A DAO has no CEO

[JonisJon]

Hey All - Jon co-founder of ShapeShift here, and now active community member of the ShapeShift DAO (but holding no formal role anymore) - I think I have some good insight to share on this topic and I think both Gitcoin and ShapeShift are in similar situations and have a lot to learn from each other on this subject.

@owocki - a few thoughts on your thread from my perspective from decentralizing ShapeShift and going through some very similar questions and situations as I think you are dealing with in Gitcoin:

@owocki

DAOs don’t have CEOs. There is no legitimacy in authority, and control (or perception of control) is a liability if we are to go where I think we are going

Yes, DAO’s don’t have (or at least shouldn’t have) CEO’s, there are many important reasons for this, but on its base level it is critical that any true decentralized org evolves into one with many different leaders leading in different ways, with no single points of failure, and not get entrenched into a traditional power structure with a singular person (a “CEO”) having too much control over any high level aspects of the community and org.

@owocki

I of course remain completely committed to GitcoinDAO & it’s mission, but in what ways does tactical retreat from being involved in operations/decision making of the DAO serve the greater strategic direction of the DAO? How can I (and the others at Gitcoin Holdings) begin to separate ourselves from the DAO, such that we create space that allows the next generation of Leaders to emerge within & around GitcoinDAO?

I think that the degree to which you have a “tactical retreat” from operations/decision making will depend on where you are in the decentralization process and what you think is best for the community. I will say it is never easier to take a step back in this way when you are used to running the operations of a project that you have put so much of your heart and soul into, but part of the whole idea with DAOifying and decentralizing is that you recognize over time the whole of the DAO needs to become stronger and more resilient than any particular part of it (including you or myself and Erik in the case of ShapeShift DAO). There will never be a “right time” from your perspective, and the only way to get to where you need to go is at some point to rip the band aid off and let the community start taking over many important aspects of what you currently do on a daily basis. This is ultimately what we did at ShapeShift by handing over the majority of the authority of the DAO very quickly, and it has worked out better than I ever expected. So IMO, as painful as it may seem, the sooner you start to step back, the better for Gitcoin.

@owocki

• How can we do so in such a way that if they fail, we are there to pick them up & reorient things? I can’t help but have the parent in me when I ask “How can we give them the psychological safety to try & experiment & learn, but also not make them complacent?”

I think you can do this by staying an involved and influential community member, active in discussions and there to advise and assist as needed, while at the same time being clear that these decisions are no longer yours and empowering the community around you to step up and take them on. You are too involved to not be around to help when something goes wrong, so my guess and my experience with the ShapeShift DAO is this will happen quite naturally as you step back more. That being said it is always a careful balance of being there to help, but also not offering too much help/allowing others to fail in order to learn, if the guard rails you put up are too strong the new contributors will never really grow and flourish. Better to let some things falter/fail in the short term, in order to empower the DAO that much more over the long term.

@owocki

• How can we do these things without entrenching those new leaders over the long term? How do we create a culture where we always seek to decentralize power? Where we always seek to hire someone smarter than us & empower them to be the next generation of leadership in a beautiful decentralized fractal of growth & impact.

This is a great question and a difficult one to answer, but ultimately I think you do this by putting the right processes and community culture into place as much as you can. At the ShapeShift DAO something that has really helped us on this front is making sure any elected/funded position or group is always term limited (usually between 4-6 months right now for us) - this can evolve for the needs of the community, but I think this works really well because it constantly forces the discussion on a regular basis of if this person/group is delivering the value to the DAO token holders want to see, as well as forcing the discussion if someone else could deliver better. I think the biggest danger to DAOs is putting anyone into a position of power that is indefinite and then can simply become entrenched. Having a culture of terms and review seems to help a lot with this from my experience so far.

@owocki

• How can we do so in such a way that is otherwise responsible to our stakeholders?

This depends on who you are defining as stakeholders, but generally I think the best thing you can do for all stakeholders (in particular Gitcoin tokeholders) is setup the right processes for resiliency and take a step back as soon as possible for the benefit of the long term of everyone.

@owocki

1. What are the biggest areas of centralization debt & how can we pay them down as quickly & responsibly as possible? Of course there is the centralized platform, but what else?

You likely have a better view towards this than anyone and I would say once you start to step back one of the best thing you can do is write up roadmaps and ideas for the places you see as most centralized and help creates targets the community should progressively work on to eliminate those things over time. This is where you can help lead on this front without being “the leader” at the same time.

@owocki

Two bits of context I might add:

1. Some of these questions are extremely hard not only professionally (there is no playbook for this) but personally. It is not an overstatement to say that Gitcoin’s mission has been my a large part of my waking life since 2017, and I must admit that Gitcoin is a big part of my identity - The last time I left a project I cofounded & scaled to millions of users I got extremely emo about it, and I’m trying not to do the same this time. TLDR - this transition is hard for me!
2. I’m not going anywhere. I love this mission & this DAO - and I’ll be here (in the role of Founder, but without wearing any CEO hat) as much as the DAO needs me.

I totally understand on your bits of context as well, having founded and worked on ShapeShift for the last 8ish years now, I have had a similar problem where it became such a large part of my identity that letting go of important aspects of it was quite difficult. I was both excited and terrified at the same time at this prospect of decentralizing but I am also a firm believer that once you make that decision the best thing you can do for the community is fully commit and start removing yourself as “essential” as quickly as possible. The timing will never feel right and it will always be uncomfortable, but I do believe the sooner you can do that, the better it will work out for everyone in the community (including you).

Something I learned early up in my entrepreneurship career is that one of the hardest and most important skills is learning to constantly replace yourself and I think that is perhaps even more important in DAO land. You may even find that removing yourself from a lot of the day to day operations actually frees you up to deliver even more value to the community with higher level strategic/vision that you can deliver as a community member on a regular basis, I have personally found this the case with my transition to my non-formal role in the ShapeShift DAO and being able to “come up for air” out of the operational weeds has me more motivated and excited to be part of such a thing than at any point over the last number of years.

Overall, my advice is basically “rip the band aid off” and find a way to start removing yourself as an essential point of failure as soon as reasonably possible, I think you will find the rewards are well worth it and you may find yourself enjoying the change far more than you expect once you get over the initial terrifying period .