Army vet turned tech founder Will Schweitzer is running for election in the U.S. Senate to represent New York. His hope to unseat Senator Kristen Gillibrand will be an uphill battle. Schweitzer’s career outside of politics, however, from his military career to the technology sector may give him an opportunity to reach voters looking for new blood in the Democratic Party. 

Schweitzer spoke with Decential about why politics needs people from outside the system to step up right now. He believes blockchain is a critical asset in regaining trust in our political institutions. 

---

Decential: Tell me about your path to politics. 

Will Schweitzer: I started my career volunteering on campaigns at local level politics. That turned into pursuing a political science degree in upstate New York but [I] dropped out to join the military in special operations. That was where I started to get a true line of sight into the emerging tech space, particularly blockchain. I saw some interesting use cases that ultimately led me to start a company, which was a platform that tracked financial flows in the political space to combat corruption and keep foreign money out of the U.S. political space. We ended up selling the product to political campaigns. 

Decential: How long did you serve in special operations? 

WS: I was enlisted with the second Ranger Battalion from 2011 to 2014. I decided to leave primarily because the war had changed, as far as the objective for our unit. I got in because of a purpose and the mission had changed in the three years I was there. Bin Laden was killed at the beginning of 2012, and I was in the unit right as the whole world was processing what it would do continuing in Afghanistan now that he was dead. That shifted the missions, the team and the foreign policy. People I looked up to were getting out, so I decided to leave. I understood there was still a lot for me to do staying mission-oriented on the national security space. 

Decential: You stayed in politics while building your start-up combating terrorist financing. 

WS: Yes, I worked for multiple political campaigns including for the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer, and Former Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

Decential: You also spent time at Protocol Labs too, didn’t you? 

WS: Protocol Labs was a really cool experience. I had a sense of how foundational the tech they built is to most web3 systems today. I was hired at what felt like peak crypto summer and left right into the winter. I’ve got to hand it to the crypto kids. A handful of these teams have been sticking this stuff out and showing you can make it in this space. When you go through lived experiences with other people, that forms the strongest bonds. The ups and downs are felt almost at the same moment for everybody. It’s a quirky crew, but definitely a strong, smart bunch of folks. 

Decential: What inspired you to run for office?   

WS: Donald Trump. After he announced he’s going to run for president again, I started thinking about what I could do. I believe in the good that you can do as an elected representative. When I was looking across the state, I came across Senator Gillibrand and did a deep dive on her record, public sentiment, and polling. This gave me a hunch that there seems to be something here. When I went into her polling, it has been in a true decline since 2018. So, I saw there was something there that people weren’t happy with. 

Getting back to Donald Trump, I was concerned about how we can make sure, as [the] Democratic Party, we’re putting forth the best fighters to take on his dogma and the organizations around him. That’s where I don’t see Senator Gillibrand being the best person to do that, mostly because she’s already been trying to do it and it hasn’t been effective. 

Decential: Given your background in blockchain, how will you support the crypto industry?  

WS: I can’t go into specifics yet, but my campaign will be actively supporting pro-crypto initiatives. I’ll reveal more soon. 

Decential: Are you worried about the Democratic resistance towards crypto in DC? 

WS: I’m not worried. I genuinely think in the Democratic Party more people are positive. A lot of that is because there has been such an engagement with federal lawmakers so far and the list of bills that have already been worked on got second drafts, or are coming out. 

If [Sam Bankman-Fried] had just been a regular fraudster and he didn’t give to politicians, maybe the industry wouldn’t have felt such backlash. The fact that SBF was engaged in political giving and was so outspoken with all their Super Bowl ads drawing a lot of attention to their scheme, I think they needed to put up the X. For those of us who are still in the space and know there’s good things here, it’s our work to find opportunities to highlight that publicly and change the overall narrative. 

Decential: Tech creates jobs and is good for the economy. Are you worried about talent going offshore?      

WS: We should be concerned about it. There are two sides of risk for the U.S. in losing the human capital. The U.S. has a global financial surveillance network to continue to look at fraud and other illicit financial activities. The crypto folks should think about this, whether it’s a net benefit for where they’re trying to land, and to know what assurance is there. There are a few places that have had five-year bursts of ‘crypto is cool here’ then you have to leave. We should be mindful, as the crypto operators, to truly understand the motivating factors to stay or to leave. 

We’re all confident in the technical innovation chops that the federal apparatus has, primarily within national laboratories, research organizations, and partnerships. And, even within the military, in other parts of the defense apparatus, there's a lot of talent within the U.S. right now to understand these technologies. But it's the application of them and in what condition are things coming about. Understanding that is where we have a risk of losing out on some innovation that someone else is going to capture. 

Decential: Does America need to be decentralized, too?        

WS: It’s a fascinating time to be alive. The other day a Chinese guy told me an old proverb that went something like, interesting times are not good times – that you don’t want to be around when things are interesting. 

In traditional metrics, you look at the 2020 voter outcome in the U.S. presidential cycle as one of the strongest signals of American democracy to date. The number of people who came out to vote is the most of any race in U.S. history. But there’s other things that are clearly not working and the discussion feels borderline revolutionary out there. Maybe that’s the American nature in us. The American experiment is fascinating from a decentralized point of view. 

We’re uniquely designed to be a robust and durable democracy because of how decentralized government really is across the country. It’s not felt the same everywhere. There are these layers of local government, up to county level government, city government or different regions, that lead into the federal system, and all the layers of judicial and executive parts all intertwine to make the political process dynamic. 

I see it as disrupting the political class instead of the government. It’s more the actors involved and the people who have taken advantage of that capacity within this deeply decentralized set of political processes. That’s where there’s been a significant corrosion of trust. I’m a unique person to call this out and to come with solutions. This is the disruption that we're openly promoting to upgrade our politics. Let’s get new generations of leadership across the American political landscape and do it with new tools around us that give us the opportunity to take a significant incremental leap forward on progressive issues that will strengthen our democracy.