Here one day, gone the other.

Leadership takes a day off.

Hello all, I took some time off from writing due to some major changes in my life.

Perhaps it was a midlife crisis I was going through and wasn’t aware of it. Perhaps I thought that quitting a lifetime secure position to join a start up was worth the risk.

Now, if this would have been a Startup pushing out a needless product on the overwhelmed consumer, well then I would say I got what was coming to me, UNEMPLOYED at the beginning of a Pandemic. But that wasn’t the case, nope, not at all. In fact the Startup that I joined was something very dear to me, It’s main purpose, it’s calling, was to ensure digital communications, to Protect Peoples Privacy and Ensure Freespeach, within the realm of digital communication.

I joined a Startup which created a Decentralized, Blockchain Authenticated Messenger, with no single server to be shut down or blocked, and with a totally new take on asymmetric encryption, completely doing away with a “Trusted Third Party” which handles the exchange of private keys, which are so crucial for encrypting your private messages.

I was given some very daunting tasks at the of my employment there.

1. Get in touch with the Creator of PGP, the man who was arrested alongside actor Martin Sheen for acts of Civil Disobedience in the realm of Free Speech and Privacy. The man who was the Chief Scientist of the global encrypted communications firm Silent Circle. The man who is quoted of saying “The natural flow of technology tends to move in the direction of making surveillance easier, and the ability of computers to track us doubles every eighteen months”.

Well, it for surely was a Tall Order, one that I can proudly say I fulfilled. Not only did I get our company, and my direct boss in touch with him, I got us a one-on-one meeting with the man, a meeting in which this individual agreed to help and lend us his expertise. That lead to nothing, for no action was taken by the upper tier.

I lead them to water, but couldn’t get them to drink.

2. Get in touch with the Godfather of Bitshares. Again, I am happy to say that I fulfilled this task, and again got a one-on-one meeting with the man that ended with a promising outlook. Though again, it was left, out on the porch, to spoil.

Every task that I was given, I completed. I was proud of my accomplishments and proud of my fellow co-workers.

Though there were many other things that bothered me…

There was no Order within the company, no SAPs for anything. The communications within the company were laughable, for they truly didn’t exist.

There was no Leadership, no one taking the reins and turning the ship in the right direction, or in ANY direction for that matter. Granted, the man “in charge” of this task was really never truly in charge, for he was beholden to a few, a very few “still to this day” private investors. They were the ones steering the ship, all grabbing the helm and turning in different directions, all hoping they would land on an Island of prosperity, an island full of Lamborghinis and scantly dressed centrefold brainless women.

I feel I need to mention this one important fact for clarification, this start-up was born in the Cryptocurrency World, when ICO’s were still in the mainstream. The company raised some 4 million dollars during this ICO, and with those funds were to develop the Messaging App they had promised. That was about 3 years ago. And it is true that they DID develop the App, however it is still missing numerous staple features to make it successful, features that were also touted as being “almost finished”, for years. More on that later..

Yes the lack of Leadership and a lack of Direction was one major issue. The other was the way in which the company received its capital.

ICOs, for those of you who do not know, are the IPOs of the Cryptocurrency world. People buy tokens, or virtual coins, which represents shares of the company, in hopes that they will rise in value. The product that this company was offering “shares/coins” of was, and still is, a desperately needed product with vast amounts of potential. An instant messenger which collects not one piece of personal information, can not be blocked by Governments, and can store and send cryptocurrency (only their own) is a wanted and needed product. WhatsApp is proof of that. However, even though the company collected over 4 million dollars, the messenger which they have delivered is nowhere ready for mass adoption. This, I believe, is due to:

1. A lack of a unified direction within the company.

2. Lack of leadership.

3. Lack of Blunt Honesty, when it comes to speaking to their Investors.

4. Misuse of collected funds.

5. A total lack of the big picture, not just Short Term.

So, what did 4 Million dollars buy?

The company was able to release, for IOS and Android a private, blockchain based, secure messaging app. With features such as:

Self Destructing messages

Hide Chat

Lock Chat

No need for a phone number or email address

It can also store the companies native cryptocurrency within the app, and send it to others however one drawback is, is that the person which is to receive the cryptocurrency must also have the app installed on their phone.

What the app is missing is Groups, Channels, and a Multi-Cryptocurrency wallet.

The source code is Closed. Something which I had claimed was bad for the company. It has never been reviewed by anyone, or any third party. One just needs to take the word of the Company.

ADAMANT Messenger, is a decentralised, blockchain driven, anonymous, multi-cryptocurrency wallet messenger which also had an ICO. One major difference of these two messengers is, one is Open Source, ADAMANT, and can be reviewed, the other is not. I am not saying that something is fishy here, truly I am not, It just makes me wonder, why..

Anyway, so, back to the main topic.

The company burnt through the funds they raised, and not just on salaries mind you, for at any point there were only 3- 4 people really working at the company. We had developers in India, though only a few, 2 or 3 at the very most. There was 1 full time developer, who was and still is great, myself, a designer, and well, some other guy who was a relative of one of the Major Investors. That’s it.

The people who bought in at the ICO have lost over 67% of their investment however, that can be true with many Blockchain Projects.

I truly don’t have any hard feelings towards the CEO, my direct report, for his hands were always tied, however, he should have been more brutally honest with the private investors (something I could not do, for they spoke no english), and perhaps if the funds were allocated more in line with the companies long term goals, and not just making a quick buck, things would have gone smoother, and I would still in involved in a project that I care so much about.

Privacy and Free Speech.