Julia Lipton, founding partner at Awesome People Ventures, recalls an engineer at her first startup who mined Bitcoin in the early 2010s and retired in a stretch limousine. The story captures how surreal early crypto wealth felt to those just entering the space.
What was kind of like your first, like, ooh, this is crazy moment in Web3?
I mean, I think my first, ooh, this is crazy moment is very early in that first startup at Quickseat. We had an engineer retire and leave in a stretch limo because he was mining Bitcoin. But in a stretch limo?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was like the funniest part. That was like, I think a few people, yeah. Like from work? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then someone, we'd have to validate if this is true, was like, oh no, this is the second time he's retired from mining Bitcoin, but he spent all this money. And this was like a 22-year-old kid. So I think that was my first, if you're asking like, what was my first like kind of like holy shit crypto moment? It was like the early 2010s being like, wait, what is this? And like—
Hey, that's so funny. I can't get over the stretch limo. For some reason, that's like the— I know. Well, that's kind of like the most—