Some speculated with the possibility that Google was attempting to hire Buterin for a secret cryptocurrency project, but it didn’t seem to be the case. Buterin says that a Google representative tried to hire him at an intern’s salary, probably because he matched the company’s recruitment profile.
In May, the founder of cryptocurrency project Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, asked on Twitter if he should quit ethereum to work for Google. The post contained what appeared to be a job offer from Google that said: “I hope you are doing well and enjoying the weekend! Google make sense for you now or in the near future.”
Buterin’s tweet was followed by increasing speculation that Google might be interested in recruiting the 24-year-old founder for a secret cryptocurrency project. Not really. At a recent event in San Francisco, Buterin said Google did reach out to him, but that it wasn’t for a high-profile position.
“I hope we all realize that this was a joke. Some random HR person from Google emailed me, most likely because some machine learning algorithm analyzed my GitHub and saw that I had some high score in the international Olympiad,” Buterin said. “Apparently, I fit the blueprints as a great candidate to hire at an intern salary.”
It’s true that Google pays its interns comparatively well, it’s unlikely that it would have been a compelling offer for Ethereum’s founder, whose current net worth is thought to be between $100 million to $200 million.
