# I Joined Beeper to Help Build the Future of Chat

Source: https://sumnerevans.com/posts/life-updates/joining-beeper/
Published: 2021-07-12
Life Updates, Beeper, Job, Work

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Today I am happy to announce that I have joined [Beeper](https://beeper.com), a
startup that is building the future of chat by connecting all of your chat
networks together in a single application. I will be primarily working on
building bridges to other chat networks to bring more people into the Beeper
ecosystem.

Beeper is built on top of the [Matrix protocol](https://matrix.org) which is an
open, decentralized communication protocol. I have been interested in Matrix
since college (we used it for computer science club communications), and have
been following its development closely for a few years. One of the biggest
factors that has caused me to be interested in the protocol is that it is
decentralized by design via federation. That means that anyone can run a Matrix
homeserver and _federate_ (communicate) with all of the other Matrix homeservers
in the federation. This is very similar to how email servers can communicate
with one another (you can email people on Gmail from an Outlook.com email, for
example), and you can even run your own email server!

As censorship and authoritarianism is on the rise around the world, the need for
a communication network that isn't controlled by a single party is becoming
apparent. Decentralized and federated networks such as Matrix are key to
breaking the death-grip that large technology corporations and governments have
on communication. Additionally, the need for strong end-to-end encryption for
communication is becoming apparent, and the Matrix protocol has encryption
built-in.

I have enjoyed the two years I have been at
[The Trade Desk](https://thetradedesk.com), and will miss all of my co-workers
there. However, I am excited about this new opportunity to work at a company
that is building a product in an area that I am very passionate about. In my
role at Beeper, I hope to have opportunities to collaborate with other members
of the Matrix community to move the protocol forward. I also hope that I can
help make Matrix accessible to everyone, so that more people can benefit from
open, decentralized communication.