Good morning. Robert Leshner has built one of the essential cornerstones of decentralized finance (DeFi) with Compound, a lending protocol. That’s important. As are the series of investments he’s made in fledging DeFi projects through a “scout” fund he co-founded, Robot Ventures. But you might say his affect and personality are just as influential. In late September, when the autonomous Compound protocol was hacked and mistakenly paid out $80 million worth of COMP, Leshner handled the situation poorly – at first. He briefly threatened users with Federal action, until collecting himself and asking people who erroneously received Compound payments to reimburse the protocol. It was, as Leshner says, a “moral dilemma” and shows how even when robots run the code, humans are still central players.
Most Influential 2021: Robert Leshner
