Thisarticlewas originally published on .cult byAdrien Book..cultis a Berlin-based community platform for developers.
Let me tell you about the future of work.
Youll work on something you love, without having to interview.
Youll work for numerous employers, all of which will pay you based on a contract you didnt sign.
Youll compete for rewards with colleagues you dont know, but youll see everything they do.
Youll get a say in the organizations strategy, but so will all of its customers.
Youll be remote, global, and always on.
And youll love it.
Welcome to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations the future of work.
Easy DAO definition
The tech community has a habit of making simple concepts difficult.
This neednt be the case.
In short, DAOs are how humans come together as a group to make decisions in the digital world.
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Secondly, voting shares are issued to stakeholders in the form of digital governance tokens also recorded on ablockchain.
Technically, all sorts of work structures can be created as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
Investment companies, consulting companies, engineering companies, and so on and so on.
But thats just in theory; the reality is far more complex… and far more interesting.
No more interviews
DAOs today consist of two types of people: Core Contributors and Edge Contributors.
This means that these new digital organizations will not need any kind ofrecruitment process.
A developer can come in and start working on anything that needs work done.
This is a great step forward for three reasons.
Firstly, we know that classical selection processesnegatively impact minoritiesdue to ingrained prejudices.
DAOs force us to look at the work done rather than the person.
That means we can concentrate on aptitudes.
Secondly, it continues the trend of work flexibility that was started by the gig economy.
The sky is the limit.
After all, corporations can discard us as they see fit.
Why shouldnt we be able to do the same?
Think of it as working on a movie.
Once the project is done, they part ways and go work on multiple different films.
In DAOs, the same can be said for developers, community managers, accountants, consultants…
Since DAOs are often story-driven, this simile is particularly relevant.
The lack of exclusive relationships will lead to a Missionaries vs. Mercenaries discussion.
Such discussions are stale.
Indeed, most contributors will expect a reward for their work.
The payment process within a DAO works as follows.
The organization sells services or products and sets aside a pool of the generated revenues for salaries and rewards.
Instead, many DAOs turn to tools such asCoordinapeto tackle this challenge.
These solutions allow organizations to create circles of contributors (the equivalent of teams).
This is particularly interesting for a variety of reasons.
For starters, it helps us experiment with a new definition of value within an online community.
It also incentivizes workers to work towards the mission set out by DAOs creators.
Finally, it also puts an end to the free-riders that have spread across middle management in larger companies.
A new way of making decisions
As mentioned above, DAO contributors are often rewarded with governance tokens.
In this system, one token is equal to one vote.
Unlike classical corporations, in DAOs everyone has a vote proportional to their stake in the project.
Contributors are thus incentivized to act as fiduciaries.
Many DAO creators are well aware that voting, done wrong, can be a form of tyranny.
But because this too can be exploited, I prefer the principles ofSociocracy.
That way, one team doesnt influence the decisions of another.
Tokens give people a right to partake in the organizations voting procedures.
Few if any corporations today make decisions this way.
A renewed importance of community values
DAOs are first and foremost the latest iteration of digital communities.
If that means an end to Facebook Groups, all the better; what goes around, comes around.
DAOs are often touted as the future of all corporations.
I believe it best to dream smaller.
Lets take fandoms as an example.
Today, many struggle to survive and thrive under the boot of algorithms promoting virality at any cost.
This means people creating great niche communities can now survive and make their projects evolve with their community.
DAOs, amongst other things, also solve some of the issues aroundopen-source projects.
A more global, more asynchronous way of working
DAOs are remote by their very nature.
Anyone with an internet connection can access and work on them.
While the gig economy today is hyper-local, we are now watching it become global.
This shift will impact workers in new and unexpected ways.
By being fully global and remote, digital organizations allow people from all over the world to participate.
In the past, globalization has led to blue-collar workers in Western countries having to fight for their survival.
DAOs may very well impact white-collar workers in the same way.
By being asynchronous, they will also (finally) put an end to the traditional 9 to 5.
This may benefit under-privileged cohorts.
The COVID-19 pandemic shift showed we were capable of this; lets push the idea to its logical conclusion.
No boss, fewer colleagues
DAOs may be transparent, but they are also, counter-intuitively, anonymous.
This anonymity means that workers will no longer have colleagues per se.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity.
For a while, the workplace became the place one could socialize in.
Now that its disappearing, the lack of physical community and identity is worrying.
This is however an opportunity for organizations to be much more active and deliberate when it comes to team-building.
The fate of the DAO may very well depend on it.
This is something many people are not accustomed to.
One of the greatest shifts in this new future of work will be the increased importance of self-management.
This will be uncomfortable for many, but will undoubtedly lead to strong personal growth.
All decisions and actions can be audited by anyonesomething workers in large organizations today rarely get to experience.
Thats fine if the person is anonymous, but not everyone will want to be.
Anonymity does solve both these issues.
But, as I mentioned, DAOs are for communities to come together.
Conclusion
As seen through key numbers, DAOs today may seem like a huge deal.
They haveaccumulated more than $10 billion in treasury assetsunder management.
60K decisions have been made, through 4M votes cast by 700K active voters and proposal makers.
This is peanuts compared to non-decentralized organizations.
Sure, we may argue that DAOs will continue to rise while classical corporations will start failing.
I only hope well keep the good within each option and leave the bad behind.
From experience, that is unlikely.
Good luck out there.
Story by.cult
.cult by Honeypot is a Berlin-based community platform for developers.
