Beside security council, I don’t think we have ever had an election as important as this one. It’s the first time we elect council members that will be in charge to start the operationalization of our DAO. One could argue we did it for GCP, but to me is different: while at the time the amount of capital involved was indeed higher, I think here we have more at stake: defining if we are able to not only self govern ourself, but also manage operations.
In electing OAT members, we have to rely not only in the public figure reputation, skillset, specific knowledge, past but in the trust we can put in whoever is going to be elected. The people in there will be entrusted in choose the right persons to start this company, on behalf of the DAO and in the best interest of the DAO.
Implicitely, this suggest to me that
- is going to be hard to vote for people that have never had prominent roles or presence in our DAO: trust can’t be build in a single day
- is going to be hard to vote for people who have, involuntarily or voluntarily, harmed the DAO or the DAO reputation outside our (rather small) circle: I personally can’t trust the OAT candidates who have, in past, created situations harmful for the DAO/AF/OCL operations without first doing as much as they could to reach out interested parties. This is not about having/not having the same opinions, is about a course of action in what you do that is responsible toward not only people and operations, but also the perception about Arbitrum, especially perception from outside, that we collectively need to defend
- is going to be hard to vote for people that have a very good professional track record, but no strong reference and presence inside our world: Arbitrum is an ecosystem, a very complex one, and there is a fallacy in thinking that the same approach straight out of the box that has ensured success in a somehow smaller environment can also solve the problems we have here. I am talking about not only strategy, but also communication, approach, even philosophy, and all the characteristics that define a person in his attitude toward a working mission.
I have placed my fiches, equally, on these 4 candidates:
Reasons are the following:
- Pedro: I have worked with him during LTIPP and STIP.b, and a few time through SeedLatam before he left the org. I have the uttermost estime for him: the way he approaches the problems we have in the DAO is the type of approach we need, keen toward details, and able to not stop at the first superficial takes.
(one good thing about DIP program is that, for people that have enough time and energy to read all feedback from all delegates, you can now know who just stops at very simplicistic views vs someone able to go more in deep).
I also understand what @paulofonseca means when he says he is the one not having any COI. To me is slightly different: it would be ok, for me, if he was for example still collaborating with Seed, or working on his own company or protocol. What to me is worth noticing is instead the following: he has been in the DAO, now for months, providing value, with just, in the last few months, some compensation through the DIP supporting his efforts. He did show us two things: how much he cares about the ecosystem, and how he is able to tackle complex problem. - Frisson: he has had and still has multiple roles in our DAO. We all know him in his capacity here and in Tally. Lately he showed, again, how he is capable of taking leadership and ownership of problems in the MSS: in a fairly chaotic situation, due to among others how the initiative was conceived, he took the lead in comms, transaction reporting, and communication, doing “what is needed and not what he is paid for”. Can’t say there is a professional perk better than being able to take ownership of problems and solve them when they arise. Beside, it honestly make sense for him to potentially leave all of his roles, consolidate his effort into a very important mission that will for sure benefit from his experience, and at the same time make some space for new contributors, extremely valid, that could fill his roles. A secondary effect that makes me even more confident in voting for him.
- AJ: he is, probably, the most stranger to most because in his role at OCL he didn’t had direct contact with most delegates and contributors in here nor he had a presence in the forum or delegate chat. But, if you have “been” in Arbitrum in any capacity beside doing governance in our DAO, you likely know AJ and indeed interacted with him. He has always been very present in the Arbitrum events, always interacting with top delegates, and above all he has insight in the past and future of our Lab and the vision for Arbitrum. This point is key: if he knows what Arbitrum should be from the PoV of OCL, he can definitely help the DAO getting a direction that he thinks is valuable. The other main point is how much he interacted with builders and protocols. My biggest fear for our DAO is alienating builders, detatching our governance from protocols, and AJ in the OAT would mitigate this risk
- Pat: I will be totally honest, I was initially conflicted about the Foundation having an active candidate along his observing role. I spent a fairly amount of time asking myself if this was a good move or not, with the OpCo being on paper and among other a potential “alternative foundation, DAO owned”.
Is there a COI (being COI the second most preferred word in our DAO beside framework)?
Would it be a problem having the Arbitrum Foundation in the OAT helping hiring people or shaping/scoping/rescoping the OpCo?
At this point, I don’t think it will create any problem. We could discuss a lot about having a total separation between this new entity and the Foundation and the perks it would give us; but, the focus has to be instead be in having all stakeholders teaming up for the best outcome possible for our DAO. From a practical standpoint, having DAO members, OCL members, AF members, in the OpCo, can just help the flow of information and coordination: Patrick will know what initiative the Foundation is undertaking, even the ones that can be explicitely communicated, and help the DAO leverage this info through the OpCo.
As a final note, I voted 4 candidates for 3 spots. Per the voted proposal, the 3 elected OAT members should then nominate and hire 2 further people. Assuming this happens (and is not given for granted, there could be other proposals to rescope the OAT for example), my hope is that whoever of the 4 above gets elected, will onboard the others. I really think we have, right here and now, the best 4 names we could get, and I will be extremely happy to see all of them working in the council.