Before we get into this. Let me give you some context… (If you are short on time or an attention span feel free to jump straight to the curriculum.)
At the beginning of my sabbatical. I met quite a few interesting individuals who unknowingly had a significant contribution to my blockchain learning journey.
Let me take a moment to acknowledge them
Harsh, Founder of Gaia Grid — After leaving his high-paying financial consultancy job in New York. He returned to India with a vision to create a self-sustaining off-grid community. He taught himself traditional farming methods (the Adivasi way) to conserve soil and recharge the groundwater. ( He recharged it from 900 ft to 12 ft )
Dr. Regi George & Lalitha George, Founders of Tribal Health Initiative — They strive to improve the lives of tribal communities living in Sitillingi Valley. Through healthcare, community work, and organic farming. They also homeschooled their children who are now highly successful in their respective disciplines of study and work.
Anu & Krishna, Founders of Thulir School — They created an alternative education system tailor-made to suit the local needs of the same tribal communities in Sittilingi Valley. They work to improve the lives of school-going children and additionally provide useful learning opportunities to teenagers who stopped schooling & enable them to be employable.
Divya — My childhood friend for almost 20 years. Who I believe is the most knowledgeable doctor. A topper, national level rank holder, and an avid reader. She chose a testing but a fulfilling job as a doctor for rural communities. Over high paying job with leading hospitals in the city.
Sushma & Swaminathan — My sister and brother-in-law respectively. Post their masters, They now reside in the bay area and work in leading enterprises such as Walmart Labs and Salesforce.
What is similar among all these wonderful individuals is their approach to learning.
Divya as a doctor believes learning is never-ending. She is a classic example of child-led education. I believe this is the reason she is so passionate and dedicated to her field.
The other founders are advocates of self-education and apostles of the philosophy — “An individual must address the needs of their mind, body, and soul to lead a fulfilling life.”
Sushma & Swaminathan, are avid self-learners themselves. Gave me insight into how leading universities of the world go about educating their students.
So this is where my journey starts. I decided to self-educate myself on Blockchain Protocols and web3.
(Never have I ever been so driven and passionate about any of my other pursuits.)
After a few weeks into my self-curated program, I realized the potential for a utopian world that can easily be maneuvered into dystopia.
I believe it’s part, in purpose to support the progress of this technology and raise my hand in times of concern. (Like the social dilemma situation or some financial crisis-like situations we’ve seen in recent times. Which is a by-product of the information age and web2)
Disclaimer: This is just a learning journey. I only wish to publish this for inspiration so you can start your own. I do not mean to dismiss any form of conventional education. This is purely a learning experiment.
Let’s face the truth — Capitalism will force us to specialize.
But I feel most of us make this decision too early in our careers before experimenting, or even narrowing our options and realizing our complete skill set. That’s why I guess most people hate their jobs.
Additionally, it’s too early to decide the requirements in this field. For example, How did companies know that they needed digital marketing when Facebook, LinkedIn & Google were at their nascent stage? Or how did companies know — they needed employer branding to address the talent war in the market? The ones that saw it early gained a strategic advantage.
So at this stage in my journey, I first choose to increase the scope of my subjects. It will also act as complementary skill sets (through cross-functional expertise) before I decide on my area of specialization.
Engineering
Entrepreneurship
Leadership
Personal Brand & Strategy
Conceptual knowledge
Research
Philosophy
Please note: There is no mention of technical analysis that helps speculate market behavior (the rise and fall of coins). Becoming a crypto millionaire is not a priority but I’m sure it will happen.
Engineering — I remember being very good at it, but I don't recall why my interests deviated from the subject. The reason for pursuing engineering was that I had realized how it handicapped me in my previous GTM roles for early-stage startups.
I tried picking up a language(javascript) right off the bat. Very soon realized that it can lead to broken information.
After speaking to some successful software engineers, I was recommended to invest time in picking up the fundamental concepts of computer science. Once I reached this milestone picking up any new language should be a no-brainer.
Resources: Introduction for CS50, Objected Oriented Programming, Data structures & algorithms
Once I had a fair understanding of software engineer I jumped straight into blockchain. To get some hands-on experience with Solidity.
Resources — Crypto Zombie, Chainlink — Smart Contracts Course
Post completion of all the above resources. I intend to start working on projects for my portfolio.
Entrepreneurship - Just like every other eccentric individual in their mid20s. I wish to venture into an entrepreneurial adventure at some point in life. But only after I’ve gained the skills & expertise. Possibly once I’ve served successfully served in a leadership role with a great company in the crypto space.
I see that young founders fall short in life experiences & wisdom.
For this I found the a16z crypto startup school to be the best place to start. It helps in getting a better overview on how web3 is different from web2. I also, actively brainstorm on the different areas and applications of this technology. Sometimes I study upcoming ventures to learn how they’re disrupting their respective sectors.
Leadership — I like to believe I have an interesting approach to this one. From what I’ve seen in my experience — Leadership is mostly about finding talent, building a team, and inspiring belief.
So I picked up cricket after 10 years. I’ve now built a team that practices every week. I’ve tried to create a culture where people let go of their inhibitions and contribute to the best of their ability. We also coach each other and strive to become better with every practice session. We will soon start competing in friendlies.
I believe this skill would be transferable. No resources for this one yet, but it involved me connecting with 100s of people who I thought might be interested in this.
Personal Brand & Strategy - At this stage, the only product that I have is myself. My objective is to instill credibility in the blockchain community and be the subject matter expert.
It involves networking with the right people, seeking mentorship, mentoring and building strong relationships. I somehow find it difficult to build superficial relationships. So the number of connections is small but strong and growing.
The next steps would be to build a community, collaborate on projects host networking events and expand.
What I consider strategy is basically finding your niche, experimenting, failing & then succeeding. It pretty much involves everything from curating this curriculum to venturing out and participating professionally. I try to always look at the big picture.
Some activities here involve building a social brand, writing content, participating in the ecosystem (governance, buying NFTs, p2p lending & borrowing, etc), and following the right people and companies.
Important to spend a lot of time here consistently. It does seem redundant but then I’m confident the payout will be big in the long run.
Conceptual Knowledge — I consider this to be the most challenging. The intellectual barrier to understanding blockchain is large. Maybe this is what excites me most. I’ve spent days to try and fully understand the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Because I didn’t have a complete grasp of it, I felt miserable. Only to realize very soon that nobody understands it completely.
The tech is also evolving at a rapid pace. It’s almost impossible to catch up with. But this ever-changing landscape does satisfy those that desire constant novelty.
I am currently pursuing the blockchain specialization course from Buffalo University & Defi specialization from Duke University on Coursera.
Somewhere I feel there are better resources, so I highly recommend you do your due diligence on this one.
Research — This is a tough fish to catch as well. I approach this by critically analyzing white papers. It consumes a lot of time and I do feel I lack a lot of technological understanding. I’m hoping I’ll overcome it soon though.
Highly recommend starting with Bitcoin, Ethereum, AAVE, Compound, Maker & Chainlink. Post which you can explore some on tokenization and then pick and choose whatever you like.
Philosophy - This is my favorite. Usually consists of binge-watching podcasts of CEOs from blockchain companies.
Highly recommend Lex Freidman’s interviews with Charles Hopkinson, Vitalik Buterin, Silvio Micalli & my personal favorite Sergey Nazarov. Must check out Balaji as well.
I also try to read books. Currently reading Radical Markets by Eric Posner & Gren Weyl and Token Economy by Shermin Voshmgir.
I would like a share a few interesting techniques here.
My first challenge was making it a habit. So I don’t have to seek motivation every day. After 3 good months into this process, I believe it’s kind of a habit for me now, thankfully.
The first thing I do after waking up is planning my day. I usually divide it into two 4-hour sessions (breaks only for water). In each session, I try to focus only on two tasks. One for learning and the second for something more hands-on.
When I saw the social dilemma I learned that our brains can be programmed. I thought deeply about the social conditioning that happens through movies, social media, reels, posts, etc.
Did you know even Hitler did this to his people too? Subsidizing the radio so every household could have one, which then gave him a platform to condition his people to support the nazi regime.
I figured I could try and program my own brain. So I decided to only watch tech-oriented shows & movies for entertainment. I recommend machines that changed the world & Billion Dollar Code.
I then reworked my Reddit, twitter & LinkedIn algorithms to only show me blockchain content. (At least tried to do so. It’s still web2 …lol)
When I started this journey, I was burdened with self-doubt. It was unchartered territory. No one in my circle had even tried self-learning for anything. Well, maybe a ukulele or a guitar but definitely not something as complicated as blockchain.
But with time, I was able to answer people’s questions. People looked to me for inspiration and wanted to work/study together. People approach me to join their firms, startups, etc.
It’s great validation. But I’m not taking it tightly. Can’t get complacent. I’m no expert yet. Just an amateur.
My journey is just starting. Super excited to see web3 taking off in India.
Stay tuned for my next post — Roles and Functions in a blockchain startup.