Burger Flipping and De-financialization

Back in 2014, aside from flipping burgers for minimum wage, Allen’s only ‘real job’ had been as a software engineer. He was studying a degree in maths and philosophy and was well read in Austrian economics.

Naturally, this made him the perfect target for Bitcoin. 

However, it took a long time for him to appreciate the interplay of game theory and the physical workings of the system. Although he thought it was obviously interesting, even worth investing in as a moonshot, he worried it would probably be shut down at some point if it became popular enough.

Leading up to graduation, he considered a PhD in mathematics but accidentally ended up working as an Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford & Co. He went on to lead the firm’s investments in Blockstream and Lightning Labs, and realised that what truly excited him was working in the Bitcoin space.

After being involved personally, but not professionally, for some time, he decided to leave his job at Baillie Gifford to start building his own Bitcoin company and co-author of one of the deepest Bitcoin books to be written, ‘Bitcoin is Venice: Essays on the Past and Future of Capitalism’.

Despite his background in finance - or perhaps because of it! - what Allen is most looking forward to is the de-financialization of our economy, as human energy is directed towards genuinely productive uses in a hard-money world. A re-birth of twelfth century Venice. 

Allen Farrington is one of the most original minds in the Bitcoin space and Jordan Peterson even went as far as to say he ‘might be frighteningly smart.’

Bitcoin is lucky to have him on board, and so are we at CowShed.