“Challenge your limits, do not limit your challenges.”
Rod Butters is not from the tech world, but this quote applies directly to it. The most common career mistake is optimizing within a comfort zone rather than redefining which problems are worth solving. Leaving established roles at companies like Google and Microsoft to co-found a blockchain infrastructure company was not the safe path. But it was the right challenge.
The same principle applies at the technical level. Building threshold cryptography systems or tackling MEV at the protocol layer means choosing problems that most teams avoid because they are hard. The alternative, limiting your challenges to what feels manageable, is a slower form of stagnation. More about these career pivots and the thinking behind them is on the Bio page.