Baird is the co-founder and chief technical officer of Swirlds, a company that holds patents covering the hashgraph algorithm.

[1][2] Hashgraph were described as a continuation or successor to the blockchain concept, which provides increased speed, fairness, low cost, and security constraints.

[9] Hedera was founded by Hashgraph inventor Leemon Baird and his business partner Mance Harmon, and Andrew Masanto, adding significant contribution to the team.

The Hedera Governing Council voted to purchase the patent rights to Hashgraph and make the algorithm open source under the Apache License in 2022.

[12] Hedera mainnet is maintained by governing council members which include companies such as Deutsche Telekom, IBM, FIS Global, and Tata Communications.