Taking a look into the developer of Filecoin as well as the developer of the technology they are using (IPFS), Protocol Labs has a large team of 334 employees across the world according to their LinkedIn. Although they recently had a cut of 21% of their staff due to a 'challenging economic downturn', the project team should still be worth looking into.
The first person I managed to find was Juan Benet. He is the Founder and CEO of Protocol Labs, and comes from a Computer Science background with Stanford, graduating in 2012 with a Masters. He has been heavily involved in the startup and tech space, being the co-founder and CTO of Loki Studios, a publishing and design studio for mobile games as well as being the founder of Athena, a project focusing on 'advancing the state of human knowledge', although it had been put on hold indefinitely. It looks like he has abandoned the project since Protocol Labs has become a success, being part of YC S14. I say this because back in 2012, where focusing on AI is not prominent, it is a good time to pick up the project or potentially integrate it into Protocol Labs with the advancements.
With that being said, it also shows that Juan is forward looking, being ready to focus on AI and trying to push Athena way back in 2012. It provides me confidence on Protocol Labs and Filecoin's future, with a forward looking and entrepreneurial, technical background CEO.
Filecoin is also managed by Filecoin Foundation (FF), which facilitates the governance and supports the growth of the Filecoin ecosystem and the Filecoin network. There is a strong advisory body that are also respective CEOs/Founders/Directors of other work, notably Joe Lubin, the Founder of ConsenSys, and also the co-founder of Ethereum, and Alex Feerst, the CEO of Murmuration Labs.
Filecoin being managed by both Protocol Labs as well as Filecoin Foundation sets the tone that they are extremely serious in their product building, and for the strong support and core team I am giving it 5 stars. Show Less
