Passing the Torch šŸ”„

šŸ¤– DAO Governance and Vision
,
1

Hi all,

With the transfer of the Gitcoin DAO and related charitable assets from Gitcoin Holdings to the Gitcoin Foundation [1] about to close, there will be a few changes I want to make explicit to everyone.

Once these assets are transferred to the Gitcoin Foundation, Gitcoin Holdings will be formally disaffiliating from ā€œleadershipā€ in the DAO.

What does this mean in practice?

  1. I have resigned from my position as a workstream lead at moonshot collective. I am recommending that Kyle Weiss + Chase Dragan replace me.
  2. I will be remaining with Gitcoin Holdings and am not going to be capital-L Leading within the DAO, nor will I be assuming any role (leadership or otherwise) with the Foundation.
    • The Foundation and Gitcoin Holdings have negotiated a services agreement under which Gitcoin Holdings can backfill certain services that the Foundation needs, but all of this will be driven by and defined by the Foundationā€™s leadership (which per its bylaws is deferential to the DAO leadership). This means that Holdings/the DAO will have an arms length relationship
    • This is the fulfillment of the direction I laid out in A DAO has no CEO. I have authored over 119 gov.gitcoin.co posts to decentralize all of the context in my head in order to prepare the DAO for this moment.
  3. Holdings will stop participating in CSDO.
  4. The Gitcoin Foundation will be formally receiving charitable assets (Gitcoin Grants, Gitcoin DAOā€™s treasury, and IP, etc) and Gitcoin Holdings will renew its focus on revenue-generating business lines - virtual events, merch, and media opportunities (like books + podcasts).
  5. We will likely be renaming Gitcoin Holdings to further disambiguate the two entities. There will be a transition period of 18 months in which Holdings will be permitted to tastefully use the Gitcoin brand.

Zooming out, this moment represents a true passing of the torch moment. Gitcoin has been my baby for almost 5 years now, many ups & downs, and it is very bittersweet to see it growing up and ā€œleaving the houseā€. I am happy for this opportunity for the DAO to become its own, independent legal entity (via the Foundation) & to be driven fully by the leaders within the DAO - there are dozens of amazing, mission-driven, thoughtful, talented people who have joined the Gitcoin DAO who will continue to drive it forward to success.

I will be rooting for this success in the future. As I turn my attention away from the DAO, I am encouraged by what Iā€™ve seen in the last season.

  1. The DAO is growing up into a coordination machine, which means more positive impact on the world.
  2. I see the DAO defining what success looks like to itself, pursuing abundance, sensing & responding, having lots of hard conversations to get there, refocusing on whatā€™s truly important, and treating each other with empathy along the way.
  3. Peer to peer feedback is the heart of any DAOā€™s growth, and you all have embraced that. I hope to see this trend continue.

Over the years, itā€™s been great to see alumni of Gitcoin go off and do great new amazing things. Iā€™m so proud whenever people come up to me at events and say that [Hackathons|KERNEL|Grants|the DAO] meaningfully improved their lives. Iā€™m proud of the impact that KERNEL has had and wonder if weā€™ll see other spinouts. Iā€™m so proud to count industry luminaries like Anish Agnihotri + Austin Griffith as Gitcoin alumni, and projects like Uniswap, Yearn, 1inch, ethers.js, WalletConnect, Prsymatic Labs, as part of our story. I hope to see many many more.

With the benefit of this context, I begin to view Holdingsā€™ disaffiliation from ā€œleadershipā€ in the DAO as less of an end and more of a new beginning. I look forward to the next chapter of our relationships with each other. While I expect that you all have to rely on each other p2p now (not on me) to solve the DAOā€™s problems, I would like to continue to be involved from arms-length at the edge of the network. I will celebrate as the DAO solves its own problems + realizes its Essential Intents - eg when the protocols Grants 2.0/Passport launches + begin to get adoption (and hopefully build on top of them). Please donā€™t hesitate to reach out to me if I can assist in any way in helping the DAO reach its essential intent.

Lastly - I hope that this disaffiliation sends a signal about our culture. As a DAO that started as a company, the DAO may have to have an explicit focus on decentralizing power. To do so, itā€™ll have to remain focused on creating a culture where its members always seek to decentralize power, and avoid entrenching leadership, where people always seek to hire someone smarter than themselves & empower them to be the next generation of leadership. I hope that my contributions & eventual willful disaffiliation from leadership is the first in what becomes a beautiful decentralized fractal of growth & impact.

The stewardship of the journey & ultimate destination for Gitcoin are now up to you.

Hereā€™s the torch. Take good care of it!

Owocki + the Supermodular (formerly Gitcoin Holdings) team

38 Likes
2

Thank you for all you did in starting this amazing experiment @owocki!

Will you still be involved with the DAO in almost full time capacity?

If not ā€¦ anything else planned in the horizon?

2 Likes
3

i will be involved in the DAO to the extent the DAO leadership calls upon me.

it is possible that we will pitch projects to the DAO to build upon grants 2.0 / gitcoin passport.

the plan is to focus on :

  1. growing the virtual events business with @beist and team.
  2. growing the regen narrative in partnership with bankless on the https://greenpill.party/ podcast and via book publishing.
  3. it is possible that we will pitch projects to the DAO to build upon grants 2.0 / gitcoin passport.
  4. generally building the regen web3 narrative / movement
  5. generally building the sybil resistence / democratic DAO movement.
13 Likes
4

A Huge Milestone in the Gitcoin timeline!! Excited for the next frontier. Kudos to you @owocki for guiding us to this point but also for releasing so many projects that are successful on their own.

6 Likes
5

thank you for all youā€™ve done tirelessly over the years and the people that youā€™ve inspired (myself included) :heart:

3 Likes
6

Thank you for blazing a trail for funding, digital media and authorship. May your efforts continue to nurture the soil of Gitcoin and may we loving gardeners.

7

i minted some POAPS for everyone who was at the dao at the time i was passing the torch.

if you are reading this post + contributing to the dao, grab one from this list here => poaps_txt Ā· GitHub

7 Likes
8

What an incredible achievement! Itā€™s been great fun to watch you start Gitcoin and turn it into what it is today.

Thank you so much for the blood, sweat and tears youā€™ve put into creating this. I know it hasnā€™t been easy but I believe the DAO will continue to be successful and provide many opportunities for thriving.

2 Likes
9

You are a true visionary Kevin. Itā€™s an honor and a privilege to be working in the DAO you have made a reality.

2 Likes
10

I got one, thanks Owocki!

Thank you sir for the 5-year hard working to bring such wonderful product, and potential to help the Public Goods!

2 Likes
12

I cannot begin to express my gratitude for how much I have learned, the trust you have given to me and this community and for the vision you have laid out.

thank you - in so many ways.

See you in the metaverse ser.

2 Likes
13

It has been a great collaboration and amazing experience. Public good needs public participation so we will pass the torch on

1 Like
14

congratulations on this new threshold

15

Amazing work and cannot wait for the next chapter of Gitcoin.

16

thanks for the kind words yall. i know that decorum & ritual dictates that some amount of nice things be said hereā€¦ but i generally think founders get too much praise when things go well and too much blame when they go wrong. i hope that both of those things get spread across the DAO as the DAO becomes more and more decentralized over time!

after some time, i will post again to create a dialogue where we can figure out what this next stage of the relationship between web3event.co (formerly holdings) and gitcoindao looks like. there is some nuance between a total disaffiliation from the DAO vs disaffiliation from ā€œleadershipā€ in the DAO that i think would be fruitful to iron out together. there is also nuance about how this changes over time we will need to define.

btw, please make sure you each claim a POAP. in the context of decentralized society i think the dataset of ā€œwho did the torch get passed toā€ is an interesting data point that maybe someone will do something with one day!

6 Likes
17

ā€˜A leader is best when itā€™s barely known they exist. When their work is done, their aim fulfilled, the people will say: we did it ourselves.ā€™ --Paraphrase of Lao Tzu

4 Likes