# Past, Present, and Future of DAOs - Michael Jacobs | Ratio - Channel: [ETH Belgrade Community](https://streameth.org/eth-belgrade-community) - Date: 2023-10-07 - Duration: 31:05 - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-lFxt4mWGud4 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFxt4mWGud4 ## Description Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of DAOs: Governance, Formation, and Growth - Michael Jacobs - Ratio ## Transcript [Applause] what's up everybody I'm Michael some of you might know me as function on the internet and today I'm excited to talk with you guys a little bit about dows and the things that really excite me about dials and specifically things are changing right now and specifically the rules for collaboration what does this really mean and how does this affect us as a collective as a community and as people that are just generally ready to participate in the industry and to start I want to talk about what is a Dao how many of you guys are part of a dow right now or yeah great a good majority of the audience see a lot of the conversation that's happening around Dows at the current moment is some of the most Progressive things that have been happening and what I mean by that is that throughout history Socrates Aristotle all of these different philosophers have been discussing the concepts of self-organization self-governance different governance models in order to have societies that function better and it isn't until today that we're able to actually test some of these theories in the real world specifically because of blockchain technology and so a lot of the conversation that I see happening around Dows right now is filled mostly with a lot of buzzwords and a lot of experimentation which is a lot of which is personally the fun part decentralized autonomous organization I almost want to say blah blah blah when I say that because it puts a brand new model a Brand New Perspective into place but it doesn't give us really a clear definition or a clear understanding of what is being created or what we're doing with what is and the reason that I'm here really to talk to you guys today about Dao's is specifically because I think that these principles of self-organization and self-governance are what have the potential to not only reshape our industry and reshape the way that we're thinking about things but it has the potential to change the way that each one of you are interfacing with one another now the title of this talk is the rules for collaboration are changing and the reason why it's the title is because Dows paint a brand new possibility of what can occur how many of you guys are creators here Builders you you create something you're you're you would it's say that you're a creative individual hands a good majority of you now let me paint a little bit of a picture for you of of the previous way that you would be interfacing with groups before the existence of Dao see the corporate structure is how most people understand the way that the business World works and what happens in the corporate structure you have a boss a CEO he hires you he puts you into a position that position is limited it's constricted if you're interested in marketing cool maybe you want to start Tick Tock but your boss says no it's only Twitter maybe you're interested in development you want to build side projects your boss says no that's not inside of your scope the traditional corporate hierarchical structure is broken and it leaves every single individual in my opinion in a especially the ones that are inspired and wanting to co-create things it leaves them in a position where they feel Limited and so why Dows and why now and what are Dao's good for that specific thing self-organization and what I mean by that what do I mean by self-organization I specifically mean Dao's allow for a brand new possibility to be painted with the way that we work inside of groups instead of your traditional method of joining an organization figuring out exactly where you want to fit in and get hired for a specific role Dows paint the possibility of allowing us to create our own roles and that's one of the most important things of an actual self-organizing natural system I think systems are prevalent throughout nature and throughout human existence um one of the most important things that I've been studying and really understanding recently is that this concept is not something new that we need to create and I think that's where things get a little bit confusing in the Dow conversation right now currently the doubt conversation is here's this structure here's how we do it let's join a Discord group let's get into a conversation there's a lack of organization nobody really knows exactly what's going on and it's very con a very confusing environment inside of most house specifically ape Dao has a billion dollars over a billion dollars now Apes pumping um but they don't even have the necessary structures that allow the twenty thousand plus members to self-organize and be effective and they don't even really understand the voting process just yet you know they're still figuring out the one one token equals one vote and so in that question or in that conversation my curiosity and my question became how are these groups especially ones that are already in existence 20 000 members how are they supposed to self-organize and in order for me to really dive in and understand how these things self-organize I actually went backwards and I looked at wolf packs I looked at ants I studied lion Prides I studied herds of sheep and one of the most interesting observations to me is that self-organization in itself is not something that is unnatural it's actually not something that effort needs to be put into to a large degree in order to create wolves are a great example here wolves have multiple different sectors of Pacs right so as we Define it up here we've got the alpha the beta the Delta and the Omega and so when a wolf is born into a wolf pack they don't just go into one of these roles they aren't just put into a specific category they aren't just put into a box because of the way that they were born or or the specific attributes that they were born with no the wolf is born and based upon the way that it interacts with its tribe the way that it feeds the way that it hunts the different aspects and qualities of its growth over the first five to ten years of it life it is determined which rank the wolf fits in now none of these are specifically hierarchical in the fact that the alpha wolf is not necessarily better than the beta wolf which is not necessarily better than the delta or the Omega the most important point is that these wolves while separated into specific categories and specific groups and specific tasks and roles based upon the way that they were born the way they were raised and the specific experiences that they have all of these groups actually interface with one another and they do so in a way that allows each of the individual skills of the wolf to be Amplified and supported by the whole and so this is the concept of a Dao this is my personal Vision our personal Vision with our with our uh Constitution the medicanon that we believe there is a possibility a very large possibility that humans can also self-organize similar to this at the current moment the way that I'm kind of seeing it is it's almost as if the ego and the human Tendencies and the needs to be right are the things that are actually limiting us and holding us back from being able to self-organize into different structures like this naturally which leads me to a little bit of our story I am a team member with a group of five other guys shout out my boys Max and Sam right there two of them are out here with me we are all a part of geometric Holdings and when I came to Boulder Colorado about two two years ago I sat down and I read The Meta Cannon which is uh 45 page document a constitution all revolving around Dows that allows for you to utilize uh or actually create a doubt through an actual legal structure as well as gives you different models of how to break down different governance and decision making within the Dow and when I read it I said okay this document is is revolutionary it has the potential for us to really reshape the way that we do things reshape the way that we interface with each other and we began to put it into effect and what I mean by that is naturally us Five Guys initially four or now six but initially four guys came together and we said we're all friends we like hanging out with each other we like getting drunk together we like we like partying together if we were to create something because we are all creative we want our friendships and our relationships to be preserved and not just preserved but put at the Forefront above the relations of business because as soon as money comes into play and all these other factors come into play it becomes it can become very colluded and can become very confusing especially if friendship is involved and you're you're uncertain so we came together as a group of Five Guys we said we all have unique skill sets they're all different they're all complementary of each other but we have no idea how to work with each other we have no idea how us five individuals will be effective we have ideas we're creative but we don't know whether or not this business will be successful that business will be successful we don't know who's specifically supposed to lead what or go in which direction and instead of setting predetermined roles saying you're the CEO you're the CMO you're this you're that what our organization has allowed us to do is be complementary of one another and what I mean by that is it's allowed each and every individual to say this is what I'm good at now let me explore what I'm what that skill set looks like in when interfacing with these other humans and so it started as UGA Dojo initially that was our first company which has evolved into geometric ratio and sense and the reason I want to share this specific story with you is because the way that we are operating is based upon the principles of the metacanon the Dao Constitution we essentially while are not necessarily an open organization where people can just come in and join and do whatever they want we we do operate under dial-like principles our holding company geometric is specifically run by our CEO and one of our other one of our financial leads and initially we were all under this scope we were all six of us here in one box and what we realized was that as we progressed as a group the forms the way that the the companies started to form started to break down and evolve naturally so if you understand some of the Constitution of ens for example they talk about uh pods and subpods this is essentially our pod geometric and naturally Sam and I now are over here on ratio which would be a subpod sense is Max he's over here and Marcus on sense another subpod but none of these are separate from one another we're not we while our entities may be separate and we all own different parts of these entities the way that the collaboration works is intertwined no one person would say no I'm not going to do that because I'm not a part of that company or no I'm not going to answer that text message because I've got other things to focus on or I've got this and that to do in fact each of these Wings support each other and the only reason that any of them can be upheld or uplifted is due to the fact that they're all in uh alignment and and collaboration with one another and that brings me to the metacanon this is one of our core key documents and you all are welcome to download it metacanon.net um it's a core document that gives a and paints a picture of a new possibility for how to structure and interface your Dao not only as a group internally but also externally it is it works also as a legal document that you can utilize in a court of law to support the structures of a dow and so really I've got 15 minutes here and I would like to chat with you guys a little bit I really want to open it up to questions but really I think the main point that I want to make here before I close this off is that as the rules for collaboration change we need to look and and and look at the structures and the way that we're forming these structures in a different way um many of the dials I see today whether it's just a group chat on Discord whether it's an established uh uh uh Dao with discourse and multi-cigs whether it's huge and I'm talking to ape Dao about how they're utilizing their voting mechanisms at the current moment the way we are thinking about it is limited it's almost I don't want to say broken but it's close to being broken and what I mean by that is that we've been so trained and conditioned to think about structures as an organizational structures in the same hierarchical patterns as corporations and all these other mega mega megalifts have been for hundreds of years and until we're able to actually take a different angle to realize that a dow is not necessarily something with the specific vision and specific focus and all specific structures from the beginning but a Dao is really in my opinion an expression of the chaotic nature of the universe anyone that's been creative anyone that understands the creativity and understands building a business or attempting a new venture and especially everyone in here if you've played with crypto you understand you cannot predict what is going to happen corporations are structured so that you can predict or you can attempt to predict what will happen which is why they don't live very long in my opinion I think that as as this concept grows as we begin to discuss more about Dao's what we are essentially doing is we are embracing the chaotic forms of the universe we're embracing what's naturally occurring in nature at all times what's naturally occurring here at this event all day every weekend or every every party where people are meeting new people going into new groups learning new things this is what the concept of a doubt is and and is and is leaning towards and this in my opinion opinion is one of the most important discussions that we can be having right now because as we learn to correlate and communicate and collaborate with each other more we're going to be able to build better structures that are actually efficient actually growing and actually have the potential to reshape uh a lot of the discussions that we're having right now so if you guys want to contact me we can discuss more about Dao's it's one of the main things that I love to do I host Twitter spaces all the time about these Concepts uh chatting with ape Dao a lot um and a lot of different things that's my Twitter handle you're more than welcome to shoot me a message there and I'd love to open it up for questions conversations there's a lot of people in here who have already been discussing Dao's and talking about them I'd love to hear what everybody has to say if there are any questions thank you hi one question regards to business to business model what are your experience with the Dow 2 business model from legal side do you have any experiences that now have some connections or the correspondence with some traditional company structures I think that's exactly the almost the thing that we're trying to discover right now so like I said the metacannon works as go back here yeah meta Canon works as a legal document that you can utilize in a court of law to build a specifically a Dao into an S corp into an LLC or whatever structure that you want um at the current moment that's what people are like trying to figure out even ape down with 1.5 billion dollars and 20 000 members still doesn't have like the solidified legal structures clear um so no I don't really have any specific examples for you if you want to check out the metacanon it would be a great place to start and be happy to chat more but I like that question because it it is like part of like the discovery period that we're all in right now [Music] um any other questions I know a big part of what Dallas needs to do is figure out um protecting themselves from legal liability in the parts where they actually touch the real world but how do you think about limiting points of contact where that legal liability is even relevant like keeping certain things purely on chain or in this purely decentralized Global space where the legal attack surface is really small it's a good question um it depends on the Dow itself and like what it like what its intentions and purposes are you know I think if you're creating a dow that's like an investment group with a couple buddies and like growing that you know probably don't need too many deep legal structures my curiosity becomes when you have 1.5 billion dollars and 20 000 members how do you actually create the legal structures necessary in order to have that like organization be able to interface with the world which is what you're asking and I think it's almost one of the most important discussions to have uh mostly because it's unavoidable right like as soon as these the concept of dows and specific dials continue to grow larger they will be forced to interface with the real world and unless we're prepared for it and having these conversations early enough then we're going to end up in the same place that like crypto was early on where China's banned it or where there's heavy regulations and rules set upon it you know because the discussions weren't had with The Regulators early early on enough so yes I think the ability to have it pseudo-anonymous and undercover and on chain but also off the legal uh uh uh uh out of the legal loopholes is like a a benefit of crypto it's something that's always been important for crypto um and as these structures start to grow and evolve though we're going to need to figure out ways to interface with the real world or else we're just going to be little small little things which isn't a problem but I think like this concept has the potential to really like revolutionize like the discussion of governance in general and there isn't a place that like is having more discussion of governance than with inside of dows and with inside of crypto like it has the potential to change a lot more than just crypto so I think it's important thanks yeah um I mean but the problem with governance is sort of the problem with human all human organizations is that mostly it ends up dominated by a couple of people who are engaged or by the largest stakers or whatever uh and I'm not sure that that Dows have really you know overcome this problem if you look at votes even in successful dials like curve or things like this like the number of people who actually vote and are engaged is is very small and usually concentrated around a small group around the founders so so this is exactly the same as the existing system and I don't know how we can um create you know that overcome that that sort of fundamental part of humanity that's honestly a brilliant comment you sparked me up this is one of the main discussions that I constantly have because my main curiosity especially right now when talking with ape Dao they have 1.5 billion dollars I've said that eight times they have 20 000 members and they their voting system is literally one vote is one token that is their voting model and so apologize if any of you are part of ape Dao or running ape Dao but I think that's absolutely ridiculous and so when measuring these kind of things some of the discussions that I've been personally having are okay token based voting is important it's part of the ecosystem but is it the only Factor no I think contribution needs to be measured I think participation needs to be measured I think reputation needs to be measured all of these factors are import like not just important they're vital to the actual growth and interface of the Dao but when you start to question like when you start to begin to to analyze different levels of measurement the main question that me and a couple buddies have been having conversations about is how do you measure reputation how do you measure contribution how do you measure participation but how do you do so in a way that it can't be gamified because as soon as you define the game there will be players that are always trying to gamify it that is why the one token one vote doesn't work there will always be a whale that comes in and buys 100 million tokens and owns the large majority of the supply or him and five buddies own the supply and they push the direction of the Dow whatever they want whichever way they want I don't have the exact answer this is part of the conversation this is why I want to talk about this more this is actually why I'm so passionate about it because I don't think anyone has the answer yet I think we all have pieces that we're putting together what I've been able to correlate with the discussion with my team and with a couple other outside parties is it seems to be somewhere in the realm of token token based voting whether that's actually owning a token whether it's potentially like one of the ways that I've been thinking about it is you buy voting uh rights with your tokens by maybe staking them or locking them for periods of time um contribution like how much is someone actually participating in the Dow doing active tax tasks not just sitting there and clicking vote but going out into the ecosystem completing things that need to be done in order to evolve the Dao participation simply hanging around listening paying attention and most important in in most ambiguous reputation you know what is what do other people think about my contributions to the Dao do they think that I'm doing a good job do they think I'm doing a bad job do things that I've done in the past affect the way that I interface with the Dow now all of these things are really really important discussions I don't know how to measure them yet but it's something that I I 100 agree with you it cannot just be uh a flat voting system or a a flat uh uh system it doesn't work like that any other questions I got a couple more minutes um so my concern as a probiotic one um I've came through the medical right now and it seems to me there are a lot of complex mechanisms in place to prevent all sorts of things we're seeing right now but um do you envision this being something that's implemented through existing web 2 tools uh discords Notions whatever so do you think it should be open that way or should there be a concerted effort to create recreate a tool set that's an open protocol on sound blockchain or a group of blockchains that everybody can sort of gather around that use it as a standardized set of tools to make this actually work that's a good question um ah I love the focus on tooling I don't think it needs to be the main focus right now I think a lot of people are trying to be always building tools for the Dow ecosystem in general which I think is beneficial it's moving it forward but the conceptual is like the conceptualization of Dao's and how far they've come is not reached the place where tooling is needed yet if that makes sense and so I don't have a problem with the Discord group as a Down you know I don't have a problem you just set up a multi-sig with a couple buddies and you're chatting in telegram like I actually don't think that's an issue uh the tools that are being built are beneficial but unless the Dows have the right Concepts the right organization and like the right inspiration from Human alignment that's just like yo I need to go and do this then none of the tools [ __ ] matter you know just because you set up a multi-cig does not mean you are a dow and I think that's where a lot of people are getting confused right now is like they're like oh well if I just have a multi-sig and I just do this and I do that then we're good we're a dow everybody's voting we got 10 people voting out of the hundred great we're good no not really like how do you get that number to 20 40 50 like people should want to participate in your Dow they should be incentivized to they should be excited to get in and realize that their contribution matters to the whole and that that the whole is also going to reward them for their contribution but doing so in a way that's not gamified is like it's the main curiosity right now how do you do that without gamifying and then ending up on a hierarchical structure just like a corporation I think I got time for one more question any other questions cool can you just get the mic on yeah great so uh I mean as you said and as other people said uh we can act as a Dao without the tech I mean it's it's a human problem it's a social problem it's not a tech problem so in terms of getting the people there what would be like the most important or some of the most important factors uh probably in terms of Education where we could actually get people to you know not even to get them there because we want them there but for them to really consider how they want to act in this well it's a new world well the way that I see it is that like as we start to get these structures right and get them organized well people won't even have to think about being in a doubt they won't even have to question it and what I mean by that is that if you're a designer right you should have the ability like in the greatest vision of a Dao like you should have the ability to move in and out of different spheres in and out of different Dows even to contribute your skill get paid and continue to move on and so I think a lot of the corporate structure right now is like oh you are locked in this position you're stuck here you can't do anything else you can't work for that guy you can't work for that guy creativity gets swallowed after two or three years you either feel dead or you quit you know and so that's why that's why I like the concept of houses and then and the conversation we're having is because for for for that exact question it's it almost will be able to paint the possibility of individuals being entrepreneurial without needing to be entrepreneurial you know like a lot of people have great skill sets and the ability to interface with different systems and different groups but if they're able to do that without needing to do all the other leadership and hierarchical things they'll just go over here do a little design work make this thing oh I'm going to do this little design working this down and all of a sudden uh You've Got A system that really works for everyone yep all right that's my time thank you everybody uh yeah I don't know appreciate you guys I'll be around that's okay thank you