Conversation with encryption pioneer Gavin Wood

Gavin Wood is a co-founder of Ethereum, the creator of Polkadot, and an important advocate for the Web3 vision. In a 3-hour interview, he shared insights on the future of encryption technology. Here are the highlights from the interview:

Childhood Experiences and Innovation Motivation

Gavin grew up in a single-parent household and experienced a rather tumultuous childhood. He recalled, "I have a profound memory of that time, mainly a feeling of abandonment. This has given me a particularly deep appreciation for a 'safe environment.'" This experience shaped his character and innovative drive to some extent.

The Birth of Creativity

When it comes to generating significant ideas, Gavin stated that these thoughts often arise naturally. He explained, "My approach tends to lean towards incremental innovation. I look for combinations between known, effective things and components that can be imagined to exist or actually exist, to see if a meaningful and useful result can be derived."

Understanding and Misunderstanding

As a forward-thinking inventor, Gavin has also experienced the frustration of being misunderstood. He believes that to help people understand new concepts, they must be explained in ways that are already familiar to them. "Most disruptive inventions are usually applied to a very simple, even seemingly childish use case at the beginning." He illustrates this with the example of the internet initially being used to send emails.

Key to Driving Major Breakthroughs

Gavin emphasized that a profound understanding of knowledge is key to driving significant breakthroughs. He said, "I try to propose some new engineering understandings that do not imply 'after deployment, we can increase transaction volume by 10% the next day.' On the contrary, I hope that, when applied correctly, it could become part of the next generation of systems, bringing an increase in transaction volume of 1000% or even 1 million percent."

He believes that the pursuit of a profound understanding of knowledge can itself lead to great results, and not just one, but possibly multiple significant outcomes.