Hi all,
Some of you will know me, (Ben Ingram) and likewise, plenty more will not.
I am the COO of Swarm. I'm the old guy. It is my job, to try to make things work nicely. To gather the criticism and suggestions, consider the costs and interest of SWARM holders, and to respond in the best way to grow the value, and deliver stability to the Swarm.
I am not a silver spooner, or a crony. I grew up in a rural town, in as modest situation as is possible in a western nation. I started my career in the IT space, as a help desk operator for Microsoft, supporting dos, then helping the bastards inflict windows on the world. For this I still feel some guilt.
Since then, I've worked for some very interesting companies, including the Australian Stock Exchange, and global consulting companies, I went on to build some of my own ventures. Most recently, founding Tquila which is (warning PR quote follows) now 'one of the most recognised brands, globally in cloud computing services'.
It was at Tquila, three years ago, where I had the good fortune, to hire a certain Joel Dietz. He proved to be a talented genius, bordering on unmanageable. But, one night, we spent pretty much from dusk to sunrise discussing currency, and the idiocy/myriad failings of centralised currency. Without either of us realising it at the time, this set Joel on the swarm path. And here we both are, along with the annoyingly intelligent and talented Jef Cravens.
Looking at the names, posting on this forum, there are a many people whom I've had the chance to meet, and discus strategy, goals and progress with at reasonable length, but we also acknowledge that there's a lot more we CAN and will do.
First though, and of highest priority to me, is to express our truly heartfelt appreciation for your investment and trust. To some, it's just words, but we are not scammers. We are open and honest individuals, with an utter dedication to delivering something which redefines VC, for all of us.
I want to clarify a couple of things.
We are a small team, which is not an excuse, just fact.
We are trying to cover, and I'm sure I'll forget something,
1. Phone
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. Email
5. Reddit
6. (A lot of) forums
7. Skype
8. Webchat
It's quite a few channels, and I'm sure that we can improve. We are not a help desk team, we are developers and business people. I personally would be ashamed of fronting our fledgling company with inexperienced help desk people charged with making reassuring but meaningless responses!
So, Jef, Joel and I spent hours every day chewing on EVERY single question that has been asked, but occasionally there are other aspects of building the company which we must also focus on, especially now, with YOUR bitcoin to protect and develop.
The best we could come up with is as follows.
The two of them (Jef and Joel) are bunkering down, from the now till Monday, with the sole intention of producing a substantive document addressing our intents, plans and capability. The why we are doing this, and how and when, we will deliver what. It's broad, a pain in the SSS to write (glad I'm not doing it) but entirely necessary.
To date, we have not paid ANY salary, to anyone.
Like me or hate me for it, but for the past (nearly) 20 years, I have consistently achieved a six figure salary. Further in my previous role, I achieved annual earnings in excess of 10x that which I will earn for my participation in the Swarm.
We like most startups, have bootstrapped, scrimped, begged, borrowed and burnt too much midnight oil... But we love it, and are all incredibly proud of what we have and are creating. And we hope that given just a little time, that we'll silence the critics, and deliver another piece of essential infrastructure that will help deliver on the vision of a stable, growing and vibrant distributed economy.
As Joel and Jef put together a better description of life the universe and everything Swarm, I will do my best to hold fort. I welcome your questions, and will really try to keep up.
There will be forums, and help desks, and better general support, but it will take some days to out together. Please give us a chance to deliver these things responsibly.
