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Gavin Wood

Gavin Wood

Ethereum co-founder, Yellow Paper author, creator of Solidity

(Dec 2013 to Oct 2015)
Wikipedia

DEVCON0 self-introduction

Gavin Wood DEVCON0 introduction

Gavin Wood is an Ethereum co-founder who authored the Yellow Paper (Ethereum's formal technical specification), created Solidity, and led the C++ client development. He was one of three directors of Ethereum ÐΞV alongside Vitalik Buterin and Jeff Wilcke.

Early Development

Gavin started building the C++ implementation of Ethereum just days after Christmas 2013, around the same time Jeff Wilcke began the Go client. Bob Summerwill described the timing:

"Various other people sort of joined in on the efforts in December, including Gav and Jeff who started the C++ and Go clients, respectively, at the very end—at the very end of December, kind of Christmas projects for them both." — Bob Summerwill

The Yellow Paper

In April 2014, Gavin published the Yellow Paper—the formal mathematical specification of the Ethereum protocol. This document provided the rigorous technical foundation that enabled multiple independent implementations to achieve consensus.

Leadership and Vision

Gavin introduced himself in his first development update (October 2014):

"I'm Gav - together with Jeffrey Wilcke and Vitalik Buterin, I'm one third of the ultimate leadership of Ethereum ÐΞV."

He was based primarily in Zug, Switzerland (Ethereum HQ) during the early period, and set up the Berlin ETHDEV hub with a team including Aeron Buchanan, Sarah O'Neill, and Jutta Steiner.

Technical Contributions

Beyond the Yellow Paper, Gavin made foundational technical contributions:

Development Philosophy

Gavin documented Ethereum's unique development process in March 2015:

"So I'm not sure if this kind of development methodology has ever been applied to such an extreme before so I figured I'd document it. In a nutshell, it's sort of like test-driven triplet-programming development."

Christoph Jentzsch observed the contrast between development styles:

"There was always a fight between Geth and the C++ team about who's the best. And Gavin was having a big ego. And Jeff was more like, just give me the new spec, I just code it." — Christoph Jentzsch

DEVCON0

Gavin organized DEVCON0, the first Ethereum developer symposium, held in Berlin in November 2014. His opening statement set the tone:

"Progress has led to the concentration of power… Our mission therefore is decentralisation."

The Red Wedding

Gavin was present at the June 2014 "Red Wedding" meeting in Zug where Charles Hoskinson and Amir Chetrit were removed from leadership. He remained part of the continuing leadership group alongside Vitalik, Jeff, Joe Lubin, and Anthony Di Iorio.

Departure and Ethcore

During the Ethereum Foundation's 2015 funding crisis, tensions grew. Jacob Czepluch observed the early formation of what would become Ethcore:

"Sitting as the only person working on the Python client in that office in my small corner, I had a lot of fun kind of following how people came and went and went into Gavin's office and had a chat there with him and Jutta or whatever."

In January 2016, Gavin wrote his farewell post to the Ethereum Foundation:

"Like The Floyd's work, in the time I've been involved with Ethereum, I've sampled the full gamut of emotion… The road ahead is surely bumpy but we know what we have to do and the views, I expect, will be magnificent. Goodbye and thanks for all the fish."

Gavin founded Ethcore (later renamed Parity Technologies) in the UK with Björn Wagner and Jutta Steiner.

Primary Sources

This profile draws from multiple Early Days of Ethereum sources:

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