I’ve read through the notes from the regenesis and have had some time to think about the event and my thoughts for moving forward. And if you don’t want to read;
TL;DR - How can you create an organizational structure now, with people and processes in place, if you don’t even know what the product you’re managing will be in the future? Therefore, The DAO should be indefinitely paused; close the discord, put the remaining treasury into staking protocols; wait for The Foundation to finish their contract terms and then decide how to manage 1) the platform 2) DAO funds.
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The DAO currently has zero influence in the direction of the platform
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The DAO does not need an organizational structure (yet)
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The DAO spends its majority of funds on grants and nothing else
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I barely (if any) saw any notes on discussions around implementing Decentralized technologies to help Automate our governance
There’s a lot to unpack, but the bottom line is not a single person outside The Foundation has any approval rights on platform code. There are no formal mechanisms for the DAO to currently enforce a change on the platform. If anyone outside The Foundation wants to suggest/make an improvement, you’re told to use Canny. Last I checked, Canny is not part of the DAO or any formal DAO proposal process. Additionally, The Foundation has confirmed that they do not have to abide by a passed governance proposal in our DAO. Therefore, what influence does the DAO have on any material changes to the platform?
The Foundation has shape up cycles for building the platform. Not one technical person representing the DAO is invited to those shape ups - not even to listen to what’s going on let alone opine / offer suggestions on what the community desires (again, use Canny right?). This creates isolation, and on one hand is good to eliminate too many cooks in the kitchen but then also creates vagueness and unknowns for what the product will become.
This separation of work and lack of transparency makes me look at the scenario through the lens of 2 start ups: The Foundation and The DAO. The Foundation has their start up money and The DAO has their start up money. The Foundation is working on a product and in a determined time frame will hand off that product to The DAO start up, right? If that’s the case, shouldn’t The DAO have some insight / influence into the product they’re being handed? And if not, then why have any formal organization and spending prior to the hand off? Let The Foundation start up, with their treasury and team, finish their product. Once they’ve run their course, The DAO startup can “start” with their treasury and work on whatever product is left to them. Reminder, that is 6 years from now.
Therefore, how can you create an organizational structure now, with people and processes in place (spending money), if you don’t even know what the product you’re managing will be in the future?
Will there be swimming? Will there be basements? Will there be flying? How many clients will there be? What types of engineers will be required for the future product? How many engineers? What types of infrastructure will be required?
Continually we put the cart before the horse, and in the consensus of creating an organizational structure now, that’s exactly what we are doing.
What will this new DAO organization currently manage?
What will HR do for a virtual community - will there be compensation packages, retirement plans, healthcare plans, training sessions and workplace code of conduct seminars? The suggested organizational chart mentions marketing and partnerships - will there be collaboration between The Foundation and DAO on this? How much? Will The Foundation require approval on DAO partnerships? Will The Foundation expect all partnerships to be managed by The DAO? Management of funds was mentioned in 3 different sticky notes - Finance, DAO Treasury Management, Projects Funds Management - seems highly redundant and a waste of resources.
I ask a simple question, if the organization was in place right now, what would be different in our DAO in terms of influencing the platform?
- Almost all grants are frozen, therefore, the majority of spending is frozen
- The DAO cannot currently enforce any platform changes
- So, what would be different?
Is the agreement that once there’s a formal organization structure, The Foundation will finally work with the DAO on implementation and influence mechanisms collaboratively?
In my side conversations with others, I’ve tried to equate our DAO and its members to the Founding Fathers of America. Was that their job title? Did they get paid to create the Constitution, or did they do it for free out of a sense of a larger duty? I genuinely have no idea. I bring it up because I equate it to our current status in the DAO. Do we need to pay people to figure this out for us, or can we as individuals come together and find technical solutions to implement for governing ourselves autonomously (DAO)? I am all for paying people to build technologies and create things for our DAO, but those things should render human interaction obsolete in a DAO.
There was very little talk (at least in the notes) about decentralized or autonomous technologies. If we want to be governed by humans who “have ours and the platform’s best interest,” that’s fine, but let’s not call it a DAO.
In conclusion,
- The DAO currently has no influence over the direction of the platform; therefore, it’s too early to set up an organizational structure and spend money on things that will have no impact on the product
- The DAO discord should be discontinued as it provides zero positive value (all discourse can happen in the forums and on our web platform)
- If The DAO want to continue the grants program, it needs to be overhauled and weighted with a much smaller percentage going towards community concepts, with a heavy majority going to focused efforts through RFPs (a traditional sense of bidding and tendering, I’m happy to expand on this concept)
- The DAO should stop all spending except for finding an optimal solution on staking its funds for the future
- The DAO would be paused until The Foundation startup is closer to its termination and hand off
I’ve made this space my passion and my life since 2018, and I’m still here building. I still want to make Decentraland a market leading technology and virtual destination. I love discussing everything Decentraland and appreciate the time and consideration.
Lastraum