Congressman Nick Begich (R-AK) sat down with the Bitcoin Policy Institute at PubKey in New York for a wide-ranging conversation that touched on his path from startup founder to Capitol Hill, his landmark American Reserve Modernization Act, and the dual promise and peril of artificial intelligence.
The interview offered a window into one of Congress’s more technologically fluent members — a distinction Begich traces not to his political career but to the decades before it.
Begich’s resume reads unlike most of his colleagues. After undergraduate studies in entrepreneurship at Baylor University and an MBA from Indiana University focused on information technology and decision sciences, he spent time at Ford Motor Company before returning to Alaska to found a software development firm.
Starting with a credit card and a laptop, he built the company to roughly 150 employees across three countries, with a practice centered on early-stage startups — helping founders transform PowerPoint pitch decks into fundable products, often in exchange for equity stakes.
That background, he said, shapes how he operates in Washington. “Congress can be a frustrating place,” Begich said. “You’re not a CEO. You can’t say, ‘We’re doing this.'”
