That was a very impressive debut. Public speaking is difficult (I speak from experience) and you performed as though you had been doing it for years. Your remarks about the use of the blockchain as a distributed asset register (i.e. colour coins) were also very though-provoking, even if they went straight over the head of the nice but dim interviewer.
Just one criticism however. I thought your remarks regarding the Silk Road take-down lacked nuance (to put it kindly). I appreciate of course that as an employee of IBM it is not your place to take any particular position in public on controversial libertarian issues. Equally, as a statement of fact, the notion that the likelihood of mainstream adoption of BTC by financial institutions is increased as BTC ceases to be associated in the public eye with the sale and purchase of illicit substances, is probably correct.
BUT your answer also implied that the crushing of Silk Road was inherently a good thing ("unambiguous good"). Many (myself amongst them) would vehemently disagree. I personally regard it as a disgusting event - the crushing of a safe, voluntary, private market by a bunch of jack-booted thugs.
So I think you need to distinguish in future presentations very clearly between on the one hand the factual impact of such events on the future mainstream adoption of bitcoin and on the other hand the moral issues associated with such events. At a minimum I suggest that you adopt a neutral stance regarding the latter.
Best regards
Hi there.
Many thanks for the feedback and thoughtful comments. I gave some considerable thought about how to address the Silk Road topic as I knew it was bound to come up. In the end, I concluded there just wasn't any room for equivocation... if one accepts the rule of law (as the employee of a major corporation surely must!) then one must also conclude that the prosecution of lawbreakers is a good thing. Now I completely agree that there is room (lots of room) for debate about *whether* certain activities should be illegal but I didn't think it appropriate to raise it in that forum, and certainly not given that I was speaking as a representative of my employer rather than as an individual.
Richard
I think the problem is that you
did end up raising the issue. It would have been quite possible to confine your remarks to the effects upon the adoption of bitcoin, rather than impliedly venturing into the wider question of whether drug laws ought to be enforced. I would be surprised if IBM had any corporate position on those sorts of issues or indeed wanted to have one.
That is why neutrality is surely the appropriate course. Nobody could have had any complaint if you had simply said:
"As an employee of IBM it would obviously not be appropriate for me to express an opinion on the issues surrounding the enforcement of drug laws, but what I can say is that the closure of Silk Road was undoubtedly a good thing in terms of the likelihood of bitcoin being more widely adopted amongst financial institutions"That is not equivocation. It is merely confining your remarks to the issues for which your opinion is being sought (which do not include the morality or otherwise of the War on Drugs)
Anyway, there it is. No offence intended and otherwise, as I say, an excellent presentation.