In my yearlong quest to find the perfect underlying blockchain foundation to build my new software platform funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and targeted for mission critical cyber-physical systems, I was lucky enough to be introduced by a friend to industry veterans and Swirlds founders, Mance Harmon and Leemon Baird. Mance explained that the both of them share my deep interest in AI, machine learning, and recently blockchain technologies. When Mance told me that Leemon had invented a new consensus algorithm based on distributed ledger technology, I became very intrigued to say the least, based on their incredible backgrounds in the software industry as well as academic achievements. Leemon Baird has a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and has built and sold several successful companies. Mance Harmon has a Masters Degree in Computer Science and has held significant roles at Ping Identity.