Mohammad Shaikh (also known as Mo Shaikh) is an entrepreneur and investor best known for his role as the Co-founder and CEO of Aptos, a layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain infrastructure. ^[1][2]

Early Life & Education

Mo Shaikh is a first-generation immigrant who was raised by a taxi driver and housewife on Welfare in Brooklyn. He attended Hunter College and graduated with a B.S. in Psychology, Economics, and Accounting. He also attended the University of Rochester - Simon Business School and graduated with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Organization Strategy & Finance. ^[3][1]

Career

Mo Shaikh started his career as a Senior Associate at KPMG (June 2007 - November 2010). In October 2010, he served as the Senior Analyst at Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets. In August 2012, he became a Real Estate Associate for BlackRock in New York. In June 2015, he served as a REIT Analyst (Summer) at ClearBridge Investments. In August 2015, Mo served as a Private Equity Associate (Summer) at The Abraaj Group in Karachi, Pakistan. He became a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in September 2016. ^[1]

In September 2017, Mo Shaikh worked at ConsenSys as the Director of Strategy dealing in blockchain, infrastructure, growth, capital allocation, and incubation. ^[4] In September 2017, he founded and served as the CEO of Meridio^[6], a blockchain-based platform for investing in and trading fractional shares of real estate with liquidity. ^[5] He joined Meta in May 2020 and worked in Strategic Partnerships @ Novi / Meta until December 2021. ^[1]

Aptos

In December 2021, Mo Shaikh co-founded Aptos alongside Avery Ching and he serves as the CEO of the company. Aptos is a layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain (PoS) infrastructure developed on a combination of system securities, smart contract design, decentralization, consensus & performance technologies. Aptos uses a parallel execution engine (Block-STM)  — a Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) PoS consensus mechanism that provides a greater speed of processing transactions.

"Aptos is designed differently. We are a proof of stake network that uses very little energy, we are a network that costs pennies to be used for an individual so it doesn't cost high gas fees like other blockchains, it's incredibly fast & transactions can be in the blink of an eye" - Mo Shaikh on how [Aptos] - (https://iq.wiki/wiki/aptos) benefits users.

Aptos has partnered with several organizations like the Korean Triple-A gaming studio - NPIXEL, Google Cloud, Pontem Network, and MoonPay to improve gamer experience and to facilitate the running of Aptos nodes and decentralized applications (dApps) on different platforms.

“Using blockchain-based technology can be complex, frustrating and slow. Lack of usability is one of the biggest barriers of widestream adoption. Through our integration with MoonPay, we are creating a seamless and enjoyable experience for Petra users as they navigate the Aptos blockchain.” said Mo Shaikh, on partnership with MoonPay.^[7]

APT is the utility and governance token for the Aptos network. The Aptos Foundation^[8] as of February 2023, is planning a network upgrade and is revisiting its tokenomics with the goal of providing greater transparency. ^[9][11]

“We are going to provide a little bit more clarity and more details behind the principles, and how we came to the decision that we made. But a lot of it all goes back to thinking about the people, so we're gonna have a fairly detailed document that's going to go live at some point.” - Mo Shaikh, Aptos CEO, told Decrypt.

On plans for the future, Mo Shaikh said:

"In 5 to 10 years time, what I would love to see as a builder in the space is us being a very important part of the ecosystem and sending economic value across the world whether through NFTs or global currency". ^[10]

Mo Shaikh Quits as CEO

On December 20, 2024, Mo Shaikh announced via X (fka Twitter) that he would be stepping down from his position as the CEO of Aptos to start a new chapter. In his statement, Shaikh reflected on his journey, highlighting his passion for creating open and fair systems and his extensive involvement in blockchain since 2016.

Shaikh co-founded Aptos Labs three years ago alongside Avery Ching with the aim of building a resilient and scalable blockchain ecosystem. Under his leadership, Aptos has become a prominent player in the Web3 space, trusted by a global network of developers and supported by major partnerships with companies like BlackRock, Google, Microsoft, and Mastercard. ^[12]

"Today I am stepping away from Aptos Labs to start a new chapter.  One of my true passions lies in building companies from the ground up and we have done that at Aptos Labs by building a world-class team. I leave Aptos Labs with the utmost confidence in the team, and strongly believe the talent and drive of Aptos Labs will bring our collective vision to life in the near future. Avery will be stepping in as the Aptos Lab’s CEO to drive the company into its next phase of growth." - he wrote ^[12]

As Shaikh steps down, Avery Ching will take on the role of CEO to lead Aptos into its next phase of growth. Shaikh expressed confidence in the Aptos team, calling it "world-class" and crediting their dedication for the ecosystem's success. ^{[8] [12]}