Vitalik, pleasure! Fellow just some guy here too. I have a question you probably don’t care to think about, but one that I think about a lot. Every day actually. And pardon the long type - I can’t help myself.
I just graduated from university and I’m an auditor at one of the Big4. And my complete, unrelenting passion the last 8 months has revolved around blockchain technology, Distributed Ledgers, hash functions, and everything to do with it all. I don’t understand a lick of it, but I am trying. Slowly but surely.
My question is. Am I crazy for thinking my whole job as an auditor will be so different in 10’years that it won’t even be the same profession? And I don’t mean this bad a bad thing. I think the world will be a lot better off with the auditing profession changing. The whole profession needs a change. We need to provide an actual service to the client or to the citizens out there instead of just having the audit be a litigation and a process that doesn’t help anyone. (e.g Facebook being audited from the “most prestigious” firm in the world and saying their internal controls around privacy were up to standard)
If there is ONE profession where blockchain really disrupts an industry, it has to be the audit of financial statements, no?
I can’t talk about this stuff with anyone at my work. Because they take offense to someone who just started 8 months ago that this technology around Distributed Ledgers will disrupt our profession more than anything else in the next 10 years. So I have decided to just keep my head down and learn by myself in my free time.
How do you think the audit of companies in the private chains will work in your opinion? Hopefully we will get some uniform governance and accounting standards. Although I always go back to this point - will we even need accounting standards? The accounting aspect of all of this is where I have trouble wrapping my head around most.
I have been studying about smart contracts. As I can see those being able to be audited. And I have had ZK ledgers (zksnarks you may call them?) in the back of my mind that I will be studying up on as well.
I just can’t help but think my profession as an auditor will be completely wiped out in 10 years. It’s equally exciting and scary. Thank you for all that you have done so far. And the ethics you realize are so important to the start of something like this. I think deep down you know exactly the magnitude of what exactly it is you created. And just how much Ethereum can change the world. Not only in what it does, but providing the platform for a myriad of other companies to be built on top of it that can also change the world. It’s all really inspiring. Thanks for being you.
p.s.any particular kind of music you enjoy listening to nowadays to unwind? (Or to rage to - that’s fun too.)