You would be hard pressed to find anyone that disagrees with the fact that our world is becoming more complex. Between increasing polarization, a very real climate emergency, "once in a lifetime" pandemics and a widening poverty gap - we've all been given a lot to think about.

However, even with this grand shadow cast upon us there’s a sense that the solutions are here - but just out of arm’s reach. Only if we could remove the political, bureaucratic and coordination problems plaguing us all we’d seize our opportunity to right the ship.

Enter The DAO

While you may not be privy to it, there’s been a cambrian explosion of experimentation and investment into emerging technologies and frameworks that support our hope of overcoming our coordination hurdles, aligning incentives and distributing financial upside.

One primary emerging framework is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Packy McCormick of Not Boring provides a great explanation of DAOs in his The Dao of DAOs piece:

A DAO is “decentralized” in that it runs on a blockchain and gives decision-making power to stakeholders instead of executives or board members, and “autonomous” in that it uses smart contracts, which are essentially applications or programs that run on a publicly accessible blockchain and trigger an action if certain conditions are met, without the need for human intervention.

More simply, DAOs are a new way to finance projects, govern communities, and share value. Instead of a top-down hierarchical structure, they use Web3 technology and rapidly evolving governance and incentive systems to distribute decision-making authority and financial rewards. Typically, they do that by issuing tokens based on participation, contribution, and investment. Token holders then have the ability to submit proposals, vote, and share in the upside.

We’re already seeing exciting DAOs pop up exemplifying the power (and frankly fun) that can come with distributed financing and collective decision-making. One example is KlimaDAO - a group of environmentalists, developers and entrepreneurs using blockchain technology to pool capital to buy up carbon offsets, driving up the price of carbon assets accordingly. A high price for carbon “forces companies and economies to adapt more quickly to the realities of climate change, and makes low-carbon technologies and carbon-removal projects more profitable.”

Down The Rabbithole

My journey to the world of DAOs actually started towards the end of 2020. Somewhat spontaneously, I started to become fascinated with organizational design and management models. I read books and even started a podcast late last year to explore how the best organizations and teams structure themselves to drive employee fulfillment and success.

Earlier this year I discovered the concept of DAOs and became enthralled. The themes I had been uncovering through my research of org design and models were actively being discussed by DAO enthusiasts on Twitter, forums and Discord servers. These folks had my same nerdy passion for distributed decision-making, decentralization and governance - I had found my home.

But most importantly, DAOs represented something more than a novel use of blockchain technology to me; DAOs represented a collective ideology and belief that a better world can be built.

Hot Orca Summer

Towards the end of this summer I stumbled across an organization and product that also spoke to me - Orca Protocol. Their vision was simple - the best way to scale DAOs and help them achieve their mission is by building a permissions layer based on smaller working groups (i.e., their “pods” concept) of 5-10 people.

I quickly jumped into their Discord server and started to poke and prod with the core team and community. I was the annoying guy that likely asked way too many questions.

Luckily, this seems to work in most people’s favor in the web3 world - engaged and interested community members often find paths to more fruitful projects and opportunities. My first was being recruited to the Orcanaut Research Group - a group of Orca Protocol community members tasked with conducting related research and producing content alongside the Orca brand.

Orca-bound!

I had decided to set up some time with the co-founders Julia and John a few weeks ago to understand their vision for Orca and give a more personal introduction. I came away so impressed after meeting with them. Julia is the type of unicorn founder you hear about - she creates human connection as well as anyone and has a vision for Orca as big and bubbly as her personality. John is the yang to her yin - thoughtful, calm and focused with the kind of dry humor undertone you’d expect in a British sitcom.

To my pleasant surprise, towards the end of my conversations it became clear they had an interest in finding a spot on the core team for me. My passion for the area and background in technical product and project management was a skillset they needed on the team. We discussed details of the role and I accepted an offer just before Thanksgiving - needless to say I had much to be thankful for this year.

Moving Forward

I couldn’t be more excited to dive head first into this ocean of opportunity. Between a talented core team, a beloved brand and an energy-filled ecosystem this feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. As the first product manager I will look to bring ruthless prioritization and decision-making to our backlog and roadmap while supporting our future partners. I also plan on ensuring our team will build a foundation that can effectively scale our product, core team and community of contributors along the way.

Thank you to the Orca team, investors and advisors for the opportunity and everyone else who has been involved in my journey to date.

Let’s get building.

-Dan

P.S - If you’re building a DAO or DAO tools and want to discuss Orca Protocol, DMs are open. 😁