Four Reasons Why You Should Hire Former Crypto Marcomm Pros
I anticipate a strong prejudice against this group by non-crypto hiring managers. This would be dumb.
Years ago, a correspondent who made his name in the early days of the Web 1.0 era confessed that his connection to the dot-com world invited comparisons to startups and marketing campaigns that were easy to ridicule. The implication was that no good work or learnings could have possibly come out of an era that gave us the pets.com sock puppet. This created difficulty in finding employment.
Even as the price of Bitcoin continues to test local highs and bring much of crypto along with it, this past week saw significant layoffs at crypto industry giants OpenSea and Avalanche. Similar workforce reductions have occurred these past months as well, if a bit more quietly and at equally notable organizations.
Recently, a fellow crypto-compatriot lamented after several years in this industry “I just don’t think that crypto is my ‘forever home.’” So, whether by choice or attrition, I anticipate a lot of marcomm talent entering the marketplace soon.
I fear that hiring managers won’t give people with career histories in crypto a fair look. Here are four reasons why this is stupidly wrong.
They come up to speed quickly. I’ve worked in a lot of industries and I can’t think of any other one that requires marcomm leaders to be at least have a B-plus level of understanding of so many topics in order to be merely competent. This includes software development, economics, systems, community, psychology, and more. If they don’t have that level of knowledge, they need to get there fast. Crypto people’s brains have been swinging two bats in the on-deck circle for years.
They tend to be multidisciplinary within the broad marcomm category. As the great Robert Heinlein observed, “Specialization is for insects.” They might have stronger skills in some marcomm disciplines than others, but they’ll also have a lot less patience for swim lanes and such. That agility a good thing.
They understand complex, non-traditional working relationships. A while back, a business-development person publicly lamented on Twitter that he had trouble getting a meeting with Stani Kulechov, the founder of DeFi lending platform Aave.
In a long-since-deleted tweet, Kulchov offered the perfect response:
This exchange is emblematic of the broad sense with which crypto marcomm pros view the term “partnership” — as a software-facilitated continuum versus a narrowly defined legal construct. You need people who think this way. You’ll want more.
They will knife-fight on your behalf… if you’ve earned it. Contrary to the stereotype, most serious crypto marcomm pros join a project for reasons more substantial than “It’s a fair gig and if the project’s token moons, I might get a Lambo.” The best of them absolutely believe that their project will solve problems and change the world. They are proud to tell everyone they know. That’s the kind of passion you want in your company. However, that passion and the online following it may have built don’t immediately become company assets once the DocuSign’ed offer letter clears. If you want that level of enthusiasm, you have to earn it. Read them in on the overall strategy. Give them everything they need to be believers.
You don’t want to miss out on superb talent because of what dreary pundits, former teen heartthrobs, blatant hypocrites, or vapid politicians contribute to the discourse from a position of ignorance or incuriosity. The advantages for your talent mix are just too great.
Recommendations
“Brad Whitford on the highs and lows of Aerosmith’s 50-year history, and his unique chemistry with Joe Perry,” Guitar World — Phil’s first rule of PR is “Never mistake visibility for leadership.” (The second rule, of course, is “Take full advantage of the fact that almost nobody understands the first rule” but that’s a topic for another time.) While his role has often been relegated in the press to that of second-fiddle to his fellow guitarist Joe Perry, Brad Whitford has quietly been at the core of Aerosmith’s early success and phenomenal comeback. There are a ton of lessons in this piece related to team dynamics and, from a talent perspective, how individual contributors can help make an organization successful.
“The fight over return-to-office is getting dirty,” Business Insider — What I covered in irony last year, this piece analyzes with conviction. “Corporate statements about [return-to-office] decisions never seem to justify the shift beyond platitudes about ‘togetherness’ and vague references to ‘culture.’ Look deeper, though, and they reveal the rotten core of the mandates.” Tons of my friends now show up to an office just to be on Zoom calls all day and have their lunch stolen from the fridge. “Culture,” indeed.
“The four horsemen of centralization,” a16z — I recognize that the vast majority of Pennyheads actually aren’t in the crypto ecosystem and that sometimes it’s possible that I take the understanding of our most cherished values for granted. Chief among those values is the drive toward decentralization, which was also articulated by Steven Levy in his 1984 book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution: “Mistrust Authority — Promote Decentralization.” Ali Yahya of a16z provides an interesting way of looking at this topic through centralization’s dramatis personae.
Bottom Story
I’m not sure why, but I’ve suddenly been interested in re-exploring the shows I loved as a kid. Here’s the deepest of cuts.
(2023-11-12-1017: A previous version of this piece referred to Aave as a “yield platform” versus a “lending platform. This has been fixed.)