The Clique Podcast
The Clique Podcast
Abhishek Sonawane & Abhishek Ajit
We talk about DAOs and everything web3.
E.p. 30. [DIA DAO] Building a Strong Community in Web3: DIA DAO's Approach ~ Anze Noc
Progressive decentralization is not easy especially for web3 projects who’re used to exponential output with lean teams.. however if it has to adhere to the ethos of web3 with its niche use cases, it requires decentralization for optimal community support & should also satisfy the objectives that every traditional startup/business would have to deal with Anze Noc, Community & Growth Lead from DIA DAO, a DAO focused on building out a multi-chain, end-to-end, open-source data and oracle platform for Web3 joins the duo to talk about the origins of the DIA DAO operations & how it has progressively decentralized to having a community with over 700 contributors. We learn about the DAO structure facilitate by a tool stack of Discord, DeWork, Snapshot & smart DIA incentivization schemes. We also learn about how they want to promote optimized democracy, a state where contributors have higher proportion of voting rights according to their contribution. How they balance out the interests of the core team with that of their community towards the ultimate objective of DIA succeeding as the core oracle platform for web3 A banger for teams looking to decentralize their web3 projects with a lot of actionable insights, do check it out ! Podcast Timeline 0:00 - 02:30 - Episode Intro 02:30 - 06:00 - Background 06:00 - 17:17 - What DIA's all about 17:18 - 24:21 - Community decentralization - a key driver for DIA's operation scale 24:22 - 34:20 - How DIA DAO operates and lessons learned from its evolution 34:21- 46:42 - Bridging the interests gap of core team & community 46:43 - 59:41 - Progressive decentralization lessons & achievements 59:42- 1:04:00 - Closing remarks Important Links Anze Noc: https://twitter.com/Anze_DIA DIA Twitter: https://twitter.com/DIAdata_org Website: diadata.org Follow us at Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Mar 17, 2023
1 hr 4 min
E.p 29 [The Pass] DAO Ecosystem Insights From 2022, What To Expect From The Year Ahead ??
2022 was a crazy year for the DAO ecosystem with the advent of new verticals like DeSci & rising transitions of old school crypto projects to formal DAOs, but the advent of the FTX insolvency & the bear market headwinds has also proved tough for the DAO ecosystem with increased layoffs, VC funding crunch & budget cuts leading to dry up in grants across chain ecosystems   Mia Bao, co-founder of The Pass, a DAO data aggregation & discovery platform joins us on the pod as we look back on 2022 & highlight what’s worked out for the DAO ecosystem with an eye to forecast 2023 better & measures to improve on the pitfalls seen within the space. She uses the data from the platform to highlight the growth of DAO treasuries to around $12 bn of which 80% of the DAO treasuries is generated by DeFi projects. We also look into how that arose & what this means for the other verticals.   She also gives her opinion on the challenges that DAOs face including a lack of incentives for DAO contributors, the bear market difficulty & advocates for a delegate system over 1 token 1 vote. She voices out her views on the upcoming trends across DAO ops & governance & points out the Nouns ecosystem, SharkDAO & Aavegotchi DAO as communities to look forward to. Verticals she finds interesting are fashion DAOs & DAO tooling infrastructure.   Timeline:    The Clique Podcast Intro & Episode Context - 0:00 - 1:59  Mia’s Background - 1:59 - 3:39  Overview on DAO treasury data, DeFi dominance on treasury dominance & reasons for it 3:39 - 10:05  Takeaways of DeFi’s successful transition to DAOs for other verticals 10:05 - 14:22 Lack of business models affecting DAOs? Mia’s thoughts on that 14:22 - 23:30  Upcoming trends that could improve DAO ops & governance 23:30 - 29:30  How web2 should look to adopt the DAO model going forward 29:30 - 38:08  Verticals that could drive the DAO wave in the next bull market  38:08 - 43:00  What to expect from ThePass 43:00 - 46:10 Important Links:   Mia Bao - https://twitter.com/mialalala2   ThePass - https://twitter.com/thepass_to   Website: thepass.to   Follow us at : Abhishek Ajit - https://twitter.com/SicarioOfCrypto  Abhishek Sonawane - https://twitter.com/5800Abhishek The Clique Podcast - https://twitter.com/clique_dao  Clique Podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/mJDMGzSNtc
Feb 28, 2023
46 min
E.p. 28 Is reputation scoring in DAOs broken? How psychometrics fix it ~ Dr.Matt Barney
Reputation in web3 is a hot topic right now. The potential of integrating reputation as a way to keep governance or the contributor system honest has been seen as a game changer. This comes after a wave of primitive on-chain governance failures such as lack of accountability, poor voter turnout, and contributor burnout due to poor motivation & comp in DAOs. However the way reputation is scored has been tailored to the web3 approach.. looking at forum activity, proof of work, and what's done over Github, discord, or other forums to get an overview of whether a person is fit for a certain role or not.. to get feedback on the way he's working right now. Our guest on this episode disagrees with this methodology. A lot! In this convo, we hear from Dr. Matt Barney about how reputation scoring in web3 is fundamentally broken & what his approach to resetting DAO reputation scoring would be. He advocates for having a mix of on-chain psychometrics of the candidate that delves into his character like conscientiousness, loyalty etc along with existing metrics to measure his proof of work. This convo is a strong debate that fundamentally has shaped how we hosts see reputation scoring & we're sure you'll feel the same way, so do check it out! About the guest: Matt Barney Ph.D. is an Organizational Psychologist, serial entrepreneur and founder of XLNC, a consulting, training and psychometrics firm that solves difficult business problems with psychological science and innovative technology. Previously, he was the Founder and CEO of LeaderAmp, an award-winning platform for expert and Artificially Intelligent coaching and assessment until May of 2022. In his 25+ year career in multinationals such as AT&T, Motorola, Merck and Infosys, Dr. Barney has innovated interdisciplinary science and technology resulting in four patents, ten books, 43 peer-reviewed works and over 200 keynotes. Important Links: Matt Barney - Twitter RnDAO - Twitter, Discord XLNC - Website Follow us at Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Feb 8, 2023
1 hr 6 min
E.p. 27 [TalentDAO] Effective Shared Leadership in DAOs: A Primer - Lisa Wocken
The idealism of DAOs is broken for a lot of communities in this brutal bear market. People attribute it to the lack of runway caused by poor biz model implementations, consequent culture breakdown & most importantly the lack of community leadership who can guide the community through tough situations towards its goals In this episode, Lisa Wocken, founder of Bolster Leadership & founding member,TalentDAO [a community of organizational scientists, strategists and researchers building a world's first decentralized community-reviewed publication protocol for the social sciences & a heavy focus on applications for the DAO ecosystem] hops on our show to discuss how shared leadership in DAOs should be rethought of with backing from decades of research focused on organizational leadership.. She also talks about the various issues faced by leaders in the DAO ecosystem & her ideas for addressing them. Topics Covered: Intro: 0:00 - 0:41 Disillusionment amongst DAOs & Crypto Winter: 0:41 - 4:12 Lisa’s background & How to navigate organizational tension: 4:12 - 9:40 Definition of effective shared leadership: 9:41 - 15:30 Building context & Research on research: 15:30 - 18:22 Practical steps for dynamic leadership: 18:30 - 21:18 Vision, culture & balance between operation: 21:18 - 29:51 Community health & appreciation inquiries: 29:51- 32: 50 Goals, Roles & processes: 32:51 - 36:30 The drop in participation & Burnout: 36:51 - 40: 48 Self, Change & Task leadership:40:48 -  47:18 Life outside of DAOs: 47:18 - 51:00 Future at TalentDAO: 51:00 - 54:00 Outro :54:00 - 54:57 Important Links: Lisa Wocken - Twitter TalentDAO - Website, Twitter, Discord Check out their Gitcoin Grants & support their cause: https://t.co/MLXvPbT1W4 Follow us at: Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Jan 23, 2023
54 min
Ep. 26 [ValleyDAO] Incubating the next big idea in SynBio: A DAO Perspective
Synthetic biology as a field is redefining a novel collaboration of biology & engineering where new biological entities are created or even redesigned to tackle the challenges of humanity such as climate change & even harbour a new era of solutions within medicine, agriculture & manufacturing. Tune in to this enlightening convo with Albert Anis & Morgan Richards from ValleyDAO, a DAO that's democratising access & financing to synbio projects as we discuss the state of financing in the synbio world & why democratizing this pipeline is crucial to solving key issues with this nascent field. We talk about ValleyDAO, its operational status & dealflow as well as governance & tokenization plans for the future Important Links: ValleyDAO - Website, Twitter, Discord Follow us at: Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Jan 17, 2023
56 min
Ep. 25 [SourceCred] A Retrospective Tour with the SC Plane ~ Seth Benton
Tune in to the episode where the duo chats with Seth Benton, core contributor for Source Cred (a reward distribution tool for measuring value created & covers activity such as Github commits, Discord & Discourse activity) as we discuss his journey & insights with SourceCred as a tool for reshaping how value creation in DAOs is rewarded. We talk about: His foray into open source code, how his passion for it eventually lead him to work with Decred, one of the earliest crypto communities in the space & the XPs that lead him to tinker with SourceCred What SourceCred’s all about & how its scoring algo was inspired by Google PageRank The thought process behind implementing Github commits as a reward-worthy metric & broadening the scope to Discord & Discourse activity How early adopters like MakerDAO used it for incentivizing community engagement & his insights for rewarding these engagement streams while running MakerDAO’s SC instance Seth also has some spicy takes about DAO governance as well as emergent governance & reward distribution ideas that he’s tracking. Important Links: Seth Benton - Twitter The piece he wrote as advice for SCRF running their SC instance - https://www.smartcontractresearch.org/t/flying-the-sourcecred-plane/1873 SourceCred - Website, Documentation, Twitter Follow us at: Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter
Dec 5, 2022
55 min
Ep 24 [LabDAO] Operating a Life Sciences Research & Tooling DAO ~ Eleanor Davies
The world of science is a place where researchers & scientists could transcend boundaries & develop life saving or path breaking solutions that could improve humanity… probably in Oz’s Fantasyland. The cost of producing high quality path breaking research is massive. As a researcher, you would need to earn doctorates from the best colleges to access the top research labs. This would mean walking away from your home to a different country to be able to live that dream. This is not hearsay, this is a description of decades of brain drain of talent towards the USA & other developed countries for accessing that research edge, in the process, cutting short their country’s prospects of making the next big home grown innovation. And even if you did ignore your patriotism & put your career first, the price of producing research at these labs would mean sacrificing 75-100% of your equity in the research royalties to the university. Eh, a small price to pay for the social validation & that shiny new equipment. Freedom & intellectual integrity was always an illusion, innit. IP battles, few open source communities & more issues like this pervade the research space DeSci seeks to fix that. In this episode, we speak with Eleanor Davis, Operations Lead for LabDAO, a DAO that’s building a p2p data marketplace (openlab) for lab services by connecting a decentralized network of labs with researchers & scientists as well as a fund for incubating life science projects (labteams). We discuss her background & the issues in the trad research space in the life sciences vertical that led to the inception of LabDAO, discussing openlab, LabFund & LabTeams. So do check the episode out! Important Links: Eleanor Davies: Twitter LabDAO: Website, Twitter Follow us at: Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Dec 2, 2022
45 min
Ep. 23 [The Ready] Exploring DAO Org Design Tensions Part - 3 ~ Sam Spurlin
Sam Spurlin is a partner at the Ready, a self-managing organization design consultancy focused on changing how the world works & one of the foremost DAO org design thinkers in the space. For Part 3, we get into his time acting as an external facilitator with GitcoinDAO & the story of how he landed the gig through connecting with Disruption Joe, FDD Workstream Lead, GitcoinDAO. We see his observations around how tensions were rampant across the workstreams during the budgeting process & talking about the value of a clear essential intent to clarify these important conversations. We talk about some of the challenges faced by DAOs while framing essential intents along with some general questions about DAO org design Enjoy! Topics Covered Context for Part 3 - 00:00 The story of how Sam got the gig with GitcoinDAO 00:55 Tensions faced within GitcoinDAO workstreams 03:00 Why budgeting convos are so tough in GitcoinDAO 13:18 Having flexible essential intents within your DAO 16:46 Learning to execute tough convos within your DAO 21:10 Challenges faced by orgs to frame essential intents 26:54 Opportunities within DAOs that Sam finds exciting to work with 31:03 Best org design thinkers according to Sam 34:54 - 38:24 Important Links Sam Spurlin - Website, Twitter The Ready - Website, Twitter Brave New Work Podcast - Website Chase Chapman Miniseries with The Ready - Miniseries Sociocracy For All - Twitter Follow us at Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Nov 24, 2022
40 min
Ep. 23 [The Ready] Exploring DAO Org Design Tensions Part - 2 ~ Sam Spurlin
Sam Spurlin is a partner at the Ready, a self-managing organization design consultancy focused on changing how the world works & one of the foremost DAO org design thinkers in the space. We've got him on board for a series of episodes to discuss DAO org design, the tensions that pervade it when the organizational system is not tuned properly & how to address it. In Part 2 of the series, we set the stage for the DAO org design mindset talking about Sam’s observations of the Ready as a self managing org, talking about the basic fundamentals that DAOs generally face at inception & gradually hitting the OS canvas as a key tool to assess factors that are at the heart of org tensions. Sam also explains how purpose, authority & strategy are at the heart of DAO tensions when the assessment is done & how to address them Topics Covered Context for part 2: 00:00 -1:08 Tooling as a way for facilitating DAO org structure: 1:09 - 06:45 Comparing the Ready as a self managing org with DAOs: 06:46 - 11:29 Should DAOs have set parameters of decentralization or voting participation: 11:30 - 17:49 Should DAOs have a proper org design from the early stage of formation: 17:50 - 22:02 Talking about why DAOs or orgs do a reorg when tensions are tough rather than prevention: 22:03 - 26:45 What is OS Canvas & how org tensions are assessed with this canvas: 26:46 - 31:29 Common tensions that DAOs generally face after doing the OS canvas assessment 31:30 - 34:19 Important Links Sam Spurlin - Website, Twitter The Ready - Website, Twitter Follow us at Abhishek Ajit - Twitter Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Nov 23, 2022
35 min
Ep.23 [The Ready] Exploring DAO Org Design Tensions Part - 1 ~ Sam Spurlin
Sam Spurlin is a partner at the Ready, a self-managing organization design consultancy focused on changing how the world works & one of the foremost DAO org design thinkers in the space. We've got him on board for a series of episodes to discuss DAO org design, the tensions that pervade it when the organizational system is not tuned properly & how to address it.    In Part 1 of this series, we also talk about common org design tensions within the trad world like poor meeting cultures & addressing them with action meetings. DAO people may find a lot of nuggets to ponder about. We also talk about what happens in the trad world when org tensions become too hard & why the reorgs that happen as a result of an unhealthy concentration of authority & miscommunication are messy, and why that serves as a clarion call for DAOs to focus on effective org design.   Topics Covered  Intro of the series: (00:00 - 00:51) Introducing Sam Spurlin: (00:51 - 03:42) Sam Spurlin’s background : (03:43 - 08:34) His first impression after encountering the DAO world: (08:35 - 13:02) How trad world approached org design & the issues that plague them - (13:02 - 15:25) The first issue being poor meeting cultures : (15:25 - 16:01)   What the right type of meeting looks like : (16:01 - 18:50) How it has been implemented in the client network: (18:50 - 22:35) Looking at the broad organizational canvas & its importance:  (22:36 - 25:54) The issue of reorgs when tensions are overlooked & why there are better ways to deal with tensions than reorgs: (25:55 - 28:46) Why senior management resort to drastic measures without understanding what’s going on with the team & how that’s an important opportunity for DAOs: (28:46 - 32:48) Issues that DAO face in general from an org perspective & why the lack of structure hampers emergence : (32:48 - 37:50) Important Links   Sam Spurlin - Website, Twitter   The Ready - Website, Twitter   Follow us at   Abhishek Ajit - Twitter   Abhishek Sonawane - Twitter   The Clique Podcast - Twitter, Discord
Nov 22, 2022
38 min
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