Welcome to the Ownership Economy podcast, the podcast that explores the people and ideas that are utilizing technology, economics, and the law to reimagine how the economy can work for everyone. Here we connect with the entrepreneurs, investors, thought-l
In this episode, we sit down with Adam Silver, CEO and co-founder of Plural, a company that's revolutionizing the way we invest in renewable energy. Adam explains how Plural is using blockchain technology to make these investments more accessible and efficient, allowing anyone to own a piece of the clean energy future. We explore the benefits and challenges of this innovative approach, and Adam gives us a sneak peek at an exciting project involving Bitcoin mining and solar energy. Plus, we get a preview of what he'll be discussing at the upcoming Ownership Economy Summit. Join us as we explore the future of renewable energy finance with Adam Silver.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we're joined by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who dives into crypto regulation in the EU vs. the US, how she is thinking about regulation for entrepreneurs building in crypto, and what 2024 might bring. Note: This episode was recorded in January 2024.
How do the worlds of cryptography, privacy, and AI relate? What is the promise of NFTs for building a user- and creator-owned economy? We dive into these topics and more with Ownership Economy Summit speaker David Pakman. David started his career in tech at Apple, and has been in venture capital for 20+ years at prominent funds Venrock and Coinfund, and was among the first VCs to realize what was coming in crypto and moved in early to back teams such as Dapper Labs, 3Box (Ceramic Network), and Rarible. David has been on the bleeding edge of the thinking in this space concerning user ownership of data, creator ownership and IP, and the building of an ownership economy.
In this episode, we are joined by Maryam Mazraei (“Maz”) and Eiman Soliman of Crowdmuse, a web3 protocol that brings together creators, fashion designers, suppliers, brands, and consumers, while redefining the incentives within the fashion industry to address its externalities. What sets Crowdmuse apart is its unique approach—it doesn't merely position itself as the "ethical choice"; rather, it integrates ethical considerations into the system's design. The platform delivers what consumers desire: remarkable, one-of-a-kind fashion and collectibles from their favorite designers. Simultaneously, it ensures that contributors and their contributions are transparently recorded on their smart contract system, granting suppliers the distribution they seek and affording brands the representation they crave. The result? A win-win situation where everyone involved is content. Tune in to discover the unexpected connection between a notorious apparel factory disaster in Bangladesh and an Art Basel fashion drop. Explore how web3 protocols, like Crowdmuse, contribute to making value chains more transparent and understandable.
Over the last 120 hours, a governance crisis the likes of which we may never see repeated happened at world-leading artificial intelligence company OpenAI, culminating in the firing (and rehiring!) of Sam Altman, with a tectonic shift in their governance in the space of a few days. In this episode we explore what led to this situation, how it could have been simulated ahead of time, and what you should do with your governance design if you're thinking of starting a world-changing technology company, to ensure maximal flexibility and make governance an asset and not a liability. Joining us for this episode are Dr. Michael Zargham, board member and PI at the Metagovernance Project, and Amber Case, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Superset, DAODAO, and other ventures. Both guests are principal investigators at the Metagovernance Project, a nonprofit foundation focused on building open-source tooling and protocols for a governance layer around the internet.
In episode 069, Jahed sits down with Dr. Astrid Scholz, ecological economist and social entrepreneur, to discuss how her career arc has cut across governance and ownership, and the resulting innovations she and her teams have delivered. Along the way, we cover ecological economics and how it values ecosystems and people in addition to profits, why the current org structures were not a fit for her and how she and her co-founders innovated on the Zebras Unite Co-op, and the innovation they've spurred to deliver more capital to social enterprises at every level, from idea to seed to Series A and beyond. It's a valuable episode for any entrepreneur considering how to start a new venture outside of the traditional VC model.
In this episode, Martin and Jahed chat with Sarah Drinkwater, Founder and General Partner at Common Magic. Common Magic invests in European and US start-ups at the pre-seed and seed stage. In the conversation, Sarah walks us through her experience working with early stage founders who are using community engagement and incentive design as a core pillar of their growth. She makes a strong case for aligning returns with community health and growth. It's a fascinating look at a fund manager building an edge across multiple sectors including open source software, developer tools, fintech, and more by focusing exclusively on the digital community. Please rate and review the episode if you enjoyed it.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Martin and Jahed sit down with Dr. Ellen Frank-Miller, the Founder and CEO of WORC. A social scientist by training, Dr. Frank-Miller details her research on how investing in people as assets is proven to build more profitable, competitive companies. This episode will be of particular interest to private equity investors, managers, and anyone who is trying to find a meaningful place to work. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Martin and Jahed connect with Anthony Cimino Head of Policy at Carta. The conversation discusses challenges and opportunities in the US policy arena to advance broad-based ownership. Anthony walks us through the history of current rules on the books at the SEC and IRS, why they need updating for the world today, and how his past as an operator in Washington, D.C. informs his current work and approach. Investors, start-up founders, and policy workers will all enjoy this episode.
In episode 065, Martin and Jahed chat with Drs. Jenn and Ilia Murtazashvili, from the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets, and dive into the details of their new book, Towards a Political Economy of the Commons: Simple Rules for Sustainability. In the conversation, they cover the basics of what a commons is, what polycentrism is, and how property regimes and governmental institutions shape contexts and outcomes for commons-based governance. They conclude by diving into real world examples of functioning commons across the world, and touch on possibilities for governing the global environmental commons in the context of climate change. We hope you enjoy the episode!
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Martin and Jahed connect with Adam Jackson, the Co-Founder and CEO of Braintrust Network. The conversation begins by discussing how to jumpstart network effects in marketplaces using blockchain technologies and marginal stakeholder incentives. Adam then discusses what decentralization really looks like within a web3 labor marketplace, and offers clues and insights for founders considering building in the space.
In episode 063, Jahed sat down with Camille Canon, founder of Apiary.xyz, and previously founder of Purpose Trust. Camille pioneered the Purpose Trust, a trust built for non-charitable purposes, that creates alternatives for SMEs looking to exit their business whose only option before was PE. Camille talks us through insights learned in the legal engineering of purpose trusts, and how she backed into the real problem—governance and decision-making. We round out the pod by covering a case study of Apiary in action with Radicle DAO, using their tools to help Radicle understand their stakeholders and radically change their decision-making structure for more alignment and quick execution.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy podcast, we welcome Dr. Corey Rosen, a champion of employee ownership. Dr. Rosen dives into the shortcomings of the current ownership model, marked by opaque practices and short-term horizons. The conversation shifts to Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), outlining their benefits, limitations, and reasons for their non-dominant representation in the economy. Dr. Rosen discusses strategies to increase employee ownership, such as contractual preferences, taking companies private through ESOPs, and leveraging policy ideas like the Employee Equity Investment Act. This episode is a concise guide to understanding and fostering an equitable ownership economy.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin welcome back Nathan Schneider, a thought leader who enlightened us on the intricacies of platform cooperatives, DAOs, and the burgeoning Ownership Economy in our 2021 conversation. In this episode, we catch up with Nathan to understand the remarkable transformations that have swept these spaces over the last two years, and how these shifts have influenced his perspective. Together, we dissect Nathan's profound assertion about the dire need for democratic financial mechanisms analogous to venture capital and a supporting software stack for enhancing democratic governance. We further analyze Nathan's provocative piece on creating a robust policy platform for DAOs, its crucial importance, and how Section 230 has shaped the digital world. This discussion delves into the unique features of network-native organizations, and issues of transparency, sufficient decentralization, and participant control within the DAO space. Our conversation culminates with an exploration of Nathan's vision for DAOs: a tool to pivot the online economy away from digital feudalism towards shared ownership, fostering a culture of effective self-governance in our communities and governments. Join us for this riveting conversation as we journey through the evolving contours of the digital economy and governance.
In episode 060, Martin and Jahed sit down with Dakotah Apostolou, CEO of Cohere Network, to learn how Cohere is expanding access to the real estate asset class by tokenizing equity in a global co-living network. In the conversation, we cover Dakotah's background training as an architect at Taliesin, The School of Architecture started by Frank Lloyd Wright, and how the built environment can be leveraged for better social, environmental, and governance outcomes by leveraging existing legal structures such as the LLC and combining them with blockchain tools to enable liquidity and optionality for network participants. It's a fascinating experiment showing how one can use a fully-compliant legal approach to enable broad access to equity, and enable optionality for nomads, retirees, and anyone looking for more meaning and flexibility in their living arrangements.
In this podcast, we explore the evolution of the social contract between employers and employees, discussing how the traditional framework has remained relatively unchanged since the early 1900s, while loyalty as a core belief has largely eroded in modern times. With a predicted 50% of the US labor force participating in freelance and gig work by 2025, the conversation delves into the challenges faced by the employment industry, such as market and technology fragmentation, and the need for interoperability.
In episode 058, Jahed & Martin sit down with Tyler Morrey of Upside Cooperative. In the conversation, we cover how difficult it really is for companies to share their equity with a large number of stakeholders, the state of the art for equity ownership for SMEs, ESOPs, and legal structures, and the innovations that Upside Cooperatice is unlocking by making legal innovation broadly accessible with the Hedera blockchain and ecosystem. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode, Jahed sits down with David Dao, founder of GainForest and PhD candidate at ETH Zurich, to discuss how GainForest is blazing the trail for valuing natural assets with bottom-up participation of land stewards. In the conversation, we cover what ecosystem services are, how they contribute to the economy, various ownership and property rights regimes for them, and what an equitable future looks like if we value ecosystem services inputs to global GDP. We also touch on data ownership, governance, and provenance. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode, Martin and Jahed speak with Raphaël Haupt, co-founder and CEO of Toucan Protocol. In the conversation, they cover the historical arc of the carbon markets, how we got to the market we have today through greenwashing and in some cases fraud, and what Toucan is building to enable transparent and auditable climate finance at scale. They touch on the recent Verra controversy, and how Toucan is building tools and financial infrastructure to help registries, marketplaces, brokers, and corporates understand what they are buying so that they can finance the economic system change we need to power through this century's energy and environmental challenges. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy podcast, Martin and Jahed speak with Zoe Schlag, a co-founder and Managing Partner at Common Trust. Zoe has spent her career as an entrepreneur and investor. Prior to Common Trust, Zoe served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Eric and Wendy Schmidt's family office, where she designed and led their Shared Ownership investing. Before that, she was a Managing Director at Techstars, a global venture capital firm, where she led Techstars' first impact fund and accelerator program. In the conversation, Zoe Schlag walks us through her learnings as an entrepreneur and investor and the evolution of her thinking on shared ownership. The conversation discusses in detail the concept of Employee Ownership Trust and Purpose Trusts, an entity type recently used by the founder of Patagonia to transition his company to steward ownership. As always, if you like the episode, please subscribe and rate us.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we connect with Nick Ducoff, currently a partner at G20 Ventures. Nick started his career as an attorney and quickly shifted into entrepreneurship. We discuss his learnings as an entrepreneur, investor, and DAO contributor and how these roles have impacted his view on creating value. As Nick is currently investing in ventures in the Ownership Economy, entrepreneurs and investors will be particularly interested in this episode. Nick will also be in Austin for South by Southwest 2023 through Monday if you would like to meet him. If you are interested in other takes on investing in this market, check out Episode 21 with Julia Lipton from Awesome People Ventures.
In episode 053, Martin and Jahed sit down with Sean Lee, co-founder of Odsy Network, the access control layer for blockchains. In the conversation, Sean covers his extensive experience in the space from working in the early days of the open source economy, realizing the need for economic support and incentive design, and shifting toward web3 models as the CEO of Algorand Foundation. Sean gives an intricate view of how governmental regulatory regimes are looking at crypto, from Singapore, Japan, and China, to Switzerland and the US, and how decentralized asset custody and permissionless yet safe access control can work with these new regulatory paradigms to the benefit of users and asset originators.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we connect with Professor Jan Eeckhout, a macroeconomist and labor economist and a Professor of Economics at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. Professor Eeckhout is the author of The Profit Paradox, which explores the secular trend since the 1980s in a consolidation of corporate power in the United States, its impact on labor and market competition, and the implications for modern democracies.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Martin and Jahed connect with Will Ruddick, Founder of the Grassroots Economics Foundation. Will walks us through the work he has been doing in sub-Saharan Africa on complimentary currencies, detailing the Bangla-Peso and Sarafu Community Inclusion Currencies. The conversation is a good primer on how technological advances over the past decade have driven innovation in mutual credit and complimentary currencies. If you like the themes we touch on in this episode and want to learn more, we highly recommend Episode 15 with David Casey and Episode 13 with Dr. Shaun Conway.
In episode 050, we sit down with Tim Rann, Managing Partner at Mercy Corps Ventures, and dig in to his background building businesses across Afghanistan, Cambodia, and other locales, and how he's applying his insights in development finance to impact investing at MCV. We cover the opportunities for uniting impact with digital product design, how Tim and the team are thinking of impact with respect to climate and financial resilience, and how LPs are thinking about crypto projects and impact. This is a great episode for founders and LPs curious about the investment opportunity in open source protocols built with the developing world in mind.
In episode 049, Martin and Jahed sat down with Erin Grover, who formerly worked in international development in Afghanistan and India, and in investigative journalism, who transitioned into working in web3 in 2016. Erin covers her work on the ground with suppliers as diverse as farmer cooperatives, textile cooperatives, and the governments she worked with to sponsor blockchain projects for traceability. She also covers many real world examples to demonstrate how blockchains can bring accountability, transparency, and ultimately even higher revenues to stakeholders in multi-sided marketplaces.
In episode 048, Martin and Jahed sit down with Dr. Margot Clarvis, PhD, an environmental scientist working in the field of nature-based solutions (NbS), interfacing with the growing natural asset and carbon markets. In the course of the episode, Margot speaks to the trends that are at work turning nature into an ownable asset class with revenue potential, who the various stakeholders in the NbS space are, and how they're working to build scientific consensus on natural assets and their revenue streams. We also touch on recent controversies in the voluntary carbon market, opportunities for blockchains to potentially solve trust issues in the market, and the evolution of these market-based solutions toward addressing development goals.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we check back in with Sascha Kellert from Ownco and Jessica van Meir from Mintstars for an update on their progress. Sascha walks us his new model for Virtual On-Chain Option Plans and discusses how an initial ten organizations are using the plan in practice. We then dive into how both entrepreneurs are thinking about shared ownership and governance programs in their early stage start ups. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we speak with Stephen Martin from TripsTrade. Steve comes from a background in the property rental market, a $2.3 trillion industry. Along with his co-founder Petro Sideris, Steve is working to build a new model for short-term property rentals, like vacations and hotel bookings. We all have at one point or another had to cancel a booking without a refund. TripsTrade aims to fix that entire market and in the meantime is building some interesting web2 to web3 tools that will help everyone more easily adopt blockchain technologies. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode, we sit down with Amber Case of the Plurigrid project. In the conversation, we talk about the intersection of open source software economic models, cybernetics, anthropology, and how combining the three can open up new possibilities in distributed energy resources management and distributed, resilient, microgrids. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we speak with Staci Warden, the CEO of the Algorand Foundation. Staci previously ran the Center for Financial Markets at the Milken Institute, and before that worked as an executive at JPMorgan and Nasdaq. She started her career as a development economist at the United States Department of the Treasury. In the episode, we discuss how Algorand works, it's unique value proposition, and some real world applications of this blockchain. We hope you enjoy the episode. Show Notes: Algorand: A secure and efficient distributed ledger - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030439751930091X Nigeria is creating a digital marketplace to help creators sell their intellectual property rights - https://techcabal.com/2022/05/26/nigeria-intellectual-property-rights/ The Economics of Consensus in Algorand - https://www.mdpi.com/2674-1032/1/2/13 Are Blockchains Decentralized? Unintended Centralities in Distributed Ledgers - https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1172417 Algorand: Scaling Byzantine Agreements for Cryptocurrencies - https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3132747.3132757 Algorand - https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.01341 Another Look at ALGORAND - https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04463
In this week's episode of the Ownership Economy, we brought on Alissa Orlando, a co-founder of the Driver's Cooperative, to discuss her experience in helping to build the company from the ground up. We go a bit deeper into Alissa's motivations and expectations in setting up the cooperative and how things played out over the first 18 months. This episode will be highly relevant for entrepreneurs thinking through the benefits and pitfalls of the cooperative model. It will also be of interest to policymakers and innovators that are trying to hone in on where the cooperative model is challenging when the goal is to drive large scale wealth and value creation. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin speak with Reka Macy from Guild.xyz and Agora. The conversation discusses token gating, guilds, and other interesting aspects of DAOs and the future of work. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin connect with Ethan Buchman, Co-Founder of Cosmos and Tendermint and current CEO of Informal Systems, a worker-owned cooperative that develops software for Cosmos Network. Ethan walks us through how the architecture of Cosmos is powering a multi-chain, or multiple blockchain, future with interoperability as its core. The discussion then moves to why this architecture will empower a new generation of Collaborative Finance applications that allow communities to deepen relationships, increase internal trade, and remain resilient in global financial downturns through new applications of locally governed money. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we speak with Jessica Van Meir, Co-Founder and COO of Mintstars. Mintstars aims to build a more sustainable creator economy that puts creators first. The team is building a platform to combine non-fungible token subscriptions with marketplace resales. Fans subscribe to receive content and the NFT model allows for value to accrue via restrictions on content supply and access. The company is an interesting new model that solves many of the problems with sites such as OnlyFans. Jessica brings her extensive work as a researcher and current doctoral student on labor rights to her viewpoints on product/market fit. We hope you enjoy the episode
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we speak with Molecule Protocol's Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer Tyler Golato. Molecule is creating collaborative ecosystems, where stakeholders in drug development can work together to expedite the process of bringing novel therapeutics to patients. The company is connecting leading researchers to funding by turning intellectual property and its development into a liquid and easily investable asset. We talk with Tyler about the model, how the company isapproaching progressive decentralization, and where algorithmic rules of governance intersect with the need for human decision making. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we talk with Charlie Fisher, a researcher and entrepreneur that is working to build regenerative communities through an interesting new model based on the concept of “proof of presence”. Charlie walks us through the history of community land trusts and how this legal and economic structure is being reimagined through shared governance and ownership. The discussion then turns practical with an overview of a recent case study on a community project in Portugal. In the discussion, we explore how to optimize for active vs passive stakeholders and shareholders when creating local ecosystems. We hope you enjoy the episode. Here are the show notes: Small Change (Nabeel Hamdi) Wikihouse (open source kit of parts) Transition by Design (architecture co-operative) Stonesfield Community Trust, Oxfordshire DisCO.coop Sociocracy 3.0 OASA Traditional Dream Factory 6wk course on web3/CLTs
In this week's episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin connect with Daniel Ospina from RnDAO. RnDAO is an innovation center funded by DAOs to serve DAOs, with a mission to empower humane collaboration. The organization works with projects to deeply understand DAOs and user challenges, so they can build tools that make decentralization fluid and natural, thus facilitating mainstream DAO adoption. Listeners who are trying to figure out what decentralization can actually look like on day to day should listen to this episode. Here are the show notes: Molecular gastronomy - Wikipedia How the Best Restaurants in the World Balance Innovation and Consistency There's Now an App for Bribing Curve Token Holders - The Defiant RnDAO Exploring DAO2DAO Collaboration Mechanisms | by BlockScience | PrimeDAO | Medium Metagov | Gateway Social Physics by Alex Pentland: 9780143126331 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Daniel Ospina (@_Daniel_Ospina) / Twitter RnDAO (
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we catch up with Andre Vanyi-Robin from Plastiks. Andre is working on a fascinating business model that aims to reduce plastic pollution around the world. Through a unique normalization of invoice data combined with smart contract technology, Andre is building a new market for plastic recovery guarantees. In the process, the venture is building new revenue streams for plastic collecting communities around the world. We dive into the business model, how the token that underpins the model works, and why smart contract technology is a critical feature in making the ecosystem function. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin speak with Jake Lynch from L1 Digital. Jake is a rare breed of researcher, operator, and investor and is working in the heart of the web3 ecosystem. L1 Digital invested in Molecule, a decentralized biotech protocol porting intellectual property into web3 and launching biotech DAOs. It is a deal that Jahed and Martin followed L1 Digital into and in this episode, we dig in to better understand Jake's thought process on investing, how he stays current as both a DAO contributor and investor, and get insights generally on the ownership economy. We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin speak with Sascha Kellert from Rekursive Labs. Sascha is an entrepreneur with experience building multi-sided digital marketplaces. The experience of building a home-services marketplace and his unsuccessful attempt to convince his existing venture capital investors in that business to allocate ownership rights to vendors set him on the journey towards web3. He is now exploring a business model that allocates ownership rights to users based on key contributory events that help a business scale. This episode is a great listen for entrepreneurs that are thinking about the right time to add ownership rights for stakeholders. We hope you enjoy the episode.
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin connect with Golda Velez, the Co-founder of WhatsCookin, an activity planning startup working to strengthen communities, create opportunities and democratize corporations. Golda comes from a background working as a senior software engineer in some of the largest web2 digital platforms. She worked on data at Uber, risk at Postmates, and held a variety of other roles leading teams in building complex, scalable platforms. She is now taking that experience and applying it to building a stakeholder owned and governed platform for community engagement. We dig into the business model, how she started, tools she's using for ownership and governance, and other aspects of team building in this early stage venture. For engineers interested in transitioning from web2 to web3, we also recommend episode 5 with Kevin Owocki from Gitcoin and Episode 8 with James Young from Abridged. We hope you enjoy the episode. Show Notes: Mike Moyer – Slicing Pie – Equity Splits for Startups What's Cookin' does equity their way | by Fairmint A Minimal Approach to Linked Trust With Uncertainty Cooperation Episode 027 - Empowering Local Providers with Efficient Development Finance Facilitated through Web3 with Dr. Melyn McKay by The Ownership Economy Bloomberg Beta Episode 005 - Building and Funding the Digital Commons Together with Kevin Owocki of Gitcoin by The Ownership Economy Episode 008 - The Future of Work, DAOs, and Verifiable Credentials with James Young of Abridged by The Ownership Economy
In episode 032, Martin and Jahed chat with Gregory Landua, CEO of Regen Network. Gregory has a long history in regenerative finance before it became the web3 incarnation of #ReFi. He covers the roots of regenerative finance in the permaculture movement, traces its intellectual history, introduces key concepts necessary to understand the new economy being built in natural assets, and introduces us to what Regen Network is enabling communities to do with their natural asset resources and commons management. This episode will be of interest to companies and protocols in the regenerative finance space, and those seeking to understand how the emerging ecosystem services economy. Show Notes: Enclosing the fishery commons (Alaskan commons management) Terra Genesis International Bioregionalism Permaculture Rafter Sass Ferguson Bill Mollison David Holmgren Allan Savory Holistic management 8 forms of capital (regenerative enterprise) Legibility (seeing like a state) Doughnut economics Gregory Bateson Sacred Economics Natural Capitalism World Economic Forum - natural capital assets and ecosystem services
The previous wave of internet innovation created a new economy, but left many creators out of it. Tokenized communities, some of which are organized as DAOs, are the next attempt at trying to broadly distribute and own the wealth generated by communities of creators. Jihad Esmail of ForefrontDAO is at the forefront of trying to figure out how to build new, sustainable organizational structures for and with creators. In this conversation, we dig into the learnings behind his last couple of years at Forefront, and how he's pushing tokenized communities forward with learnings from other DAOs such as NounsDAO. This episode will be of interest to founders building new creator and social DAOs in particular.
In the middle of the current bear market, DAOs are still surviving and sometimes thriving. One of the keys is social, emotional, and operational support, and in this week's episode, Jahed sat down with Jeremy akers of Regens Unite, GravityDAO, Commons Stack, and LS DAO to discuss how the framework for unleashing team innovation, Liberating Structures, can be used by DAOs to get themselves through this rough patch. Along the way, Jeremy touches on patterns from LS that can be useful to new DAOs, how DAOs can manage conflicts inter- and intra-DAO, we touch on Gnosis Guild's new pattern library for DAO organizational structures, and what new data in complexity science suggest for hierarchies and organizations. Show notes: liberating structures The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures (book) Diagram we discussed GravityDAO The Inherent Instability of Disordered Systems (academic paper)
It's summer for us at the Ownership Economy Podcast, so we're bringing you a short series of wide-ranging episodes, which are more conversational in nature. We start this week with anonymous GitcoinDAO contributor @8octopuso, who is a mathematics PhD and worked on the systems for public funding distribution and governance at Gitcoin. In the conversation, we cover sybil attacks, how they can be a threat to democratic systems and why they're important, systems that can prove individuality, and how this fits into measuring DAO contributions and broadly distributing the wealth generated by ventures. It's a wide-ranging conversation that will get into the meat of Gitcoin and other DAOs governance best practices and pitfalls, as well as pedagogy, psychology, and behavioral science, from an operator's point-of-view. Show Notes: What is a public good? Alfie Kohn Punished by Rewards Taylorism Longtail Financial Token Engineering Academy Youtube channel on math videos show notes @8ctopuso - twitter
In this episode, Martin & Jahed sat down with David Lidz, an entrepreneur building an impact real estate company that employs those in recovery and convicts looking for their way back into society. David has managed to innovate at the intersection of real estate, technology, and social / political realms by finding a way to give people upside in restoration and ownership of properties in the cooperative, co-design governance and share distribution with the stakeholders, and address the consequences of redlining and other discriminatory practices in historically marginalized communities in the US. Show Notes: Stocksy case study Geospatial NFTs - Astral Protocol Geospatial NFTs - Episode 023 of Ownership Economy On Velocity in several Complementary Currencies RSF Social Finance BlueHub Capital
In this episode, Martin and Jahed connect with Dr. Melyn McKay, the founder and CEO of CoalaPay, a direct funding platform that connects users to trusted, grassroots actors working to sustain and strengthen their communities. Dr. McKay is an anthropologist by training and has spent years working in emerging markets with some of the largest institutional donors in the world. She is now bringing that knowledge and expertise to make sure more grant money makes it into the hands of expert local actors. Listeners interested in the intersection of international development, impact investment and blockchain should also check out episodes 11 and 26 with Dr. Hamid Rashid, Episode 25 with author Brett Scott, and Episode 13 with entrepreneur Dr. Shaun Conway. We hope you enjoy the episode. Episode 011 with Dr. Hamid Rashid Part 1 Episode 026 with Dr. Hamid Rashid Part 2 Episode 013 with Dr. Shaun Conway Episode 025 with Brett Scott
In this week's episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin where joined by UN macroeconomist Dr. Hamid Rashid.. In this episode, we start out of a recap of Episode 11 where we explored the impact of monetary policy on the ownership economy. We recommend listening to that episode first before this deep dive on the tension between stability and efficiency in the design of decentralized finance protocols. Dr. Rashid walks listeners through a short history of the banking industry in the US to contextualize the current challenges in building decentralized finance systems.
In this week's episode, Jahed and Martin sit down with Brett Scott, author of https://www.harpercollins.com/products/cloudmoney-brett-scott?variant=39727615180834https://www.harpercollins.com/products/cloudmoney-brett-scott?variant=39727615180834 In the book, Scott guides the reader through the undercurrents of the banking and technology industries to create a compelling argument on how the two are mutually reinforcing market efficiencies that threaten the existence of cash. Risks of the decline of cash go beyond concerns of surveillance, loss of privacy, and declining market competition to a world where “hyperconnected markets burrow into the deepest parts of being”. Shownotes: Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets. Brett's Newsletter - Altered States of Monetary Consciousness Brett's Twitter - https://twitter.com/Suitpossum Donut Economics by Kate Raworth The Curse of Cash by Kenneth Rogoff The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton
In this episode, Jahed and Martin sit down with Dermot O'Riordan, a Partner at Eden Block who is focused on supporting and building what they refer to as the new Open Internet. In the course of the conversation, we dive into how new, efficient markets in compute, machine learning, and other sectors of technology can actually democratize access to the services that result from innovation in web3, the role of culture in company building and innovation, and the role that DAOs can play in spurring organizational innovation. This episode will be of particular interest to new founders looking to organize their companies in a decentralized fashion, as well as those trying to understand the implications of blockchains for more functional, efficient markets. Show Notes: Culture eats capital for breakfast Investment Thesis for Gensyn Pocket Network Investment Thesis Understanding “New Power” Episode 001 - Cryptoeconomics, Economic Democracy, and Networked Governance in Web3 with Nathan Schneider by The Ownership Economy Episode 006 - Worker Ownership and the future of the “Gig Economy” with Jason Prado of the Driver's Cooperative Sociocracy 3.0