Gavin Wood

Bio

• Studied software engineering at University of York. Specializes in C++ and holds lifelong interest in game theory.
• "Gavin began originating blockchain technology as Co-Founder and CTO of Ethereum. He invented fundamental components of the blockchain industry, including Solidity, Proof-of-Authority consensus, and Whisper. At Parity, Gavin currently leads innovation on Substrate and Polkadot. He coined the term Web 3.0 in 2014 and serves as President of Web3 Foundation."
• Coded Ethereum's first functional implementation
• Wrote the Yellow Paper
• Initially invented and proposed Solidity in August 2014

• From Decrypt (28-7-2020):

"British computer programmer Gavin Wood was introduced to Bitcoin—and, subsequently, Vitalik’s whitepaper—by Bitcoin evangelists Amir Taaki and Johnny Bitcoin. He got in touch with Buterin, and offered to write an implementation of Ethereum in the C++ programming language. He met the first five co-founders in Miami, just before the North American Bitcoin conference in January 2014, where Ethereum was due to be unveiled.

After being the first to get an Ethereum testnet up and running, he demanded a place at the top table. The others agreed, but not without some pushback. In April 2014, he published the Ethereum Yellow Paper, a technical specification of Vitalik’s white paper, and later proposed Ethereum’s native programming language Solidity. 

“He really does believe that he was a main builder of Ethereum, and arguments do support that,” said Russo. "He believes that he had an even more important role in Ethereum than Vitalik—to some extent.”

Wood continued to work on the Ethereum code, via Parity, the company he founded with his partner Jutta Steiner. But now he is solely focussed on the Web3 Foundation, and its interoperability blockchain project Polkadot—a competitor to Ethereum."

Occupations

• Ethereum co-founder, former CTO of Ethereum and then head of EthCore, one of the top providers of blockchain-powered enterprise solutions and developer of the Parity client.
• Polkadot; founder and ex-CEO, moved into Chief Architect role (22-10-2022)
• Parity Technologies, founder
• Co-founder Gridsingularity
• Melonport, Technical Advisor
• OmiseGo, advisor

Investments

• Radicle; one of the backers named as an early supporter (17-2-2021).