# Joe Antkowiak

*Technology Infrastructure Leader*

## Summary

I am a technology infrastructure leader with decades of experience across networking, storage, compute, platforms, and security, and more recently, AI infrastructure and AI resource distribution. My deepest expertise is in networking. I have adapted my work and leadership to startups, large enterprises, service providers, carriers, channel partners, media companies, and I have executed on independent research. I am looking for my next move with a skilled team, working on projects that solve difficult and complex problems and can have a positive, outsized impact on society and humanity.

## Signature Capabilities

### Vision-to-Scale Builder

- Builds company-defining infrastructure from a blank page: as Rumble's hands-on technical lead and Director, led the effort and, alongside his teams, co-architected and co-built the company's 14-POP MPLS-SR backbone with ~5 Tbps national transport and 12-POP CDN delivering ~2 Tbps, then co-created and led the 15-person organization that operated them.
- Turns improbable concepts into production-scale proof: deployed 3,040 Bitcoin nodes across four BGP ASNs for ~$3K/month, sustaining 100K+ inbound connections and 12 Gbps as the network's most interconnected entity.
- Creates businesses as readily as platforms: founded an ISP at 15 and grew it to ~1,500 customers, scaled an Exchange service to 11,000+ mailboxes and $120K MRR, and took TenSpire from AI-infrastructure concept to funded product with active users.
- Converts technical scale into commercial scale: grew WWT's Red Hat business from $1MM to $6MM in two years, then contributed to 453% team quota attainment ($176MM in FY20) at Red Hat.

### Principled Change Leader

- Chooses evidence over consensus: when Bitcoin developers dismissed a Sybil vulnerability as impractical, built a 3,040-node proof for ~$3K/month and earned an invitation to present the findings at BTCHEL 2026.
- Builds ownership where none exists: as Rumble's hands-on Director, led the effort and, alongside his teams, co-created the company's Network, CDN, Infrastructure Security, and Operations functions from zero, then led the resulting 15-person organization through IPO-scale growth.
- Chooses reinvention over comfort: pivoted after 20+ years in networking and distributed infrastructure to found TenSpire, personally building an AI inference network and privacy appliance.
- Leads for the outcome, not the title: after taking TenSpire from concept to investment and active use as founder and CEO, moved to part-time CTO while continuing to guide its architecture and AI strategy.

### Hands-on Executive Architect

- Works at packet level while owning executive outcomes: as Rumble's hands-on Director, led the effort and, alongside his teams, co-designed and co-built the company's anycast and MPLS-SR systems; as a CTO and founder, engineered BGP/ASN routing, policy-based routing, and HAProxy/Dante proxy chains.
- Turns low-level tuning into measurable advantage: increased a 5-node Ceph cluster from 1.2M to 2.5M IOPS and single-VNF throughput from 40 to 50 Gbps, directly enabling successful sales.
- Engineers extreme density end to end: combined Proxmox, LXC, ZFS block deduplication, and linked clones to run 3,040 independently reachable Bitcoin nodes on minimal hardware.
- Pairs production practice with architecture-grade credentials earned across security, networking, and systems: CISSP-ISSAP, CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure, and RHCA in Infrastructure.

### Complexity-to-Clarity Translator

- Makes cross-domain architecture teachable: mapped L3 Clos/spine-leaf networking to cloud platforms in a Red Hat Summit lab for 52 leaders; the material became official Red Hat documentation and training.
- Turns ambiguity into decision criteria: translated customer business requirements into POC success measures, producing a 70% win rate and helping drive 453% team quota attainment ($176MM in FY20).
- Transfers durable patterns across domains: reframed AI inference through CDN multi-tier distribution, then delivered the architecture through OpenAI-compatible APIs on open-weight models.
- Creates adopters, not just explanations: trained 500+ engineers and architecture leaders across AT&T, Comcast, and other major accounts on OpenStack, SDN, NFV, security, and spine-leaf design.

## Professional Experience

### bitprojects LLC

**Location:** Washington, DC Region

**Tenure:** Feb 2024 – Present

**Role:** Founder

Founded independent security research company. Identified and proved a critical vulnerability in Bitcoin's network sybil resistance model by operating 3,040 IPv4-reachable nodes that became the most interconnected entity on the Bitcoin network. Speaking at BTCHEL, September 2026.

**Highlights:**

- I built infrastructure that attracted the attention of multiple U.S. agencies and organizations, leading one U.S. congressman and critical infrastructure researchers to warn me that I would need body guards.
- Identified and proved a fundamental flaw in Bitcoin's sybil resistance model: developers assumed /16 network boundary containment and million-dollar attack costs. Demonstrated both assumptions were exploitable for ~$3,000/month.
- Engineered network infrastructure using 4 BGP ASNs, leased /24 IPv4 space, policy-based routing, and HAProxy/Dante proxy chains to operate 3,040 IPv4-reachable Bitcoin nodes across diverse network boundaries.
- Achieved extreme compute and workload density using Proxmox, LXC containers, ZFS block deduplication, and linked clones, running 3,040 nodes on minimal hardware with efficient storage and memory utilization.
- Became the most interconnected entity on the Bitcoin network, handling up to 12 Gbps of blockchain traffic with 80,000-100,000 inbound connections. 30,000-40,000 nodes connected exclusively through this infrastructure, conclusively proving the vulnerability.
- Presented findings to the Bitcoin community after the vulnerability was exposed network-wide in 2026. Invited to speak at BTCHEL conference, September 2026.

### TenSpire, Inc.

**Location:** Washington, DC Region

**Tenure:** Feb 2025 – Present

**Roles:**

- **CTO** — Jul 2026 – Present
- **Founder & CEO** — Feb 2025 – Jul 2026

Founded AI infrastructure company. Built an Inference Distribution Network (IDN), an inference router that uses both internal and provider inference infrastructure. Developed an AI Privacy Appliance for on-premises AI. Secured investors and grew product to active usage. Transitioned from CEO to part-time CTO in July 2026 while continuing to guide IDN architecture and AI infrastructure strategy.

**Highlights:**

- Architected an Inference Distribution Network (IDN) applying CDN multi-tier architecture to route inference across both internal and provider infrastructure, with OpenAI-compatible API endpoints on open-weight models, achieving active user adoption and investor backing.
- Designed and built an AI Privacy Appliance enabling fully self-contained, on-premises AI with zero external dependencies, addressing data sovereignty and privacy requirements for sensitive environments.
- Secured investor funding and grew the company from concept to active product. Transitioned from CEO to part-time CTO in July 2026 while continuing to guide IDN architecture and AI infrastructure strategy.

**Links:** [tenspire.com](https://tenspire.com) · [IDN Product](https://tenspire.com/idn/)

### Rumble

**Location:** Sarasota, FL

**Tenure:** Apr 2022 – Oct 2023

**Role:** Director, Network & CDN Services

As Director, built and led a 15-person organization spanning Network, CDN, Infrastructure Security, and Operations while remaining hands-on in architecture and delivery. Led the architecture and delivery of the company's complete backbone and CDN infrastructure from zero as Rumble progressed to a publicly traded company. Joined as Infrastructure Architect (Apr-Jun 2022) and was promoted to Director (Jul 2022).

**Highlights:**

- Led the architecture and hands-on delivery of a 14-POP MPLS-SR backbone with ~5Tbps national transport capacity and ~8Tbps carrier & peering capacity across 12 peering points and 7 tier1/2 carriers, enabling the company's IPO-ready infrastructure platform.
- Led the design and hands-on build of a 12-POP multi-tier CDN platform delivering ~2Tbps of livestream and cached content throughput, with anycast traffic distribution and attack absorption capabilities.
- Led and contributed hands-on to the delivery of Rumble's datacenter interconnect (DCI) architecture, providing unified cross-site L2/L3 services extendible between regions and customer interconnects.
- Built and led a 7-member network engineering team across Core, Datacenter, and SDN disciplines and a 6-member CDN team across performance engineering, automation, anycast, and attack absorption, while remaining hands-on in both teams' architecture and delivery.
- Led the hands-on bootstrapping of the infrastructure security and infrastructure operations teams from zero, establishing security and operations practices for a rapidly scaling public company.

### Red Hat

**Location:** Washington DC-Baltimore Area

**Tenure:** Apr 2016 – Dec 2021

**Roles:**

- **Principal Solution Architect, Telco/Media/Entertainment** — Aug 2021 – Dec 2021
- **Principal Specialist Solution Architect, OpenStack Tiger Team** — Sep 2020 – Aug 2021
- **Sr. Specialist Solution Architect, OpenStack Tiger Team** — Apr 2016 – Sep 2020

Served as networking, SDN, and NFV subject matter expert across the OpenStack Tiger Team and Telco, Media, & Entertainment teams over 5+ years. Delivered pre-sales POCs, technical workshops, and consulting for enterprise, telco, and financial services customers across North America.

**Highlights:**

- Achieved a 70% POC win rate by systematically mapping customer business requirements to technical success criteria, driving subscription sales across the North American segment.
- Contributed to Infrastructure division subscription-sales results that averaged 120% quota attainment and reached 453% ($176MM in FY20), while consistently ranking as a top performer.
- Architected and executed multi-vendor integrated POCs including OpenStack with Cisco ACI, Juniper Contrail, Nokia Nuage SDN, and AVI Networks, solving complex cross-platform integration challenges for enterprise and telco customers.
- Designed and delivered a 2-hour hands-on lab at Red Hat Summit 2019 on mapping L3 Clos-fabric/spine-leaf network architectures to infrastructure platforms for 52 architecture and engineering leaders. Content was adopted into Red Hat's official product documentation and training materials, improving foundational understanding of spine-leaf, edge, and DCN deployment across the ecosystem.
- Served as Senior Architect for consulting engagements with CenturyLink Government, Wells Fargo, GE, Rogers Communications, and Ericsson, delivering successful NFV and networking projects.
- Performance-tuned POCs achieving 50Gbps single-VNF throughput and 2.5M IOPS on 5-node Ceph clusters, directly enabling successful sales.
- Developed and delivered half-day technical workshops on OpenStack Security, SDN, and NFV to Enterprise, Telco, and Financial Services customers across North America.

### World Wide Technology

**Location:** Austin, TX / Dallas-Fort Worth, TX

**Tenure:** Feb 2013 – Mar 2016

**Roles:**

- **Technical Solutions Architect, OpenStack** — Jun 2014 – Mar 2016
- **Consulting Systems Engineer, Emerging Service Providers** — Feb 2013 – Jun 2014

Led the technical business development relationship between WWT and Red Hat, growing Red Hat revenue from $1MM to $6MM and earning WWT the designation of Red Hat's Fastest Growing Partner FY15.

**Highlights:**

- Drove Red Hat subscription revenue growth from $1MM to $6MM over two years (CY14: $3MM, CY15: $6MM) through field engagement and technical enablement, earning WWT the Red Hat Fastest Growing Partner FY15 award.
- Scoped and executed a $1MM funded MOU among Intel, Cisco, and Red Hat to deliver 50 product demonstrations on Cisco UCS to 50 strategic accounts within one year.
- Built a multi-vendor OpenStack lab on Cisco UCS integrating Cisco ACI SDN, EMC XtremIO, NetApp FAS, SolidFire iSCSI, and Ceph RBD storage, used for POCs, demos, and training, showcased in national marketing campaigns. Also contributed upstream OpenStack patches for bugs discovered during lab development.
- Created a custom one-day OpenStack hands-on training class, delivered 14 times to 400+ individuals across AT&T Wireless, Comcast, and other major telco and enterprise accounts.

### Intellys Corporation

**Location:** Dallas-Fort Worth, TX

**Tenure:** Oct 2010 – Feb 2013

**Role:** Vice President of Engineering

Built and led Professional Services and managed hosting teams for a channel-focused IT services company. Grew PS revenue to $2MM annually and hosting platform to 11,000+ mailboxes.

**Highlights:**

- Built a 7-member Professional Services team aligned to channel relationships (WWT, AT&T, IBM via AT&T), growing to $2MM annual project revenue.
- Architected and implemented a white-label Microsoft Exchange hosting platform resold via AT&T to mid-market accounts, scaling to 11,000+ end-user mailboxes across 12 accounts and $120K monthly recurring revenue.
- Led development of E-Bond EDI integration between Intellys (RT-based) and AT&T AOTS (Remedy) ticketing systems, providing complete ticketing transparency for AT&T channel customers.

### Netigent/HNK

**Location:** New York, NY

**Tenure:** Sep 2007 – 2010

**Role:** Partner, Principal Architect

Partner and Principal Architect at a managed hosting and professional services company (acquired).

### Jetstream Communications Inc

**Location:** Baltimore, MD

**Tenure:** Mar 2003 – Mar 2006

**Role:** Co-Founder and CTO

Co-founded and served as CTO of an IP Telephony startup built on Asterisk open-source software and Cisco gateway hardware.

### Digex / MCI Enterprise Hosting

**Location:** Beltsville, MD

**Tenure:** Jan 2000 – Apr 2005

**Role:** Sr. Network Engineer

Senior Network Engineer in a managed hosting provider that went through acquisitions by Intermedia Communications, MCIWorldcom, and Verizon Business.

### Starix Internet Services, Inc.

**Location:** Whiteford, MD

**Tenure:** Sep 1997 – Dec 1999

**Role:** Founder

Founded a local dial-up ISP at age 15 to serve a community with no internet access. Grew to ~1,500 customers and successfully sold the business.

## Certifications

### CISSP-ISSAP (Architecture)

- **Issuer:** (ISC)²
- **Credential ID:** 428847
- **Earned:** Oct 2012
- **Status:** Current

### CISSP

- **Issuer:** (ISC)²
- **Credential ID:** 428847
- **Earned:** Jul 2012
- **Status:** Current

### CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure (R/S)

- **Issuer:** Cisco
- **Credential ID:** 35264
- **Earned:** Apr 2012
- **Status:** Inactive

### RHCA (Architect) in Infrastructure

- **Issuer:** Red Hat
- **Credential ID:** 130-098-833
- **Earned:** Mar 2020
- **Status:** Inactive

## Speaking

### Bitcoin Network Sybil Vulnerability: Proof at Scale

- **Event:** [BTCHEL](https://btchel.com)
- **Date:** Sep 2026
- **Status:** Scheduled
- **Location:** Helsinki, Finland

### L3 Clos-Fabric/Spine-Leaf Architectures for Infrastructure Platforms, Hands-On Lab

- **Event:** Red Hat Summit 2019
- **Date:** May 2019
- **Status:** Delivered
- **Location:** Boston, MA

Designed and delivered a 2-hour hands-on lab for 52 architecture and engineering leaders on mapping L3 Clos-fabric/spine-leaf network architectures to infrastructure platforms. Content was adopted into Red Hat's official product documentation and training materials.

### OpenStack Security, SDN, and NFV Technical Workshops

- **Event:** Red Hat, Customer Workshop Series
- **Date:** Apr 2016 – Dec 2021
- **Status:** Delivered
- **Location:** Multiple US cities (Enterprise, Telco, and Financial Services sites)

Developed and delivered half-day technical workshops on OpenStack Security, SDN, and NFV to Enterprise, Telco, and Financial Services customers across North America.

### OpenStack End-User Introduction: Hands-On Training Class

- **Event:** World Wide Technology, Customer Training Series
- **Date:** 2014 – 2015
- **Status:** Delivered
- **Location:** Multiple US cities (AT&T, Comcast, and other enterprise/telco sites)

Created a custom one-day OpenStack hands-on training class and delivered it 14 times to 400+ total individuals across major telco and enterprise accounts including AT&T Wireless and Comcast.