This corner of tech is unusually open to outsiders with sharp conceptual skills. Projects are young, credentials matter less than clear thinking, and problems like “how should a decentralised court work?” or “what makes a token system fair?” reward exactly the training a philosophy degree provides.
The lay of the land#
The label covers everything from two-person protocol startups to established payment companies. The roles philosophers tend to fill are in research (analysing how a protocol’s incentives behave), governance (designing and running the decision-making of decentralised organisations), operations and community at young startups, and writing, since the industry runs on explainers and documentation. Search for protocol researcher, governance analyst, research analyst, community lead or technical writer. Teams are small and flat, so expect several hats rather than a ladder. Outsiders usually become insiders by contributing in public, and the communities and free courses below are the standard way in.
Philosophers who’ve done it#
- Christina Norgard Rud — Philosophy & Public Policy MSc (LSE), co-founder of Squid, a cross-chain liquidity router; spoke at our May 2023 workshop
- Federico Ast — co-founder and CEO of Kleros, the decentralised justice protocol; spoke at our “Future of Law-Tech” event
- Fotis Tsiroukis — PhD candidate in Philosophy of Open Science (Exeter), KERNEL fellow working on crypto privacy and decentralised science
After our Kleros events, community member Andy Chan got an internship at Federico’s firm and Paul Poenicke won the Kleros Justice Fellowship. Their accounts are on the about page.
From our events#
- Philosophers Working in Decentralised Finance with Christina Norgard Rud (May 2023)
- Web3 Needs Philosophers with Fotis Tsiroukis (November 2022)
- The Future of Law-Tech with Federico Ast (June 2022)
Start here#
- Web3 Needs Philosophers — Resources to Get You Started — free MOOCs on DeFi and digital currency, Kleros’ videos on building in the space, and communities to join
- Investing in this space is its own path; see Venture Capital. So is building a company here; see Entrepreneurship & Startups
1,800+ philosophers get the Let's Phi newsletter: career stories, opportunities and resources for life beyond academia. It only goes out when there is something worth reading.
Prefer to browse first? Read the newsletter on Substack.