Out of the Ether. Matthew Leising

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СКАЧАТЬ his beliefs. Mr. Sayed was among his favorite teachers, along with a science teacher, Mr. Maharaj, who passed away in 2018. The holistic approach to subject matter appealed to Vitalik, as did learning new and ancient languages. In 10th grade Vitalik was already burning through calculus – a subject most students didn't get to until senior year. And it wasn't just that he knew how to solve differential equations: Vitalik solved them in ways unlike anyone else.

      “He had an algorithmic approach where the whole thing was step by step,” Mr. Sayed said. Whereas other students would arrive at the answer using the easiest way they could, Vitalik did it his way. “Whenever I used to mark his math tests, I'm not joking, his tests became my answer sheets because his answers were way more descriptive and in detail than the answers I had written.”

It wasn't just math; Vitalik excelled in all his subjects. Michelle Lefolii, one of the teachers who founded Abelard, taught Vitalik English. “He wrote a brilliant essay on formal experimentation in Moby Dick in grade 12 that I still use with my students to show them what a good grade 12 essay focused on literary analysis looks like,” she said.

      Titled “The Nature and Purpose of Formal Experimentation in Moby Dick,” the essay, which was printed in the 2011–2012 Abelard literary journal, could easily be from the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. He began it this way: “Reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick, it becomes clear that it is not merely a novel; it is sometimes a novel, sometimes a play, sometimes a sermon, sometimes a textbook, and sometimes a true encyclopedia, encircling the subject of whaling from every side, whether scientific, technical, historical, or cultural.” (He knew about encyclopedias by then, didn't he?)

      The ability that would propel him into the limelight once he found the Bitcoin world was becoming clear at Abelard: he was a damn good writer.

      “His writing always stood out because it was remarkably logical and always beautifully structured, but at the same time not academically stiff,” Ms. Lefolii said. With the support of Abelard and the students around him, Vitalik began to grow into himself. “He also just had a lot of fun, in everything, in his class discussions, in his writing,” she said. “He always had a great sense of humor.”

      He wrote short stories too, one of which – “On Christmas Presents and Friendship” – was published in the school's literary journal. In it four friends are exchanging Christmas gifts in a sort of secret Santa fashion. There are echoes of Vitalik's personality throughout the story, such as when his character Ulrich disdains the pursuit of materialism: “How could such trivial things arouse such euphoric happiness, when there was so much more to life than mindless consumerism, more than just money.” But he also seemed to enjoy taking diametric sides to the issue, as Ulrich also daydreams of being independently wealthy to the point where he is living off the interest from his fortune and not the fortune itself. By the end of the story, however, Vitalik makes clear that the assumptions each friend has made about the others are off base, that we can't truly know anyone as we know ourselves.

This part of Vitalik's biography might seem incidental, but I find it really illuminating. I think Vitalik is more of a writer than a computer programmer. I mean that as no slight to his coding chops, mind you. He is obviously gifted, to have been able to bring along so many brilliant programmers to make his projects successful. But his ease with fiction and narrative essay is somewhat far afield for many computer scientists. And then there's his affinity for foreign languages. He's a storyteller – and had to be, in many cases, to sell the world on his idea of what Ethereum could be. Paper and pen may be a refuge for him; sometimes in person he can shut down or become terse, such as when conflict arises. He's definitely a writer in that regard, as I recognize the same traits in myself.

      Abelard allowed Vitalik to feed his love of language. He already spoke Russian and English, and now he studied French, Latin, and Greek. Brian Blair was Vitalik's teacher for political science and philosophy as well as Latin and Greek. In philosophy, Mr. Blair said he often wanted to give Vitalik more than 100 percent on his tests because he went so far beyond what you'd expect from a high school student. In his 27 years of teaching, Mr. Blair said Vitalik stands alone.

      “I've seen a lot of very strong students, but one of the great things about him was that he utilized all the resources the school had, almost like nobody else,” he said. In Greek, Vitalik read Thucydides with Mr. Blair, something he hasn't done with any other student. The Greek historian and general wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, and while Mr. Blair often read Herodotus with advanced students, he avoids Thucydides because it's just too hard for most students who only have two years of Greek under their belt. “It was challenging for him, you could see the wheels turning,” Mr. Blair said. “It wasn't like the hot knife through butter, which it was almost all the rest of the time.”

      Freed in this secure environment, Vitalik began to emerge from the shell of social anxiety that had worried his parents just a few years before. “Abelard played a big huge role in his life, that's where he found his own peers,” said Mr. Sayed. He trusted Vitalik enough that during chemistry class, he'd let Vitalik sit in the back of the class, programming on his laptop. He always did the chemistry homework, and even with his attention elsewhere, Vitalik earned a 99 percent in the class. He was no longer the shy and awkward kid who'd started at Abelard, but had become one of the more popular kids in the school. He mentored other students and freely gave his time to help whoever needed it. “As a teacher, you see these kids and you know, these are the people who are going to change the world in a positive sense,” Mr. Sayed said. “He was one of them.”

Mr. Blair made a point that his other teachers repeated – Vitalik was never cocky or a smart-ass. “There was a real humility to him, despite his incredible abilities, and that's really unusual in a high school kid,” Mr. Blair said.

      Outside of class, Vitalik started entering math and computer programming competitions. These were contests like the Canadian Computer Competition and the National Olympiad for Informatics, where students, either individually or in teams, are given several hours to solve math or programming problems. Vitalik soon made a name for himself. In 2010, he placed in the Metro Division for Toronto in the University of Waterloo's Canadian Computer Competition with his partner, Zachary Devine. The next year, he made the honor roll of the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge and placed third in the CASCON High School Computer Programming Competition. In 2012, he was selected as one of four students to represent Canada at the International Olympiad in Informatics in Italy.

      At Abelard, he won just about every award there is to win. There was the Alexander Award for junior accomplishment in 2009, then the Archimedes Award for excellence in classics his sophomore year. As a junior he earned the Villon Award for excellence in French language and literature; as a senior he took home the Turing Award for excellence in computer science and computational mathematics and the Governor General's Award for the school's top graduating student. At graduation, as Vitalik was called up on stage time and again to collect his accolades, Mr. Sayed happened to be the teacher handing out awards. He gave Vitalik a good-natured hard time and said that the next time he called him up he should bring his backpack on stage since he was being overloaded with medals. The next time Vitalik was called, he brought his knapsack with him.

      Vitalik's presence is still felt at Abelard. In a montage of student portraits that hangs on the wall in the main office, a young-looking Vitalik smiles from the very middle of the arrangement, as though at the heart of the kids who have passed through its halls. In 2018, he donated $500,000 to the school, no strings attached. The school is using the money in part to create a scholarship for students who excel across all subject matters, as Vitalik did.

If one document, one piece of evidence, from that time in his life sums up his varied and transformational time at the school, a good bet would be his yearbook entry. It's by turns funny and academic and geeky. In his senior picture, he stares out of the frame with almost no expression on his face – certainly not a smile – his light blue eyes set in a steady gaze, a brush of acne across his cheeks. He is СКАЧАТЬ