Bankless DAO x ConsenSys DAOlationship Proposal

Governance Proposals
21

Mad Hatter does track manual adds. While the system isn’t perfect–and we’re in the process of addressing glitches–ultimately, Mad Hatter does manage most Guest Passes, whether they are awarded via command or via manual add. If this proposal is accepted, we can update the Guest Pass feature to manage a separate role for the ConsenSYS members. Though it might make more sense to just set them up with a tag that isn’t tracked by either Mad Hatter or Collab.Land.

Also, fair point about picking up the BANK for each ConsenSYS member coming through. This would be a time and financial investment in their employees.

22

@senad.eth Are you able to help answer this or can you direct me to someone who could please and thank you.

23

I really like the energy and thought behind this. I’d like to see the following:

  1. Create a specific tag for this cohort
  2. Put extra effort and possibly a dedicated onboarding to give them the best experience
  3. Do a survey at the beginning and end on their experience and perception of DAOs
  4. Agree to a joint marketing message about ConsenSys and bDAO
  5. Have PM guild perform a retro with the cohort at the end
  6. Encourage them to become full members at the end
4 Likes
24

Genuine thanks to everyone who has added thoughts and insights to this proposal :pray:.

In addition to Lucas’ points, there are a few additional things that I wanted to touch on - specifically, I want to explicitly state that ConsenSys employees will not be receiving BANK for their contributions during this time (if these employees are embraced by the DAO after their trial period then they will be responsible for purchasing their own BANK in order to join the DAO and then they would likely be remunerated in whatever fashion currently exists at the DAO i.e. 1000 BANK/hour).

Hand in hand with the above, these employees truly would be joining Bankless DAO as individuals. There is no larger overarching plan to study or research the DAO or its inner workings and none of these employees have been tasked with anything at all (other than to simply explore…and even that is up to them). This is genuinely a project to help encourage ConsenSys employees to get out in the world of web3 and try things out - to see what it’s like to be a contributor etc. The employees haven’t been pre-selected or anything of that nature - maybe we can draft a selection process/questionnaire together?

In addition to this, there never was and still will not be a guarantee that any of these individuals will be onboarded to any guilds (they should only be onboarded if each particular guild rep sees value in their potential contributions). To Feems’ point regarding existing community members who have not yet been able to find a position within a specific guild, is that based on that particular members skillset not aligning with what the guild leader was looking for? Or, is that more of an operational/onboarding issue in the entire DAO? And if so, if a process is developed out of this that benefits all future members, isn’t that better for the DAO in general? Having been overlooked for roles in DAOs for more than a year myself, I admit that this can be extremely disheartening…these are the exact types of issues that we’re hoping to make progress on with programs like this.

I think one of the only other issues to potentially address is the labour gap that might be created should some of these employees choose not to continue on at Bankless but I also feel that this is a bit of an odd argument given that even less work/undertakings would be happening if ConsenSys employees didn’t join the DAO at all (?). A few thoughts 1) Guild leaders could focus on projects that could be completed during this 3 month period? 2) Guild leaders/stewards can touch base with contributors after certain project milestones and gauge their commitment to the project/DAO…which could then work as feedback with both ConsenSys and Bankless to onboard additional contributors?

I hope that this answers some of your questions @feems @homie (wasn’t able to tag dancingpenguin.ETH, jameswmontgomery.eth, Sprinklesforwinners, Cryptodad)

2 Likes
25

First of all, since DAOs are open, anyone can come into the DAO, as I did c. 15 months ago, and make their way through the DAO.

Some of our projects are rather more open than others, new folk need to be aware and understand that these are guild choices and not personal.

My focus is very much on onboarding, both people and new ideas, and I’ve written here on the subject for Bankless.

I’m also now working on quest based onboarding using Crew 3, we should note that, as often, we are building the aeroplane while flying it. I hope bDAO can evolve in short order.

Consensys here are being polite, and letting Bankless know this is an interest area for them.

The question is what will Bankless do in support.

Rejection makes no sense, because visions are quite aligned, folk exchanging dollars for Bank is good for valuation purposes, Web 3 often talks about a need to bridge to Web 2. Rejection would be the antithesis of Web 3 values, it’s quite out of the question.

I’m only scratching the surface here.

So in onboarding terms, we could say two things.

First, maybe we let Consensys work as any individual.

They would need to discover the anomalies of current onboarding, and there are historic reasons for asking for renewal for GP, but if Consensys buy straight into L1 that’s irrelevant anyway.

I think they could miss the fun of working with Coordinape, and of the effect that has on engaging folk with first principles governance.

The question would be what contribution they might want to make.

They might want to apply for role holder positions, probably standard voting will take care of that. But more importantly what support could they offer to role holders struggling for resources, time, energy, knowledge and so on?

Second, some support could easily be provided.

It would be very easy for DAOlationships to set up a support thread in their channel, at first, and then for Consensys folks to set up threads in their destination guild, that can easily fall into individual guild/project remit.

Overall, given the open nature of Web 3, I think bDAO should embrace this as a hybrid opportunity to trial a new situation, blending Web 3 enterprise with Web 2 support expertise, and understand the extent to which value delivered in each guild can benefit from the collaboration.

@feems @links @ernest_of_gaia @jameswmontgomery.eth @salmanneedasjob

26

First off, it makes me so happy to see so much engagement on proposals. I think the thing that through me off is when people enter as entities and not individuals, I totally welcome any individual that would like to join BDAO. Personally, anyone I bring into BDAO I personally onboard (ask them what they like, what they are good at and what they want to gain from contributing), then I direct them to the some Guilds and projects that might be fitting.

I just know dropping a bunch of people in discord isn’t going to be the most fruitful at retaining talent, we have an opportunity here to create an effective onboarding program. As I said before, we could use the opportunity here to develop one together with the team at Consensys. Then the long-term ambassador tag would work, limiting it to specific projects or guilds that would need would work.

I think what gave me pause is that an agreement was made to onboard employees (not individuals) of a company into projects where leads were not consulted. Also, if the goal is to bring in new people, why can’t they just come as individuals?

Why not participate on your own time and not work time (so they are not paid by there company to be there), I think its important for contributors to engage a Coordinape round but also do work in which they would charge market rate but get paid in BANK for. This would solve the flags I said in terms of :
Low value of BANK (our 1kBANK an hour)
Impact Culture (visible inequities)
Precendent for more corps to enter
Lack of utility on BANK

It’s interesting no one is talking about that - maybe far removed from the chatter and sentiment from the community which I see is a bigger issue than this. Which FYI people are struggling in BDAO (to make most of BANK, to fit in, to participate).

Again more than welcome - just come as individuals. If arriving as a company, then lets develop an effective onboard and DAO experience program together so we can use this to attract other businesses that want to enter the DAO

27

*Note: I thought employees will receive BANK during these three months like everyone else. Misconception on my side.

Thanks for your comment spinkles, my thoughts:

  1. It’s no necessary to do that, they will receive a guest pass and a separate tag.
  2. ConsenSys employees are community members for those 3 months. They would ideally be able to decide to opt in or opt out of coordinape rounds and they would obviously be eligible to receive bounties for work they do. They collectively decided to opt out.
28

Appreciate this!

I see the potential of this project. I suppose I would always be a fan of making sure that everyone has a seat to the table, and everyone has a ticket to the party if you will. Based upon your response, it seems like we all do. The wheels are certainly turning.

1 Like
29

Gm fam :sparkles::unicorn:

Reaching out from ConsenSys DAO team! :handshake:

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! :sparkles::sparkles::handshake:

6 Likes
30

Marketing Guild is ready to help and we’re happy to receive new talent from anywhere in the world, from any culture, and from any background.

Looking forward to this!

2 Likes
31

I like this response because it provides clarity on the goals, motivation and next steps. Would love a clear scope, maybe some KPI’s and a retrospective at the end so we can learn what is working and what didn’t so that we can create effective strategies for retaining members (if the things we are doing are disorganized or not engaging enough for the top talent we would love to know).

I think something that will help you is to;
Maybe start off with a survey from your colleagues about what they want to do, what they are passionate and their skills sets - with that information, we are able to direct them to the appropriate projects or Guilds ( and also share that with the project scope squads or Guild role holders - it will make their experience more fun and fruitful for everyone).

I saw a proposal for the DAOlationships asking for compensation to do this - would Consensys be open to providing them with the compensation instead of the DAO paying for it?

I think it’s important to see how well this worked or what the gaps are if we could get a report at the end that would be great and maybe collaborate on how to of made the onboarding and retention process better.

Thank you for the clarity and the detailed responses

1 Like
32

I 100% agree with this sentiment, RTJ.

5 Likes
33

Echoed here! Excited to see how this opportunity can benefit us all if approached with a mindset of curiosity and strong Bankless values.

Welcome ConsenSys.
Academy looks forward to meeting you.

2 Likes