EKMH Innovators Interview Series
An interview series spotlighting global tech influencers, disruptors, visionaries, and of course, innovators.
Happy 2020! The EKMH Innovators Interview series continues with Tech Entrepreneur and Geeq Founder and CDO Stephanie So. While co-founding Geeq, the Princeton grad was a Senior Lecturer and a Research Assistant Professor of Economics and Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. When Geeq launched in 2018, So became responsible for positioning the blockchain platform entrant as a unique offering in an already crowded field of blockchain projects aimed toward enterprise solutions and mass adoption. In addition, So was an original co-founder of The Geeq Project and The Geeq Corporation.
Geeq, a multi-blockchain platform secured by its Proof-of-Honesty™ protocol (PoH), claims to be safe enough for the most valuable data, cheap enough for IoT and flexible enough for any use. Designed as an ecosystem of interoperable blockchains, Geeq was built with real world demands for security, scalability, new business models and consumer confidence in mind. Geeq developed its proprietary validation protocol PoH in order to be invulnerable to attacks by centralized mining pools, backdoor changes to committed transactions, groups of wealthy stakeholders and even hostile state actors.
According to Geeq’s whitepaper, “PoH empowers users who hold tokens on the platform to determine for themselves whether the network of validating nodes is behaving honestly. This allows Geeq to provide 99% Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) while delivering rapid transaction finality at extremely low transactions cost. An additional protocol based on economic mechanism design gives Geeq Strategically Provable Security (SPS).” Geeq also recently partnered with Morpheus Labs to further reduce the costs and time spent on prototyping and deploying DApps on Geeq as well as to bring Geeq’s technical expertise to Morpheus Labs’ adoption initiatives.
Keep reading to learn more about Geeq and So’s view on issues facing the tech and blockchain sectors including PoH, the democratization of time, blockchain decentralization versus centralization and leading diverse teams. Our interview follows.
EKMH: With the proprietary protocol Proof-of-Honesty™ (PoH) Geeq aims to set itself apart from the existing field of blockchain platforms. What is your vision for blockchain?
Stephanie So: My vision is to build a platform where participants always have a clear view and equal access to any information in a transaction that involves them. I’m sure that sentence requires some context. An issue that bothers me, to my core, is when I see a subset of people hoard knowledge in order to use it against others.
A public blockchain platform, and blockchains as a service generally, provides the opportunity to level that informational advantage. Now, some people may argue that all blockchains do that already, but I disagree. Whether intentional or not, there are many blockchain projects in which deep knowledge of blockchain technology can be used even against people who think they know a lot about blockchain. Consider all the ways blockchains have been attacked, to most users’ complete surprise and dismay.
Geeq is a blockchain platform that explicitly makes the same, correct conclusions available to everyone, regardless of their knowledge base or any other exceptional resources. Those with extra knowledge can go through the work to double check for themselves, but they cannot gain an advantage they can exploit by doing so. There is no mining, so there is no advantage from being able to buy a fancy rig, there is no free riding because nodes are paid at a piece rate for the work they do, and there is no opportunity to selectively favor (or ignore) transactions because of some attribute that can be tied to the sender.
EKMH: Why Geeq?
Stephanie So: If I let my inner idealist out for a moment, I think the Geeq platform is an economic game changer. Asymmetric information is reduced and the rules of the game are easy to understand. Honest behavior is rewarded positively, systematically, and automatically. Dishonest behavior is a purely losing proposition and, even if a nation state tried to bring down a network, the Geeq protocol allows its users to find the honest blockchain that was already distributed so the blockchain activity can pick up where they left off. I think Geeq blockchain is, quite possibly, as transformative as the democratization and standardization of time.
Imagine being a poor worker who is not able to have an accurate sense of time. Timepieces used to be hand made and only available to the very wealthy. Well, if you can’t tell time and you want to be paid, then you have to stay at work until the boss tells you it is ok to leave. Your boss could be honest and trustworthy and tell you the right time and everything could be fine. Or your boss could be dishonest and hide the time, and you might be tricked into working an extra hour more than agreed. Now, imagine that accurate watches would become cheap enough that you could afford one as well. Knowing that you have the same, verifiable information, your boss has no choice but to agree with you about the time. Suddenly, you are both on the same playing field; you each can hold each other accountable. A change in technology — in this case, an affordable timepiece— that most people no longer even consider, not only affected the way business as usual was done, but the innovation also created previously unimaginable opportunities for people to interact with each other. Ultimately, that change in technology opened new pathways for social and economic mobility.
EKMH: Where do you see opportunities for innovation and profit?
Stephanie So: Blockchain, at its core, is a kind of database. As an industry, we have to learn how to build and use these blockchain databases better and show that using them is more desirable than the alternative.
Geeq’s blockchain technology is completely decentralized. What that means is we are targeting opportunities where we can identify that centralized databases do not work well, or it is prohibitively expensive to develop and maintain one that satisfies all parties. One test we apply is whether there is a business problem where parties need to coordinate but have competing objectives. Examples in supply chain finance, commercial insurance markets, and internal but inefficient payment arrangements come to mind. In those cases, the opportunities for innovation and profit come from enabling our clients to come up with better tailored solutions as measured by their specific performance metrics and their requirements for adoption. The fact that we’ve built Geeq around a core business that succeeds, grows, and innovates as our clients do gives us all an incentive to build in a virtuous spiral.
Geeq also enjoys a unique advantage – to my knowledge - when it is to everyone’s benefit to expose an indisputable record of private information ex post. In other words, deploying a blockchain on Geeq can lower costs for any business that faces the risk that consumers, regulators, or courts may demand they produce records where they can prove they have not tampered with the data. Currently, the cost of protecting oneself or establishing proof is extremely high. One such market where we know we can offer solutions is by combining IoT with blockchain.
EKMH: How and in which sector(s) has Geeq focused to achieve mass adoption?
Stephanie So: We are focused on becoming the leader of microCommerce: to use our unique combination of technical, industry, finance, crypto, and economic experience to deliver such finely tuned solutions that our users will not be able to explain how they ever functioned without them.
EKMH: What is Geeq’s roadmap for releasing and implementing new software within the next two years? Five years?
Stephanie So: In the next two years, Geeq’s roadmap is to continually produce and release prototype and production code, both to establish the platform and develop APIs for broader adoption, and to work on our first BaaS solutions. Our CEO Ric Asselstine, our Chief Architect Lun Shin Yuen, Lead Dev Ian Smith, and Director of DApp Development Andres Navarre would be able to give better details on their plans to exponentially scale up and scale out.
EKMH: What issues are currently facing the blockchain community?
Stephanie So: There are still a lot of communication issues. The technology developed faster than the vocabulary could evolve from the very beginning, and now we have a lot of legacy terms that mean different things to different people. There is a real need to update and refine and articulate the ideas so we can share what we know more effectively. Geeq is going to take a more active role in doing so. And, of course, there is the ongoing issue of regulatory uncertainty about tokens, which is a real drag on projects like ours who are trying to conduct everything in the most compliant way possible.
EKMH: What is the future of decentralization? How can performance be increasingly improved and scaling supported?
Stephanie So: The future of decentralization is very bright. It is an avenue that was not technologically possible 15 years ago, so I always think about how blockchain can open doors that were closed before. I think many activities will still need to be centralized. I’d like to see a reduction in the us versus them narrative over decentralization versus centralization. There are economic and social arguments for both types of activities. As the menu of options increase, we can start to pick and choose more efficiently.
I believe performance has to be defined and measured in order to improve. I think more emphasis has to be placed on value produced rather than price movements. I know there are people who are working hard to educate and spread these messages, but they seem to be outnumbered by the people who continue to broadcast the same kinds of “HODL” and “all altcoins are useless” narratives. I suspect those loud voices are only preaching to the choir at this point. Probably both performance and scaling would accelerate if the discussion shifted more to how to improve the fundamentals instead of analysis about what to trade.
EKMH: The team has noted that “Geeqs” come in a variety of shapes and sizes, with a wonderful variety of interests, professions, and specialties. What advice do you have for effectively leading richly diverse teams?
Stephanie So: In some sense, I think you have to know when to lead and when to follow, and be very clear about which role you are taking at any given time. Everyone I work with at Geeq shines at something and I think our atmosphere is healthy because we all make a real effort to understand what each person brings to the table.
Feedback in my group often takes the form of “I need help with” or “Do you mean ..?”. I know we share common values but come from different backgrounds, so my default when someone makes a request or has a question is that they’re probably framing it from a point of view that I haven’t considered, which makes me intrinsically curious about what and why they’re trying to raise a specific point.
EKMH: How has your academic background as a social scientist benefited you outside the classroom?
Stephanie So: I live in a constant state of “the theory suggests this” and “the evidence is inconclusive so try harder”. It’s very motivating. I always want to know how to do better. At the same time, my training is in economics, so I do my best to optimize.
EKMH: What interview advice do you have for those considering a career in blockchain?
Stephanie So: If you are prepared to work in an area that is uncharted, demands a high degree of intellectual honesty in your work, is addictive, all-consuming, and a team sport, go for it.
EKMH: Please share a few life-changing books that you’ve read recently.
Stephanie So: I’m going to have to plead the 5th. (I do all my reading online and in fairly short format! In the popular realm, I read Alison McCauley's Forbes article, "Can Blockchains Give You Competitive Advantage?" before the holidays and was very impressed with her insight.