Boosting DAO Efficiency by 10x: Aligning Accountability & Increasing Throughput

Proposals
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Non-constitutional AIP

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Abstract

The Arbitrum DAO system, while having significant activity and throughput, lacks clear alignment and accountability, undermining confidence in its impact. Simply put, the community has varying confidence that our current way of working can and should continue.

This proposal would sign Disruption Joe and Alex Lumley to six-month exclusive full-time work for Arbitrum DAO.

The total risk is the cost of paying them. The potential upside is the alleviation of critical problems. This proposal has the potential impact of increasing the throughput of successful DAO initiatives by an order of magnitude in 2025.

Motivation

The primary motivation of this proposal is to develop a governance operations system that facilitates improved accountability & alignment.

To be able to improve the confidence in our systems, we must understand the problems that are currently undermining our efforts.

Delegates are telling us:

  • They do not have a reliable way to quickly see the status of ongoing initiatives causing excess time spent trying to gain context on each of a growing number of initiatives.
  • Many proposals do not specify specific goals or milestones making it difficult to understand if they are making progress.
  • Most initiatives can not be understood in context to the overall priorities of the DAO .
  • Many proposals did not account for all critical components needed to successfully execute, causing excess time figuring out how to alleviate preventable issues.
  • Every initiative seems to be relearning many of the same operational lessons causing the DAO to spend time and resources redundantly.

Builders are telling us:

  • The DAO is moving too slowly causing them to lose faith in the ecosystem.
  • The support available from Offchain Labs is different now that OCL is focused on Orbit and Stylus adoption causing them to be unsure of their commitment to Arbitrum One
  • They are unsure the DAO’s intended outcomes making it hard to align their roadmap with DAO driven initiatives such as proper timing to utilize the Security Subsidy Fund.

Contributors are telling us:

  • It is very time-consuming to do the discovery to find out if delegates are interested in supporting a proposal causing them to question their participation in Arbitrum DAO.
  • There isn’t any list of work to be done, desired outcomes, or even current areas of focus causing them to make proposals which feel like a “shot in the dark”.
  • There isn’t a quick process to approve a small change to a passed proposal whether it be deliverable dates or the need for additional funds making it difficult to ensure success.
  • There isn’t an open process for selecting priorities causing them to worry about vendor lock-in making their attempts to participate potentially futile.
  • They are frustrated knowing that there is plenty of work to be done without a budget available to do the work of determining next steps.

The DAO currently lacks confidence in its ability to provide throughput of quality work executing on the most impactful initiatives possible.

# Rationale

This proposal has a relatively low cost and a very high potential impact. Both Disruption Joe and Alex Lumley have played key roles in passing earlier DAO proposals. This work requires high context individuals and builds on previous research from Blockscience, “Arbitrum Expert Service Provider Network Program Development” (commissioned by a Thank ARB firestarter grant).

For six months, they will provide governance operations support including execution support, filling in gaps in proposals, and documenting the set of systems & processes used by the DAO. Beyond the deliverables listed in the specifications, they will commit to exclusively working with Arbitrum which may include participating in work groups, organizing and facilitating meetings, and being a point of contact for general DAO inquiries.

Risk Small Reward Potential Reward
The cost of funding two full-time contributors for six months or less if the DAO decides to cut it early. Clarity in the current initiatives intended outcomes, milestones, and progress. Saved delegate and contributor time. Allows for higher-impact proposals to be passed. The DAO unlocks the ability to pass a higher number of higher impact proposals at a higher rate creating an order of magnitude increase in overall impact. Arbitrum DAO stands out as a leader in organizational innovation.

Specifications

This proposal should be evaluated on three levels (as all proposals should). These are output, outcomes, and impact.

Output Outcome Impact
Host Monthly Governance Reporting Calls Delegates find the Monthly GRC useful and improving Delegates feel that this work is saving them time
Conduct Monthly Confidence in the DAO Snapshots An increasing Confidence in the DAO score Higher trust and engagement in DAO governance
Act as counterparty to ongoing initiatives including weekly check-ins Contributors feel supported Increased contributor satisfaction and retention
Fill in executional gaps in ongoing initiatives Initiatives remain on track and aligned with goals Greater accountability and progress tracking
Conduct close out interviews with initiative leads to document learnings Learnings are documented and shared Enhanced knowledge sharing within the DAO
Design a communication rubric to quickly illustrate the status of initiatives It is easy for delegates to assess Improved decision-making by delegates
An outcome database is started to establish a hierarchy of outcomes Anyone can see the status of all outcomes the DAO is working towards Better strategic alignment of DAO efforts
A proposal database links initiatives to the desired outcomes Proposals are aligned with desired outcomes Efficient use of resources and targeted initiatives
A governance operations wiki is made to document processes & playbooks Governance processes are transparent and accessible Operational efficiency and onboarding improvements

# Steps to Implement

  1. Forum Discussion: 10/4-10/9

  2. Snapshot: 10/10-10/16

  3. Tally: 10/17 -

  4. MSS to send proportional payment for 10/15 - 11/1 and start linear token stream scheduled through the remainder.

Timeline

As full-time contractors, our work would be towards solving the problems listed above and earning the right to work on more advanced ecosystem needs. Thus, we would be committing to fully executing the accountability phase. The alignment and throughput phases listed below are only intended to inform the direction of efforts if all accountability deliverables are met. We intend for the compensation to include a bonus structure which would reward work accomplished in the alignment and throughput phases.

Phase Description Key Deliverables
Accountability

Will execute and facilitate adoption of tools by 4/15/25.		 Conduct stakeholder engagement
A regular cadence of meetings with initiative leads, design and implementation of structured reporting, and the creation of feedback loops via Monthly Governance Reporting Calls.

Develop & maintain critical documentation & processes
Develop a suite of well-documented systems and processes to connect and make publicly available a well-organized repository of critical information.

Fill in gaps in execution
From operational duties not compensated in the MSS proposal to general support for any working group.		 - Host Monthly Governance Reporting Calls
- Conduct Monthly “Confidence in the DAO” Snapshots
- Act as counterparty to ongoing initiatives including weekly check-ins
- Fill in executional gaps in ongoing initiatives
- Conduct close out interviews with initiative leads to document learnings
- Design a communication rubric to quickly illustrate the status of initiatives
- An outcome database is started to establish a hierarchy of outcomes
- A proposal database links initiatives to the desired outcomes A governance operations wiki is made to document processes & playbooks
Alignment


Bonus work which can happen in parallel if we have capacity.		 Develop and document selection processes for Pillar Stewards & Expert Council

Document onboarding process for Pillar Stewards & Expert Council

Create Playbooks for prioritizing and procuring initiatives		 - Draft rights and responsibilities for Pilar Stewards & Expert Council
- Develop selection processes for Pillar Stewards & Expert Council
- Develop playbooks for prioritizing objectives/goals, and outcomes
Throughput

Bonus work that is least likely to be executed before 4/15 but is directionally where we are headed.		 Pass Pillar budget & selection of one Pillar Steward and Expert Councils

Selection of two or more Pillar Steward and Expert Councils

Development of automation tools including Den, Hats protocol, etc.		 - Pass a Pillar Budget Proposal
- Run the selection process for a first Pillar Steward & expert council
- Ratify more Pillar Stewards & Expert Councils

The output of all three phases being completed would be a set of feedback loops for accountability using the methodology discussed in “Make Arbitrum Alignment Legible” post on the Arbitrum forum.

Overall Costs

Based on other full time employment proposals. Open to suggestion. Estimating $200k for 6 months.

Post Script

We are very open to meet with delegates and discuss this proposal idea. While we aren’t on a hard timeline, we’d rather keep things moving forward, hence posting this proposal to be discussed in public. Thanks to all who volunteered initial feedback.

5 Likes
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Great to see this proposal posted! I like the idea of known contributors going directly to the DAO for their salaries. Alex and Joe are longtime contributors from the beginning so its a great start to the DAO having its own employees.

I wanted to know how your initiatives would overlap or complement with @Entropy , which has a similar mandate of full time work with the DAO.

Given they budgeted for a 10x increase in number of employees, has any attempt been made to gauge their interest in taking on these responsibilities and overseeing the work for you and alex?

Basically, its a question of “who watches the watchmen”. If you and alex are overseeing other programs, who is overseeing and keeping you both on your toes?

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Thank you for this great proposal. I believe this is a necessary task. The contributions that Joe and Alex have made to ArbitrumDAO are evident to all, so I trust that they can complete this work nicely. However, I tend to be cautious when it comes to funding, so I have one question. Could you provide a detailed plan and reasonable assessment of the budget required for this proposal? As of now, I’m uncertain whether $200,000 is enough or too much.

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Hello. I am a new delegate, that have been lurking forum for a few months now.

I’ve noticed that it’s quite challenging to keep track of everything happening here. A while back, there was a weekly update that I found really helpful, but it seems to have disappeared. I believe this unit could take on that role and provide a broader overview of ongoing initiatives and if they delivered what was promised. One difficulty might be sharing the information you gather with others, delegates protocols etc, because without spreading properly what you will observe your work is not going to be as effective as it should.

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Hey hey, there are weekly updates posted here.

In addition, there are biweekly governance calls where delegates, contributors and proposal authors get together to discuss live proposals and notable discussions on the forum. It happens every other Tuesday at 4pm UTC, and the agendas and recordings are posted here.

You can subscribe to the ArbitrumDAO governance calendar to make sure that you don’t miss out on any of these calls moving forward!

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We think you and @AlexLumley definitely have shown your value to the DAO and this would make sense from a high level.

We are a bit confused as mentioned earlier about the overlap between you guys and Entropy. We know Entropy are looking to expand their team to 10ish by the end of their engagement, would it be logical to apply to work for them? Compensation wise, all in, it probably seems comparable? Given both of the agreements to be exclusive as well.

As for the $200k for the six months, you also mentioned it would be around that, what would the final judgement of the salary be?

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Thanks for the kind words from a few of the responses here. It is good to see that there is recognition of past value brought to the ecosystem!

I’m going to try and respond to all questions received up until now. These answers are from me and may not fully represent Alex view on the situation.

It would be logical. As I was working with them on the 2025 events proposal, I had brought up a desire to be a pm to that proposal which could potentially work with them or a future upcoming OpCo - which they are also spearheading. There are two reasons why I didn’t pursue that angle.

  1. These functions we are proposing to do would best live in an entity fully dedicated to Arbitrum over the long term. This proposal is a way for us to design some processes that the OpCo could adopt if the DAO loves them. While Entropy is figuring out how the entity might be setup and how we could legitimately hire someone to lead it, this work keeps Alex and I firmly in the ecosystem.

  2. Some delegates have expressed a desire to have another dedicated group so the optics aren’t that everything has to go through Entropy.

Personally, I love the work Entropy is doing and would expect to continue collaborating.

Yes, it seems to be comparable. It would cover travel to conferences, lack of benefits, and higher risk for a short term engagement. As we aren’t looking to create an entity (maybe roll into OpCo if desired down the road), this seems like a fair amount. As for myself, I have almost 4 years of onchain history of being paid over $150k/year salary and that doesn’t include bonus, equity, and tokens.

The primary upside I see from executing this proposal is reputation gain when we are successful.

In the Specifications section we have output deliverables listed. The timeline includes extra deliverables we will attempt if we fully execute the accountability phase. For all the deliverables, it isn’t just about executing the work, but gaining meaningful adoption of the systems, tools, and processes. It is about driving the cadences that make the systems become ritual.

Additionally, it is about generally keeping us 100% Arbitrum focused. Over the last year, I’ve delivered at least networks to be supported by the foundation and/or OCL. I’ve also presented for at least 10 communities in the past year repping Arbitrum the whole way - from a talk at Eth Denver to 2 presentations for recipients of questbook education grants.

The point is that I intend to continue creating as much value as I can and I hope the DAO agrees that the cost we are asking for is worth it.

Doesn’t this question about “Who watches the watchmen” then flip around if we were to do this working for Entropy? I don’t think it properly assesses what our role would be. Our work is making it easier for delegates to quickly understand how the initiatives are doing, not to be the judge of how they are doing.

In our discussions with them, we see that there is no need for any overlap. I believe we would be working together on a lot and they are skilled communicators. I don’t see any issue of redundancy here so long as we are communicating.

I’d also like to address a concern from @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth from the delegate telegram:

The concern is that this proposal is rushed. In terms of the norm of 1 week on forum, 1 week on snapshot then tally, yes it is being rushed by 1.5 days. However, Alex has organized the past two GRC calls and rather than proposing backpay we are simply trying to move this forward quickly. We are aware that we could wait an extra week, but we don’t feel that there is that much that would change if we added the extra 1.5 days back - especially because the nature of this is full-time contract rather than only specific deliverables. Yes, that does require trust from the DAO. I hope we have earned that, but it is up to the DAO.

We are excited to engage more with the DAO this week to make adjustments and get a proposal that is up and unchanged for a week before it goes to Tally.

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Thanks for the proposal @DisruptionJoe !

Some feedback and comments from our end:

  • As a risk it was stated that “The cost of funding two full-time contributors for six months or less if the DAO decides to cut it early.” – what is the process and criteria for early termination if the proposal is not achieved its intended goals within the 6-month timeframe?

  • As per our conversations on Telegram, I think it’d be a good idea to provide details on previous experience and qualifications that would naturaly result in you and Alex being fit for the roles here. This role is an operations-role in nature and you’ll be undertaking this ‘operations role’ in relation to an Ecosystem with a 2Billion+ dollar treasury. Additionally, you’ll be a main contact point for all initiatives governing/facilitating/operating with or by virtue of a 2Billion+ dollar treasury and thus a bit of a rigorous vetting/disclosure process re. experience should be had here in our opinion.

  • We do not see this work as similar to what Entropy does given that Entropy’s role is more in relation to submitting governance proposals that optimise the DAO’s overall governance architecture. In this regard, we do not see an overlap and thus, we also do not see a reason as to why the remuneration should be based on what Entropy had proposed. Are there any benchmarks you can point to that would grant delegates data on the fair-value of the 200k?

  • I’d like to also point out that some of the work that’s being proposed here is already done by AF’s DAO Relations team (and quite optimally imo) - this is where we see most of the overlap. Some clarity as to how this would be balanced would be beneficial.

  • Also, the recommended Forum period before Snapshot should be 7 days as per the Constitution. Albeit this not being binding, I do not see a valid reason as to why this should be rushed to an extent whereby this period is not abided to. This does not grant us a positive signal and gives the impression that this proposal is being rushed through the governance process without giving due time for delegates and contributors to read through, debate, and come up with a well-thought-out opinion.

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Hi @DisruptionJoe, first of all, thank you for taking the time to develop this proposal.

From SEEDGov we agree that DAOs need employees facilitating operations. In the past, we have proposed the introduction of the facilitator/facilitators concept without much consensus.

Then the DAO opted to introduce Entropy in a kind of role that (at least in our view) incorporates governance facilitation tasks, especially for drafting proposals, designing governance processes, and pushing initiatives that may have been around this forum but did not have enough consensus/maturity to become something more.

Now, all of this covers only a part of the DAO operations and this proposal is looking to solve some tasks not covered by other people/SPs in the DAO.

Therefore the motivation from our perspective is valid, although we would like to provide some feedback and ask questions on some points where we have doubts.

With Joe’s potential participation in the proposal “Establishing a dao events budget for 2025” we would like to be sure that Joe can handle all the responsibilities or how you plan to distribute responsibilities.

To be 100% honest and as we have already mentioned in the telegram group, this feels somewhat rushed, it is a proposal where the DAO is basically hiring full time employees for a highly important task. While it is true that the economic risk is “limited” to the cost of salaries, shortening the pre-vote discussion to just five days seems insufficient to us if you are looking to get feedback from as many delegates as possible.

While we understand that times in governance are slow, we do not believe that shortening the discussions should be the solution, which may result in the proposals not being of sufficient quality to obtain the expected results, as mentioned in one of the motivations for this proposal:

From SEEDGov we seek to avoid setting a dangerous precedent in terms of the discussion time of proposals prior to Snapshot. While we understand that this is a non-binding vote for the DAO, it is important to give delegates the necessary time to form an opinion or provide feedback.

Another detail we would like to point out is that if Snapshot is sent to Snapshot on October 10, voting will end on the 17th (Thursday) and (following the schedule approved in Improving Predictability in Arbitrum DAO’s Operations) it should be sent to Tally on Monday, October 21 so that voting starts on Thursday, October 24 (instead of the 17th as mentioned in this timeline). We make this clarification because these additional days between Snapshot and Tally could give delegates more time to share their rationale and perhaps provide valuable feedback before the proposal reaches Tally.

Regarding the Governance Reporting Calls, we understand that @AlexLumley is currently in charge of them. Have you received any remuneration from the Foundation for this purpose or should a retroactive payment be considered?

What would be the proposals you have taken as a reference? 200k to hire two people for six months represents about 200k per person per year or almost 17,000 USD per month. If we compare it to this source which usually provides higher data than the rest of the sites) it would be almost double the average for an Operations Manager in the United States. Our suggestion is to start with $120,000 for the first six months and evaluate the incorporation of a small OpEx budget (if it was already considered in the first estimation please make a breakdown for further analysis).

It is important to mention that if you have taken Entropy’s proposal as a reference, although in both cases exclusivity is offered, the nature of the tasks in both proposals is different. The Accountability deliverables have a lower complexity than the objectives proposed by Entropy and the Alignment and Throughput deliverables (which in principle could provide much value to the DAO and be more complex) are proposed as bonuses with a low probability of execution during these six months.

While salaries often vary from person to person, tasks are one of the main components to consider when evaluating how much to pay. Are those tasks you performed in exchange for these 150k per year comparable to this job?

Here we would like to point out that the tasks related to Accountability are of monthly cadence and its load could increase as new proposals to “oversight” or that need operational support appear. It is unlikely that the rest of the proposed “bonuses” will be executed at the same time as the Accountability vertical, being only two people.

Finally, we agree with @thedevanshmehta that some kind of collaboration or alignment with @Entropy would be fruitful not only for synergistic purposes but also for the oversight he mentions. Needless to say, we are interested in @Entropy’s opinion on this proposal.

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There will be a lot of discussions, on both the merit and, of course, the numbers, which are always one of the most sensitive things for most.

I want to keep it brief.

As I understood it, the team’s goals here will be to:

  1. be a coordinator/secretary of the dao
  2. be an observer of all dao initiatives, with reporting
  3. be a researcher of “pillars”, that I see as fundamental values that should drive the dao.

I’m ok with 1. I have always advocated for more coordination in the dao; if someone new comes, random people send him to other random people accordingly to what they know.
I’m ok with 2. We are a big dao, we definitely need more eyes on all initiatives
I’m ok with 3. Partially overlaps with one of the current work of entropy but I also think is a good research.
As I stated in the call tho, I think we lack something complementing the second point.

  1. be an entity that can give a strong, opinionated answer on “is the initiative X going in the right way” or “has the initiative X achieved at his end what it was supposed to achieve”.

Yes, i would like for you and Alex to be some sort of opinionated experts on the dao. If you want to call it watchdog, you can, I don’t think you would be that, but I think you would be people that can come and say “in our view, this was succesfull” and “in our view, this was a failure”.
And will @AlexLumley mentioned in the call that it would be difficult to apply this to initiatives, already established and not properly formatted, with no clear KPI, I’ll be honest I trust both your experience to be able to give a judgment that I can rely upon, and to which I can build my opinion.

This doesn’t mean you would be judge, jury and executioner, no. You would just be experts putting their opinion out.

To be crystal clear

  • is this an hard job? yes
  • is this a job in which you would likely create for yourself a lot of enemies, or at least you won’t likely make new frens? yes

Also

  • is this something I would be willing to potentially pay 200k for 6 months? Yeah.

Don’t get me wrong, you mentioned a good list of deliverables, and I don’t want to go on each 1 by 1 because I don’t think is as much important as defining a proper role here. We have several gaps in our dao. I see you being able to tackle here coordination, monitoring and accountability, with a dry run of 6 months that can be renewed and expanded. I think you can start to fill these gaps, I think you have the tools, experience and knowledge to do it.

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Thanks @DisruptionJoe and @AlexLumley for the proposal. We believe increasing the operational efficiency is the key problem space in the DAO governance and you two are capable of addressing it. We agree with the overall scope, deliverables and compensation. However, this shouldn’t be an ad-hoc initiative and should be something that turns to be a permanent committee or something for operations in the DAO. The idea of OpCo has been floating for a while, but we believe it’s a good pilot project to make this system into a continuing entity coexisting with Entropy and other DAO subgroups and this project should aim to achieve solidifying it in the end.

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gm!

Thank you very much for the proposal. I have a few comments and questions regarding it.

Regarding the identified issues:

I believe the issues identified by the delegates are valid, but I am not entirely convinced how adding more calls to Arbitrum DAO’s and a sentiment vote on an already demanding schedule would solve this. I’m not saying having a monthly report call isn’t useful, but delegates who are not up to date with the proposals likely won’t stay informed just by attending a call with a summary. The role of a delegate is more than just voting; it’s their responsibility to stay up to date with what’s happening in the DAO and the execution of initiatives.

I agree that points 1 and 2 regarding accountability require a solution that we currently lack. As a DAO, we don’t require proposals to include measurable and enforceable milestones or KPIs, nor do we consistently monitor whether reports are published in a timely manner. Additionally, the quality of those reports is rarely questioned. Even when there are failures, reaching consensus on the necessary actions is difficult.

However, I believe -in the future- this can be addressed through discussion and social consensus about the minimum requirements a proposal must meet to be voted on. Until we become more demanding about the quality of proposals and reports, this issue will persist. I’m not convinced monthly calls can resolve that issue.

Regarding point 3, I believe the discussion initiated by Entropy aims to address exactly that.

Even though the first point is debatable, I understand the pain of going through the governance process and the complexities of the DAO for the builders. However, I also understand that Entropy is the entity addressing that issue, serving as a bridge:

Perhaps there is something that needs to be fine-tuned if you are detecting a shortcoming in that area, and you could discuss it directly with them.

There’s probably room for improvement in communication here. I agree that understanding the DAO’s context and getting a sense of what delegates are thinking takes time. But, well, that’s part of the work you need to do if you want to engage with the DAO. The upsides of building a relationship with a DAO the size of Arbitrum far outweigh the complexities, in my opinion.

Does that mean we won’t make things easier for builders? No, of course not.

But I believe the issues raised by potential contributors are exactly what Entropy aims to solve through its “proposals as a service.” Am I wrong about it?

Also, there are initiatives like the Domain Allocator that specifically aim to fund experimental and early-stage work.

Everything mentioned as part of the Accountability phase is good, but I believe much of what is outlined there should be required from anyone receiving payment from the DAO. The check-ins and documentation of proposal progress, as well as the learnings (I’ll quote the ADPC report, ARDC report and DIP report as examples of how I think this should be done), should be the responsibility of those who intend to continue providing services to the DAO.

It’s also not entirely clear to me how these tasks address the issues identified for builders and contributors. This proposal seems more focused on facilitating the work of the delegates, who, under the newly approved -tempcheck- DIP, will be offered a significant incentive for fulfilling their role at a high quality level.

That said, accountability is a problem right now. That’s why I agree with Jojo.

What we are missing is a watchdog—someone who applies a certain level of “pressure” and oversees the execution of proposals, providing expert opinions on how things are progressing and recommending actions if something starts deviating from what was promised. The thing is that it’s a very unpopular role. But in my opinion, given the current state, this is exactly what the DAO needs today. And I would vote in favor of it.

That said, I have a couple of questions about the execution of the proposal and the budget.

Why do you think two people in a “senior” role (17K USD per month) are necessary to execute the proposal? Honestly, the pricing seems a bit excessive to me. It would be great if, beyond expressing your full-time commitment, you could explain a bit more about the rationale behind the number.

Joe, apologies if you’ve posted or mentioned this somewhere before, but I couldn’t find any reference. Does this mean you’ve set aside the execution of Plurality Labs milestones and the pluralistic grants?

Lastly, I would like to know your thoughts on the compatibility of accessing this proposal while maintaining the incentivized role as a delegate.

Thank you very much for the proposal. I know both of you are focused on ensuring the long-term success of the DAO, and it’s excellent to have you contributing to Arbitrum.

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Thanks for the proposal! It tackles a point that is surely needed: context. The wider the organization, the lower is the context that everyone involved in decisions have. It makes sense to have a structure to help to increase the information quality.

But it takes a lot of time to produce meaningful reports that really can make a difference. That is my main concern on this proposal: the workload taking its toll on the quality of the proposed items.

Leveraging the suggestions of other delegates that it would be interesting to add a “watchdog” feature to the proposal, I would like to suggest the proposal restructured considering:

  • The addition of 2 “clerks” to help to handle the massive workload of reporting, database, wiki creation and maintainance.
  • Alex and Joe focused on “watchdog” / coordination functions.
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Thank you for the clarification! In fact, I have never doubted your professionalism—your contributions to Arbitrum DAO are evident to all. But have you considered what challenges you might face in successfully completing this task? Will the funds be sufficient to support you in achieving this? I’m a bit concerned, as this is not an easy job.

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thanks for sharing the context. we will appreciate more ROI analysis , and also some differentiation with Entropy (how you are value adding and how it does not overlap with Entropy - i.e. can Entropy do what you are proposing at their current capacity) .

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I really appreciate your contribution to the development of our community and DAO.

However, tbh I have doubts and I have several questions:

  1. Since you are active participants of DAO, will you, if this proposal is approved, receive funds from DIP?
  2. How will your work differ from Entropy Advisors? They also have similar goals.
  3. I see the main problem, as you indicated in the proposal, that there is no list of tasks, and in fact - a plan for the development of DAO and Arbitrum.
    And I hoped that you would indicate the main goal of creating such a list of goals and achievements, but you do not have it.
  4. I saw your explanations of the salary, but regardless of the results of this work, you will receive $ 100k per person. It seems to me that it would be appropriate for you to indicate the KPI and the level of your income depending on their achievement.
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We are cautiously in favor of the “Boosting DAO Efficiency by 10x” proposal, as we believe that streamlining operations and increasing throughput are essential for Arbitrum’s continued success. However, there are several areas that require clarification and refinement before we can offer our full support.

Budget Justification

While we agree that @DisruptionJoe and @AlexLumley have demonstrated significant value in their previous contributions, the $200k budget for a six-month period needs more transparency. Specifically, we believe the breakdown of the budget should be more detailed to justify the costs, especially in light of potential overlaps with other DAO contributors like Entropy. Given that this includes travel and compensation, we would appreciate seeing a more granular outline of anticipated expenses.

Role Overlap and Coordination with Entropy

A key concern is potential redundancy with @Entropy and other contributors already performing similar functions within the ecosystem. We recommend more explicit coordination between Joe, Alex, and existing teams to avoid duplicative efforts. Clear explanations of how responsibilities will be divided will alleviate concerns about inefficient allocation of resources.

Accountability and Deliverables

We fully support the introduction of clear accountability mechanisms and performance tracking. Having clear metrics for success—whether through direct DAO oversight or involvement from teams like Entropy—will ensure that funds are being allocated efficiently and that deliverables are met. Regular reporting on progress should be mandated as part of this proposal to maintain transparency.

Early Termination

Although some members have raised the issue of early termination, we believe a six-month term is reasonable to assess whether meaningful progress has been made. We suggest retaining the right to reassess at the three-month mark but allowing for the full term to complete unless significant underperformance is evident.

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Our team strongly agrees with many of the comments already posted in the proposal, but we would like to highlight those that raise the most uncertainty for us.

Like many others, we believe there could be an overlap with the tasks Entropy should perform. We think that perhaps the hiring of both individuals could be done directly through Entropy so they can work full-time on everything mentioned.

We believe the salary aligns with market rates for similar roles in similar DAOs and the responsibilities of a full-time role. However, we don’t think the DAO should fund this role if the position overlaps with other existing positions.

19

@DisruptionJoe and @AlexLumley will this proposal go to snapshot voting tomorrow?

20

Hey @DisruptionJoe are there more details on how the payment would be made? Paid in ARB but denominated in $, or converted into stables from the start?