Alex Obadia, the co-founder of Ethereum infrastructure services company Flashbots, recently announced his departure from the company. In a letter addressed to the Flashbots team, Obadia revealed that his vision and value would be better served elsewhere and that he needed to leave in order to grow.
Obadia took to Twitter earlier today to bid farewell to his community, collaborators, and investors of Flashbots:
1/ after almost 3 years building flashbots, i've decided it's time for me to leave. thanks to my co-founders and the entire flashbots crew for 3 memorable years.
— alex (@ObadiaAlex) June 20, 2023
for anyone interested, here's the message i sent to the team earlier today. pic.twitter.com/MiH7OIRYbF
Flashbots was co-founded by Obadia back in 2020 to mitigate the negative externalities of current Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) extraction techniques and avoid the existential risks posed by MEVs to state-rich blockchains like Ethereum. Within months of its founding, Flashbots’ MEV Geth had been adopted by 85% of the network.
Obadia’s letter to his team highlighted that Flashbots had made a whopping $1.5 billion for Ethereum miners and validators. According to him, the firm helped keep Ethereum decentralized, open-source, permissionless, and censorship-resistant.
Talking about his decision to depart the company, Alex Obadia stated:
This is normal and happens in every growing organization. So please understand that my departure is not a reflection of the potential I see in you all, but rather an acknowledgment that organizations, like people, need to grow and change.
The Flashbots co-founder highlighted multiple serious challenges that lay ahead for the company, including Ethereum’s vulnerability to centralization from phenomena such as cross-domain MEV and exclusive order flow. Obadio also warned about Flashbots’ potential to become a threat, given its status as an incumbent in the sector.
Alex Obadia urged the Flashbots team to operate on the company’s core beliefs, which included addressing concerns and looming crises with regard to Ethereum. He also encouraged the team to rely on fundamental research in the interest of game-changing innovation. Lastly, Obadia urged team members to take initiative and recognize their individual impact.
