I will first say a few good things about John and Corkus, but then I will describe why they are unfit to play any part in the future of DXdao.
To some who don’t know me, I have been a DXdao member from the start and took part in the initial rep distribution. DXdao had been initiated by Gnosis and Martin Köppelmann has been a main driver behind. DXdao had a way to be governed, but without money nothing happened.
In the last crypto winter John/Corkus and Augusto meet somewhere and picked it up. Without them doing this, DXdao would be still a shell and long forgotten. They created a token, DXD and sold this over the bonding curve. Because this happened in deep winter and the ETH price was very low they where able to raise a lot of ETH. I also bought some DXD at this point, but was not active.
After my vampire attack article, Chris contacted me because of my deep AMM knowledge. Because have been looking for a job anyway, I joined DXdao and took over the lead over Mesa and tried to build a launchpad with Adam/Nico/Hamza/Madusha/Ross/Sky/Arhat and some others long gone. Long story short, I failed because of many reason, some clearly in my responsibility, others not. At the end I was backstabbed by John with the help of Corkus.
So why I think John is unfit for this?
My project was clearly in decline. I struggled on many fronts and people did see that struggle. And I complained about this. At one point, John told me in a public call: Stop complaining! That’s okay as an instant reaction, but what a true leader would do is something completely differently. He would ask, maybe afterwards: How can I help you? John did nothing in this direction.
So I was struggling and started to develop burn out symptoms, mostly the feeling that I was responsible for everything what was going wrong, and I have to fix everything myself. Luckily I had one week of vacation and because I did see that I had a somehow disturbed communication with John I tackled this by asking him for a call. The call was of informal nature, I did not set any agenda, it was for me to try to understand what John was thinking and what his motivation has been to play such a dominant role in the DXdao. (I made calls with others too)
The call has been revealing: John did not have any strong opining why he is doing all this. He did not say: I’m very interested in how governance work in a DAO, or how this kind of organization can grow and adapt. Nor did he mention any field he was deeply motivated about. What he did tell me, is why he did start this: He did run out of crypto jobs as many during the first crypto winter, then meet Corkus and Augusto. So his main motivation was to get a job. There is nothing wrong with this, but how should he have the leadership qualities to lead all this? He has clearly not or we would never have the situation we are in right now.
What I took from that call has been confusing, but I did understand shortly after, that John did help to collect money for the DXdao and now feels deeply responsible for the money he had raised. While Agusto was more laid back and did not care much, John felt and feels deeply responsible for the money he raised. In a way this is a good thing, but leading this organization is clearly over his head.
At the end, John did stop communicate with me, and after I did my late proposal he did not react for many days, many did endorse during that time. After some time he then did ask for a call. My next move was to post it on-chain, before the call, because I did not think that my work could be disputed this way.
The call is something to remember. I got on the call with John, Corkus was also there to support John and to try to make the call more balanced. John told me that he will down-vote my proposal. And he threatened me: “You can’t win this. I won all fights, Corkus?” Corkus agreed. It was shocking and ridiculous at the same time.
I did expect that we had some form of feedback session, and it was clear that John had reservation about my performance, but I was not expecting this to be such a clash. He had month to raise his voice, but did not. He never could give me detailed feedback why he thinks I’m not the right leader, because he did not understand what I was struggling with. So I did define winning for myself and for me winning was to be out as soon as possible.
The funny thing was, that we all have known at that point, that John nor Corkus did not have a valid proposal out there and both were late for months too. In the two DXdao wide calls as we sorted this out, nobody mention it, everybody was afraid and myself I had not interested to pour more oil in the fire. At the end I took the haircut and left, at least John was civil in the public conversation we had and I know that he did not take this lightly.
Anyway, during this conflict most got into hiding, they voiced support for me in private, but only a few backed me up in public. Many had been just afraid to paint a target on themselves and being the next victims of Johns temper.
The next incident I know was that the HR team worked over a long time on a new compensation structure, which John died shoot down by vote. He was asked for feedback, did not give any or only little, but then shoot down the thing as it has been put on-chain. That’s for sure not how this should be done, that’s very demotivating for everybody and a highly aggressive move.
There are more such stuff, the case with Nesa had a very similar blueprint.
One more things on what John failed:
Where is the implementation of gov 2.0?
John has been responsible for that, but never delivered. I’m sure there has been ton of other things to do and he worked hard for the DAO, but gov 2.0 is very important to make the DXD holders heard and have real influence.
Everybody is equal but some are more equal
Because we have no hierarchies and this does not work, we have an informal hierarchy with John on the top backed up by Corkus, if needed
If they have been the leaders since the start and this is the outcome, it’s time to step back. They failed on leading this, they had enough time to fix it and failed. I failed and had to go, so why not them? I tell you why not: Because some are more equal than others.
So at the end, John has been on of the founder and without him Dxdao would not exist anymore, but he was unable to lead this organization to be successful. John had enough time to fix this, and he could clearly not. In a second attempt it will be the same failure because John does not have the leadership quality who is needed to make the DXdao successfully.
John should take responsibility and leave. Organisation are very influenced who is at the top and what we see is the outcome. The fish stinks from the head. In the real world, John would be long fired by the stakeholders.
Also the no hierarchy mantra should be changed, better have visible hierarchy in the open, then hidden ones. I would prefer leaders to be elected in a secret vote.
Define winning
John, this is your exit, take it and enjoy your life. You will find another place with less hazzle. I did just reread your late proposals and for sure you have played an important role and helped DXdao a lot. But now it’s time to move on, hand this over to the rest of the active core contributor and play the elder statesman. After some transition they will find somebody with better leadership qualities. Define winning!
I don’t write about Corkus, because he is out anyway and now just here to back up John and part of some illegitimate shadow government. Very loyal, but also Corkus must understand that this way DXdao will just burn it’s money and never have a successful product.
- it’s not that $350k is too high in and of itself, but we don’t have (m)any products with sufficient product market fit that have shown indication of being able to sustain themselves, and that is why the non-product spend is too high. If we were to focus on the development side, prove that there is potential for a sustainable and profitable product before adding such large non-product spend, then I think the number becomes secondary. In the spirit of other posts’ sentiment RE: externalizing much more of the DAO’s operations, maybe the non-product squads could become ‘contractors’ that product squads can use for their products if they wish. This would help ensure that all spend is at least productive ex-ante: Product squad leads have asked for a limited budget from DXdao for a given period, and they will only choose to assign a portion of that to XYZ non-product spend if they believe it will benefit their product.
