Former Docker CEO to Lead Crypto-Powered Distributed Storage Startup

Decentralized data storage startup Storj is hoping to boost its growth with the hire of a new executive chairman and interim chief executive.

The new appointment, Ben Golub, formerly CEO at open-source software firm Docker, will oversee Storj as it continues to scale up its services, said founder Shawn Wilkinson.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Wilkinson described Golub as a “dream candidate” due to his past experience building out open-source companies, in particular.

“We came to a point where we really wanted to accelerate Storj to the next level … and push to the edge, so we thought ‘let’s bring on someone who's done this before many times,’” he explained.

Storj, which was founded in 2014, currently has 90,000 "farmer" nodes in 200 countries, with 69,000 registered users and more than 240 million transactions each month.

Building the decentralized storage platform is “incredibly important,” Golub said, adding “it was natural for me to get excited about Storj from a technology standpoint – open-source, decentralized storage.”

Storj's roadmap going forward involves expanding the startup’s holdings to include higher-value data, he said, adding:

“The next really big milestone for the company is the next release of the architecture. ... We’re at the exabyte scale, so there’s tons of demand from users and rapid growth in the number of farmers. We’ve got to take the next big step to make it efficient to users.”

Governance efforts

Golub said he joined Storj not only for the opportunity he saw in working with an open-source decentralized platform, but because he believes the team is capable of growing “into a world-class organization.”

Discussing the current regulatory uncertainty surrounding ICOs, he said companies need to "do the right thing" in order to lessen the need for strict regulations in the space.

“I think we also have to do things as companies and industry to improve transparency, to improve governance. I think we as a company are trying to be good about governance [and] explain what we’ve done with the token,” he said.

Golub also noted Storj’s decision to lock up 245 million tokens for six months as part of a move to improve clarity about the company’s timeline and introduce some stability to its token’s price.

The firm's STORJ token is currently worth $1.13, according to CoinMarketCap, and has a market cap of around $150 million.

Golub concluded:

“I was very impressed by the fact that Storj did such a large token lockup. In any kind of market knowing what volume is out there and what’s going to be used and how is going to be used in terms of creating stability and i think Storj has done a great job at that."

Data storage facility image via Shutterstock