Programming Languages & Crypto

with @b1ackd0g @noahcitron @eddylazzarin @smc90

This episode is all about programming languages and crypto — and it’s for both existing blockchain & smart contract programmers, and also other non-web3 developers seeking to enter the space… and, for anyone who is just curious about how programming languages evolve and come into existence (as well as interested in the intersection of language, code, and expression!)

It’s a fun and fascinating ride, because we cover everything from differences (and similarities) in conventional programming languages vs. smart contract programming; discuss and debate the unique constraints (and opportunities) of blockchains; and also touch on topics such as formal verification, governance & community, tooling, cross-platform adaptation, and much much more… But we also dig into with the history, ebbs, and flows of traditional programming to today.

Our guests in this episode, in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, include:

• Sam Blackshear — co-founder and CTO of Mysten Labs (which is building foundations for the decentralized future of web3); Sam has a long history in programming languages from his PhD to working at Facebook (and Libra/Diem) to creating and being one of the authors of Move, an open-source programming language for building smart contracts;
• Noah Citron, smart contract & research engineer here at a16z crypto (who also recently authored a light client for Ethereum called Helios, and, won a challenging gas-optimization challenge with another partner here); and
• Eddy Lazzarin, head of engineering for a16z crypto; before that, Eddy was in software engineering at Netflix, as well as data engineering and data science at Facebook.

As a reminder, none of this is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information – including, a link to a list of our investments.