Why Blockchain? Why Now?

After 20+ years as a CTO in traditional tech companies, including my current role at Worksuite and previous experience as VP Engineering at Nordcloud, I’ve decided to make a significant career pivot into the blockchain and Web3 space.

Why it talks to me

While I share the widespread excitement about cryptocurrency, my primary interest lies in blockchain technology itself. For me, blockchain represents the most thrilling technological advancement since the advent of public cloud computing. Its appeal stems from its transformative potential - not just as a technology, but as a force capable of reshaping societies. Blockchain enables a true prosumer (versus consumer) approach to computing and services, challenging the established hegemony of big tech companies. Moreover, it provides an investment platform with unprecedented equal access for all participants, democratizing financial opportunities in ways previously impossible.

Recent advent of AI (or maybe better put - probabilitic writing machines 😉) excting as it is, for me already becoming a mainstream commodity. Sure, it is exiting what you can do with AI but it is not that existing (or easy) to be really making impact in the technology itself, this is mostly reserved for multi billion companies, researchers, etc. Agents, probably the most promising use case of Ai (and the most misunderstood by CEOs of the world), are on the other quite interesting adjacent to blockchain. When (and if) we can minimize and lower the computational cost of LLMs (or at least distribute it), blockchain will be the major accellerator of private GPU LLM computing (it is already happening with so many projects).

Bit about me

I am curious and always hungry guy from Poland:

Coming from:

  • 20+ years in overall technology, research and leadership roles
  • Academic background at Poznań University of Technology
  • Cloud and DevOps expertise from Nordcloud
  • Enterprise software development experience
  • and more

What I’m Learning and Plan to learn

My learning roadmap includes:

  1. Blockchain fundamentals - consensus mechanisms, cryptography. This is partially done, since I graduated and was in research field in distributed systems.
  2. Smart contract development - Solidity, Ethereum ecosystem.
  3. Web3 development - dApps, wallet integrations etc
  4. DeFi protocols - Understanding decentralized finance
  5. Enterprise adoption - How traditional companies can leverage blockchain

Goals for This Journey

  • Document what I learn publicly
  • Build a portfolio of blockchain projects
  • Connect with the crypto community
  • Help bridge the gap between traditional tech and blockchain

Why Share Publicly?

Learning in public has several benefits:

  • Accountability to keep learning consistently
  • Building credibility in the space
  • Networking with like-minded professionals
  • Helping other CTOs who might be considering similar transitions

What’s Next?

Follow along on Twitter for some updates, and feel free to reach out if you’re on a similar journey or have advice to share.

This is Day 1 of my CTO → Web3 transition. Follow the series to see how this journey unfolds.