Getting into distributed systems (2020–2021)— Choosing a specialization after the switch to computer science: Wattenhofer's distributed systems course, the echoes of complexity theory, finally understanding Bitcoin — and going all in, from physics and atoms to math and bits.
From electronics to computer science (2020)— Arriving in Zurich alone mid-pandemic, building "See you there!" with Luca, discovering that neuromorphic computing was more science than engineering, and switching from electronics to computer science within a month of starting the master's.
Master's thesis at DISCO (2022–2023)— Back to hardcore distributed systems for the master's thesis: the "world computer" vision, finding the Internet Computer, and developing a faster consensus protocol at ETH's Distributed Computing Group that became Banyan — Best Paper at Middleware 2024.
The gap year (2023)— After graduating from the master's in spring 2023, Massimo took a gap year to work full-time on Omnia with Luca — setting a 31 December 2023 deadline to decide whether to turn it into a company, and spending the year building infrastructure for Neom's cognitive city and for the Internet Computer.