open source tech and the future of work š¼
how the open source movement popularized DAOs and contributions 583 words
In 2014, Elon Musk announced that he was āopen-sourcingā Tesla's patents because it would allow the electric vehicle market to grow more rapidly. His patent pledge let other companies use the technology covered by Tesla's patent portfolio.
Open source anything isnāt a new concept. Back when Microsoft ādeclared warā on open source, Linux became one of the first open-source operating systems. The thought of open-source software was faced with a ton of resistance from the public just like the idea of decentralized -open-source- transactions that bitcoin had a while ago. The evolution of open source from the Linux Operating System to Github has shown people that you can build cool stuff with technology and still make money by building open source. Technology isnāt a zero-sum game. Open source communities give power to the people to contribute to cool projects. You can build more value when you open development to entire communities as opposed to gatekeeping code.
To the topic of DAOs ā up until now, most successful DAOs have been self-organized.
Blockchain gave us a clean and scalable way to implement DAOs. The way blockchain technology works is that different computers solve a piece of the same problem - the only catch is that the difficulty level is so high that a single computer isnāt able to solve more than 50% of the problem so it canāt have control. Letās say the problem is solved - then, each individual contributor receives a reward or an incentive for their work which feeds into a positive feedback loop for future contributors
DAOstackĀ is a company that allows DAOs to adopt decentralized governance. Members can contribute proposals on how to run or direct an organization. Then, thereās voting to reach a consensus. The contributors are rewarded based on their participation.
One of the biggest issues in many traditional organizations right now is that people in power have an easier time just not innovating because theyāre more focused on arbitrary goals. Work + success is more so tied to short-term ideas.
Clayton ChristensenāsĀ The Innovatorās Dilemma says this well: good companies fail due to good management.
Adam Grant said in an interview,āThe time you spend solving other peopleās problems makes you better at solving your organizationās problems.ā
Encouraging people to contribute to solving all of an organizationās problems, and not just work within the finite role for which they were initially hired makes them more valuable employees.
Tokenization, at that point, only becomes a mechanism to align incentives between employees.
Imagine employees have a baseline salary and then most of their earnings are based on contributions - would organizations then be better run for short-term needs as well as innovation?
This would mean that contributions and value are ranked above typical resume items like titles and experiences which could increase organizational productivity and help achieve both long-term and short-term goals. When people are awarded for positive outcomes, ideas and systems are changed from being competition-based to being drawn from collective intelligence (changing a zero-sum game into a win-win situation).
For the future, itās starting to look even more likely that the normal person wonāt work for a traditional company. Instead, networks based on crypto protocols and DAOs could create different ways of managing and measuring contributions.
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