https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Graber
In 2015, Graber began working as a software engineer for SkuChain in Mountain View, California. She then worked in a factory in Moses Lake, Washington, where she soldered bitcoin mining equipment. In 2016, she began working as a junior developer for the Zcash cryptocurrency.
So lately I have been trying to figure out why people are calling BlueSky decentralized and I noticed that fun fact. It made me realize how cryptocurrencies are something else that was often technically “decentralized” but in reality controlled by a single person or group.
In case it’s also not known, Jack Dorsey who helped found BlueSky is a big cryptocurrency booster.
As a software engineer? That doesn’t have to convey ideology by any means. People gotta pay the bills.
Her bills are paid now. Looks like a pattern of shady employment choices.
This kind of purity policing is deeply offputting IMO. And certainly won’t help build federated social media.
Bluesky is literally funded by a venture capital firm called “Blockchain Capital” and you wonder about previous jobs of the CEO? 🙄
I do! Thanks for the information it is another piece of evidence as to the sketchiness
Why should we know this?
Because however one feels about blockchain tech and its future, past companies within the crypto industry are notorious for selling the moon, being shady, and cashing out early. ‘ZCash’ appears to be a good example, particularly because a small group exerts such a high level of control over it.
And if the parallel holds, and at least some of that applies Jay Gaeber’s own personal experience and expectations of what a company’s trajectory should look like, it doesn’t bode well for Bluesky.
Because the claims of people involved with cryptocurrency are historically very untrustworthy, that’s why.
The thing that got me interested is that BlueSky says it’s “decentralized” but the more I look into it, it’s only “decentralized” using a very narrow, highly technical definition of the term “decentralized”.
Cryptocurrency is the same. People with a financial stake in cryptocurrency often say it is “decentralized” but it’s only true if you accept their extremely narrow definitions of what that word means.
So? She was a junior engineer, probably just needed the money to scrape by. You’ve never worked low level roles at morally questionable companies?
started my career as a developer working for an adult entertainment industry company (porn) so yeah. Everything I know today is from titties and the bang bus.
So many questions! You should consider doing an ama here sometime
I did one years ago on Reddit and someone made a youtube video out of it without my permission that went semi-viral so I’m sure it’s on there somewhere. Just youtube something like “Reddit porn industry AMA”
that’s so shitty, I’m sorry they stole your content. Well, if you ever decide to do one here I couldn’t promise someone wouldn’t do it, but it’d be much less likely
sheepishly raises hand
We all have bills at the end of the day, and I’m a firm believer that there are no moral companies. I’d love to drop everything and work for a non profit who only does good, but turns out my bank still expects me to pay the mortgage.
As I brought up in the title of my post, she’s currently the highest level role at a morally questionable company. She has a pattern of behavior of working at morally questionable companies.
You weren’t talking about that, you only brought up the crypto role, you made it the title of the post. You want to talk about blue sky alone? Make a separate post about that. Her junior engineer experience in crypto is an irrelevant footnote in her career.
