From Lego to Code: Gavin Wood's Creative Autobiography of the Architect Who Rejected Authority

A man who never accepted the given rules, but preferred to invent his own. This is the story of how someone who started playing with second-hand blocks ended up redesigning the economic systems and governance of the Web3 world.

Childhood Under Limitations: When Poverty Sparks Creativity

Gavin Wood did not have a childhood of abundance. In his home, the economic situation was tight—he never lacked food, but Christmas gifts were always second-hand. His first set of Lego did not come with instructions; other children followed patterns, he had to imagine. And that was the best gift he could have received.

At five or six years old, while other children played with what they were given, Wood was already exploring the world by his own rules. He built not what someone had designed, but what his mind could create. When he finally got access to a computer—first at seven or eight, visiting a neighbor’s house—he knew he had found something more powerful than any toy.

“Programming is like Lego, but with infinite limits,” he describes the difference. With plastic, you could only build physical models; with code, you could create entire worlds.

The Code Writer Who Preferred Creating Games

Around nine years old, Wood wrote his “first destiny line.” He would soon have his own computer. He spent hours—perhaps all— in his bedroom writing code. It wasn’t teenage rebellion; it was pure passion.

By age 12, he had mastered AMOS BASIC. He developed several video games, but the one that left him satisfied was “Dark Times”, a proposal that anticipated what would become “World of Warcraft” years later. It was a procedurally generated medieval world, where each entry was unique. Players could trade, hunt, explore—the design offered freedom, not restrictive linearity.

His next project was a homemade version of “Bomber Man.” Not because he didn’t have money to buy it (although that was true), but because he wanted to improve the original. He added new weapons, enemies with different AI, innovative mechanics. At just 14, he submitted his creation to a national contest. He got second place; the judges recognized that, in another year, he would have won. The most highlighted aspect: his game was much more fun.

When Creativity Transcended the Digital

But Wood never limited himself to the world of screens. At 17, he swapped his Commodore Amiga for a PC he assembled himself—cost just 100 pounds because he got used parts. With it, he learned C++ and OpenGL, exploring graphic possibilities that his previous machine didn’t allow.

His curiosity led him to experiment with physical hardware. In a school project, he tried to build an audio sampler—a device that in the 90s was essential but cost 50 pounds, money his family didn’t have. He discovered that the microchip needed cost just 1.5 pounds. He found the schematics and tried three times. He failed. Still, he got a high grade for the wooden case he built, with metallic details and functional controls. The creative intent was more valuable than the result.

The Game Theorist Who Designed Worlds

Over time, Wood delved into an even more complex territory: game theory. At 27, he designed a geometric board game where scoring depended on proportions and perimeters of buildings. He spent three years iterating, testing, observing how players reacted. At 31, with a craftsman friend, he handmade 42 copies. A German board game magazine publicly praised it.

That’s when he understood something fundamental: there is a difference between “conception and realization” (zero to one) and “promotion and expansion” (one to a hundred). He was always excellent at the first. What others saw as failure—not bringing the game to mass market—was for him the natural endpoint.

From Board Games to Cryptoeconomics: The Creative Autobiography

The most revealing part comes when Wood connects his board games with his current work in Polkadot, Ethereum, and JAM. At first glance, they seem like completely different worlds. In reality, they are exactly the same.

“Both in board games and in crypto-economic systems, what matters are not the rules, but the emergent effects they generate,” he explains. A legislator writes a law thinking it will solve a specific problem, but does not anticipate unintended consequences. Game theorists, on the other hand, understand that the relationship between rules and outcomes is nonlinear, sometimes chaotic.

In his board game, he spent years observing: Is it fun? Are there clear strategies or does it depend on luck? Each iteration revealed new effects. That’s how crypto-economic system design works. Pure cryptography is the work of mathematicians; his specialty is game theory—how incentives and rules generate emergent behaviors that no one predicted.

It’s more an art than a science. It’s “rational assumption + accidental discovery + trial and error.” Even the best “chefs” can ruin a recipe. Only practice reveals the truth.

Deep Rejection of Authority: Philosophical Root

There is something that runs through his entire life: Wood has never believed in “given authority.” As a child, when his stepfather mentioned sending him to the army at 15, he felt visceral terror. He didn’t quite know why, but the idea of a hierarchical system where he had to obey without question terrified him.

That aversion never disappeared. He grew up believing that a world without blind authority, where people rationally reflect on facts instead of following orders, would be better. That is reflected in his games: “Dark Times” has no final boss, no hierarchy. There is a world, there are possibilities, there is freedom. Life is more interesting when you explore as a free individual.

When asked about his idols, he initially has no answer. He doesn’t feel adoration for authority figures. Later, reading philosophy, he discovers admiration for Richard Feynman—not as an authority to obey, but as an example of independent thinking.

From Polkadot to JAM: The Search for True Decentralization

Ethereum was his first major project. Polkadot, his “world computer.” But reflecting, he admits that Polkadot was a “compromise”—a race to deliver a product, not a pure implementation of his principles. It was developed exclusively by Parity, with a hierarchical software model. Parity’s “authority” remains dominant to this day.

JAM is different. Here, he deliberately returns to a decentralized model that aligns with his ideal of “egalitarian collaboration.” He doesn’t want to be authority. He doesn’t want to be worshiped. His discomfort with idolization makes him want to escape.

He understands the paradox: innovation requires one or two people to lead the initial idea, develop it without a committee. If everything is discussed in a group, deadlocks occur. But when the prototype proves its value, it must pass to the community. The initiator must validate and cede.

The problem is identifying that exact moment. Many people prefer to trust authorities—they save themselves the effort of thinking. But if an entire community does that, everyone blindly follows the leader and can end up at a dead end.

The Eternal Question of His Creative Autobiography

From five years old with Lego to today, Wood answers the same question: How to redesign the world if rules do not control people, but free their creativity?

His childhood under economic limitations taught him that scarcity breeds ingenuity. His obsession with creating—not consuming—led him to understand that the truly interesting systems do not impose a single path, but build entire worlds where people can walk and explore freely.

It is a philosophy forged in Lego, refined in code, tested in games, and finally expressed in the architecture of decentralized Web3. A creative autobiography that continues to be written, where each system he designs is another chapter in his quest for a world without authorities that control, but rules that liberate.