Original author:Jaleel，BlockBeats
The history of a company is the history of changes in its senior management. In the past three months, there have been major changes in Paradigms senior personnel that deserve attention.
According to BlockBeats, Paradigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam announced his resignation today and will remain in the company as a general partner. Five days ago, Frankie and Caitlin Pintavorn were promoted to Paradigm Research Partners. Not only that, according to BlockBeats, CFO Nathan Apsel and General Counsel Reena Jashnani-Slusarz of crypto venture capital firm Paradigm resigned in mid-September.
Fred Ehrsam: From Managing Partner to General Partner
Ehrsam, co-founder and former managing partner of Paradigm, was born in Boston and is a legend. He played video games professionally in high school and was an avid World of Warcraft player, where he was introduced to the concept of Crypto. In 2010, Ehrsam graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a bachelors degree in computer science and a minor in economics. After graduating from Duke University, Ehrsam became a foreign exchange trader at the New York investment bank Goldman Sachs. Also worked as a portfolio analyst at BlackRock in New York.
The opportunity to officially enter the crypto industry was when Ehrsam learned about Bitcoin from a paper and started trading in his free time.
In 2012, cryptocurrency enthusiasts and traders were often active on the Bitcoin subreddit, where Ehrsam and Brian Armstrong met and co-founded Coinbase in a San Francisco apartment. Ehrsam reportedly contacted his alma mater, Duke University, to invest in Coinbases 2015 Series C round of financing, increasing Dukes initial investment a hundredfold.
When Ehrsam served as CEO of Coinbase, he led its development from 2012 to 2017 into a company with 13 million users and a valuation of $1.6 billion. In late 2017, Ehrsam transitioned from day-to-day operations at Coinbase to focus on building blockchain-based applications.
In January 2017, Ehrsam announced that he was leaving the company but would remain on the board of directors. He also reportedly owned 8.9% of Coinbase stock as of April 2021 and was assigned to the companys audit committee ahead of its April 2021 public offering. Interestingly, an analysis of regulatory filings as of May 27, 2022 shows that since Coinbase went public, four executives, including Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, have made a total of approximately $1.2 billion in gains from selling shares.
Because of his legendary experience, Ehrsam was also used as a prototype in the novel Kings of Crypto: A Startup Seeks to Bring Cryptocurrencies Out of Silicon Valley and onto Wall Street.
After leaving Coinbase, Ehrsams entrepreneurial journey did not stop there. In 2018, Ehrsam co-founded cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm with former Sequoia Capital investor Matt Huang. At Paradigm, which focuses on investments in cryptocurrency and related businesses, Ehrsam holds the position of managing partner.
Left: Matt Huang; Right: Ehrsam
Now, Ehrsam has chosen to resign as managing partner at Paradigm and remain as general partner.
As for the reason for this, Ehrsam said on his social media: This change has allowed me to free up some time to explore areas of science that I am personally passionate about. From Hal Finney and cryogenics to vitalik and Brian Armstrongs recent longevity research With support, interest in crypto on the biological frontier has been around for a long time. I have personally been investing in and supporting biological research for many years and am excited to expand these efforts.”
CFO Nathan Apsel leaves Paradigm
Nathan Apsel, former CFO of Paradigm, is also a man with rich and colorful experiences. Prior to joining Paradigm, Nathan was the Chief Financial Officer of 8 VC. Previously, Nathan was a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), responsible for the asset management business. Holds a masters degree in accounting from the University of Oregon.
On September 2, according to an internal email obtained by The Block, crypto venture capital firm Paradigm CFO Nathan Apsel and general counsel Reena Jashnani-Slusarz will leave their positions in mid-September. Jashnani-Slusarz joined Paradigm in 2021 as GC and previously served as Managing Director and Deputy General Counsel at Elementum Advisors, LLC.
After leaving Paradigm, Nathan worked at Maveron as Chief Financial Officer. At Maveron, Nathan provides leadership in all areas of finance, operations and strategic projects.
Current chief legal officer Katie Biber will continue to lead the legal team, and the company will announce a new chief financial officer in the coming months, according to a person familiar with the matter. Paradigm recently hired Alex Grieve, head of policy team, and Cookie Wiese, head of human resources, so overall headcount remains unchanged.
Two newly appointed partners
Five days ago, according to BlockBeats, co-founder Matt Huang announced two personnel appointments on social platforms, promoting two new partners, Caitlin Pintavorn (@caitlinxyz) and Frankie (@FrankieIsLost).
It is understood that Caitlin Pintavorn was previously an investor at Insight Partners, focusing on cryptocurrency. Before joining Insight, Caitlin worked at PathAI and Two Sigma and holds a bachelors degree in economics from Brown University.
Caitlin Pintavorn’s experience entering the encryption industry is also very interesting. When the global pandemic caused people’s lives to shift online, Caitlin Pintavorn began to look for a community on the Internet. Eventually, she found her niche in the crypto space on Twitter and Discord servers. Here, she discusses cryptocurrencies, designs NFTs, and conducts DAO research with many wise men on the Internet. She believes that this field is full of vitality and creativity. As an investor at Insight Partners, she gained further access to the space by connecting with hundreds of founders,
Additionally, Frankie (@FrankieIsLost) has been promoted to Research Partner at Paradigm. Prior to this, Frankie worked as a machine learning engineer, quantitative developer, and trader, with degrees in computer science and econometrics.
Behind the high-level personnel changes, what is the future of Paradigm?
Following the departure of Fred Ehrsam, the entire cryptocurrency community has different views on Paradigm’s future. Some saw this as a sign of the companys decline, while others saw it as a new beginning. Changes in high-level personnel often mean strategic adjustments and changes in direction of the company. However, for Paradigm, facing such changes, there are actually more opportunities and challenges hidden. So, behind the high-level personnel changes, what else happened at Paradigm?
Paradigms internal and external impact
The big thing that happened to Paradigm last month was that its investment project Reflexer openly mocked Paradigm and asked ParadigmRepurchasedHe will directly and permanently destroy 50% of the FLX tokens he holds, and choose to turn against him and move forward alone.
Sarah: What did Paradigm do? Ameen: Will be revealed, but not now. Source: Discord
In Reflexers Criticism, Reflexer mentioned that Paradigms investment in FTX led to the regression of the encryption industry, and that after the Paradigm official website was updated, it deleted many descriptions of crypto and web3, and turned to frontiers including AI. technology.
Related Reading:Turning against Paradigm, Reflexer chooses to go alone》。
Although it did not reply to Reflexer or apologize to it, Paradigm chose to return to encryption in July and wrote crypto back to the official website. Matt Huang, one of the partners of Paradigm, even wrote:express, the previous update to the site was a bug and they never left encryption.
Whenever the current situation of Paradigm is mentioned, the official website update incident cannot be bypassed. It can be said that this official website update has left a deep mark on the history of Paradigm. But the fact reflected behind this, or similar to the reason for the personnel changes, is that there are differences among Paradigm team members, and internal management does not seem to be perfect.
Securities lawyer brain genius (@LogicalBTC) also expressed similar views on social media: The chief financial officer has left, the legal director has left, and the managing partner is about to step down. Paradigm actually promoted a young man who looks like 24 years old As a partner, this person has not worked at any fund (including Paradigm) for more than 1 year. They even appointed their own policy lawyer as the head of the legal team, which is obviously unrealistic.”
Paradigm doesnt really redefine whats possible in venture capital, in fact they dont seem to know how to run the business. Fred Ehrsam is undoubtedly a legend in the industry. But no amount of thoughtful writing can hide the dire state of Paradigm, and all signs point to it being a mess. ”brain genius then added.
Layout Encryption Policy Research
Against this background, Paradigms business layout and development will receive great attention. BlockBeats found that while personnel changes were frequent, Paradigm seemed to be laying out policy research.
According to BlockBeats, on September 26, crypto venture capital firm Paradigm announced on Tuesday the launch of what they called a “first-of-its-kind” policy laboratory that will become a “gathering place” for academics, policy experts, lawyers, and technical experts. The team will produce cutting-edge research, commentary and advocacy on the most important policy issues facing crypto and other cutting-edge technologies.
As part of its launch program, Paradigm Policy Lab announced two inaugural academic fellows, Primavera De Filippi of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center and Agostino Capponi of Columbia University, who will study “regulatory equivalence.” — A term used to describe “the comparability of legally constrained and technologically constrained systems and how the same policy outcomes can be achieved through regulatory or technical architecture.”
Over the past year, Paradigm has established itself as a policy leader, from fighting for cryptocurrencies in court to convening opinion leaders, Policy Lab co-director Rodrigo Seira said in interviews and blog posts. to publishing policy-focused research, everything from that.”
Obviously, Paradigm is exploring legal supervision more frequently. Pushing the time forward to July this year, Paradigm appointed a new head of government relations, Alexander Grieve. Grieve reportedly has more than a decade of experience in Washington politics and financial policy, as well as cryptocurrency lobbying experience while working at Tiger Hill Partners. Paradigm said the addition of Grieve will push for clearer government regulation.
Related Reading:Paradigm launches policy lab, wants to use capital to influence future encryption policy?》
Paradigm’s history and present are filled with stories worth exploring, filled with passion, controversy, and twists. The recent departure of Fred Ehrsam, the promotion of new partners, and disputes with investment projects all reflect the challenges Paradigm faces in its pursuit of innovation and leadership in the industry. Every step is accompanied by risks and unknowns.
