From Google To Crypto

From Google To Crypto

Different people from the tech sector have packed up and left in search for a brighter future in the crypto space.

Kahina Van Dyke from Facebook moved to Ripple earlier in the year, Leo Chen searched for greener pastures away from Amazon for Harmony and so on.

But for Google, two main employees left the search engine giant for CoinTracker and OKCoin.

Chandan Lodha

Lodha is the co-founder of CoinTracker, an application which will calculate tax obligations on crypto portfolios. Leaving Google during the middle of last year, Lodha had been working as a product manager on Project Loon which looks to connect remote areas to the internet with balloons.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Lodha said that he was initially quite skeptical of cryptocurrency despite doing some work on a Bitcoin startup in 2012 and held digital currency for years. As those holding became more valuable, it seemed to be something a bit more serious.

He had already been working on putting together an idea with a fellow employee at Google who ended up becoming the co-founder. Even though they had initially started to look at a traditional fintech, his own experience in crypto pointed their business that way.

“One lesson we have brought from Google that has been really helpful in building CoinTracker is focusing on users to build very simple and intuitive products.”

Alex Feinberg

Alex Feinberg acts as the Director of Business Development at the exchange, OKCoin, despite initially leaving Google in order to join a security startup aimed at blockchain startups called Petram Security. Which means OKCoin is technically his second crypto position since Google.

Feinberg began at Google in 2011 doing numerous roles on the business side of things including Google Search and Google Assistant before he left in March this year. He worked with some massive brands including Bloomberg, NBA and NPR for the implementation of their content with major search and assistant platforms.

His reason for joining Google in 2011 was because he had a thesis that as long as central banks keep on printing money it would have outsize benefits in the more speculative parts of the economy such as tech. He said:

“The move into the crypto space was just a logical extension of this original decision.”

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