How Nicolas Cary Built Blockchain.com From a Small Apartment in York

So the opportunity of blockchain.com, how did that come about?

We've got to fast forward quite a bit.

So I was basically, after going to university, where I went to a liberal arts university, I did not have a technology background there, but I was always sort of tinkering and playing with tech.

I worked my whole way through university.

One of the things I did was build websites for the faculty departments.

So you'll see a common thread here of helping convert things that were usually an analog into something digital online.

And my actually first job out of college briefly was being a teacher where I taught computer science and creative writing.

And I think if you really want to get good at something, you can practice teaching it to others.

It's a really key skill to actually learn in your life.

And that can be in anything.

It could be teaching a kid how to play football.

It could be teaching someone how to sew something, be teaching somebody how to manage their emotions, whatever it is.

But teaching skills, communicating and developing rapport with someone else on a topic they're uncomfortable with is a really invaluable thing to possess longer term.

And so, yeah.

Yeah, teachers have a very tough job and have nothing but respect for what they what they do every single day.

But it's not just confined to, you know, K through 12 or, you know, your your A levels like you're going to be interacting with educators in a professional context.

And you're going to need to be able to communicate and teach your whole career.

So that's something to think about.

But.

After that brief stint as an educator, I got my first job and I was totally unqualified.

I was for a small startup that was building customer relationship management software.

And this was right as SaaS was beginning.

So software as a service, you would build an application that would live online.

You didn't have to download software.

It was accessible via browser.