Interview with the founder of Polkadot! Has Polkadot been misunderstood? Is being too advanced equal to being wrong?

"I started writing Ether code in December, when I only had 500 pounds left, and my rent was also exactly 500 pounds per month. At that time, I had founded two startups, but neither had made much progress. I even thought about going to the bank to find a job. And it was at this time that he gave me 1,000 pounds a month to continue working on Ether. I wanted to see if this White Paper could really be realized, so I started writing the code. A few months later, I became a co-founder of Ether."

Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, creator of Polkadot, and advocate of the vision of Web3. In a three-hour interview last week, he revealed the secrets of the future of blockchain technology. PolkaWorld will be released in several parts, and this article is the first part!

Image source: PolkaWorld

Before we officially start, let's take a look at some exciting perspectives and conversations!

You created the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and also founded Polkadot. In your opinion, what is the biggest achievement of Ethereum so far?— Ethereum has created the most millionaires in history.

So, how do you give birth to a great idea? - A good idea is one that you can see the path to realization clearly.

The real view of meme coins? - It's pure bullshit.

What is Polkadot's greatest achievement? - Achieving a secure Sharding blockchain.

The biggest challenge for Polkadot at the moment? It's precisely its Sharding design.

Your childhood doesn't seem to be easy, can you talk more about it? - I grew up with a single mother, and her husband was very violent. I remember that period clearly, filled with a sense of abandonment. This makes me even more grateful to have a safe environment now.

People often say "being too ahead is a mistake", as an inventor, you always foresee trends very early. Have you ever experienced misunderstanding or even setbacks because you were "too ahead"? - Is this really what Howard Marks said?

Please continue reading and enjoy the wonderful content brought by Gavin!

Starting from greetings

Kevin: Thank you very much for accepting this interview, Gavin. Are you now drinking Japanese whiskey?

Gavin: Yes, Yamazaki 12 years.

Kevin: I heard that you like whiskey and Japanese culture.

Gavin: Yes! Cheers! Kampai!

Image source: PolkaWorld

Kevin: Is Kampai Japanese? I thought it was a Chinese expression.

Gavin: Kampai is a Japanese toast.

Kevin: Can you speak Japanese?

Gavin: I don't, but I know some basic terms, which should be enough.

Kevin: Do you live in Japan?

Gavin: Now I have a trap house in Japan.

Kevin: Why?

Gavin: Just because I like the culture here. Maybe it's not suitable to live here all year round, but Japanese culture is really unique, and living here is very interesting.

Kevin: What do you like about Japanese culture?

Gavin: In fact, it's very different from other parts of Asia. The service is really great, and every detail has been carefully considered, which is very obvious. It's completely different from the UK.

Kevin: How do you see the UK?

Gavin: You know, I grew up here, I'm British. So for me, this is a kind of... not particularly eager to spend all my time here, but I have a trap house in Cambridge, and I enjoy living here. I also really like certain elements of British culture.

Kevin: For example?

Gavin: For example, the British Indian curry is fantastic. I like traditional pubs, ale, and cheese. For instance, pies are always delicious. And fish and chips, Sunday roast are also great. The UK is one of the countries in the world that values etiquette, which I appreciate.

Kevin: Yes, but for people like me, if you're not a native English speaker, especially if English is not your mother tongue, like me from Switzerland, it can be difficult to understand the real meaning of British people, especially their sense of humor, right? British humor is really hard to understand and quite unique.

Gavin: Yes, I think humor is a great way of communication. Usually, you will find that jokes contain a lot of meaning. In some places, humor has become a part of communication. For example, through humor, you can indirectly express meanings, or find some common ground that everyone can agree on, instead of speaking directly. This is a very natural way of communication.

Kevin: Someone told me that Japan is also like this. I heard that people in Osaka (possibly Kyoto, but definitely not Tokyo) are more casual and have a sense of humor.

Gavin: Yes, it's quite different from growing up in Tokyo and then going to those places. In Tokyo, the way of communication is usually more formal, but in Osaka, people there naturally like to joke, and humor becomes a part of their communication. When one is accustomed to communicating with humor, and the other is not, the difference becomes very noticeable.

Kevin: Do you think humor is more related to culture or to a person's intelligence, such as understanding humor?

Gavin: I believe that humor relies largely on common cognitive points, common perceptual ways, and a common understanding of the world. Therefore, it is not necessarily directly related to intelligence. But to some extent, intelligence can indeed serve as a tool to create humor and establish resonance between the two parties in a conversation.

As far as I understand, I have also thought about humor a little. Humor is usually based on the idea that when you say something or do something, the target audience (i.e. the speaker) interprets it in two ways, while other bystanders may only interpret it in one way. This hidden interpretation is the reason for the sense of humor.

What makes it interesting is that the target audience realizes that they can interpret the sentence in two ways and know that others can only understand it in one way. At the same time, they also know that the speaker is aware of this. Therefore, a special and exclusive understanding is formed between the two parties in the conversation, which others cannot participate in. This unique resonance is the essence of humor.

Gavin's childhood life

Kevin: Do you like to analyze a lot of things?

Gavin: Of course.

Kevin: Who are you?

Gavin: This is the question asked by the Boreans to Delenn in Babylon 5, and an entire episode is dedicated to answering it.

Kevin: So I'll start from this question too.

Gavin: However, I prefer another question: 'What do you want?' This is the question that the Shadow Clan asks Delan.

As for 'who am I?' I don't know, I consider myself a somewhat free spirit. I try to avoid labeling myself, because the usual way of defining 'who you are' is in relation to the world, people, and institutions around you. I don't like to answer this question with simple answers, because when people hear it, they often interpret it too much, which is not what I really want to express. In a broad sense, 'who a person is' cannot be summarized in a sentence or two. This is actually something that can be gradually felt through observing a person's words and actions, or in interviews like this.

Kevin: What is your mission?

Gavin: Drive my things? This question, I don't know, has several different factors, and there are also some things I want to achieve. For example, happiness, which should be a good goal. For example, satisfaction, becoming a good father. There is also a sense of responsibility - a personal sense of mission for the things I am involved in. In addition, there are some childhood dreams, things that I know can make me happy, and at the same time may make others happy, which tend to be more in the arts, music and related industries.

Kevin: You mentioned childhood dreams. A few months ago, Kia Wong from Alliance DAO and I talked about it in a podcast. When they were looking for star founders of tomorrow's encryption industry, they believed that two traits were crucial. First, some degree of 'autistic tendency' helps people think independently; second, a childhood trauma that gives people the drive to 'prove something to the world'. As a very successful founder in the encryption industry, do you agree with or possess one or both of these traits?

Gavin: I am not qualified to diagnose myself with "autistic tendencies". However, my childhood was indeed not easy. So, I think I may be able to identify with "childhood trauma" in this respect.

Image source: PolkaWorld

Kevin: Would you like to talk more about childhood trauma?

Gavin: I grew up in a single-parent family with only my mother by my side. To a large extent, it was her choice. However, she had a violent husband at the time, who was also my father, and it lasted for a while. I don't remember being beaten, but I have very vivid memories of that period of life, mainly a sense of abandonment. I don't know if this can be considered a kind of trauma, and I'm not sure what specific type of trauma it belongs to. But I think it has made me deeply grateful for a 'safe environment'.

Kevin: More and more people are trying to understand their relationship with their childhood. I have discussed this topic with Jesse Pollack, Mike Novogratz, and others. Many people seek to understand the source of their behavioral patterns through some form of psychotherapy. This is not just to explain, 'Oh, this is why I behave this way,' but more for self-improvement, because we all want to become better. Have you ever done something similar, like feeling that your childhood has helped you in some ways but may not be so good in other aspects, so you want to learn more about yourself through learning?

Gavin: As you mentioned earlier, I am indeed someone who enjoys thinking and analyzing things. So, I have indeed deeply pondered on my life experiences at this stage and how these experiences may have shaped my current way of thinking or interpersonal interactions. However, if you ask me if I have undergone specific psychological therapies or hypnotherapy, for example? No.

Where do all these great ideas come from?

Kevin: You are the co-founder of Ether and created the Ethereum Virtual Machine and Solidity programming language, providing tools for developers to build smart contracts on Ether. You also founded Polkadot. How did you come up with these great ideas?

Gavin: I don't know either. I think they came up with the ideas themselves.

Kevin: Interesting. So you don't need to deliberately do anything, they just come by themselves?

Gavin: Yes.

Kevin: Do you start with the goal or the plan first?

Gavin: No.

Kevin: Or one day, waking up and suddenly feeling, 'This is what I want to do?'

Gavin: Let's put it this way. Although "must do it" may be a bit of an exaggeration. But it is true that one day, when I was thinking about something, such as going for a walk, or taking a shower, or maybe thinking casually, I don't know why, and the "puzzle" of these ideas gradually came together.

Essentially, it's not like some people, such as Elon Musk, who may explicitly decide 'I want to go to Mars' and then start working backwards to figure out what needs to be done: develop batteries, study rocket science, develop this and that, create a clear roadmap, whether it's in their mind or on paper, and then go about achieving each step. For me, this approach doesn't quite fit my style.

My approach tends to be more incremental innovation. This is not to say that I avoid making any major changes, but rather that I look for combinations between what I already know, can see the effects of, and can imagine existing or already existing components, to see if a meaningful and useful result can be obtained. And this result, in my opinion, has not been well achieved before.

Image source: PolkaWorld

Kevin: I read a book written by the famous surgeon and author of 'Psycho-Cybernetics', Maxwell Malt. The book is called 'Psycho-Cybernetics', and it actually explains some parts of the creation process. He mentioned that most creativity actually comes from the subconscious. He said that when you clearly see something in your mind, your inner creative success mechanism will take over the work and do better than you can consciously achieve through effort or willpower. So, how much of a major creative idea like EVM or any other big idea comes from your conscious thinking? And how much comes from having an idea, setting some goals, and then relaxing, letting the subconscious do the work through deep thinking?

Gavin: In my opinion, a 'idea' is not something I can just come up with a vision, like 'eliminating world hunger', and then I sleep, letting my brain or subconscious do the work. What will happen the next morning, won't, right?

Because if the 'idea' you are talking about is a vision or a high-level goal, then it is not really an 'idea' in the true sense. Perhaps it can be a creative idea for a movie, but it is not the kind of 'idea' in an engineering sense. Therefore, I do not completely agree that the subconscious can be of great help in this regard.

I believe that ideas must be constrained by practical feasibility.

If you don't have the resources to solve the problem of hunger, focusing on the idea of "eliminating hunger" doesn't make much sense. Of course, you might say, "We can take a gradual approach, do this first, then do that." But this is more like a top-down approach, starting from the ultimate goal and then deducing how to achieve it. I think this approach is more like Elon Musk's style. He has huge wealth. I don't know if he is worth hundreds of billions or trillions now, but he can say directly, like the President of the United States or the Chairman of the Saudi National Fund: "Okay, I'm going to build a city there" or "I'm going to spend $3 billion somewhere to eradicate malaria." Then use a very procedural, rational, and unemotional corporate approach to solve the problem, evaluating whether the resources are sufficient to achieve the goal. But as I said, this is not an "idea", it is just a "result".

A true 'idea' is a path that you have a way of achieving something. Maybe you don't know the exact details, but you know it's positive, potentially useful, and could be helpful to the world. You also believe that no one has thought of such an invention, or that no one has tried to combine existing basic elements in this way to create something new.

I believe this is the true meaning for most people when they talk about 'inventors having an idea'. They are referring to the recombination of basic elements.

Is being too advanced equal to being wrong? Was Gavin misunderstood?

Kevin: So you mean, by combining these things together, you believe it will be useful for the world, right? But the problem with doing this is that for people like inventors, others may not be able to understand you for a period of time, or even a long time, right? I remember Howard Marks once said, 'Being too ahead is the same as being wrong.' As an inventor, you always grasp trends very early. How many setbacks have you experienced in life because you acted too early or were completely misunderstood by others?

Image source: PolkaWorld

Gavin: Maybe quite a few, but I'm not sure either. Can I really determine if others misunderstood my meaning? Is the difference between them misunderstanding you, ignoring you, or simply because they are not smart enough to understand your concept almost impossible or even impossible to understand? I don't know. I suspect there is, but to some extent, I agree with that point of view (that being too ahead is wrong). But is it really what Howard Marks said? It doesn't sound like his style.

Kevin: I'll have to confirm again later, haha

Gavin: However, yes, I think if you want to build something that immediately creates value for the world, then you have to explain it in a way that the world already understands. This is also why most disruptive inventions are initially used for a very simple, even childish, application. A classic example is that the internet was initially used to send emails. For example, 'Okay, now you can send messages, and these messages no longer take a day to be delivered, but can be delivered within a few minutes - assuming people check their inboxes every few minutes.'

The impact of the Internet on the world was huge, but today the role of email actually accounts for only a small part of the overall impact of the Internet. However, it was necessary at the time because people understood mail, so they could understand that if the speed of information transmission increased by an order of magnitude, or even two to three orders of magnitude, it would clearly be an improvement.

So, I would agree on one point: you need to explain your ideas using language that the market or your target audience can understand.

Of course, the problem is that sometimes it is much easier to build something than to figure out its specific purpose.

Kevin: Isn't this the problem for most entrepreneurs? They usually create a product first and then look for target users, instead of the other way around. They should ask themselves: 'Am I solving problems for people?' But you can also argue that those who provide solutions for existing problems are actually solving a smaller problem than a completely new invention.

Gavin: Yes, that's usually the case. And many times, they are binding themselves. They limit their own wisdom and thinking space because they have defined a clear range. For example, they only focus on making a car run faster or consume less fuel. Maybe they can think of making the car fly, but it doesn't matter because their focus is only on reducing fuel consumption.

So, I agree that if you have already predetermined the outcome before truly beginning to conceive how to achieve the goal, you may only be able to solve smaller problems.

If you broaden your perspective a little bit and let go of the specific results you want to achieve, such as just trying to find ways to make things more free, efficient, and faster, then you may find more revolutionary and substantive solutions more quickly.

Kevin: When do you feel most misunderstood? You mentioned that this situation may have happened many times, right?

Gavin: Well, I think it's quite common when doing JAM. This is the new protocol I'm working on. But I think it's normal because it is indeed a complex protocol, and its operation is very different from the past. It's not always easy to understand its differences and why it's better. To a large extent, it's because people may not really understand the limitations of existing methods. This is a big problem in the development of cutting-edge technology.

Even professionals may not always have a clear understanding of the current state of technology, or that the cutting edge of technology may not be the most optimal at the moment. Only when you delve deep into analysis and truly understand the existing problems can you have a clearer understanding of why a certain solution may be effective.

Profound knowledge understanding is the key to driving major breakthroughs.

Kevin: How did you get started? Because if you follow the classical approach, you have a problem and then you solve it. But if your idea is more abstract, how did you get started?

Gavin: If you start from "I have this problem, I want to find a solution", I think this is applicable to smaller incremental issues.

For bigger problems, you may need to be very lucky to stumble upon a solution by chance. Or you can do it like Bill Gates and say, 'I'll put my substantial wealth into this problem.' But assuming you're not extremely lucky or extremely wealthy, then you might choose to start solving small problems. Because there are many more small problems than big problems, and they are more specific and detailed, so there are fewer people following them. This means that these problems may be easier to solve and easier for you to discover and leverage.

Image source: PolkaWorld

So, I think this 'top-down, defining the result first' method is more suitable for small problems, rather than large ones, unless you have extremely abundant resources or extremely high luck value.

This is why I would say that you should start by analyzing the existing 'components' from the current situation.

When I say 'component,' I mean a very abstract concept, not just something that can be directly used in a literal sense, such as the Rust programming language, an Android phone, or a CPU. It also includes the following:

Various Industries of Mathematics

Different branches of engineering

Human perception of the world

Goods and services already available on the market

Deployed projects

Open Source software

All of these can be seen as 'components' that you can use when building something. By combining these components with some knowledge novelty or creativity, you can create something useful that can be used to solve one or more problems. I believe that this is the essence of creation.

You can easily achieve this at a lower level. For example, I can write a new program that can perform some kind of matching, and use this program to create a trading bot, which may soon achieve some success. This is solving a relatively small problem.

And academic research usually operates at a higher level of abstraction. Scholars still try to solve problems by recombining ideas with a little creativity and innovation, but they are trying to solve some 'bigger' problems (although these problems are not always widely understood or necessarily very important). These problems may not be the big problems that many people follow, nor are they necessarily practical problems that need to be solved. However, even so, they are still creating more useful human knowledge, which in itself is meaningful.

There are many classic examples, such as some theoretical studies in the early 20th century, which gave birth to laser theory, and lasers were eventually used to manufacture CDs. Without these theoretical studies, CDs would not have been invented. However, when these studies were completed, no one knew what they were for. They were 'useless' for a long time, even for decades. But when they were finally applied, they triggered a revolution in audio technology.

I don't mean to say that you should lock yourself in an ivory tower and only do highly abstract, seemingly pure theoretical things. What I want to express is that there is actually a spectrum between immediately practical things and seemingly pure theory. And I myself am probably in the middle of this spectrum.

I am trying to propose some new engineering understandings, which are not about 'deploying tomorrow to increase volume by 10%'. Instead, I hope that after being correctly applied, it may become part of the next generation system, bringing a volume increase of 1,000% or even 1,000,000%.

Of course, you can't be sure of this, because you're not just pursuing a specific outcome. Instead, you're pursuing a deep understanding of knowledge. I believe that a better understanding of knowledge itself can lead to great results, and not just one great result, but may give birth to multiple significant achievements.

Disclaimer: The market carries risks and investments should be made with caution. This article does not constitute investment advice and users should consider whether any opinions, viewpoints, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific circumstances. Investment based on this article is at one's own risk.

This article is authorized to be reproduced from: "PANews"

Original author: PolkaWorld

The interview with the father of Polkadot! Is Polkadot misunderstood? Is being too advanced equal to being wrong? This article was first published in 'encryption city'