When you got the email notification for this article, you were likely wondering if I was still in the business of writing. Or you asked yourself what I could have been up to. That's okay; I know it has been a while. I will, and I promise to, write a personal review of my year, narrating everything I have been up to and filling you in on the juicy details.
Moving forward, I think that one thing we can all agree on is that a lot of crazy things happened in 2022. If I were not trying to be modest, I would start this article with, "Holy F***K! What a year this has been! Whether personally or just from a collective point of view, 2022 was and is eventful.
If I were to describe my year, I would say I had a bipolar year. Regardless, hold your breath and relax; the next article after this will be titled "My year in review." I hope to share all the exciting details of my second year in the crypto and tech industries, covering my shortfalls, wins, struggles, and triumphs.
It took a bit of reflection on what could be best described as the most insane event this year to see that no one event could top my list. However, a few big things happened in the crypto and tech worlds and the world in general. Here are my top four events of the year 2022 so far, in no particular order.
FTX WTF:
Holy sh*t, Sam Bankman-Fried turned out to be a scammer. In all honesty, I would never have guessed that it would end like this for FTX, arguably the second-biggest crypto exchange in the world, before the collapse. Like most people, the event caught me by surprise, and I was utterly fazed for the whole week that it happened. Thankfully, I was not affected, as I did not hold any assets on FTX despite having the app downloaded on my iPhone. Sam seemed a genius and the least likely to be another faux-altruistic tech CEO who would gamble with user funds and explode a company worth billions. In what can be a consolation rather than a silver lining for those who were heavily affected by FTX's crumble, Sam Bankman-Fried, popularly known as "SBF," did not escape the year as a free man. He (SBF) had been arrested and charged with multiple criminal charges at the time of publication.
Twitter's new CEO is Elon Musk.
Unlike the FTX saga, if you paid close attention to Jack's activities at the latent part of last year and earlier this year, you could have predicted that he would sell Twitter. However, there is a slim chance that you would have been as accurate in predicting that Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and Space X, would be the one to buy the "bird app" or that he would receive some assistance from the largest crypto exchange in the world, Binance. Despite a fleeting back-and-forth debacle in the deal, Elon's interest in acquiring Twitter became a reality when he released $40 billion to take over Twitter's HQ in New York as the new CEO. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about my favorite app being owned by the world's richest man, who could also pass as the world's bluntest man. Twitter still feels the same to me, and I can only hope that when new features are introduced, they will be features that the user community will love. Feel free to email me or comment under the article about how you feel about Twitter's new CEO.
HEAVY LAYOFFS IN THE TECH INDUSTRY:
Let me start by stating that I was a victim of the tsunami-like layoffs in the tech and Web3 industries. It was not a pleasant experience, to say the least. I was not alone; many developers and non-developers who work in tech were affected, some of them friends. Multiple factors caused these layoffs, but the most significant one has to be macroeconomics or the state of the world's economy. These layoffs, although not coordinated, had some pretty big names, such as Meta, Facebook's parent company, which laid off over 11,000 employees. Twitter also laid off over 70% of its workforce right after Elon became CEO. Although the reason for Twitter's layoffs can be viewed through a lens other than macroeconomics, the fact remains that many people lost their jobs. I imagine that most of these people did not anticipate their fate at their respective workplaces or that they would be asked to leave their jobs involuntarily later in the year.
As someone affected, I understand the psychological impact of losing a job. I am rooting for all those currently out of work; I hope that life smiles at them again in the near future.
RUSSIAN INVADED UKRAINE:
We were not far into 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February. The ripple effects of the war are being felt in several parts of the world, not just in Ukraine. As of the time of writing, fatal casualties from the war had risen to over 41,000 people, a genuinely bizarre figure. Beyond fatalities or direct war damage, the Russian-Ukraine crisis plunged the world into a global economic crisis. Essential commodities such as oil and gas were heavily affected, raising gas prices across several independent countries. The decline in grain production worsened hunger and starvation in some third-world countries that relied on the imports of Ukrainian grain.
In addition, a good section of the world is deep into inflation. For example, my country, Nigeria, and our neighbor, Ghana, are both experiencing rising inflation and unemployment levels. The war has impacted global industries, such as the technology industry. Feel free to share your thoughts and questions about the Russian-Ukraine crisis.
Closing:
Significant breakthroughs in AI and science, the crypto bear markets, and the death of Queen Elizabeth II are some of the other arguably unprecedented events that occurred this year, despite mentioning four others above. The bottom line is that it was such a great year for people in tech, crypto, and the world. It is critical to look back as we approach the end of 2022, hoping to learn some important lessons and have better luck and fortune in the coming year. I am glad that I survived this year, along with each one of my subscribers who can read this article.
We keep going.
PS: This publication falls under my non-technical articles. More publications like these will appear in the future, as I find them crucial to sharpening my writing skills and keeping things as enjoyable as possible.