===Leaving Matter Labs / ZKSync=== 1. My Europe Trip Just a couple days back, I came home after soaking in the Euro summer in all its glory. Aperol Spritz. Pizza. Pasta. 20k steps a day. Wiping my ass with a paper. Getting mistaken for a store clerk mid-lunch… the whole jazz. It was an amazing experience, where I learnt something profound about life from the Europeans. On the surface, (western) Europeans look “lazy” with their siestas, 3-hour lunches, early shop closures and whatnot. Look closer, and you’ll see them running 10K at 5 a.m., climbing mountains in top-tier gear, or at their desks by 7 a.m. Seems contradictory, but truly it is not. This is about, Being Unapologetically Yourself. Want to work out and take care of your fitness? I'll run. Want to sit back and take things slow? I'll eat lunch w/ frens for hours Want just enough money to be able to enjoy life? I'll close my shop whenever I feel like. This philosophy resonates deeply w/ me. I’ll be back to Europe. No doubt. ---- 2. Bye Bye *activates LinkedIn voice* In other news, during that trip... I parted ways with Matter Labs /ZKSync. I used to be part of their internal security team and I'd forever be grateful for the amazing things I learnt there. Right from interpersonal skills to deep technical expertise around the security of various aspects of a blockchain infrastructure company. I'd say that even though I gained a fuckton of clarity around how to navigate the "monitoring and incident response" needs of a large, complex and especially a decentralised organisation.... The biggest gift I received from having worked at ML was the clarity of thinking I imbibed working with @vladbochok1. He has taught me an ocean of things about how to think about the security of complex systems that I will always carry with me moving forward. And a big shoutout to @_bendersgreat_ and @SampkaTech for ever having taken a chance on me. ---- 3. Motivation But here’s the thing: life’s short, and you have to do you. IMO, moving out of horrible circumstances to better ones is painful, but relatable to a lot of people, hence that kind of struggle is popular in mainstream media. However, what is much more painful is to leave something really good, for something that can potentially be great. While I was learning a lot at ML and contributing to the success of the company... I FEEL this very fiercely inside my bones that I can DO MORE. MUCH MORE. So I have decided to go down the indie path. I have LOTS of ideas around AI x Security and would be pursuing a couple of projects there. I believe that we are currently simply scratching the surface of what is possible in web3 security with AI, and I plan to push this to its limits. How will I sustain myself? Skills. I’ll hop into public and private audit contests when needed. In fact, I’m already on a private audit and separately have found a couple of crits (unconfirmed) in a blockchain node (with heavy assist from LLM agents). And of course, I’m joining my friends at @zk_bankai more actively. They are already a bunch of amazing folks, and I'll be bringing my firepower in ZK, smart contracts, security tooling, monitoring, incident response, and more for them. Thank you & Godspeed. ---- 4. TL;DR + Europe is a vibe + No longer at ML + Going deeper with @zk_bankai + Independent work ahead + AI × Security acceleration mod