Coinbase’s first employee was hired after he emailed his undergraduate thesis on bitcoin to the founders – and was paid in cryptocurrency for 3 years

Coinbase’s first employee was hired after he emailed his undergraduate thesis on bitcoin to the founders – and was paid in cryptocurrency for 3 years

Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder of a cryptocurrency hedge fund, was the first employee at the biggest US bitcoin exchange, Coinbase.

After graduating from New York's Vassar College with an undergraduate degree in Sociology, Carlson-Wee decided to send an "annoyingly long" cold email to Coinbase's founders.

He detailed his hiring experience in a 2016 interview with startup accelerator, Y Combinator.

As one of Coinbase's earliest users, Carlson-Wee grew determined to work with the company. He sent his roughly 90-page undergraduate thesis on "Bitcoin and the larger implications of open source finance" to the founders, hoping to land an interview.

"I literally cold emailed jobs@coinbase and said, 'I love bitcoin. Here's my thesis. I'll do any job," he said.

About five minutes after his email, Carlson-Wee heard back from one of the cofounders, Fred Ehrsam, who asked if they could hop on a Skype call.

They chatted for about 20 minutes, and the crypto enthusiast was asked to come prepared with two presentations at an in-person interview in San Francisco.

"The first should explain something complicated you know very well. The second should outline your vision for Coinbase," Carlson-Wee said he was told.

He said his first presentation was on the pharmacological induction of lucid dreams and the second was