Working for an Africa-focused crypto company full of 20-somethings can be a trip. They got me. A short

A couple of weeks ago we had a little one day company conference. Me & our ~35 Nigerian employees. Between presentations there were little fun activities to keep things moving. But #Nigeria is different. There was a DJ playing Afrobeats between sessions like a Lagos nightclub.

So the meeting MC is trying to get people to dance in the open space in the front of the room. People are slowly heading there. I’m a 46 year old American, I’m hanging back at my table, just swaying a little bit.

Then the MC grabs my hand and starts pulling me to the front. I don’t want to be a stiff executive guy, so I let him. I get one of my female coworkers to join me. No big deal I think a bunch of people are coming forward.

So I’m at front with a co-worker. They are playing Wizkid or something. I’m trying to dance, just copying my young Nigerian co-worker. Soon others will join and I can hide I thought.

But nobody joined. A semi-circle of 15 or so people formed and everyone’s phones came out.

Next thing you know there are videos of me dancing going who knows where. WhatsApp stories I think. Then a video clip gets posted to our company Slack channel, 81 people in 12 countries. Then someone in marketing turned it into a GIF. But it gets worse.

So our CTO is minting a NFT of the gif of my 46-year-old American self trying to dance to Nigerian music. He is publishing it on-chain and sharing ownership with the ETH addresses of everyone who attended the Lagos event.

So yeah being a 46 year old American at an African-focused crypto company is a trip.