Owen Barnes
Hello! I'm the creator and main developer of Poly.site - an entirely new way to think about work.
I love to re-think established ideas from first principles - especially in the areas of work and computing.
I believe in free speech, decentralisation, the right to privacy, and open protocols. I also believe in using technology to make fast, beautiful, useful, convenient, sustainable products that actually help people en-mass.
I spend a lot of time trying to find the sweet spot between my ideals and making a practical impact.
Recent Talks
It was such an honor to give the closing talk about The Future of Personal AI at the Urbit Assembly in October 2023, Lisbon.
I also gave the closing talk about The Future of Apps at the Urbit Volcano Summit in March 2023, El Salvador.
I've been a big fan of The Network Age podcast for a while. I was honored to be invited on to talk about AI, Urbit and the future of computing:
This is my "Twelve Thoughts on the future of Web3" Mega Talk at EthBrno, November 2022. It covers L2s, mobile, open protocols, emotions, the economics of software, going beyond full-time work, Gun.js, Urbit, Holium, AI programming and more. Download the slides (PDF)
Recorded just before the start of the pandemic (19th December 2019), this talk covers the difficult subject of censorship in an immutable world.
I have given many talks about Bitcoin and Ethereum at technical conferences, The London Business School and Imperial College.
This 2018 talk is about the problems with modern software development and how to fix them. It was done well before the creation of Lens.protocol and GPT-3, both fundamental leaps forward.
Bio
Over the years I have been a full-stack web developer at Advertising.com (later bought by AOL), tech lead at numerous London-based startups, brief open-source project creator, and a technical adviser to McKinsey and Capco.
After discovering Bitcoin in 2013, then going to Devcon 1, I fell head-first into the world of web3 and decentralisation, believing it would change the world.
Today's crypto industry is, sadly, very different from the ideals of the past. But there are still plenty of good ideas there, and many great people, if you know where to look.
My main focus, for the foreseeable future, is to continue building Poly.site.