Foundation Cover Letter
To Whom It May Concern,
My nym is Blogging Bitcoin. This upcoming year will be my 10th year going down the bitcoin rabbit hole. Much of that journey is written here. Before bitcoin, I trained for a couple marathons. While running, I listened to almost all of Ayn Rand's books, podcasts about Objectivism, history, economics, and the Joe Rogan Experience. I began to read Economics In One Lesson about a month before hearing about Bitcoin: A peer to peer electronic cash system. Since then, I've studied bitcoin almost every day.
I am applying for the Customer Support Agent position at Foundation because I did Jordan Peterson's Future Authoring Program about four years ago. I wrote down that I wanted to help people learn how to use bitcoin's multisig properties. I initially wanted to work for Unchained Capital, but relocating my family to Austin was and is not feasable for us. I am interested in Foundation because this job description is aligned with my values and does not require relocating my family:
Desired Skills & Must Haves
Excellent Written and Verbal English Language Skills
I believe I have Excellent written and verbal English language skills. My only issue is that I tend to talk as fast as a podcast on 1.5x speed when I'm talking about my passions. I can work on it.
I wholeheartedly believe in privacy, sovereignty, and freedom. That’s a good way of summing up what my blog is all about, but freedom means different things to different people. For me, Cryptography equals freedom. Others speak of freedom in glittering generalities. To some, freedom means spending money on credit cards for on fine dining, clothes, or war.
When I first started, Digital Gold and maybe Mastering Bitcoin were about the only two books that existed. There were only a couple episodes of podcasts too. In my early days, I read a ton of Eric Hughes, Tim C. May, forum posts by Satoshi and Hal Finney, blogposts by Nick Szabo and a couple EconTalk and Joe Rogan Podcasts. There just wasn’t much as much information back then. They had a profound influence on me. I read the Sovereign Individual during the pandemic. Spoiler alert: they say the information age might start with a global pandemic.
I don't like talking about politics, but I was into Objectivism before I read the bitcoin white paper. I listened to almost all of her audiobooks while training for the LA Marathon. That’s not technically bitcoin, but it’s part of it’s history. When I heard Satoshi was anonymous, the first thing that came to mind was, “who is John Galt?” First time I tried nostr, I thought, “This could be potentially be Galt’s Gulch on the Internet.” I went to Objectivist meetups before I got into bitcoin. I even met people who worked for the Ayn Rand Institute, but the best conversation I ever had about Ayn Rand was at a bitcoin conference. I wasn’t the one who brought her up.
I learned about TAILS from Edward Snowden's book, [Permanant Record]. I didn’t notice Snowden used TAILS the first time I watched Citizen 4, but I noticed the second time. This is the foundation of my bitcoin knowledge, the fuel that ignites my burning desire to learn about bitcoin. This is why I have a strong understanding of basic Bitcoin concepts. I was able to pass Saylor Academy’s Bitcoin Is For Everybody course without watching much of the content. I cold only do this because I voraciously read most of the content in that course by the time Stephan created it.
I your definition of freedom is closer to what The Cypherpunks, Ayn Rand or Edward Snowden defined as freedom, then I believe in freedom.
Desired Skills & Must Haves
I began learning more advanced bitcoin math in March of 2020. I kept my private key in a safe deposit box. The bank shutting down for 3 months was not on my threat model bingo card. I made an appointment and everything worked out, but that was a serious wake up call. I realized this risk could be mitigated if I used bitcoin's native multisignature properties. It might come in handy if the value increased and the wrenches come out. I spent most of the lockdown grokking Micheal Flaxman's 10X Your BTC Security Guide. I tested alternative storage methods. I once lost a key I burried in 5 different places, but I was able to recover my wallet. Jameson Lopp recently wrote a blog post about burying keys and I respect his opinion, but I won’t burry keys anymore. That's the main reason I think I would be good at this job. That year gave me a strong understanding of different types of Bitcoin wallets, hardware, and different multisignature formats. Different wallets use different paths. I took out a hard drive and Wi-Fi card on an old laptop and used Ian Coleman’s tool on TAILS to experiment with Shamir Secret Sharing schemes. I also learned you addresses that multisignature addresses that begin with a bc1q use BIP141 P2WSH while those with addresses that start with a 3 use P2WSH nested in P2SH.
I volunteetred at Pacific Bitcoin on 2022 where I met one of your employees and he let me check out the Passport. I won't mention his name, but I'm a big fan of his work. He taught me most so much if what I know about self-sovereignty. I also saw Moritz give a talk about Specter Desktop. I talked to him about my experience studying the 10X Your BTC Security guide over the pandemic. He took me to a booth and showed me how to put together a Specter DIY. Then he gave it to me for free.
I try to avoid wallet arguments. Like I said, I don’t like discussing politics, but I view DIY hardware wallets good for the game theory of the bitcoin network--especially when used as part of a multisignature quorum. Althpugh Specter DIY and Seed Signer lack secure elements, brick and mortar hardware wallet companies could be targeted by governments. The unhosted wallet warriors don’t take this option out of the realm of possibility. They also don’t know it won’t work if we use a Specter DIY or electrum on TAILS running on a USB stick. I think this is an underappreciated aspect about bitcoin, especially given the state of the political climate today. Like I said, I don't like talking about politics; but politicians like to talk about bitcoin these days.
I don’t have a passport, but I'll put one on my Christmas list. I’ve played with it for a few minutes before and went over the docs today. I am confident in my ability to learn how to how to use it. That’s not the value proposition though. To bring value to your company, I need to teach my wife how to use it. So that’s my plan.
Nice Haves
I think I have these things. I tend to talk as fast as a podcast on 1.5X speed when I'm passionate about something, but I can work on that. I am in the US PST time zone. I have a lot of experience in customer facing roles.
Bonus Skills
Although I haven't done many video chats at a job, I attend several Discord Online Meetups. We do video and voice chats on these meetups and I attended a couple Meetups on Zoom during the pandemic. Tomorrow I'm hosing a Q & A about nostr. The group is focused on helping us contribute to free and open source software--Namely bitcoin and nostr. I am starting to make small contributions to free and open source projects and recently had a pull request merged.
I also don't have experience in creating written documentation for consumer products in any role that requires a W-2, but I've created several tutorials on my blog, use markdown every day and I've done the documentation exercise on free code camp.
I also started a local bitcoin meetup on nostr. I'm still working on growing it, but have met some really cool fellow plebs. One guy even gave me an old S9 so I could turn it into a heater. This is another reasons I want to work for a company dedicated to the advancement of bitcoin. It’s such an interesting community that has one goal. This must sound strange to no coiners, but Bitcoiners are my tribe. O don’t care if you have a 100,000 sats or own billions of dollars worth of stocks. I don't care about the color of your skin, who you love, your nation of origin, or where you’ve been exiled. I may not even know what your face looks like, but If you hold your own keys, you are part of my tribe. If you run a node, your an elder in my tribe. I want to work for a company that can help grow this tribe.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Resume and Cover Letter Are Required
Although nostr is not technically bitcoin, I believe it has the power to increase global censorship resistance. That's why I wrote this cover leter on nostr. I also like free and open source software which was not explicit in the job description, but that's big part of what this is all about. Therefore I thought it might make more sense to incorporate my passion for using public key cryptography and free and open source software to write this blog into my cover letter.
I'll send my resume over SMTP instead of nostr though.
"If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."
--Phil Zimmerman
Blogging Bitcoin