaceful, vulnerable, people. Offering them a safe, accessible, alternative could be life saving. It might even directly influence monetary policy by neutering the ability to inflate with impunity.
Financial security and privacy are hard to come by in many parts of the world but Bitcoin is uniquely capable of addressing this deficit.
