Mainnet 2021; Personal Recap
9월의 뉴욕에서 Mainnet 2021 참석을 회고해보며
Your Boss is a DAO: The Future of Work in a Decentralized World
Attendees
Scott Moore, Co-Founder at Gitcoin
Cooper Turley, Governance at Friends with Benefits DAO
Kristen Stone, COO at Balancer Labs
Julia Rosenberg, Co-Founder & CEO at Orca protocol
Terms that you should be familar with:
DAO: Decentralized Autonomous Organization
DAOist: A person who is participating in DAO in any form or people who believe in & are enthusiastic about DAO
“We are not gonna run this panel as a regular panel, we are going to run this panel as a DAO. So, we won’t have a formal moderator.”
This statement is well explained to show characteristsics about DAOs, and everyone’s shared perspective that has been brought throughout this panel; decentralized.
What that clearly made me think about once more about ‘what DAOs are’ was the question that Scott Moore asked in this panel. What is the term DAO? What are we talking about when we are talking about DAOs? What are the characteristics of DAOs? Are the traditional DAOs can be called DAOs? Are they different from each other?
I will try to answer those questions myself in this writing, and relay organized thoughts after attending this panel Your Boss is a DAO: The Future of Work in a Decentralized World in Mainnet 2021.
About DAOs
During this free discussion with 4 different candidates from different DAOs, I was able to see all different perspectives from each other. This will be the same for everyone else in the crypto scene, because we come from different backgrounds even when I talk about DAOs with my co-workers. However, one thing that needs to be addressed is that diversity is extremely important in crypto-blockchain space. As Kristen Stone from Balancer Labs mentioned, diverse opinions and backgrounds in that group makes one able to flourish, adapt to different system, and makes it easier for others to included in the group.
My opinion about DAOs is that they are a mission-driven autonomous organization with shared mission, commitment, and treasury. Then can we call all DAOs that exists today a DAO? I believe this is a non-debatable issue since all DAOs have different characteristics and cannot stick on one specific term as it is very nebulous. Some are transferring from centralized structure to decentralized one, some(mostly) not perfectly autonomous, some only share their treasury to invest with them. But through this panel I was able to catch some similarities that attendees share, which was authority from community(being able to be changed and resized), and most importantly shared mission(value) or Ethos as Cooper put.
These shared mission or Ethos start as DAOs are born as internet-native communities. Non-regulated structures of these organizations such as expansions and compression can mostly happen freely because DAOs are born from individuals that are familiar with internet communities.
Cooperatives
Cooperatives, or 협동조합* in Korean is a unique form of organization that many DAOists take a look at. Several aspects that DAOists put their interest on would be the mission-focused community and passionate participation on their governance.
Cooper from FWB talked about social clubs having highest participation at their governance since it is directly related with their benefits. I strongly agree with this based on my experience as a member of Yonsei Blockchain Lab. Our blockchain club was very newly formed compared to that of other clubs that was established several decades ago, not having regular and strict format as other clubs did. Therefore, it was significantly easier to change our ‘governance’ or 정관 with other members’ consent.
As it was pointed out that feeling of empoweredness & ownership is what made members of social clubs participate actively in their small governance structure, the fact that these are also easily seen on cooperatives with more regulatory format will be the reason why many DAOists are having specified look at them.
When we take a look at co-operatives, it is said that they are operated by these bylaws different from private companies — which originate from principles of mutual assistance, democracy, and distribution by contribution according to Wikipedia.
It aims to mutually assist small businesses or consumers who are members of the union rather than for the profit of the union itself.
The voluntary membership or withdrawal of members is recognized, but each member has equal voting rights regardless of the amount of investment.
In principle, the union’s allocation of surplus is carried out in proportion to its use.
Also, another definition for cooperatives says; an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise. As you can notice, shared values between the definitions of cooperatives are that they have associated for mutual assistance of its members with democracy and lastly they are jointly owned & operated.
Taking look apart from the democracy as it is related with more political topics, jointly owned & operated with shared mission and mutual assistance should definitely be what many DAOists think that should be included in DAO or on the minds of people that come to onboard DAO.
Sense of Belonging
As I started my career on crypto scene from the beginning, the most paragraph that came to my mind was what Cooper said about this. ‘We expect people in crypto to find their own way, identify what they want to work on, fo on to different governance proposals. But the truth is that most people have no clue what to do.’ I have partcipated as a founding member of Phusis Labs, placed ideas about this organization from the bottom, and looked what my job descriptions can be. Nonetheless, it was not easy to find what I can do, what my interests are, and what I want to do.
Starting from DAOs, not the traditional company that most people start their careers would be the best choice if I were to begin again from the starting point. Structureless format, contribution & reward system, feeling of getting together are what DAOs can provide to the beginner of crypto player from the onboarding process. And it is one of the most important process of DAOs to achieve more diversity by setting an onboarding process where newcomers can easily feel sense of belonging and stick to their mission.
Sense of belonging is also another reason why it is important to start from DAOs, a better choice for people to start playing on crypto. Modern organizations which are now in form of orange organization strive for their profits and power, not really emphasizing personal statements. Orders or instructions which could suppress individual welfareness for maximizing organizational benefits are occasionally done, all that we can here from news or on company community billboards. It can be considered somewhat like pursuing only ideal form of organization, but DAOs actually happen in this way. Sub-structures or subordinates group is one way DAOs are using to form feeling of togetherness. Similar with church communities in Korea, people in this team(sub-structure) do not strive for their groups’ profit. Rather, they share their stories about themselves, share their beliefs and mission towards the god they believe in, and figure out what they can do for each other also for their shared mission.
While focusing on shared mission of the group, DAOs should not lose individual sense of connectedness and their personal vision.
Vision on Operating DAOs
How should DAOs operate? What should be their main focus? As I said earlier about sense of belonging, DAOs should operate with governance systems where everyone can feel connected with efficient decision & execution process. Some could say how can we take these two at the same time? Are these another dilemma one cannot conquer?
I personally and strongly do agree that these are the ones that are extremely difficult to achieve in an organization. Only through sophisticately designed organizational structure would make us able to get to this point. DAO operating tools are one implement instruments where DAO makers can develop and use when they want to start a DAO easily. There are lots and lots of DAO tools that help DAOists make their own DAOs, form DAOs in groups. But not single DAO operating tool would be able to satisfy everyone in that organization. Scalabilities on this structures of DAO would be important as it needs to be changed through several governance proposals. For instance as object-oriented programming languages like C++ or Javascript needs specific and detailed process during programming, using & learning python would be easier than those languages, but restrictions would surely show up as you try to change specific details on your program.
Therefore, I carefully overstate that DAOs should have their own operating tools built by themselves, as custom-tailored suit best fits you.
Ji Hwan Han (he/him/his)
Yonsei University B.A. in Economics (Feb 2023)
www.linkedin.com/in/jihwanhan
twitter @jihwan_han
