Leading Through Subtraction – San Francisco 2025

[Music] Hello everyone. Good morning. I have to admit that I feel a little thrill that it is Ayam Miyaguchi being interviewed by Wendy Hanamura, two women from of Japanese descent who are building new communities within the decentralized web. you know, I um you have talked about this community that you're building as an infinite garden and I have to start with um how we first met back in 2018. Ya was the newly minted Ethereum executive director and I asked her to give her first speech on the stage of the decentralized web summit and she talked about leadership through subtraction and it just stunned me because it was so nuanced, so interesting, so different from everything else being said on different stages.

And I want to ask you um how that has gone in your leadership, how that has worked. So this is my first public talk of you know after my transition which actually transition is like the official transition is tomorrow but we kind of transitioned but anyway the first one that I talked about substraction was actually the the web summit in 2018. Uh there was almost actually my first also public talk as ED. So somehow you have been the first on your book end. Yes.

So this is uh but also I can't find any other better situation talking about this internet archive. I really appreciate you and internet archive existing in the world. It's very very honor for me to be here at this timing. Um so subtraction was definitely the idea was it came from again like you explained um the tendency natural tendency in this modern world is adding is better bigger is better uh and then as Ethereum foundation when I joined uh EF look like have a lot of money because of the value of ether and Ethereum ecosystem is already pretty big But and then people wanted me to hire the best talents and all the people inside Ethereum foundation. That was a pleasure that I was getting or was being suggested.

Uh and then build EF build an EF empire was was the pleasure I was getting. Um I didn't feel that was right. uh considering what kind of ecosystem we wanted to see and also what this potential lithium what this could do to the world. So that because of the natural tendency um we push the idea of let's let's resist the tendency to accumulate the power because people want to give us power and so that was necessary because of the tendency but that it's not easy for uh everyone to understand maybe I have to admit being Japanese one word has layers of definitions and uh we imagine different scenarios immediately but that wasn't the case uh for everyone. So after I introduced that idea at the D web summit for the first time and then publicly more bluntly I introduced that at DevCom plug in that same year later in in 2018.

um it still wasn't understood immediately and so I kept revising the way to explain and yeah so I did red we did that at Devcon uh in Bora in 2022 and then finally many team because Ethereum was already ecosystem was already diverse and then many teams started to recognize oh wow that's actually interesting I want to uh implement that in my organization I so I started to hear that from many different teams. So this is not just for EF. Um so let's talk a little bit for those who have not heard of the the nuanced concept of subtraction. So what I said is that when she took over this billiondoll Ethereum foundation there were many forces who wanted to see it as a zero sum game. Let's get bigger.

Let's beat everyone else. you know, let's get more powerful leaders in there so we can dominate. And she said, "No, I believe in a different way the power of subtraction." And I understand this because when I was growing up, my mother who grew up in a Buddhist household would always say, "Wendy, to win, you must lose. To win, you must."

Needless to say, that was not the advice most American children were getting in the 20th century. But this is how I grew up. And so in subtraction, um it's not that you dominate, right? It's not that you try to be the central controlling force. What does subtraction look like as a leadership parable?

Yes. So there's a paradox like your your mom's advice. Uh people naively just immediately think oh does that mean you have to do nothing and and then or we do less. Uh the truth is we actually have to think more at minimum but also uh sometimes we might have to add new mechanism to subtract power. Right.

So you have to add to subtract. You have to add to subtract. Exactly. Um and that's what been doing when organizing DevCon or even like the Ethereum.org used to be only about EF teams and now it's about Ethereum technology and community and then um but the team is doing it in an open-source way bringing in contributors writers and translators from the world.

So that is a lot more work than us controlling one website and so subtraction is most likely we have to do more than right done less. A metaphor that you often use is the infinite garden. Yes. Right. So imagine this folks, both of us are women leaders trying to grow ecosystems within the decentralized web, but we're not trying to dictate how that grows.

We're gardeners. We're stewards. And it's not trees and flowers, it's ecosystems and technologies. So as the gardener of this infinite garden, what are some of the values that you bring to your work? Yeah.

Um so thank you. Um we do so we one of our guiding principles other than subtraction is steward stewardship of values and and then values we do believe Ethereum's gloss is meaningless if it doesn't come with these values and then this is just made it easy for people to remember like things like censorship resistance opensource privacy security uh so I Say infinite garden is for growing crops and u yeah just for you to remember and and then these values are the one that yes it is it it is it's it's ether but the most important part is these values are the one that are going to solve real world issues and without this uh gloss is would be easier without this but we we don't want to complement it and and then so that's very important for especially when we think about the role of Ethereum foundation now there are many things that are already taken care by uh ecosystem players other than EF which we intentionally designed that with with the power of subtraction so most things are built by other other um teams and and even events are run by other teams So that's great. Um, but values are so easy to lose if you don't really work for it. And that's something I believe still EF has a special role in it. And yeah, it is the most important thing that we need.

So for all of you leaders out there and I I suspect that there are many here and in our live stream audience, one of the ways that Ya has led is to always remember her north stars. Easy to remember because they are crops, right? She's building toward these north stars and people will say well get that value up a you know what about this? You're not going fast enough. What's your product market fit?

But you have to remember that at the center of that are these values. I I want to go back though to your background. Ah um we could leave it on this. I you were a teacher for 10 years and it's probably good because you have probably encountered a lot of juvenile behavior in your work but you're also a teacher and an educator and then you were the vice pres president at Kraken. What made you want to take this role as Ethereum Foundation's executive director?

Yes. Um so I was in the space already before the EF um since 2013 officially but Ethereum was to me um as as everyone knows no uh crypto has a lot of goods and bad and um there were many parts that I was disappointed in the industry and um I almost wanted to quit. good at all. Uh I was thinking about other things. Uh this was already 2016 2017.

Um but when I met him and the crew people around at every time including Vitalic Bhutan and people around him um I thought this is this is the hope um we if if this doesn't succeed this can become something very bad. Yeah. So that's how I felt. Um so I have to say um I was around in 2017 2016 and to meet the Athereum founders the core group they were very different from everyone else right they're very philosophical and uh reading interesting books and I had a chance to have dinner with Vitalik Bdderan a couple nights ago thanks to funding the common and I said to I asked Vitalik okay Vitalik why did you pick I am Miaaguchi to lead this foundation, your foundation to steward billions of dollars in resources. And uh Vitalik, I don't know if you've ever met Vitalik, he doesn't just speak out of turn.

And you could see him thinking and he was processing and processing for about 2 minutes of silence and at the end he said, "I thought she had the right set of values." And the values that he recognized in you A were these the ones that you uh published in your blog. Subtraction which is not minimalism. Long-term sustainability not short-term gain. Thoughtful complexity over oversimplification.

Stewardship not control. Adaptive growth not rigid structure. purposeful evolution, not corporatlike expansion, and especially community leadership, stewardship, not dominance. Talk to us about how you've come to uh settle on these values and what they mean in practice. Um it was pretty natural to me.

Um but every decision wasn't easy. It often it was an unpopular decision to do this. uh because again uh people want if you look at all other crypto foundations or other projects many of them are controlled by one company or foundation and and that's what people expect and and the growth is quicker uh and people often connect that with the place uh and and and all but I just didn't think there was any other way. This was the only way. Uh I said this when explaining subtraction.

Um Ethereum's potential is too big for one organization to even predict. And so that's what we believe but also Vitalik believed from the very beginning. he knows that he can also make mistakes. Um, and so that was something very special about Ethium that I agreed to support. Um, so it comes through you but emanates also from Vitalic that I think he you mentioned you said he would quit if it ever got to you just like any other crypto.

We talk we we always often you know confirm like when people shout on Twitter we we talk about these things and we both very much agreed if this comes becomes something without values we don't want we don't want this and he also doesn't want that. Uh so it is really um not just fluffy philosophy but we strongly believe that that that is very important and this is I still there are many things that maybe we could have done differently but this I we still still believe I believe so even more now that without this it's that the pressure is going to be bigger now that Ethereum needs growth and then we also do believe like yes etherum needs to grow but how is very important and you you said and I want anyone out there who's thinking ah these soft values what do they mean we you have also um a slide that shows what these values in practice means yes uh maybe you can go to next yeah so one of the thing it It it sounds like a very fluffy philosophy to some people, but I that what we did with the power of subtraction, it did expand the ecosystem that now Ethereum is the largest ecosystem in the in in the blockchain space uh from many different angles and this is just one one one angle but if you look at those um there are many other organization in the Ethereum ecosystem who has uh lot of treasury and and then uh we we supported unis swap in the beginning for example and also um yeah like these these are like when you make space these things grow and this is just but if you can look at maybe go to the next slide um this is because it's the you know this event it's funding the comments. This is how the public goods have been funded and yes EF still has a big portion but what's great about this is more than half has been now funded by other teams and I hope to see this you know this this globe further because EF is not the richest organization it has never been but also no uh spending the treasury to support public goods. So this without thinking about designing or thinking about this at some point this we we will we will get to the big trouble. So I think this is this is a great ecosystem growth that we can see from one angle.

Uh speaking of funding public goods, so Ethereum has grown to be the largest in by almost any measure um crypto community in the space not by trying to dominate but by trying to proliferate and support others. And you have said that Ethereum is not a business. Um, what societal problems have you tried to focus on solving through Ethereum? Um, well, it's not just us, but it is it is everyone's public goods and then you can the beauty of Ethereum is it's permissionless. You can participate in any layer.

Now, uh we have more than 7,000 developers building on Ethereum. that's the largest by far in the space. Um and then and then the app developers can make the decision how what they want to solve. But I do hope to see solutions that can help the world a better place. Um that's how I believe that Ethereum was started.

You brought all your core developers to Kenya last year. Yes. And why was that? Um so core developers uh they have interrupt the EF only coordinates but at the end of the day they make the decision but uh so core developers normally don't they don't get to talk to like the end users right they don't maybe well they can talk to but they don't really interact with them or um but for them to see how local developers or users users are that what kind of challenges they are facing and even technical decision at the infrastructure level. Mhm.

Would impact that indirectory for them to see that was very valuable and many of them um it was first time for them to go to Africa for example. So to build good tools, you believe that toolmakers need to sit at the table with those using them to understand their visceral reality. And I think you and I share the belief that this time around we're not trying to create one winner. We're trying to create a game with many, many winners. Um I want to go to the next actually this is this little story.

Um, I'm not often starruck, but thanks to ya, in 2019 when I was at DevCon Osaka, I got to meet Kabosu. Kabosu is the Dogecoin dog, the true Dogecoin dog. And um, little story, my husband loved Kabosu and every morning he would go to Kabosu's website and see what Kabosu was doing with his three little cat friends. and you know it just he loved Kabosu and tell us a little bit about what you did for Kabosu and Kabosu's owner. Um so yes Kabo Chan we we call her Kabot Chan um who passed actually unfortunately last year for internet people I think Kabotu is more than just dodge your face it is it is like kind of internet meme she became very famous than this crypto space but the owner she's actually a kindergarten teacher and she always had this very humble life and she had no idea how her dog became so popular uh and at some point she started to receive a lot of uh suggestions why don't you make um Kabos's NFT and then sell it I can share profit with you I can help you so she got confused and then well I've known her long time but I didn't try not to blink her to the this this word too much to do you know um so that she doesn't get bothered by too me crazy people.

But but she came to ask uh advice from me. What do you think? This is I'm receiving bunch of English emails and what what do I do with this? So I said uh here's what they're suggesting, but I don't think it makes sense for you to share profit with these people, the random people who just want to make money. Uh but if you're interested um we can help you if you want to spend u make kabos NFD and then use it for causes she cares which she cares about education and these animal protection and all this and then she got interested and uh yeah so they um she did this NFT campaign and and raised 4 million and spent all the money to actually build schools in developing countries and right so however you feel about Dogecoin however you feel about NFTTS in this one instance you were able to create an NFT that raised $4 million which she donated to build schools in the developing world so I think that's a success and I want to ask you in our closing you've done so much IU and your community.

What are you most proud of over the last seven years? Um, what there were big things like the merge that Ethereum ecosystem really achieved during during that time which was really the reason why that was very meaningful was not just because it was very hard. Yeah, you know it was like changing the engine of flying plane like because thousands of applications were running on the Ethereum but urge was the shift from proof of work to proof of stake. Yes. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh but it was also very meaningful because it was done by the community. It wasn't done by the Ethereum Foundation. The Ethereum Foundation people were part of it but it was multiple teams who were part of it.

And so that was very meaningful. But I am most proud how this this ecosystem became uh the largest with diverse teams, ideas, blames, talents and it's thriving really beautifully mostly without our power anymore and and I I do think subtraction has achieved that and um so Yeah, that's the contribution. So in the theory of subtraction, the goal of the leader is to make themselves unneeded. And indeed, you are stepping from everyday reigns of the foundation to be the president where you'll help set the the vision with Vitalik. Um what what are you going to be thinking about and focusing on in this new role?

Yes. Um so we have amazing new EDS uh co-eds in the uh EF now and I'm going to be again like still focus on being a guardian for the values of Ethereum and I will think more from now what that means but um Vitalik and myself we we we do hope to preserve of the values and then um there will be also I would like to also introduce this infinite garden idea to broader broader community even this is um can be implemented to other not just ethereum not just crypto so I would like to um find intersections of these values which I believe internet archive for example is we share shared the same values and so I'd like to have more of these conversations outside of Ethim or you know at the intersection of ETHM that's what I'd like to focus you split split one thank you thank you I I I just want to close us by saying this when we did our first decentralized web gathering in this stage and this hall in 2016 we had with us the father of the internet and the father of the worldwide web and the father of the internet archive. But today in 2025, we welcome ya Miaguchi, Ethereum Foundation president, who has led by subtraction. And we couldn't be prouder that in this web 3 world, this D web world, we have a few mothers. It's a much more plural space with people who have very different kinds of philosophies.

So, let's hear it for Ayami Auchi. [Music] Thank you. Thank you.