The Future is Collective by Pia Mancini | Devcon Bogotá

foreign [Music] ER and CEO at open Collective and I'm thrilled to be here and I'm gonna be talking today about Building Bridges between the Legacy and the decentralized ecosystems to fund public goods for the future so here we go with not going anywhere yes so the tldr if we want to make philanthropy tech for people who are already the winners then we continue like this but if we want to lift people out of poverty and co-design co-create this technology with them then we must Bridge the Legacy system and help people over okay that's what I'm gonna try to argue now so let's start with the thought framework that I use for thinking about where we are in the world right now and my kind of tldr of the thought framework is what you what used to be is no longer fit for our needs but what will be is not here yet so the current system is declining we're seeing a paradigm that is um it's on the way out and we can see maybe far in the future the Paradigm that we want to build but we're not there yet so where we are um this theory is called this framework is called the three Horizons framework and it's super useful for me to figure out the type of technology that we want to build the type of questions that we should be asking ourselves and kind of try to make sense of what's happening in the world today where where are we so these three Horizons framework that was developed by the international Futures forum is now being applied by Daniel Christian wall to the transition towards regenerative culture so let's think about this right the first horizon is the world in crisis is um what's what's on the way out it's the system that it's no longer fit for the type of society the type of Technology the type of education that we have today so this is in Decline and at the same time far far away we had this third Horizon that is the viable world and we are bam Stuck in the Middle where all the messiness is it's called the second Horizon and it's a world in turbulent transition it's not clear what's happening new technologies are opening you up new opportunities but maybe if we are lucky we can identify the signals of the future but the future is not not here yet at least it's not here for everyone right so what happens with innovation in each of these Horizons the first horizon the type of information that we want that we can do is sustaining technology essentially building stuff to maintain the status quo business as usual right let's keep the lights on things like that the second horizon or the type of innovation that we see in the second Horizon where we are today is called disruptive innovation this means that we are seeing opportunities we are seeing kind of shift happening we're taking advantage of those changes and we're building um we're building technology that is kind of redefining the scope of what's possible the issue that we have here and is what I'm trying to argue today is that the type of disruptive technology unless we're very careful in how we build it and with whom we build it we're going to end up sustaining the life of the previous Horizon of the of the existing Paradigm because if we we the risk that we face is to build technology that is just for the winners of the previous Paradigm those who are already willing right but when we go to the viable world the world we want to build the type of innovation that we can see is transformative Innovation it's Innovation that is really building a new paradigm and that means redistributing power that means changing who's who are the winners and who are marginalized who are the losers um in the in the political economy right so what I want to argue here is that web 3 on this space needs to start thinking about the type of technology that we we are building oriented towards this viable World it needs to be informed by a long-term perspective so we don't fall in the Trap of building Innovation that looks great but it's sustaining what we have today okay so you know just to land it with a meme old ways the future we want and how do we build that bridge right because when a paradigm declines and another one is arising it's not a clear cut it's not like oh this is going to disappear and then something else is going to emerge it doesn't happen like that we need to build Bridges we need to build bring people over okay so in my mind open Collective is or can be one of those bridges so we've been sustaining decentralized communities since 2016. and we've been doing it off chain before Dallas were a thing what are we at the core we are um legal admin and financial infrastructure for decentralized communities to unlock access to money we give a platform to organize and fundraise and the global network of legal entities that act as custodials of the funds I'll go into this a little bit deeper but those legal entities are connected to the Legacy system so that is the bridge that we're building so we created this open source transparent finances platform and we have a network of 245 non-profits around the world that help communities have access to money that otherwise they wouldn't be able to access so the tech platform gives them fundraising tooling it's open source transparent payments um it's you know it's an International Community but like really the secret sauce is in this combination of the platform plus this network of physical hosts the fiscal hosts give things provide things to these communities that these individuals need and what I'm arguing here is that if we want to bring those who today are marginalized by the current system over to the new system we need to give them what they need today to survive and sustain themselves and this is is boring right it's like trust me I I do this every day it's like not fun right proof of income employment and benefits reporting compliance tax the actual receipts right you want to make a donation to a collective we're giving you a taxactable receipts right we are you need employment you have a collective that has funding we employ you okay so how you know did we start it all started with this need that we saw in the world back when we started open collective in 2015 to fund open source projects open source projects are the building blocks of the economy today there is no company out there that is not using open source projects but funding open source is very very difficult I really like this quote that I read recently the original ethos of the web is a desire not only to idly exist within the world but also to take part in its Collective creation right and I think that the few things that have embodied this idea as the open source ecosystem so we want more open source but we need to fund open source Because unless we fund it guess what the only ones who are going to be able to contribute to open source are those who have free time who are able to have the time to spend in open source who are privileged enough to be able to participate in open source without being compensated okay so why is it so freaking hard to fund the open source ecosystem because of the attributes of Open Source it's a non-excludable public public good it means that it's not scarce and there is no marginal cost for another person to use the cost right there is no cost for a user to use open source so it's very difficult to create scarcity here and so but open source is not free right it's not free as enough free be here someone else paid for it and the person's paying for it are the maintainers that are spending time building these technologies that we are all using um and for us we were seeing this huge Community imbalance at the core of the open source ecosystem and we wanted to step there and make a difference so posting an issue has zero cost right you have a company and startup you are using open source something is not working for you you go on GitHub on a freaking run and start asking the maintainer so that dependency to fix it for you and you have no cost what like you spend five minutes posting a toxic issue on GitHub fun companies are hooked on open source everyone is using open source because it doesn't have a cost more people are extracting value from an open source project than those who are maintaining it right so those who are creating open source technology are not extracting the value of what they're creating shared code but not share responsibility and it's easy to start a project but it's very difficult to live in right once you start a project you have six million applications using your dependency well you just have to maintain it what are you gonna do right so this is how um so we started thinking okay how can we move money from all of these companies to the hands of this decentralized communities that are not organized around anything and then pain point that we see is that in the open source World formal contracts and Partnerships agreements do not happen like they do in the business world right so Google wants to give money to the chromium Frameworks ecosystem and they're like okay can I get an invoice for my you know donation and the developers are like we are just a group of people doing code right we want to get paid but we have no formal way of doing it so that's where open Collective stepped in I really like this quote from Swift on security and if you follow them on Twitter but like they're amazing I'm convinced that many developers have no freaking idea how business actually works and what operations departments have to go through to make things happen enrolling a new vendor is more than difficulties demoralizing it eats your soul make it easy and you're a God I don't know if we are Gods but we're definitely making this easier for them so this is what we created open Collective is like this digital interface that connects decentralized communities to to existing legal entities that deal with the clunky and old operating systems that are states and tax departments and you know all that boring jazz and yes open Collective and the non-profits go through the vendors process I I kid you not it looks like this or worse it's sap right anyway 3343 open source projects are um hosted by us we've um given 30 million dollars in Project directed funding and this is Project directed funding we'll just keep putting money in the hands of these communities but we are now funding with this model multiple public goods Commons graduates Grassroots communities and social and political movements so we have we moved from just open source that was the beginning and we've exploded to thousands of different communities in the impact in the solidarity economy the climate Justice Global movements civic participation we have 15 000 communities Now using open source um the open Collective and we've given you know we've transferred 65 million into the hands of these communities and we're not asking for anything in return like we're not opinionated about how communities spend their money they know what to do we're just moving money from the center to the fringes and our approach to sustainability has to do with Grassroots cultures of governance and Tech I think this is this is very important for me to kind of communicate we've learned a ton from how Grassroots organizers are operating and when I've seen so many talks today and the last couple of days about governance and doubts and dramas and this and that and I'm serious like this is like happening it's been happening for decades in the Grassroots organizing movements they have a lot of really good Solutions some processes and ideas and what I want to do here is connect these two worlds so for the way I Define sustainability refers to the resilience and thriving of projects communities and individuals that surround them right it's everything it's not just the community or the token holders that are maybe addresses right I'm talking about humans here about individuals and communities started compensating themselves right obviously they're raising money but they're also spending money so in the last 12 months we pay 23 million 23 million dollars in payments to hundreds thousands of community members around the world they're getting they're submitting invoices they're getting 1099s which is the tax form in the United States they're getting proof of income they can prove to their landlord that they have a pay stub right we are helping them be a circle in a world that is made for triangles Okay so what can we Bridge um with the Legacy system to make decentralized Community sustainable so in my mind web3 is operating kind of a little bit isolated from the Legacy world because a lot of these things are still missing and I think that it's time to start making those connections taxactability for donors in over 30 countries right that is something that we can provide and we can support like all of the amazing decentralized philanthropy Tech and do invoices pay stubs insurance benefits employment I mean I get it it's like it's not sexy it's not high tech but you know what the people that we are supposed to be helping need these things today right the marginalized of the previous Paradigm they're very much embedded in the Legacy system right so we need to provide the tooling the the support the infrastructure they need to bring them over okay what is the trade-off because there's always a trade-off otherwise I'll be lying to you and I'm not the trade-off is that there's a power Dynamic that happens between the collectives the communities and the platform and the existing legal entities that give them like a bank account and all of these services this is true this doesn't happen in this December in the web 3 ecosystem these type of power dynamics don't exist I think it's a cost worth paying today as long as we are building enough um as long as we're building what we're building with the capacity to change as the conditions change in the future so we want to build resilient Tech as well and we're here to offer a bridge from Legacy system to the house right to co-create and co-design philanthropy Tech with Grassroots culture and load Tech Solutions again folks if we are not inviting those who are marginalized by the current system those who are not the winners today to co-create and Core Design Technology with us we are just building stuff that looks amazing but it's only going to sustain um the the the existing Paradigm is not going to be transformative um innovation so the cafe bridge for those I don't know why my design team lets me do these things but you know sorry well you get the idea and it's happening already right over climate is a really good example over climate is a non-profit on the open Collective network is a host but it's also a tower so what they offer is a legal entity for those and Grassroots initiatives which are also those but they're just off chain right and so over climate is used to breed Grassroots citizens with old school foundations and it's used to bridge those same citizens with the web 3 ecosystem it's about coordinating those bridges between the two paradigms another example is the work we did with my good friend Kevin owaki a couple of years ago or maybe it was last year who knows pandemic I know um fando assess we wanted to try quadratic funding in the web to open source ecosystem so we did one example we did one experiment and I think we're gonna keep doing this because like web3 is this amazing tool for um creating sandboxes of innovation iterating on governance and doing some radical experimentation some of which we can bring to the web 2 world um another example is I was talking very recently with a radical team and so maybe some of the radical developers or the developers that are on radical when they need to get funding from an entity in the Legacy world we can create a fund for radical in open open Collective and so we can offer both things you want to get paid in tokens amazing but you need employment you need pay stubs you need invoices we got you right now pay attention here please democratizing is not about um just opening access right it's about Open Access and shared and participatory governance right it's about both things right um and so open Collective Inc the platform part of the equation is a company in Delaware of all places sorry we have investors and you know cap table Etc so but what what we want to do what we're creating is infrastructure for the common so what we want to do is to transfer ownership of open Collective to the commons so we're doing an e2c but it's not a token ic2c is like an exit to community done with a trust so we're building a a Perpetual purpose trust that is going to purchase and own the shares of open collective in the name of the community and then on top of that we're going to build a governance structure with the community now the governance piece might have a dial eventually because we are very Global and it's quite difficult to do um to organize these governance when you are like in one country but it's not clear to us yet how we're going to organize this but this is this is our approach what we learned through all of these years of managing helping working with decentralized Technologies is that the challenges that we have they did not change with technology they're the same right participation is hard and today I saw this incredible talk earlier today by Chandler I didn't catch his last name but he was talking about why the Dao experience suck and most of it has to do with participation wanes over time right first you have this burst of participation but then it's very difficult to keep folks engaged and then it's not it's not that it only happens it happens everywhere right so the challenge is that we all face are human they're cultural they're not technological so please pay attention again this is the last time Democratic culture is Upstream of democratic institutions folks if you don't figure out your Democratic culture first you are not going to have good governance in your dial right it's just not gonna happen and so for open collectives e2c for example the exit part is the last step in the process right you first we are starting this learning in public we're engaging with the community we're bringing them into the design of the thing of the structure of whatever is going to be built but we are co-creating doing it co-designing it with them because we don't want to be like a referendum right what happens with a referendum politicians can't you know figure it out they throw the decision over to the people they call it democracy and then they they boil it down to a narrow binary should we stay or should we go right we don't want to get to the you know to the exit moment and then tell our community go govern the thing you know that's not how it works we need to you know to learn with people how to participate how to engage um okay we need to something we need to build this kind of radical narratives together about what we're doing what we're doing but we need to do it with those who are not the winners of the current system sorry like I know I sound like a broken record but unless we do that like why are we here you know to do disruptive innovation sure but that's not going to bring us the world that we want to see so do not sleep on culture if culture and Humanity get away from you then there's no consensus mechanism that is going to solve a save your community specifically do not forget of Some Humans those who can more easily see the pitfalls in the technology that we are building right so those who are not the winners in the current time are the ones who can see and spot the biases more easily right because they have no vested interest in maintaining the current narrative and so please have a have a conversation have an honest conversation about what the negative externalities are of what you are building today and how you are going to absorb internalize those externalities what are your biases right who's who are you talking to that is able to poke holes on your narrative the people closest to a pain must be the people closest to a solution the last thing I want to see is a bunch of broken dials or dolls with no communities in the base case you know in the best case or just that we continue building a bunch of profitable opportunities for the winners of the current system that have all the interest and all the incentive to keep the political economy and systems in place that made them winners in the first place right okay I think I've repeated myself enough so what are we doing here what do we do at open Collective and I think that these are good learning experiences for everyone who's building dials or who's building projects in this space what are we doing it to Foster Democratic culture remember Democratic culture is Upstream of democratic institutions right so artists organizer fellows we have a fellowship for artists who are helping us build build these radical narratives we're learning in public we have the solidarity School P2P learning context setting context setting is key for everyone to be able to act right we need to have this because design co-creation whistleblower policies do you have with supplier policies in your project are you thinking of an ethical framework in your project do you have conflict resolution are you interested in learning conflict resolution anyway please think about these things um so to recap Democratic culture is Upstream of democratic institutions sustainability is about communities and individuals we are in a transition Horizon so it's messy it's ugly but we need to be informed by long-terms perspective we need to be balanced and provide opportunities to bridge the systems folks we're at the same time you know caregivers in the previous Paradigm and midwives of the new one right we need to be balanced we can't just say we're building here we don't care about like the old Paradigm because there are a lot of people in the old Paradigm that we need to work with and bring people over right so a be balanced governance is hard it's hard for everyone build more sandboxes I mean the web 3 has provided a wealth of interesting experimentation to me it's fascinating and I want to kind of encourage more of that but please do it with those who are not on code today do not understand your attack um and be radically honest about the negative externalities right that is it my friends let's talk I'm all of that thank you thank you so much Pia for uh for all your work and your amazing presentation so yeah let's keep building and support public goods yeah and I think there's time for one question thank you so much Pierre I'm Joyce I'm up to you know more about your thoughts on using incentives when building the Democratic culture a lot of style communities today would incentivize people for engagement and participation do you think that this is a healthy practice and or if this actually acting against the build up of that culture itself thank you I think it's a really good question I think it can work in certain um Frameworks but the kind of paid to participate tends to have a very short life right because once you get those initial tokens then your incentives to participate are are low and so that they weigh in time right and so you start being on like the the outside of a project but you still have those tokens that wait and you can really you know you're not really contributing but you are a part owner so I'm not a fan of that but I think in certain like smaller communities it can work well because it provides ownership and Equity of those communities but when you start growing and scaling those communities that type of in incentives I think that it tends to ruin the community yeah perfect thank you so much thank you