[RFC] SCP-162: A Decentralized Process for Hiring Workstream Leaders

Proposal Discussion
1

Summary

This proposal aims to establish a formal process for hiring into leadership roles at the DAO. The 8-step process outlined below has been constructed to provide a mechanism to ensure that the concerns of all parties at the DAO may be considered, ensure transparency at all times during the selection process, and allow for a candidate to be elected democratically. By ensuring that all concerned parties have the opportunity to voice their concerns and influence the candidate selection by voting in accordance with their views, the DAO may better equip itself to elect the best choice from the pool of available applicants for any vacant leadership position.

Abstract

With the expanded scope of authority granted to workstream leaders by SCP-92 and subsequent superseding proposals, workstream leaders at ShapeShift DAO have an outsized impact on the strategic trajectory of the DAO, its internal operations, and its cultural environment. The influence of any workstream leader extends well beyond the team that he/she is responsible for overseeing, and workstream leaders at ShapeShift DAO have historically had opportunities to assist in organization-wide decision-making processes often far outside the specific domain of his/her technical expertise. As such, it is of critical importance that ShapeShift DAO exercise great care in choosing individuals for leadership roles. Once a candidate has been hired into a leadership role, it is also important that the community is able to retain confidence that an appropriate candidate was elected through a process that is fair, transparent, and democratic - a process that allows the entire community to participate in the hiring process and make their opinions heard. This proposal aims to establish a mechanism that will preserve the DAO’s ability to exercise collective agency, self-organize, and self-direct.

Motivation

No formalized process for hiring workstream leaders currently exists. Furthermore, the process has historically only provided the opportunity for DAO-wide input on the hiring decision in the form of a binary “for/against” vote offered to the community for a single candidate. Effectively, the DAO has not been given the opportunity to elect a candidate for these roles, but instead presented only with the option to veto a selection previously made by a small number of DAO members through an opaque process with unknown selection criteria. This proposal aims to formalize a democratic process that simultaneously satisfies the concerns of both ShapeShift DAO leadership and the community at large.

Specification

This proposal outlines the following process for conducting hires for all leadership roles at ShapeShift DAO. These steps are to be taken in order. Should this proposal pass, this policy will go into effect immediately; any ongoing hiring process must be modified to comply with this specification.

1.) For every open leadership position, an ad-hoc application review committee shall be established. The application review committee should include, but shall not be limited to, members from the workstream that the new hire will oversee.

2.) The application review committee shall draft and publish to the ShapeShift Forum a well-defined job description before accepting applications for the role. The job description should outline the responsibilities, expectations, and technical prerequisites required for the position. Optionally, the application review committee may compile a technical screening examination, which will be used to assess the technical abilities of prospective candidates. If the application review committee chooses to give a technical screening examination to applicants during the application review process, the contents of the technical screening examination must be published to the ShapeShift Forum immediately after all qualifying applicants have completed their initial interviews.

3.) Upon publication of the job description, application submissions shall be accepted for a pre-determined period, as established by the application review committee.

4.) Once the application acceptance period has expired, the application review committee may begin screening applicants. All applicants who meet the criteria outlined in the job description and have passed the technical examination (if one was given) shall advance to the initial interview round.

5.) A group of interviewers selected internally by the application review committee shall conduct a recorded video interview with each applicant who has advanced to the initial interview round. Neither the interviewers nor applicants shall be required to show their faces on camera during the recorded video interview. This interview is meant to assess the behavioral, cultural, (and optionally, technical) attributes of the applicant. During the interview, interviewers from the application review committee shall take notes on the performance of each applicant. The notes may describe the applicant’s strengths and weaknesses and may contain a hiring recommendation from any or all of the interviewers present during the interview.

6.) Once all applicants have been interviewed by the application review committee, the application review committee shall post a proposal with the title “[SCP-XXX]: Selecting Candidates for the Role of ”. This proposal must contain the (optionally redacted) resume of each applicant, along with the applicant’s recorded video interview and interview notes from the application review committee. This proposal must utilize the Snapshot weighted voting strategy, with options listed for each applicant interviewed by the application review committee. This proposal shall bypass the RFC stage and advance directly to ideation. This strategy will allow voters to split their voting power among any number of applicant choices. Upon expiry of the voting period, the applicants with the three highest vote counts will advance to the next interview round. If three or fewer applicants are available, this step may be skipped with all applicants advancing to the next interview round.

7.) Each candidate advancing from the previous round will host an AMA session on Discord. During the AMA session, the candidate will have an opportunity to make a personal introduction to the community, and members of the community will have an opportunity to ask the candidate questions of any variety.

8.) Once all candidates have completed their AMA sessions, a final hire proposal shall be published by the application review committee with the title, “[SCP-XXX]: Electing a Candidate for the Role of ”. This proposal must utilize the Snapshot basic voting strategy, with options listed for each candidate who advanced from the previous round. This proposal shall bypass the RFC stage and advance directly to ideation. During the time that this proposal is active, community members may vote for one of the remaining candidates. The candidate who has received the greatest number of votes at the time that the voting period ends shall be elected to the position. In the unlikely event of a tie between the two top candidates at the end of the voting period, the candidates shall conduct a joint AMA debate session, and a subsequent final hire proposal listing only these two candidates shall be presented to the community. The leading candidate from this proposal shall be elected to the position.

Privacy Considerations

Several conceivable situations could arise in which the candidates might wish to maintain more privacy than allowed by the process as written above. For instance, a candidate who is currently employed elsewhere in the industry might reasonably not wish for his/her application to be published to the ShapeShift Forum during the interview process. To account for this and similar situations, any applicant may elect to interview anonymously. In this event, the candidate will be referred to in all materials published by the application review committee under an alias, information about the applicant’s current employer will be redacted from the published resume, and the recorded video interviews may either be published without the face of the applicant shown or as audio-only files.

Benefits

  • The policy above provides increased transparency during candidate evaluation and democratizes the candidate selection process, enabling the community of FOX holders to self-organize and self-direct by electing candidates that the community believes will be best suited for leadership roles at the DAO.

  • With this process, the application review committee has the opportunity to make a strong case for or against any applicant, but the final selection will be determined by the community, with all options available at the time of voting.

  • Likewise, any member of the DAO will be able to make a case to the community as to why they believe that any particular candidate is or is not well-suited for the position. This ensures that the community can consider all available opinions regarding candidate selection and may make a well-informed decision on which candidate is best suited for the leadership role.

  • The mandatory AMA sessions outlined in the specification above will provide the community with an opportunity to assess the candidates’ personality traits, allow the community to evaluate the candidates for culture fit, and will give the community information on the candidates’ viewpoints regarding strategic decision-making. Productivity can be optimized if this information can be gleaned ahead of the hiring decision rather than afterward.

Drawbacks

  • The process outlined above requires that the application review committee manage recorded interviews, applicant information, and review notes during the interview process.

  • The proposed hiring process also requires that two proposals be presented to the community to elect a candidate instead of the single proposal typically presented at the end of the informal process currently used in practice.

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The current org structure is the problem, and this is in the opposite direction of the solution.

Another party planning committee slows down executive decision making even further.

The DAO is sorely lacking the function of a CEO, a role responsible for talent acquisition, strategic direction, the ability to make tough and necessary decisions, control budgets, and align efforts across team (read - workstream) functions.

Governance should adopt a version of this RFC onchain/rfc/GOVERNANCE.md at main · brumewallet/onchain · GitHub and appoint a CEO with control over all teams, budgets and responsibilities.

The workstream model was somewhat blindly adopted during the DAOs conception and time has revealed its glaring flaws. An interesting but ultimately failed organizational experiment if you will.

The problem at companies is not centralization or hierarchies, it’s weak leadership and bloat. The only thing worse than weak leadership is none.

George Hotz nails this from the 2:00 mark https://youtu.be/ImR6jQfbhBo?si=kutRxcM6cuP2a0OX

To be abundantly clear, I wouldn’t throw my hat in the ring for supreme leader.

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I have a different take, not saying which is right or wrong just pointing out different approaches that have I feel presented from the beginning of the DAO and your reply sort of illustrates this.

First I would ask what is the point of forming a DAO or even a voting system, if you deem a CEO or even other executives roles are desired or as you say needed? This is a traditional org and as such why form or claim to be a DAO (other than for reasons I will not go into here).

As stated in part by @pastaghost in the proposal, WorkStream leaders were originally described and or sold to the community as just leaders of a team of task oriented individuals. As WorkStream leaders that may have assembled such a team for the purpose of working within a well defined scope of work voted and agreed on by the DAO. What in fact happened to a very large extent is almost a mandate allowing for people to pass along assembled teams with little meaningful DAO input and work way beyond domain knowledge of the orginal scope of work. Also being offered capabilities and titles of appointed “leaders” of not just WorkStreams but the DAO as a whole. In part being elevated to “executive” role without any knowledge or experience (i.e. as you stated weak leadership).

As I have stated frequently enough the idea of salaried positions and the “demand” of transitioned titles/roles from an existing organization or even traditional organizations fed into a “corruption” of WorkStreams. This only increased the demand for “management” and even the “need” then for executive leadership, which was set for failure without any such foundation for such structures.

Let me clarify in stating, having individuals with executive experience and capability operating within or for the DAO as contributors doesn’t mean that they need to have an executive title or roles, they could just act as knowledgeable contributors.

Blockquote
“Another party planning committee slows down executive decision making even further.”

Speed without direction just gets you nowhere faster, and in sensitive or fragile economic conditions only compounds bad determinations. You need innovation to be able to innovate most times, speed of irritation doesn’t create something new just increments something existing.

So I say why the rush? Do you have a realizable and determined destination? Yes Crypto is fast paced as it comes to the desire to capture an existing user base in having something new, capable and “flashy”, but one of the major hangup’s as it comes to the maturity of the industry is it always wants to move faster leaving behind or creating higher barrier’s of (knowledge) entry and often larger security risks. In doing so portraying itself as a money grab, to a larger audience and hampering the ability to legitimately fight off calls for greater regulation.

For me I didn’t argue with speed of irritation when we had a goal, for example getting the platform transitioned from the AG version closed sorced to the new open sourced DAO version. But as we moved past that transition and into actual operation of an “Decentralized” organization with many moving parts and complexities without a determined plan and then an bear market, it just doesn’t make sense. Yes build a pathway out of the bear but you need a pathway.

Lastly thank you for sharing your thoughts, it is helpful to see what drove your DAO operating style as stated no right or wrong just varying approaches to the concept of what a traditional organizations transition to a DAO can be.

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@0xdef1cafe, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Both the open governance and centralized leadership models are effective in their respective domains, and this is demonstrated with many obvious examples. What is ineffective is a hybrid approach, notably the configuration that the DAO has flirted with recently. A top-down hierarchical configuration works when all participants are presented with direct accountability and oversight commensurate to the authority and autonomy that they have been granted. A configuration where some members of an organization are given sweeping authority and autonomy, but accountability is not enforced directly and with proper oversight presents issues that are obvious from the problem statement. What has failed is an experiment with the hybrid approach, but this isn’t surprising.

As to whether or not a DAO model is objectively superior to a centralized configuration for any business organization, this is an open question but one that we are not free to approach from either direction. The centralized vs. decentralized orientation was set at the time that ShapeShift chose to reconfigure itself as a DAO. Unless we intend to reconfigure as a traditional centralized business entity, choosing to both take on the associated legal burden and to grant equity to the FOX holders who ultimately fund the operations of this organization, that choice has been made.

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I am open to a discussion about the overall structure of the DAO. I don’t think that we need to hold sacred the structure that was originally proposed, especially now that we’ve had time to see how it works in practice.

This specific proposal appears aimed at codifying a process that was not previously defined under other governance proposals.

I don’t think this proposal is the right place to have a discussion about the overall structure of the DAO. I would welcome a separate forum post and/or public discussion about that topic.

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As an applicant to an open position at the DAO, I like the idea of being able to present myself to the DAO as a whole since the DAO will have to vote in the end on a proposal. I like the idea of them being presented with options and being able to choose.

As far as I can tell there is no previously pass governance proposal which established a process to address the current situation, except that anyone, myself included, could submit a proposal at any time.

I feel that the DAO (all FOX holders) would benefit from more clarity on the process.

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I’d like to see candidates address the community directly with information about their backgrounds, their approaches to leadership, and their visions for their workstream. Regardless of what the committee is doing, open dialogue between DAO members and prospective leaders would reassure the community that no censorship/backdoor politics are involved in this decision and build trust with future leaders who are ultimately beholden to the DAO and not the hiring committee.

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I think I agree with most of what you’re saying except the conclusion.

“this is an open question but one that we are not free to approach from either direction”

We pretty much agree the existing model is pretty busted. There’s no reason the DAO can’t elect a leader and have all the teams and budgets report up into them. Not advocating for government sanctioned entities here to be clear.

Maybe we can illustrate with the current problem - hiring a workstream leader.

As it stands, that problem still needs to be solved. It can be solved at the governance level, or operational/contributor level.

Governance is ill equipped to coordinate and solve this in a timely or efficient way (we also agree on this by the nature of your proposal appointing a committee).

In the absence of a CEO, that responsibility still exists, but gets smeared amongst the people with the most day to day context, making best effort, good faith attempts to fill the void of a role, eg workstream leaders and Willy.

More decision making by committee isn’t the answer. The committee and the outcome would probably look more or less the same, just slower with more codified bureaucracy and months of governance faffing.

@Neverwas the necessity for expediency when the DAO continues to bleed cash isn’t up for debate, sorry.

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“We pretty much agree the existing model is pretty busted.”

If, by “the existing model”, you mean the hybrid structure that provides authority and autonomy without commensurate accountability and oversight, then yes, we agree that this model is busted.


“There’s no reason the DAO can’t elect a leader and have all the teams and budgets report up into them.”

The reason is like… literally in the name…

I invite you to read the Ethereum Foundation’s explanatory page on DAO structure, but prior to that, read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. There, you’ll find the following phrase:

“In general terms, DAOs are member-owned communities without centralized leadership.”

An organization with centralized leadership is neither decentralized nor autonomous, therefore by definition cannot be a DAO. What’s more important than the definitional violation is that FOX tokens have been issued to users, with the claim made at the time of purchase that holding FOX tokens gives one proportional governance rights at ShapeShift DAO. To implement the model you are proposing would be to knowingly defraud every user who has held FOX for utility as a governance token.


“Governance is ill equipped to coordinate and solve this in a timely or efficient way (we also agree on this by the nature of your proposal appointing a committee).”

No, we do not agree on this (see also @Major_Hayes’ comments above). The proposal above directly suggests a timely and efficient mechanism for electing workstream leaders democratically through governance. In this model, members of the committee are tasked with using their knowledge of the open role to generate a job description and assess eligibility based solely on the criteria explicitly outlined in the job description but are not given any additional authority in the candidate selection process relative to other FOX holders.


“The committee and the outcome would probably look more or less the same, just slower with more codified bureaucracy and months of governance faffing.”

This is also incorrect. Since the policy outlined above specifies that both required proposals bypass the RFC stage and also specifies what is to be included in each proposal, there is nothing to discuss related to the form of either proposal ahead of voting time. If the voting period for the first of two proposals begins once all applicant information has been posted to the forum, and AMA sessions are scheduled for 1-4 days after voting on the first proposal concludes, the governance process required to elect a candidate can be concluded in 11-14 days. Including the time required for the application review committee to conduct the initial video interviews, this timeline is as fast or faster than what is typically encountered when interviewing with traditional centralized organizations.


For those who haven’t viewed the video at the link posted by @0xdef1cafe in his first comment above, I highly suggest that you take a moment to watch. The video is of an interview with George Hotz (CEO of Comma.ai) on the Lex Fridman podcast. During the portion of the conversation starting at 02:00, Hotz outlines his philosophy on effective management structure, clarifying his stance on the matter from 02:32-02:52. I’ve transcribed an excerpt from the interview below:

Hotz: "Um, you know, I took a political approach at Comma too that I think is pretty interesting. I think Elon takes the same political approach. Uh, you know, Google had no politics, and what ended up happening is that the absolute worst kind of politics took over.
Hotz: “Uh, Comma has an extreme amount of politics, and they’re all mine, and no dissidence is tolerated.”
Fridman: “So, it’s a dictatorship?”
Hotz: “Yep. It’s an absolute dictatorship.”

“George Hotz nails this from the 2:00 mark https://youtu.be/ImR6jQfbhBo?si=kutRxcM6cuP2a0OX”

This comment alone clearly demonstrates the need for this proposal.

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Feel free to die on your semantic hill, the org structure is broken, leadership works.

Comma solved self driving cars with less human and financial capital than us with a competent dictator. What have we achieved?

Another committee with a subtext is preposterously dumb, but congrats on penning a governance proposal.

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I’m unclear on the aims of this proposal. While it seems to target enhancing transparency, there’s no compelling evidence suggesting that this transparency would result in superior hiring outcomes. This might explain why most organizations opt for less transparent hiring processes. Can you specify the exact problem this proposal is trying to solve? Additionally, the approach seems quite novel and unproven, and I’m hesitant about using our platform as a testbed for innovative approaches in human resources management unless there is evidence showing it leads to a better outcome for the DAO.

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  1. what this is proposing …is roughly what we are already doing. A committee, including Engineering. we check the hiring thing out. then we come up with 1 or more from this process and present it for gov vote? I am hoping we get more than one out of this process.

i might have misread what we are doing, or what pasta is suggesting. (lol or both)
but the above is what was discussed and we moved forward.
Anyone can do a proposal. Oh, and there is no required RFC step …ever. i think ppl SHOULD discuss (rfc is …Read for comment? …reply? anyhow, requirments changed slightly. Ideation is 7days, and Final is 5days (both minimums)

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@Neverwas the necessity for expediency when the DAO continues to bleed cash isn’t up for debate, sorry.

Loved to be dismissed good for you, but as usual quick to dismiss the bigger picture for the quick punchline. Hate to make people actually think or read at the same time, but I am a stickler for people using their own determinations if at all possible.

The speed argument which I have heard calls for almost two years now after the open source release and with your voice very much among them? The same calls providing to the further weakening of the organization’s safety operating structures? Has it helped to solve the underlying problems up to this point? Or is the argument the DAO never had the proper amount of “magic velocity” that provides solvency of making a profit? As I have stated velocity has it’s place and function, but this is in certain conditions with determined goals and variables not always persistent, so you know the term but I would question the realization of the concept. Maybe you read a book about it. Have you ever yourself been successful at implementing a higher or highest level of velocity to better ensure profitable outcomes?

The DAO has bled cash because as I would state:

  1. The DAO has tried to operate as a “hybrid startup” instead of a existing organization transitioning into something else with name recognition and reputation (good or bad) or as a straight up reset and fresh true startup. This assumption that the org some how can use a startup methodology but still assume existing aspects of a previous org is a contributing factor. One example using compensation levels and perks inline with an well established and structured organization right off the bat setting a strong and difficult to change president. Add the lack of VC fund raising rounds which allow for major cash infusions and my point #2 and you are bound to “bleed” cash as many seem to state. Sorry but the DAO was always “bleeding” cash from the inception without any realizable incoming profit this wasn’t new to a bear market just more apparent to the “leaders” I guess?

  2. Contrived leadership haven’t figured out product market fit, has little to no accountability for poor determinations and have at times looked to further insulate themselves. Lets be real if we can, a large majority of successful proposals originate and are championed by this “leadership” and sorry but the voting power that pushes the proposals in are the contributors directly connected to the “leaders”.

As it seems pointless to speak in a echo chamber outside the loudest voices I will end with this. So say you get your wish for centralized leadership in a CEO, so this CEO is hired and of coarse compensated following the precedent set, they get a very nice compensation package you know some large multiple of current high end salaries, they are hired or “elected” by a (have your own opinion) weighted/broken governance system that would be determined by a small majority. This helps the bleed? Do we make treasury room by removing roles, or is the community asked to just go with it on a promise it will be the solution the DAO needs until it isn’t?

Play it out a little further and say the CEO doesn’t take a huge stable coin amount monthly but instead takes it largely in FOX or governance token an attribute to influence in the community. For argument sake I would say this is a known FOX member or has ties to the community so safe to say they might already have a nice amount of FOX already that will be nicely augmented by the very large amounts of monthly depreciated FOX that further cements this person position of power as each month ticks by. And this only compounds the issue complexity further so have fun you have now set in motion a deeper hole in hopes that this mythical CEO will have the tools to lead the DAO to profitability in what 3 months? 6 months, maybe we dig deep and give them a year?

So accomplishments, fraud to the current investors of what the organization is, what “ownership” is or can be, no longer decentralized at all, or even a qualification of that term, once again why be a DAO at that point?

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At this point in time. we are going the DAO route, this topic should be on Engineering WS

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we are going the DAO route

Would you mind clarifying the “we” and “DAO route” in your statement?

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As to the proposal that is outlined by @pastaghost, once again a thoughtful and well presented proposal, first thank you for your continued efforts.

And as a point I will state that may not represent directly @pastaghost but as I see it relevant to the case.

Take some of my points in reply to @0xdef1cafe as you may, but in itself as a use case that I feel ties back to the original post.

0xdef1 and quite of few others as WorkStream leaders have received these Roles/titles largely as internal appointments by previous “leaders” leaving. The selection process has come by way of not knowing any real consequential data on the person other than hay I support this person and here is a yes or no vote that if not acted on “quickly” will lead to instability and or disruption of operations, we need speed! Add to this the originating majority of WorkStream leaders were legacy org members who the larger community had no real info other than that they had been vetted by a now defunct entity, were the ones who agreed to continue on, brought vital knowledge and experience as it related to a legacy product we were looking to sunset asap and a way of doing things, not as operating as a DAO or in the capacity of transitioning to an unknown.

Sorry Defi to use you as an public example but the conversation was already started.

  1. I don’t know what your background is, before ShapeShiftAG what did you do, how many companies did you work for and how long? I couldn’t say if you developed applications, built games, made minecraft mods, worked on certain platforms or even in crypto before shapeshiftAG.

  2. Your experience level as a developer, engineer, cryptocurrency or even how long you worked at ShapeshiftAG exactly. How successful were the companies that you worked at, did you have successful platform launches? Developed underlying new technology?

I really don’t expect you to answer or realistically even reply as you tend to dismiss certain things and this being personal info in a public setting. And I am not attacking anyone but as an illustration of a point, people from ShapeShiftAG vouched for you and put it to vote, had the majority of the voting power, no other candidate was offered so done deal.

After the fact work competency, demonstration of ability can play a factor and accomplishment speaks in part for itself yes wholeheartedly. I don’t mind giving someone the opportunity to grow into a situation, but that should be offered as part of the conversation before determination is made vs this is the best person, oh and by the way don’t worry about accountability for this individual who now is a DAO leader with considerable influence, has one of or the largest compensation packages and has become indispensable due to circumstance.

This proposal as I see it is meant to help address some of the lacking safe guards we have seen as a community and establish greater overall trust, vs your counter of hay lets just give one individual all control and let them do their thing trust it will happen faster some how.

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“Another committee with a subtext is preposterously dumb, but congrats on penning a governance proposal.”

Come now, @0xdef1cafe. Please keep the discussion civil. Is that really the kind of behavior one would expect from an individual who is fit for leadership?

Fundamentally, this is organization a DAO; that fact is incontrovertible. As such, there are a set of operating guidelines to which we must adhere. Do these guidelines provide the most convenient environment in which to operate? No, but the rules of the game were made entirely clear to you at the outset. The operational constraints that come with the choice to organize as DAO are intended to democratize and decentralize decision-making; it is clear from your responses that you misperceive these operational constraints as oppressive. To not understand that is to have entirely missed the point about what we’re doing here.


You seem to hold George Hotz’ viewpoints in high regard, so I’ll give you another excerpt from the same video you linked above:

Hotz: "Now, the thing about my dictatorship is, here are my values.
Fridman: “Yeah, it’s transparent.”
Hotz: “It’s transparent. It’s a transparent dictatorship, right? And you can choose to opt in or… you know… you get free exit.”


Perhaps Hotz does have some good advice for you after all.

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The Shapeshift DAO , is wanting to stick to the DAO methods at this time. Noone has put up a proposal to change to a CEO …centric company. Even tho some i guess might want to lean that way?

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Hi @woody,

Thanks for the response. You’re right in that it is not guaranteed that the proposed process modification would result in superior hiring outcomes. In the ideal case, the decisions made by any self-appointed hiring committee would be identical to those made by the community at large. There is, however, significant historical evidence to suggest that making these decisions independently and without community involvement does lead to suboptimal outcomes, at least at ShapeShift DAO. We have previously had instances where the decision to appoint or select rather than elect for leadership roles may have resulted in a less-than-optimal outcome. Neverwas’ comment provides some good context on this.

It is not at all clear that relegating decisions with the demonstrated capacity to affect the entire organization might produce better outcomes than allowing the organization to choose for itself. This approach seems to be fundamentally in opposition to the central DAO ethos, and currently, we have no formal process in place. This proposal seeks to address these concerns.

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It’s always interesting to see members of our community step up to address perceived governance gaps. However, in this case, it seems we’re trying to fix something that isn’t broken.

Your proposal, though ambitious, is redundant with the current processes we have in place, which are functioning well thanks to @willyfox and others. We already have a committee system that involves the necessary parties and manages the process efficiently. Willy’s detailed forum post sheds light on this, and frankly, it feels like you’re proposing a solution in search of a problem.

Tl;dr: This is neither decentralized nor a good process.

Adding more bureaucratic layers, as suggested in your proposal, will only slow us down, complicating what is already a comprehensive process. The DAO environment is dynamic; we can’t afford to get bogged down in unnecessary procedural intricacies. Qualified candidates won’t hang around for an extended, convoluted hiring process.

The outcomes to your suggestions… is pretty much exactly what we’re doing right now thanks to @willyfox 's efforts.

There already is a committee of

  • current workstream leaders
  • the team being hired for.
  • willy managing the process

Could probably do explain the same on a governance call and that would round out all the saber rattling for transparency, because there isn’t anything to hide. Qualified candidates are not going to wait around to get paid for more than a month, this change would almost guarantee that as the minimum time.

An increased focus on AMAs for transparency makes sense, but let’s not kid ourselves—this isn’t about transparency. It’s about efficiency and effectiveness in decision-making.

Yeah Nah

Regarding accountability, it’s somewhat amusing to me. Our workstream leaders are already held to high standards by FOX holders. Remember the budget votes? They were anything but a walk in the park. So, I’m not sure what additional oversight you’re envisioning here.

Your proposed timeline also seems to be a bit out of touch with reality. Managing human schedules and decision-making processes is far more complex than what’s outlined in your plan. This isn’t just about adding time to hiring; it’s about recognizing the operational realities of the DAO.

The brass tacks

Lastly, your absence from governance calls for an extended period and then jumping back in with such a proposal does raise an eyebrow, or a dozen. It’s vital to stay connected and understand the current processes and dynamics before suggesting sweeping changes.

Definitely want to applaud the effort put into a proposal! However I strongly believe it misses the mark in understanding our current operations and needs. Instead of reinventing the wheel, why not focus on areas where improvement is genuinely needed? Let’s direct our energies more productively rather than over complicating things.

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