Jack Mallers, Ryan Gentry, and Dhruv Bansal in 2021 helped me understand all the things that could be built on Bitcoin.

Prior to that, the “digital gold” meme was so pervasive that it limited my imagination to only things that gold could accomplish.

Once I began seeing the Lightning builders who were working on all the new things Bitcoin could do, it became my full focus.

The fact that Lightning was so overlooked by crypto folks in 2021, and still is to some degree, pushed me to pursue Lightning work even further.