They are two seperate entities. One is a delaware c corp and one is a DAO with a legal structure based in Cayman.
I’d encourage you to read through the governance process. Gitcoin Holdings has gone to considerable length to seperate itself from the DAOs decision making. There is a balance here though, as until now we’ve been there to catch things when they fall over (as the recent dGrants workstream). In the future, Holdings will likely fully dissaffiliate from the DAO and will only interact at arms length with it in order to make more clear the seperation.
As to your question about focus, the workstream leads recently went through an excercise to ratify the DAOs Purpose and Essential Intent for the next 18 months. Those are in draft form and not ratified yet. I expect that a post will be coming about that this week.
This is where I start to get worried. Gitcoin is already your anchor partner. One of the terms we agreed upon in our “Seeding KERNEL DAO” doc was that “Gitcoin as Founding Donor of KERNEL”.
I feel that were getting into string bet territory here. Is Gitcoin a Founding partner for KERNEL already? Or is it dependent on this proposal passing?
If the DAO had the capitalization of the EF, it could fund at the levels they do. But the DAO does not.
I do not think that there is a balance to strike here. Nowhere in the A Vision For A Pluralistic Civilization Scale Infrastructure For Funding Public Goods? post does it imply that Gitcoin would be funding these mechanisms out of it’s treasury.
In fact, the opposite is true. A pluralistic infrastructure requires pluralistic funding mechanisms and sources.
(Though AFAIK the DAO does intend to scale Gitcoin Grants to a point where it could fund a project like this)
I just found out that you asked Gitcoin Holdings’s lead designer to work on the KERNEL brand recently. As you know, I have trust issues stemming from resources that Gitcoin Holdings are funding, that were supposed to be allocated to our priorities, being allocated to KERNEL’s priorties - especially without my knowledge. This feels like its an abuse of trust. Resource misalignment has happened many times in our shared history, but I think now is a good time for it to end. As the seperation has been finalized socially in Q3 last year, and will be legally seperated soon, I would like to ask you to stop asking full time team members at Gitcoin Holdings to work on KERNEL work, especially on Gitcoin Holding’s dime.
The KERNEL syllabus talks about values like “Consider your intention first.”. “Incentives inform everything.”. I am disappointed that these values seem to only be selectively applied, either when (1) you want something or (2) within the KERNEL alumni in-group. You could have considered asking me before you asked our lead designer to work on KERNEL after you’ve already spun out. You could follow through on your committments after you make them. But you chose not to, whether consciously or mindlessly, the result is the same.
Regardless of the wrinkles in our shared history, I am happy for you that you found your tribe and your place in the ecosystem. And I am happy that KERNEL alumni seem to have gained so much from the program. I know you love KERNEL because I see you pour your heart and soul into it to make it a great experience.
Speaking of long governance posts: I have empathy for KERNEL but I am against accomodating it in this proposal. Through this conversation I’ve tried to be firm but not mean - especially not unnecessarily. My apologies in advance for if/when I stepped over this line.
Likewise, I wish KERNEL the best and look forward to GitcoinDAO and KERNEL being more at arms length together in the DAO of DAO ecosystem. Perhaps once the dust has settled we can define that relationship further so there are no more surprises.