joining compound

I’m super stoked to share that I’ve joined the team at Compound, a deeply thesis-driven firm committed to investing in founders at the earliest stage. I’ll be focusing on crypto investing, helping to build out our theses on the space alongside Michael Dempsey, David Hirsch, John Palmer and the rest of the incredible team at Compound.

It seems fitting to share this news on the eve of my unofficial 8th anniversary in crypto :)

The original ethos of the internet was rooted in open networks, transparent information, and weird, novel technology experiments. I’ve always felt crypto was a natural return to that unique cypherpunk culture, one that laid the foundation for a lot of the innovation we’ve seen over the last 20-30 years. As I’ve watched crypto’s use cases evolve over the years, one thing remains constant: the pace of innovation and how fast the space moves remain as intense as ever. One of the deep reflections I’ve had over the past 2-3 years specifically, has been the clear divergence of speech and action. It was very easy to make claims about your long-term commitment to this space when prices were exploding, but the universe of people who’ve shown through multiple cycles that they care deeply about it is quite small. Compound is unquestionably one of those firms, investing in crypto since 2016 and seeding some of the largest protocols in the world including The Graph, Arbitrum, Compound, Dapper Labs, and many others.

What’s especially appealing to me about working alongside Michael is the depth and uniqueness of thought that jumps off the page when you read his writing or speak to him in person. It’s clear that ethos permeates throughout the firm and across Compound’s investing areas beyond crypto as well. It can be very easy to adopt consensus views, but I share Compound’s perspective that conviction is developed through independent thinking and long-term thesis-building. I’m keen to share deeper thoughts around what specifically in crypto I find most compelling, but consider this a sneak-peak of some areas of interest:

• Dynamic yield-optimizing smart contract innovation

• Distributed compute networks

• Account abstraction beyond social login

• State proofs and the additional new unlocks these enable

• Undercollateralized & unsecured on-chain lending

• DAO treasury management tooling

• On-chain asset management

• Programmatic tax-optimizing smart contracts

• Security infrastructure (beyond browser extensions)

I’m thrilled to further support our existing portfolio and eager to meet & build with the next generation of crypto founders. Whether you’re just kicking around ideas about crypto, or actively building something with a team, I’d love to meet you. The easiest way to reach me is at 0xsmac[at]compound[dot]vc or on twitter @0xsmac.