@uniswap / former yapper @ othersidepod.xyz
NYC
- Tweets 6,324
- Following 929
- Followers 41,550
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You cannot wait for someone to tell you what to work on in a DAO
You will wait forever
1. Go to open calls + introduce yourself
2. Listen for what the DAO needs
3. Step up and take action
It’s going to be uncomfortable at first, but you’ll find where you fit in
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I don't know who needs to hear this but you do not need to be technical to add value in web3
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Most DAOs will fail, just as most startups fail
Stop looking at failures as evidence that DAOs won’t work
Start looking at failures as opportunities to learn + build better systems
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DAOs are hard to build because we're using the wrong mental models
Stop using:
- Decentralized protocols
- Permissionless networks
Start using:
- Self-managing orgs
- Sociocracy
- Co-ops
The human layer requires different mental models than the computational layer
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Lots of DAOs are realizing that huge contributor communities are expensive + slow
They'll be replaced by small core teams + highly specialized service DAOs
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very excited to share that I've joined @Uniswap 🦄
over the last few years, I've spent a ton of time thinking about how crypto will get into the hands of real people
for all of the talk about consumer crypto, we have yet to meaningfully bring crypto to consumers
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Society has not taught most of us to be owners
We've learned how to be users, consumers, and employees – but seldom owners
Web3 requires a new curriculum
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In web3, culture is everything
In a world where everything can be copied or forked
Culture is the best moat
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Half of the struggle being a DAO contributor is figuring out wtf is going on
Bullish DAO tools that help contributors gain context
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A couple months ago, I got my haircut
My stylist asked me what I do for work, and we started chatting about crypto
He said something that I haven't been able to get out of my head
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Most DAOs grow way too fast
Why?
Because they onboard everyone who wants to contribute
Imagine if a startup hired everyone who wanted to work there
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In DAOs, we often conflate leadership with centralization
The reality is decentralization comes from having many leaders, not zero leaders
To optimize for decentralization, DAOs need to create many pathways for contributors to become leaders
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Spicy take: most work in DAOs should not be permissionless
Just because someone raises their hand doesn't mean they're the best person for the job
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DAOs need metrics
Metrics help evaluate the health of a DAO + make it easier to recognize what isn't working
A quick 🧵 on a few DAO metrics
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DAOs need explicit, clear structures
We’ve developed this myth that ambiguity is good for decentralization
In reality, ambiguity centralizes power to those “in the know”
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"If there's one thing I've learned in my life..
It's that revolutions promise to slay the big, bad dragons
But they always just replace them with new ones
Even if they look different, they're still dragons"
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In DAOs, we often act like core teams = centralization
Most DAOs need a core team to keep operations running + align the DAO on long-term goals
The key difference in DAOs is that the core team answers to a community, not a CEO
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web2: secretly run by money and power
web3: explicitly run by money and power
governance tokens, on-chain bribes, etc
all explicit representations of the dynamics that already exist in most societies
but this time around, it's public
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Lack of clarity is going to be the killer of most DAOs
If you don't explicitly agree upon:
1) Roles
2) Scopes of power
3) Processes for changing 1 and 2
The DAO will likely fail
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If you're building "the identity standard for web3"
You should probably acknowledge, respect, and honor the richness and beauty of all identities
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So much of crypto tries to force humans to act like machines
(eg game theory, incentive design)
What if instead we built systems that embraced the beautiful chaos that is humanity?
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A simple (but powerful) rule of thumb for DAOs:
Write shit down
(processes, power structures, scopes of work, meeting minutes, etc)
Information asymmetry is toxic for decentralization
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DAOs that are skeuomorphic will continue to get the most media attention
‒ Investment DAOs as the "new funds"
‒ Collector DAOs as the "new museums"
‒ Social DAOs as the "new soho house"
But the real magic happens when we build entirely NEW paradigms ‒ not recreate old ones
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Crypto needs a true crime style podcast that covers hacks + rugs
Using on-chain evidence + leaked telegram messages to figure out what happened and who done it
Would be a fun listen, especially with some of the clever rugs that have happened recently
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Fucked around with Oculus VR this weekend
Really feels like we need to be thinking big about the intersection of VR + web3
Because this shit is mind blowing
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In DAOs, we often think of governance as a way to make decisions
But making all decisions by committee is a losing strategy
Governance SHOULD INSTEAD set guidelines that empower contributors to make decisions
Creating the rules of the game > telling everyone how to play
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DAOs need passionate people thinking deeply about issues
Not a million people’s 30 second thoughts
Limiting scope → maximize impact
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Lots of talk about diversity in crypto this week
Seems like a lot of ppl are realizing that open + anonymous ≠ diverse
How we might solve this 🧵
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Weekly reminder that saying “anyone can contribute” in web3 doesn’t fix the diversity problem
If you want a diverse community, you need to build systems that acknowledge barriers to entry
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We need to move the web3 narrative beyond exclusivity + flexing
In 10 years, people won't buy NFTs to flex
They'll buy NFTs because it gives them the ability to govern + co-create digital spaces they care about
This is why most digital communities will become DAOs
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DAOs are at risk of super high contributor churn
Remote + flexible work makes it hard to keep people committed
To keep contributors around, DAOs need to create a sense of connection belonging
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The way governance tokens work today isn’t sustainable
1) Governance power should be earned, not bought
2) Contributors shouldn’t have to give up governance rights (tokens) to pay rent
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DAOs face a lot of challenges, many of them boil down to:
1) Lack of clear roles + responsibilities
2) Governance that is designed for token holders (but not contributors or domain experts)
3) Ambiguity around values + priorities in the DAO
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Decentralization maximalism might work for protocols (like Bitcoin or Ethereum)
But it does not work in human systems (like DAOs)
When humans are involved: distribution of power > pure decentralization
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But if we're going to get there, we need to be critical of the power dynamics we're creating
If we don't ‒ we risk creating new dragons that are a hell of a lot worse than the ones we're fighting against
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Wikipedia was, in some ways, the first Media DAO (I'm not the first person to say this)
I listened to co-founder of Wikipedia @jimmy_wales speak last week
He said something I keep thinking about, so I gotta do a quick thread 🧵
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The fervor around DAOs is actually fervor around collective ownership
With ownership comes freedom to explore new ideas + collectively create value
Buying things together is just the start
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Ownership is lonely
Collective ownership is powerful
Web3 is just as much a social evolution as it is a financial one
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A job board
But instead of actual jobs, it’s just things you could do for literally any DAO
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There is so much long-form writing in crypto
But as someone who has always struggled with reading, it's really hard to keep up
So I'm starting a podcast where you can *listen* to the top articles in web3
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3 steps to becoming an expert in web3
1) pick a niche
2) focus all ur time on it
3) tweet about it
alternatively, ignore #1 and #2 and just do #3
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Narratives around web3 often lack imagination
Let’s stop adopting the old ways of scarcity + exclusivity
We have the opportunity to re-imagine a world of abundance
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A year ago, I made a commitment to myself to dive deeper into DAOs + tweet regularly about it
And not to be dramatic, but it changed my life
Beyond grateful for this special little corner of the internet and all the people that inhabit it ♥️
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In DAOs, we tend to avoid structure because we mistake it for hierarchy
But hierarchy is only one type of structure
There are many other types of structure that actually ENABLE decentralization
Not destroy it
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Seeing a few DAOs doing DAO-wide breaks for thinking + resting
These are the types of standards we need to set
Expecting everyone to be on 24/7 isn’t sustainable or healthy
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DAOs don't get rid of CEOs
They unbundle them
Many leaders with deep expertise > one leader making calls on everything
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In DAOs, we tend to think hierarchy is bad
The reality is hierarchy can be useful — humans like structure
The key is to have *many* soft hierarchies instead of a single rigid one
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In a DAO, you don’t have a boss to tell you whether you’re doing a good job
And while that can be freeing, feedback is important for learning + growing
Building a culture where contributors feel safe to give and receive feedback will become increasingly important
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The hardest thing about bear markets isn’t prices
It’s losing your sense of excitement about what we're building
So if you need a reminder ‒ 3 things that get me excited about web3 🧵
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DAOs are not the new LLCs
DAOs are the new group chats, protocols, networks
Don’t mistake the trees for the forest
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I don’t know who needs to hear this
But if you made a bunch of $$ in crypto this year, fund public goods on @gitcoin
Let’s build web3 culture on giving, not hoarding
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Many DAOs are still in the honeymoon phase
Coasting along on vibes + excitement
The real test of strength comes when shit gets hard and tensions are high
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Mental health in the metaverse is going to be a massive challenge
Web3 is an infinite game + we need to find healthy ways to play it
"Less screen time" is not the only answer ‒ we need more balanced approaches
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I am once again requesting a true crime podcast investigating hacks + rugs
Using on-chain data and telegram messages to figure out who dunnit
Would easily become a top 3 crypto podcast
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Every DAO should have a protocol for off-boarding contributors
Just like any other org, people who aren’t a good fit can hurt culture + productivity
Agreeing on expectations + clear processes for when expectations aren’t met is incredibly important
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I don’t know who needs to hear this
But you don’t need to own tokens or an NFT to contribute to a DAO
Yes, there are some DAOs that require tokens or NFTs to join, but many don’t
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Top skills DAO contributors need:
- Humility
- Self-awareness
- Willingness to sit with discomfort
The most important skills aren’t technical ‒ they’re human
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The killer feature of DAOs is not collective decision making
It's collective ownership
Which happens to require collective decision making
Sometimes I think we forget this
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Right now, most DAOs use national elections to vote on local issues
This creates a host of problems and often the response is to centralize
But what we REALLY need is to localize
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I hope 2022 ends up being the year of service DAOs
- Owned by the people who actually do the work
- Project-based w/ clear deliverables
- Compensation based on execution
The relationship between capital and labor in service DAOs is so straightforward ‒ it's beautiful
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I think we still underestimate the power of narrative
You can have the most sophisticated token design or governance mechanisms
But if people don't understand them, it doesn't matter
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Contributing to DAOs is fun
Context switching is not
Tools that help contributors track contributions + to-dos across DAOs are going to be huge
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In web3, I've noticed my brain is constantly dopamine farming
Jumping from Twitter to Discord
Mental health isn't just about taking a break and going outside (though that helps!)
I think it's about recognizing this pattern and allowing the impulse to exist without acting on it
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Every DAO needs a wiki
But those who have the knowledge are too busy to document it
A useful onboarding task -> new members document at least one process
Improves docs + gives new ppl an excuse to reach out to others in the DAO
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In DAOs, decentralization doesn’t mean every person is involved with every decision
It means anyone CAN be involved in decisions *if they want*
Creating many opportunities for involvement > requiring people to participate in everything
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Being a token holder doesn't always mean you have the context / knowledge required to make decisions
DAOs that ignore this will create suboptimal outcomes
Domain expertise should be embraced, not diluted
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Number of contributors is a terrible metric for measuring success of a DAO
I'm more bullish DAOs with *fewer* contributors that have:
- Shared context
- Psychological safety
- High levels of autonomy
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Token voting still centralizes power into the hands of those with the most capital
Creators came into the space with the promise of royalties for them to be cut out altogether
We took the power away from the dragons, just to give it to the free market (the ultimate dragon)
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There will never be a "DAO summer" for the same reason there was never "LLC summer"
DAOs are vehicles for collective coordination
Not seasonal products / trends
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What's most exciting about DAOs is not distributing power to individuals
It's *what happens* when you distribute power
A quick 🧵
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DAOs today are built for extroverts
This has come up in SO MANY convos I’ve had recently
I’m an extrovert, so I want to understand it from an introvert’s perspective
How do we solve this?
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DAO product strategy
Create small centralized groups that own and ship product
Scale marketing, comms, legal, etc with a decentralized model
Keep product team centralized + agile until you find some sense of product market fit
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Tension in DAOs is inevitable
Trying to avoid it makes no sense
Ability to navigate that tension is what matters
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"we are a DAO"
- boring
- heard it before
- tells you nothing
"we are an ever-evolving internet organization"
- arouses curiosity
- forces debates about 'what is DAO'
- makes you wonder how ppl pay their bills
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The bull case for diversity in DAOs is simple
Homogenous groups do not amplify collective intelligence
To amplify collective intelligence → increase diversity of perspectives
DAOs that do this will have a competitive advantage
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some podcast news!
✨ On the Other Side is joining @blockworks ✨
when I first started the pod, my goal was to create space for exploring the human side of web3
I had no idea if it would resonate with anyone
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Most DAOs start with a benevolent dictator
These leaders are a lot like parents
When the child (the DAO) is young → parents have lots of control in decisions
As they grow older → give up control and allow it to grow into it's own (transition to supporting > controlling)
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Governance as entertainment is underrated
Today, we think about governance as "serious decision making"
(and that's certainly important)
But when governance is re-framed as "entertainment" ‒ it becomes a new form of media
Which blows open the design space for what's possible
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Lots of DAOs will end up looking like small businesses
(not every DAO will be huge and that’s ok)
But we need better funding mechanisms for these types of organizations
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Decentralization in DAOs is a lot like decentralization of Ethereum
Not everyone wants to run a node, but people can if they want
Not everyone is going to vote/contribute, but they can if they want
Decentralization is about freedom of choice
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if you:
+ love twitter
+ are obsessed with crypto
+ want to be part of something amazing
come work with me @Uniswap
we’re hiring for an nyc-based social media manager 💕
boards.greenhouse.io/uniswap…
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