The Grants Committee discussed and settled on 1000 BANK/hr as a compensation rate for work done on Grants Committee Approved projects - to be approved by the DAO with soft consensus here.
Since we are in the early stages of the DAO’s life, it’s important that we heavily reward the contributors that are putting in valuable time and work towards achieving the DAO’s mission.
This rate may be different for internal Guild operations, but should serve as a point of reference for existing DAO compensation.
This proposal is set to close on 8/15/21.
Approve - 1,000 BANK/hr as a general rate for work.
I is ok for a starting point and of course will be wrong but that is why we are DAOing and not Startupping! Break it and fix it! The balance is talent reward and progress being mindful of long term strength and burning through your assets quickly. We have an incredible start and while I think this amount may be too much we can never pay the workers too much! Let’s do this and if we need adjustment up or down so be it!
I can accept this as a starting reference point, to be re-evaluated next season. I’m not thrilled about the GC providing compensation benchmarks, but I understand that it’s necessary and useful as a jumping off point for us.
“pay” is really a sensitive thing, its always “too little”, like how human greed is a thing.
Of course in the ideal world, everyone works from the goodness of their heart.
I would love to see more drill downs, like dev work should be paid the highest, on par with coordination and leadership work. followed by specialist work, followed by generalist work, followed by showing up
I would love to see tools being built for DAOs, to verifiable certify “work done” in a neutral on chain way, and “hours clocked”.
followed by some sort of on chain dispute mechanism
But of course this will be really really somewhere out there in the future.
I’m fine with 1000 BANK/hr starting point. +1 @jameswmontgomery.eth point about a “wage working group” to benchmark.
DAO’s are new, so i’m grasping for comparables. In one sense we are somewhat like an early-stage startup member, to @TheMarvel 's point about being mindful of the long-term and not burning assets too quickly, while balancing with rewarding contributors as @Icedcool is laying out in this post.
Just for context, here’s an analytics free agent charging (premium?) market rates.
On one hand, if Bankless DAO didn’t have an internal talent pool, we’d have to search externally and be subject to market rates; external talent are not as invested in the growth of the DAO so will be looking to extract maximum value up front.
On the other hand, because we do have an internal talent pool, we are compensating, at below (current) market rates; but with the hope that our $BANK will be worth more in the future.
TL;DR internal members can delay gratification longer.
I’m just thinking out loud here, apologies if this doesn’t quite move the conversation forward.
I see this as a combination of
wage working group figuring out market wage
contributors viewing themselves as early stage / startup stage members who can delay gratification.
With all that being said, I do think we’ll have to get to a point where we offer competitive (to external market) rates to attract & retain talent, but it’ll take time for us early contributors to build, prove to the market we’re a force to be reckon with and have that show up in $BANK valuations.
I do realize i’m using “traditional” companies/startup/labor market as a benchmark (simply because I don’t have other benchmarks in mind - would be open to a whole new way to approach this as DAOs are a new thing
I find myself agreeing with what @paulapivat said. A few additional thoughts come to mind:
How is setting a fixed amount of $BANK impacted by fluctuating price (both up and down). Are there going to be mechanisms to adjust this?
What are the implications of discovering that the fixed amount of $BANK is too high (burning through capital too quickly) if the price remains stable? Will this affect morale negatively? Is it better to start low and create an incentive for price appreciation?
This is going to be a challenging balance to strike, and I’m here for it! We’ve got some big brains here and I am optimistic that we’ll figure it out!
Is there a way to have Devs paid differently? I voted No because the groups with which I communicate in corporate America would want $125/hr (3000+ BANK/hr) for moonlighting on a monthly/quarterly basis. Thanks to the Devs currently working for BanklessDAO!
There are great responses in this thread. I would like to reiterate below points, as I feel they summarize the key points in this thread so far:
As Bankless DAO members, we are invested in the long-term success of the DAO, and in extension believe in the long-term value accrual of the $BANK token . The tokens will accrue in value, and will be worth more than they are now (@paulapivat)
As the value of $BANK increases, the compensation will have to be adjusted (@Mamer). A time-gated solution makes sense in my opinion (@DoubleB)
The current remuneration of 1000 $BANK/hour at current valuation may not (yet) be attractive for external talent (@paulapivat)
Once we determine a “fair rate”, we will face the challenge of verifiably certifying “hours clocked” or “work done” (@angyts)
We have the upside of having internal talent who believe in the Bankless mission and want to be part of it. Believing in the long-term growth means 1000 BANK now may be worth much more than it is today.
As a first step, I think it is great and I approve of this.
Additional food for thought:
Compensation could be linked to milestone achievement, which can be validated through demonstration of the tool to relevant guild leads followed by multisig approval
Price of a project can be determined through a voting structure, where higher priority projects are allocated a higher rate
We do not need to have one compensation approach to apply to everyone. Non-project/routine work, especially around DAO coordination, is more receptive to a flatrate wage as regular actions taken can be more easily validated
I would like to suggest for everyone’s consideration, that the amounts could be distributed in Bank, but tied to a fixed amount in stablecoins, due to the volatile nature of the token Bank.
My worry with this approach is that it might give the impression that we are not confident that BANK will grow in value in the future. This could work for if we plan to hire external talent for specific tasks who are not DAO members and don’t share our vision of the DAO.
Why do we value devs so much higher than others? Lawyers, strategists etc. all earn a much higher hourly rates and all are taking lower rates because they believe in the future of the BANK token value and what we are doing.
Is there really a reason to value devs higher than other highly paid specialists?
I could be wrong as I don’t know how to verify what I am told, but I am led to believe there is a limit to progression of projects based on dev needs. I haven’t heard any inferences to other trades limiting project progression. Your point is valid too, and I do have curiosity about the pay model - I find a lot of the “volunteer” work intriguing. I wonder what other businesses could use this pay model. Under what circumstances are people willing to do real work for the possibility of pay or increased token/stock value? There must be some research on this - I know there are studies showing production (in some instances) decreases when activities begin to have compensation.
