A DAO is a bunch of people with a shared bank account doing stuff.
The technology that allows a community of people to collectively own and manage a treasury lies in blockchains.
It’s possible to use a technology such as Ethereum to deploy a bunch of code which:
Once this code gets deployed members will all have access to a token which will represent their share in the DAO. How to distribute tokens is usually up to the founders or a pre-existing community.
In DAOs any member can make and vote proposals, which can then be voted on if you own some tokens.
Let’s suppose we make a proposal about building a website to sell bananas. If the proposal gets approved we can then have access to part of the treasury and start collaborating with other members of the DAO (or anyone, really) on how to bring the project to life. Fast forward 6 month and the website is live. We will probably receive some tokens for the value we added. In addition to that our contribution increased the net value of the whole DAO. In which, of course, you own a part.
Contributing to a DAO means your goal is to add as much value as possible based on the skillset you have and the goal of the DAO. You can potentially define your own role and your own responsibilities. You can contribute to multiple DAOs, join and leave when you prefer. It’s the ownership economy.