AMA with Aya Miyaguchi | Merge & Scalability Summit

[Music] [Applause] all right welcome back everybody we are now ready to kick off with our last talk of the summit and that is going to be an ema with ayah we're going to bring her on in just a second and this is going to be super fun we're going to talk about everything from ice vision for ethereum ethereum foundation what's happening with a lot of the initiatives around the ef and a few more things so without further ado i'd like to welcome her on stage and join me in this interview good morning ayo hello good morning from here [Music] we'll keep this uh light and fun um i have a handful of questions here and i'll can ask them we'll change up orders we'll go deeper into anything that that fits but i want to kind of start off with asking what is your vision my vision for ethereum right um so i call it i'm pretty sure you have heard of it i call it infinite garden and this is inspired by the book finite and infinite games by james cars and where finite games were are played for the purpose of winning and infinite games are played for the purpose of continuing the game and when i think about ethereum i i don't just think about the technology technology is great but uh how we work together how the ecosystem people work together to continue the play and then i think it's very special um and that vision influences technical decisions too and also how imp implementations are being done um and i think that's very very rare in this modern society and also even rare in the blockchain space so um and then um the garden is for its its uh diversity and its organic growth and then i think that this ecosystem wasn't really designed you know like it kind of organically happened everything like what you are doing too like we didn't really design everything at the beginning like when we first met you and i i remember when we first met in san francisco um you know a lot of exploration and working together discussions and all these organic things it's more natural so uh and then keeping the biodiversity in in a weird way requires strong vision deeply rooted in our mind not just how we describe in in in words so this is that's what helpful this helps us set the frame for a handful of other questions we have so uh just as long as people keep this in mind this will be insightful so uh maybe maybe let's switch gears so i asked you for your version of ethereum i guess if i were to say what is kind of actually i'll back up you've been part of the ethereum foundation for three years now uh you came on an executive director um comparing well let's start with like three years ago what did you want to achieve when uh when you joined and what were some of your aspirations there and then we'll kind of roll into the infinite garden yeah so first of all um very honestly i didn't start with like okay i became the executive director of the executive director of the ethereum foundation and here's a list of things i want to achieve i i could not start that way because uh no one told me or no one knew what the ef really was or who ef was um and also and that is hugely really tied to like how the ecosystem is and it's also like a live creature and it is changing and so it took a while for me to even think about what i need to achieve or what i need to start with so that is the first thing is to really understand and observe i wish i had it i had some time to become like almost like a chief observation officer or something just watch everything and learn yeah uh so it took really a while while everything was already going on um but within that there are a couple of things um maybe the first one was more clear even like without deeper observation is that that the first one is to create a system to support teams and projects outside of the ef then this is this is actually related to you know some of the principle that i describe and then we call it subtraction if we care about the long-term health of the atrium that the ecosystem has to evolve outside of ef and that is what i wanted to achieve um i wouldn't say i knew exactly why when but but i knew that has to happen and when i joined in 2018 in the ethereum foundation there were already many activities outside of ef but there was not enough support system for the project outside um and this was also something vitalik wanted to fix to and and we created a esp ecosystem support program which we didn't really start with calling it that way um and to officially receive applications and give financial support and then we started to think about like wait money is not the only thing ef can support or maybe actually there are others we should encourage others to keep financial support but there should be something only here can do um so we started doing more proactive funding beyond just receiving applications and you know example of some of the teams that include heath grovel uh in their bitcoin or like austin a lot of crazy stuff that austin is doing and uh it's great and then nomix labs and like you know some devex work and more so that is the first thing and and not sure it's also related to the first one but the second thing is to add more coordinating activities or functions either within the f or also i mean we do need to do that within df that's how vf works too but also outside in in the ecosystem and um and then for the things to to happen organically like projects like get sorry or those teams were born from from the ef but there are kind of other important projects in the ecosystem but they still have to work together um and then when the ecosystem grows that that creates new challenges right so two main challenges i think in the decentralized system or decentralization in general is redundancy and lack of ownership those are that can naturally happen and i i saw it so that's why i can clearly say it so when this is a startup or company you would just start adding managers and create hierarchical reporting system but since ethereum is open and decentralized and and ef to to to you know some extent that we try to be that way um an ef managing all would defeat the purpose so how do you coordinate and let others execute and make decisions even it is a continuous goal like we must pursue and we have to keep keep improving the ways um a lot a lot of themes here uh you've touched on and uh it's funny because um until you brought it up i totally forgot but it global was part of the first wave of the grant recipients and uh that's how we ended up bootstrapping our first couple of events so uh it's uh it is definitely true there's so many things that you could not have imagined back then that uh are now helping out create this ecosystem and then more more sustainable yeah and i think we never really talk about this because we don't really have the chance but how we started like when you and i first met and then talked about like the way each global was functioning was also very different right yes and and then you executed a lot after that and then it's not like ef told escrow ball usually just something which it was never like that it was more like you you propose the idea and then you and then you just keep doing it like and and then we saw oh wow they are they are actually bringing in a lot of developers and then so why don't we support more of this and then and then it's always collaboration exactly between like what what we think of and also what you discover and then you help the entire ecosystem to hire recruit more people and and then so that's kind of like a great example um not everything has been that way but uh and then it requires you know two ways interactions and collaborations and open-mindedness and everything um yeah yeah um it's actually super interesting because it is a today's special day because today is global's fourth birthday um can't believe it oh new years um and happy birthday just for us oh this is this feels doesn't feel like it's been four years it feels like it's been won but at the same time the one year feels like it's been four years so uh there's a lot of lessons and and things that we never thought that have been happening or has happened yeah you couldn't plan this hobbit pandemic either yeah so speaking of things that you didn't know as you were joining and kind of said you didn't have a checklist maybe concretely answering this now like what would you say the vision and the ethereum foundation is so i briefly touched that but uh i think the vision of the ef simply is the healthy ethereum ecosystem and and then when to understand what the definition of healthy and healthier like you need to understand that that division of infinite garden i just described so and then our mission is to keep the at this sorry help the ecosystem go towards that and just growing the ecosystem that is also important and then we do care about the longevity of ethereum but it's you know the size and the length those are not the only important things or exposure if we think about what only ef can do and especially now when ethereum is growing quickly and the ecosystem is growing quickly and new people are coming in um and i do think maintaining maintaining the health is is is something like maybe like we can contribute more than others but that is yeah that is again like it's not it wasn't very super clear from the very beginning but i i feel strongly so now what would you say then are sort of the principles that help you achieve that goal like how what needs to be done from a mindset perspective yeah so i think the the if i the very very important principle is is like long-term thinking and um and again it's if we look at everything how things work in in the world unfortunately a lot of systems current existence systems are not built that way but if we if we are dealing with the technology that can build systems that is supposed to be used in in society we do have to think about the time that we do not exist and an ethereum has been doing it already like if you think about like the time we don't exist you immediately you can understand immediately why proof of work is not the option and so that either must be making that that technical decision to so that is something um the reason why i want to keep it as a core principle is because it's more like seeking the balance normally everything goes toward short term without us even knowing about it like what can we do quickly like what do you do we just you know we use cell phone and then receiving messages from everywhere in the world we just think about okay what is this you know like we we have so much information we need to consume and like you zooming out and then think about okay like what is the bigger picture what it what it's going to what it's this going to look like in in five years or even 10 years or 50 years um this is yeah it is challenging right like even in our life i don't know what i want for breakfast tomorrow and uh yeah do you pick what you eat now thinking about that how that would affect your you know yourself in in five years or ten years it's hard some there are some people who do that but then it requires strong will and so that's something i'm um of course i'm getting help from like tremendous uh members of people at the ethereum foundation but try to at least internally first letting people understand and and then there are a lot of like other short-term quick work that you know other people sometimes you do have to do that like you have to finish it right um but that is i think that's very very important for the ethereum foundation absolutely um speaking of the foundation i think a lot of people i don't think have a really good idea of what the foundation is currently in terms of how big is it how does it work could you give us a an overview of the operational side of the foundation i'm sure a lot has changed but um tell us what the foundation is right now yes so um and then i know it's been the mystery it was a big mystery for me too like i had no idea until i joined um and so outside of ongoing development teams like gas rigidity and the big difference from the time before i joined is that up now we have a bigger operation team and i mean bigger i mean compared to before but within the operation we have of course the organizational operations which is for ef to function as an organization and it's a non-profit organization uh so we do have regular operations like finance and legal and but our main operation work is what we call now we call ecosystem development or ecodeb which includes all different efforts to grow the ecosystem and keep it healthy so the this is kind of like being redesigned now more like we don't really change activities like everything if it's more like how we design is is is like we're we are about to just do that uh so the team you know like the teams like esp they've gone are also part of it but we have more functions now and some people are in charge of coordinating things for enterprise size or and then you research topics that we need to like discuss more how to support each topic um or things like you know like core that's called are happening for the community but but someone needs to coordinate like make sure that it's that is actually happening like we don't really manage the discussion but we we you know try to help that whatever the quotation needed if they don't need us that's that's great um so we have about 50 people in that work like very broadly but again everything is collaborative work like you and i talk or we talk so there's no clear line between internal external often and i think that it's important to keep it that way but the for the purpose of having discussions or uh you know having execution or ownership but we do have to have some like what we call clusters um and like josh stark is the genius of this describing it that way but um so um yeah like loosely loosely kind of like describe but then yeah organized but that's still still kind of for now people to be like even internally people would like need to understand what others are working on so that they can do the best job for themselves too uh so a lot of the coordination yeah for example like or ethereum.org things too so but talked about ecosystems being a real focus here how many people are dedicated to system development right now at the foundation oh so that's 50 about 50 people and um yeah but it's roughly 50 people it's some of them are like not yeah not just not just like yeah or but then we need to involve them in this discussion then we have to bring someone in between people so i think that's that's that's the right way so i i don't have the number but around 50. nope that makes a lot of sense that's a that's a lot that's great actually a really good number uh since we got a lot more things done um i want to talk about a handful of initiatives you've helped sort of kick off um with the time while at your time at the eef uh one project is is the next billion uh could you tell us more about what that project is and and why everybody should care about it yes so the team experience started last year and uh but that was something um i cared and i think it's it's more like last year i thought okay this makes sense this is not just my passion this is good for ethereum um and then uh when you look at the current state of ethereum like everything like ethereum has made tremendous achievement on the technology and ecosystem and scaling and but i think it's time to think about who would benefit most uh next or actually like actually when this is going to be used and then more more builders are going to build who will be next builders or users and then you can understand what i was thinking the next the term next million i didn't create it okay but it's not really probably widely recognized it means people in developing countries um because they represent that next 1 billion the current world population is 7.7 billion or so and then at least 3 three-fourths of uh the next one billion would be from developing countries and we know that and and the reason why i think it's important to look at an experience not just for the numbers but um again like ethereum has overcome a lot of technical challenges for the platform i do think implementation is going to be a bigger challenge like the challenge is around implementation and when you implement a new system you want to focus on implementing the system instead of having to taking take down old systems so there's a huge advantage in the regions that do not have established old systems and and i also as as always say people from next period are creative i mean i i don't say the others are not creative it's it's more like they have to be creative just to live sometimes so the constant brain training has you know like given them potential to build something very very creative and then i've been we've been already seeing it um and then from that team that that program we started this year is is the ef fellowship program and and then basically the idea is to to work with selected change makers that who can kind of show this like like kind of like being an example of what i just said and then show an example not just for them to finish a project in their country but that example could be copied or be be kind of relearned by the rest of the world so we picked those examples and um and i've been kind of advocating their work and trying to speak you know like whenever i get a chance to talk at an event i include them and talk about them uh so one one one fellow is truly from the team or city and then he is working basically what they call gap tech or like latin american government like they're supporting technologies for public sectors like it's not just governments but but the reason why he came up with it is because he wanted to fix a lot of things around him in his life and he realized that that in order to fix that like you know the system needed to be changed and some of the systems are of course run by public sectors and you can of course create public goods without existing public sectors but uh but it there is some i call it actually natural uh sandbox that latin american countries have they don't really officially created it but somehow it became like a natural sandbox because they have perfectly flexible flexible-minded policies or maybe they don't even have policies around anything yet uh so it's been interesting it's happening like really right now i joined a talk last week or two weeks ago for the columbia government um it was kind of like organized it and and then there is a lot of explain excitement i mean we already see that in the news of different countries you know some of them just decided to use crypto for for you know for their business or for it like other things but not beyond that um there are a lot of things it's actually using atm for the system for the documentation and id and all that and so you're going to hear more uh exciting things coming up from the region and of course you know like we picked columbia for that com location um yeah so there and then there are other pharaohs are all great um and and then again this is not really for one project to to make progress i really want the rest of the world to learn from it and hopefully and we are actually looking for the next cohort this was the first piloting year and we had four we have four members in the first cohort and we are recruiting the next year's cohort so if you know any meaningful projects or teams or even like ideas from the emerging economies please do let us know or shout at me [Music] and then yeah we are currently recruiting that's awesome yeah we'll share that as a global and for everybody watching it right now live um hopefully you also reach out to i as well um i kind of just realized that um the infinite garden also is the name of a documentary on the theorem that's being filmed right now um is the effort are you involved with that documentary or could you tell us a bit more about that yeah so that was also speaking of really infinite garden how things everything happens overnight is this was also interesting um how it happened is i recognized the new challenge for the community to keep the vision while ethereum is going you know like when you have newer people it's hard for them to understand because it didn't especially when you you can't really understand what is what's special about ethereum just by reading the white paper right and then you do know that very well and and then i wondered what was the best way to describe what the theorem is when it is not just about the tech and then around the same time we met the documentary team optimist through our friend morgan and then the idea of if ethereum described in the documentary sounded more natural because you do need to tell stories to fully understand and um and then you need to also show people around and then um so i spoke with the team well we spoke with the team and it's not like we are going to do this small like they already have an idea and then we wanted to create a documentary about him and then they they they i i still they understood our culture pretty well from the beginning so i said yes to be part of the part of it and and then also um you know without it but i was even even if like retired and myself or being part of it this is supposed to be about the community so it's been evolving naturally um you know you see our faces in in the their description but we're just really tiny part of it and then it's they've been like talking to community members naturally um and then they just decided to do the fundraising with nft this also this wasn't really planned from the beginning and i was asking them how are you going to fund the film because that was also important for me to make decision for us to make the decision and then they're like oh we don't really have plans so and then they this is after that was the best way for the utah documentary to be funded and then and then we didn't really we were not really the additional they just did the font nft fundraising supported by mirror ef was not part of it but that is the beauty of it and the director zach told me normally main investors would have control over the creative decisions so i thought that was wonderful that nft can give freedom to artistic direction and and then how this happened not sure it was also amazing so i'm excited about it but we don't know how that the story goes and and then um they keep learning they keep meeting different people in the community so it is it is like uh yeah it will be supplies for me too and i'm very excited about it no it's awesome yeah i think uh i think all of us are eager to see what uh what the final story is uh that comes out what they think represents the camera ecosystem um getting a little bit uh serious here what has uh surprised you the most over the last three years of uh being the executive director of the foundation hmm so almost all of them [Laughter] i i had i had many heart attacks but i thought i already had it because i've been in the in crypto industry for a while but uh great you know like a positive surprises too but i think the one thing is before working on execution like it was surprisingly hard to just to figure out who the hell ef is and how the ecosystem should be it is really and i kept wondering like why why is it so difficult like i couldn't really describe in in a very like smart way in the beginning and then also but now looking back i i think it was right to take time and i should have been able to explain it so that was probably the biggest surprise how this was really hard to or there was no manual to learn from and and then i still feel that way but now i have more people to discuss together with and then um it's yeah it is it is it is very interesting and exciting but i just realized that it's like we're dealing with live creature so i used to be a teacher and i was in education and like when you deal with human being or growing kid or a teenager like you can't really just decide make the decision or the list of goals um very fixed you have to constantly flexibly like shape reshape or change your mindset yourself too um so i realized that was surprised that this is actually very similar to my old oldest work in in education uh well and then also the rise of nft it was so this is like i'm just mentioning it because this is recent but this is not the only thing but how something like nfd which has been in like you know been there for a long time and then what what happened is like it's always out of your control or my control or our control and you know so supplies are supposed to happen and i'm pretty sure i will hear something surprising tomorrow when i look at the list of like the news in the ethereum every week i'm always amazed and sometimes like oh wow this is like garden is just becoming a jungle yes it is jungle yeah it's a good thing but um it's hard to keep up with yeah absolutely um i i have um so you initially touched on this thing where you obviously um joined three years ago and you had a plan kind of spent all this time understanding in the direction that the ef should move in um what has been working well with the plan that you've had and how would you kind of say things are going um you know the very perfectionist japanese side of me could never be able to say anything is working well um but again um i believe we are doing something no one has ever done before is if we if we try to try to do it in the right way it is not just it's it's not just a non-profit foundation it's a lot more than that um you know like foundation meaning just just giving giving grants to everyone else um so again like you know like it took a while to figure out what this is about and then what we're supposed to do and and then so actually last year um when i joined i felt everything was thrown at us like the ef like almost like oh we have to do everything but um and then like always we we prioritize ethereum right that's what we are supposed to do like it's not we don't really work for the efe more like the ef works for the best w3m but last year i realized that okay like there are a lot of improvements we need to do at the organization it's more like when you're not healthy you can't really support others so uh i created a team to do the organizational improvements like really meaning like they also have to do a lot of things we don't really have a lot of people but like hey they just actually do sprint planning every week to make even like little progress on everything because we tend to prioritize ethereum and their ethereum like like keeps going and we just never have time to look at us and then how we do things or things like hr and how we actually take care of our people so last year like it's actually like two years after free joint but why don't we just do you know make not not prioritize that uh compared to the rest of the thing it's more like hey let's let's make progress every week um so there is a dedicated team now um and and it's so we are making little progress little by little you know thanks to the the team members there and and then gradually we are able to actually see ourselves in with with better views and then understand oh this is how we should describe this is what we care this is how we should explain to the new people today what we really care instead of like you know trusting everyone to understand everything without explaining so things like onboarding um so we are making a good progress and then again like someone like josh he is an excellent project manager [Laughter] i don't know like he keeps like getting things done and then still smiling like it never looks it's looking exhausted so i'm like i'm always impressed with that but but so we are making progress uh thanks to great people like josh and um then again it's still still ongoing i think uh i think a little bit of structure is not a bad thing and if anything that's helping you move faster into prioritizing everything that you want to do for the ethereum ecosystem maybe on that same note what is not going well yeah um well a lot of things were not going well then and then we we tried to um change that and then we were making efforts and then again like we're making progress can't we um i would say still finding the right balance still people except expect ef to do more or a lot and then internally there is also tendency okay we should do this we should do this to add more and then like yeah we do need to add more to help more but um like finding the right parents and then really helping people to understand we do need to seek the ones that we thinking about okay like if we start doing this how long are we going to do this and then we can't do this forever kind of thinking so that is a challenge but also now we feel ready to make more progress and redesign things hiring is not easy and and to be honest that's that's that's that's really um i don't know if it's not working better it's more like uh yeah yeah we have to get better at hiring people especially at like ef type of operations and i explained the coordination and supporting support support work uh you know outside of them and researchers like finding talented people itself is always of course not easy but finding those who are aligned with our principles or potential have had potential to be aligned with our principles that is really hard and again ef is a non-profit organization but um but it's not easy especially weirdly when the market is doing well yeah and that's my my bonus a lot of choices i think yeah it's like finding mission based people i i'm pretty sure those people exist there right but um we get more noises and then uh we need to screen screen more than than the harder winter time like i would say so yeah and then also the times especially since last year is we we used to actually rely on the places like like heath global hackathons or those events because those are the place we can actually see how people are interacting with others and then um kind of like easier easier to find or like it is you know you can't really see that in you that there isn't rhythm and things so that is a big challenge um since the call it started um yeah so if anyone knows that the great creative ways to find people or and also also like for example esp is hiring the lead um supporting grants and research or want to help with the foundation yes the ethereum yes you can get in touch with me or i uh and uh we'll be happy to get you to the right person to learn more about that yes thank you kareek all right so uh um and we've talked about the past and the present a lot but i want to ask one final question and uh and we can wrap it up what can we expect and look forward to from the ethereum foundation in 2022 yeah um i mean the technical side and research side probably have been already described by danny and vitalik enough um outside of that again like we are redesigning things so you will see more maybe better description of what we are doing and we are working on improving our website and things like that related to like you know sharing our vision and our principles and our ways in a better way and other than that uh you will hear i can't say this today announcement related related to devcon very soon i know everyone is waiting for it um something extra i hope this will be a good surprise i don't know maybe it looks like it's surprising if i say this and then again um ef fellowship program is is you know recruiting the new cohort and you will hear a lot of fall vests that the current cohort members that's been making uh it is very inspiring and um and oh yes so like things like client diversity well diversity in general that we do care and i do care too and then not just like a regional diversity for the ecosystem but also like yeah like you know there are a lot of efforts that are being made for client diversity and you will hear more of the efforts in that um yeah so again 2022 i yeah we hope to share a lot of positive things and and as ef we will try to share more information this has been kind of you know since last year this has been like kind of like a heads down that's that's working on the yeah improvements and everything so hopefully we can share more of that work efforts and outcome yeah it's amazing i think from our perspective uh we do notice the change and and the velocity and communication that's been happening getting everybody informed so i can say it's working um well i uh um thank you so much um for this amazing ad um we do have a couple more slides i want to go through it i think it'll be great for you to stick around for that for a second but to summarize everybody uh looks like there's a lot coming in the next 12 months you got leads too we got efforts around client diversity and of course what everybody's probably more excited about is the next devcon and whatever this new announcement is so i hope we get to learn more about that and and the dates soon but uh i really appreciate this and uh thanks for everybody who uh stuck around and watched the rest of the summit with us um thank you so much thank you everyone thank you cardik all right so before we end this um i want to take a quick second to just thank everybody here on what an amazing past four years it's been youth global started on the 15th of october in 2017 where we did our very first hackathon called waterloo um it may feel like forever now but a little thing called nfts were invented there four years ago and we're finally coming back and seeing how long it takes for something like this or just in general technologies to kind of propagate and get excited and be used in new and creative ways so it's been an incredible past four years um these are some of the stats we pulled uh before for this we have over a hundred thousand hours of content that's been watched from the talks and workshops and interviews we've done um at our events we've had over 30 000 people been onboarded we've seen over 3 500 projects been created in this space since we started and we've given out three three million dollars in prizes that have been given out to the attendees uh with nothing in return for all their amazing work and getting them excited about what's possible with what three on top of that it's not just this we have some other intangibles the people have formed a lot of companies from these projects we've seen over 200 million dollars raised by companies uh foreign global hackathons which currently represent over four billion dollars in market cap hundreds of jobs uh and opportunities have been formed and on top of that thousands of friendships that there's no way we can measure but we know that we are ourselves are uh the beneficiaries of these uh incredible things so i want to thank everybody here for being part of our community and it's super excited to uh wake up and work on all these amazing events and summits and talks and helping everybody sort of learn and get more excited about web3 like we do so i want to thank everybody one more time and with that we are at a close for eat online which has been our biggest event in our history so thank you so much for everybody who participated in the summits the hackathon the talks the questions and uh i wish you all a happy friday and i will see you in a couple weeks for our next hackathon which is unicode so um we'll see you all on discord and e global.tv and twitter and every other place on the internet in the meantime um hope you enjoy your weekend and we'll see all of you shortly and enjoy some low-fi beats thanks everybody [Music] [Applause]