Gm fam 
Reaching out from ConsenSys DAO team! 
We hear you. Thank you for your response to this proposal. I am glad to see some pushback - we’re all clearly very passionate about our communities and it helps to see your guidance.
Since the early days of Ethereum, DAOs have been part of ConsenSys’ culture, and are deeply rooted around how we view the world. Guiding systems toward decentralization is where we see the world headed to, and we are steering a massive organization in that direction.
To set further context around our DAO program…
- ConsenSys is seeking to decentralize our products and systems over time for the Community
- Our DAO team summoned the idea that we should become better contributors to the Ethereum and DAO ecosystems
- Our very first initiative was— “how do we bring some talent to Bankless DAO and see if there is the potential for more synergies”, being that bDAO is a low barrier of entry and a stellar example of a DAO
- If this goes well, what are opportunities for deeper collaboration?
Our goal is to bring some non-paid contributor talent from the Ethereum ecosystem into the Bankless ecosystem… Yes, there is the question around individuals’ salaries outside of the DAO and if that’s fair or not. I think that’s a much deeper question than what we can tackle here.
To keep this simple for the DAO, we figured…
- Short term (3 month) trial period of these DAO contributors
- In order for the DAO to see the value, output of these contributions (or otherwise), and have the flexibility to change course if needed
- We (ConsenSys) can bring in top project management, ops, dev, product, finance talent and more
- We really want to hand-pick the contributors from our side to help add value strategically
- Non-paid, guest pass (free) access to DAO contributorship
- We want a low barrier to entry for our contributors to get a general vibe of bDAO
- ConsenSys employees will NOT be receiving any BANK unless they are engaged with individually after this initial 3 month engagement… From there, it’s up to the DAO and the contributor (ConsenSys is simply making an introduction)
- Light stewardship of these contributors through the DAO and Guilds to make sure we are contributing meaningfully
- There is NO guarantee that any of these individuals will be onboarded to any guilds. They should only be onboarded if each particular guild representative sees value in their potential.
- If the experiment was successful, both organizations/ organisms could explore future collaborations
- We wanted to make sure we have evidence to reference on both sides’ output for long term engagement potential
The only negatives we analyzed were…
- Existing waitlisted members to guilds may feel deprioritized
- We totally feel you here. Valid argument. If Bankless has folks that have been in the server for awhile and are now getting overlooked for contributorship due to another group coming in — let’s use this as a path for further developing a stronger onboarding and hiring process for future DAOlationships!
- New contributors burden peer DAO contributors and are not invited back to the DAO
Some responses to your questions:
- When you say “Total number of ConsenSys employees successfully onboarded”, are you saying total number DURING the 3 month period, or the amount who stay after?
This is referring to the 3 month period. The hope is that they stay at Bankless DAO and do more work past the 3 months, however, that will be up to the DAO to decide.
- This should be paid under a specialized onboarding program
- Contributors only get 1k Bank an hour so inequities in bringing salaried employees from elsewhere, especially from a big & rich company
- Will it impact our culture of work
- Participating projects and guilds should be consulted
Totally get that initial gut feeling. We feel that over time, that will likely be the long-term happy path. To provide evidence and output for this even being a possibility, experimenting with free passes will have to be our first priority.
RE: Salaries versus DAO pay:
Yes, this is a major issue in the DAO ecosystem. Very much hear you here as well. However, I think this is a wider issue that we can work on together over time. We would love to brainstorm this with you, maybe some of the HR and legal experts could join those discussions? There is also the opportunity that contributors stumble across open roles at ConsenSys through this collaboration.
RE: impacting culture of work.
We hope so! I hope that we bring in some strong candidates who don’t deter your work, but instead bring some additional structure and execution. If they need more coaching than Bankless DAO contributors have time to provide, perhaps we have a process/ team for mitigating these conflicts. Perhaps we even bring in some ConsenSys executives to help guide the output of this working relationship.
RE: Projects and Guilds should be consulted.
100%! The idea was to get the process started and then the guilds would decide on whether they want those contributors and experts in their streams.
I will say, we’re very excited over here to collaborate with Bankless DAO. As a huge fan of Bankless, David, Ryan, Lucas—and the many friends I have made in the DAO ecosystem that came from bDAO—it came from best intent to pair up the ConsenSys and Bankless ecosystems. This is just the beginning of so much more that is possible…
Lfgggg!