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Why Is Talent Leaving Silicon Valley For Crypto Companies? Recruiters Explain

Who wants to work in tired-old Silicon Valley nowadays? Not edgy tech people, that’s for sure. Business Insider asked recruiters why for an article with the concise title, “Silicon Valley is no longer the edgy tech frontier as workers flee Google and Amazon for crypto and Web3 startups, recruiters say.” Why is that? The article responds:

“That’s largely because people want to work on what is most exciting in technology, recruiters said. Right now, that’s crypto and Web3. With a scarcity of engineers focused on the space, it’ll likely also pay off to take the risk and get in early.”

Related Reading | It’s Not You, It’s Crypto: Execs Leave Silicon Valley To Join Crypto Startups

So, the crypto industry is perceived as more exciting and the risk/ reward ratio skews in a favorable direction. What else?

What Do The Recruiters Say About Silicon Valley And Crypto?

The article quotes Scott Fletcher from Intersection Growth Partners, who gives us an overview:

“We are unquestionably seeing some of the best and brightest of Silicon Valley, or tech, move over to crypto. I’ve been at this a long time, I’ve never seen a change happen this quickly.”

And, later on, he gives us a reason why:

“To start at someplace that’s fresh, that is — by its ethos — trying to empower the individual as opposed to the centralized corporation is appealing.”

So, for ideological reasons. What else?  Vivek Ravisankar, CEO of HackerRank, goes the diminishing route: 

“Developers like new things — they like new, shiny objects.” 

So, novelty. What else? Alex Zakupowsky from Artisanal Talent goes the historical route: 

“Coinbase, in my view, was really the first one to get some very big hires from places like Google and LinkedIn and Lyft. And now you’re seeing some very former senior people at the Ubers and Amazons and Pinterests and Atlassians and SpaceXs that have jumped into this, and they’re going to be recruiting from their networks.”

So, momentum and network effects. Got it. What else? Kelsey Begin from Intersection Growth Partners also went historical:

“At the beginning of the Web2 cycle, you saw a lot of the same types of people who are attracted to crypto now gravitate to these big tech companies because it was something new and innovative and really exciting.”

So, gravitation.

COINbase price chart on Nasdaq | Source: TradingView.com
Why Is Talent Leaving Silicon Valley For Crypto Companies? 

  • Ideological reasons. To work somewhere that “by its ethos” is “trying to empower the individual.”
  • Novelty, the excitement of a new industry where the laws are being written. 
  • Momentum, the industry is getting big hires.
  • Network Effects, those big hires will recruit from within people they trust.
  • Gravitation. The new industry smell is intoxicating, people gravitate towards it.
  • The risk/ reward ratio skews in a favorable direction.

Conclusions And Illusions

People go where the money is, let’s not kid ourselves. The risk/ reward reason is the most important one. The talent can feel the possibility of a huge payout. The chance of choosing the right project and making it big. A high-risk/ high-reward situation is extremely appealing.

The most compelling motive, though, is the ideological reasons. Even though they might be here for the money, the talent feels immense potential. This is a technology that can help millions of persons previously excluded by the banking system. An innovation that seems to reward the individual by a considerably higher margin. This is really something.

Related Reading | Hackers Are Now Using Compromised Cloud Accounts To Mine Crypto

In any case, one thing’s for sure: the tech talent is already migrating from one industry to the other. This phenomenon isn’t likely to stop, not even likely to slow down. The question here is, will crypto companies deliver? Some of them surely will, but, it’s definitely a gamble. Pick the wrong project and you might end up on the unemployment line. However, you might as well end up picking the right one.

Featured Image by Greg Bulla on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView

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It’s Not You, It’s Crypto: Execs Leave Silicon Valley To Join Crypto Startups

A few years ago it was an executives’ dream to work at Google, Amazon, Apple, and the other Big Tech firms of Silicon Valley, but now that dream has evolved into crypto startups. Whether it is to join a blockchain-related company or start a new one, high-paying executives and engineers are leaving the valley of big salaries and CEOs at an accelerating rate.

The New York Times reported the exodus of Big Tech executives and the boom of crypto products like NFTs is seen as a possible reason for it. But if the fantasy of Silicon Valley talent used to be that cushy position involving good money, what do crypto firms represent to them now? Could it still be just about money?

Big companies like Google are getting worried about keeping the talent in. Allegedly, they have started to offer additional stock grants for the employees who are likely to choose a crypto startup over them, although the company refused to comment for the paper.

Evan Cheng, co-founder and chief executive of a blockchain-related startup called Mysten Labs, commented about the change of hearts: “Back in 2017 or so, people were mostly in it for the investment opportunity,” and added that “Now it’s people actually wanting to build stuff.”

Execs Are Silicon Valley’s Exes

Here are some of the executives that have broken the Big Tech guys frozen hearts:

  • Sandy Carter used to be Amazons’ vice president, now she’s Senior Vice President and Channel Chief of Unstoppable Domains, a company that uses blockchain domains to connect Web2 to Web3.
  • Former chief financial officer of Lyft, Brian Roberts, left the company to join the popular OpenSea
  • Jack Dorsey, of course, left his position as Twitter’s chief executive to dedicate himself to Square, now renamed Block because of the blockchain.
  • David Marcus, the head of cryptocurrency efforts at Meta, is leaving the company and reportedly joining a cryptocurrency project of his own.
  • Surojit Chatterjee, Google’s former vice president, is now Coinbase’s chief product officer.

Related Reading | Deloitte Survey Shows 76% Of Finance Execs Think Physical Money Is Nearing Its End

Will The Exodus Continue?

Absolutely yes, said Sandy Carter, the former Amazon vice president. She thinks that “It’s the perfect storm,” and added that “The time is just perfect to jump in on it.”

Meanwhile, Brian Roberts told The New York Times in an email: “I’ve seen enough cycles and paradigm shifts to be cognizant when something this big is just emerging, … We are Day 1 in terms of NFTs and their impact.”

Back to the question of why exactly is the talent leaving Silicon Valley, a part of the decision might be related to the salaries, but another side of it is ideological and enthusiastic: engineers are tired of dealing with bureaucracy, many feel the desire to build something, plus the ethics and moral aspects of Big Tech firms don’t help either.

Ms. Carter noted that some of this talent is being lured by the empowerment of decentralization against the dominance of large companies. It is appealing to not be part of the ones controlling personal data to generate a large income.

“Software engineering culture has always leaned toward anti-authoritarianism” explained Dan McCarthy from the firm Paradigm. He, who spent seven years recruiting talent for Google, paints the scenario of working for a FAANG company (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google):

your impact on the product you’re building may be negligible, nothing you’ll work on is truly yours, … That’s setting aside all of the ethical quandaries related to privacy, security, and ownership that are inherent to those companies and grating to anyone who self-identifies as anti-authoritarian on any level.

He further explains the attractiveness of crypto startups token-based vesting model, where “employees accrue an ownership stake in the company over time just like stock options”, but including the benefits of “no exercise cost”, tokens being “governed by a transparent, immutable smart contract”, plus they retain “liquidity continuously over time”, and other positive aspects.

He notes several other luring points, like the openness of DAOs in comparison to the lack of transparency and invasive behavior of big tech, and the possibility of causing “real-world impact”, which he defines as “the ability of one person to influence the direction of a project or technology.”

Related Reading | Cardano Founder Spills The Beans on “Fakeness” of Silicon Valley

Crypto total market cap at $2,3 trillion in the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com