Episode #2 - Creating better organization and collaboration - with Zakku of Coordinape
In this episode, I'm chatting with Zakku of Coordinape about the ways in which DAOs differ from traditional organizations and the ways in which they are the same.
Transcript:
Kerman: Hey Zach. great to have you on today.
Zakku: Hey, thanks, Kerman.
Kerman: Yeah. It's uh, really excited for this one. Um, so yeah, we'd love to know like a bit more about yourself. I mean, everyone's heard of coordinape, but, would love to learn a bit of context about you yourself coordinate and whatever else you think is, uh, important to know about.
Zakku: I think the relevant stuff for around coordinate is just that my, uh, career has been sort of always focused at kind of the intersection of collaboration and impact. So I was a sustainability consultant for fortune 50 companies for a long time, helping to design sustainability programs.
And in doing that, I just saw how important collaboration was and how. Bad at it. People were . We sort of loved the idea of collaboration, but, but actually collaborating is like pretty, pretty painful mm-hmm . And so that led me to, to co-found a, uh, a consultancy called converge that helped to bring together leaders from, from various sectors to solve systemic problems.
Um, and we would actually create these network. I'd call 'em now. Like I L Dows basically, it's like people from all these different places coming together to work on a specific purpose, like stewarding 500,000 acres of redwoods, or like, how do we protect migrant rights across borders throughout north America?
Like these things require systemic solutions and deep collaboration amongst people that may not agree with each other, or even like each other that much. And so one of the, one of the interesting things we did at converge was that, we didn't wanna start a firm and sort of deal with all that comes with that.
And so we didn't have anyone on payroll. We all just were our own individual companies. And when we would invoice a client, we would just put the money in the middle of the table. And everyone who had worked on that project, we'd have a conversation to decide like who should get what, um, based on how things went.
and, and that's how we, we did it and still do it for eight years. Um, and, and grew the team that way. And, and we just, there was a lot to love about that model. And so, um, there were many different kind of inspirations that came together for coordinate. but one of them was certainly like, how do we, bring that sort of high trust, high context collaboration to, to Dow.
Kerman: So you're telling me you've basically spent eight years working on coordinate before you create coordinate .
Zakku: Yes. That is way we've been, we've been play testing, various versions of coordinate. And now, um, you know, obviously doing that amongst our close group of collaborators in real life is much different than doing it across a Dow of, uh, anonymous friends, uh, who you're working with.
Asynchronously. So how to scale that model is, uh, is a challenge that we are, that we are taking on.
Kerman: I just think that is an incredible story. Like , I I've never really heard anything like that. And I think cuz a lot of people come from like say the real world Um, and like into crypto, like kind of very rigidly mapped their ideas into like this environment that it kind of breaks, but the way you coordinate like the marketing. Messaging the execution, the types of groups that it's affiliated with, like urine, like is, is done really well. So, I mean like props on that, like I'm kinda like blown away, like, whoa, that that's
Zakku: really cool.
Yeah. And it has been really cool. you know, we've also been learning a lot. you know, there's certainly, a tremendous amount of room to. keep improving. there's a lot of things that coordinate works really well for. And there's some that it's still, you know, not perfect, let's say generously.
And so, um, you know, we're, we're excited that people are excited about it and we're, we're really keen to, to continue to work with our users to find ways to, you know, continue to make it more functional.
Kerman: So how does coordinate skill, like, I mean, so for those that you use that don't, aren't where it's as, um, slack described, like just money in the middle and then everyone kind of self coordinates to understand like how that money will be received. And from my understanding in coordinate, he basically vouch for.
Who's done work. What work based on your, viewpoint and then kind of you get these waitings that will then ultimately decide how the money tall up, like, is that correct? Or,
Zakku: yeah, everyone in the circle gets some amount of poker chips and those poker chips, uh, which are called give, you can give to anyone else in the circle.
Reporting to the value. You've seen them add to the project over the specified period of time. And then whatever percentage of those give that you have at the end of the epoch, you can get that much budget. Um, so whatever percentage you have that percentage of budget
Kerman: how do people prevent gaming it?
Like, I'm sure you get sauce all the time, but like, kind of be like, oh, that's my mate. , here's the give. Or like you have these backroom deals, like, I I'd say in smaller, more tightknit communities you won't have as you scale, there's less like trust, especially in digital and anonymized mediums. that does become an issue.
So I'd love to know your thinking on.
Zakku: Yeah, well, there's a, a few, I mean, part of the UI of coordinate is a, a map, a visible map that shows transparently, who gave to who and, and who they receive from. So the results are, are viewable. Um, and, and since they're viewable, um, that reduces a certain amount of gaming because you can actually see what's happening.
the other thing is that, There's actually pretty low incentive to do just like outright kind of mercenary let's let's game this thing, because usually by the time you've been vouched into a circle, you have some sort of reputation or credibility or work that you've done in the Dow. Right.
And you know, most Dows aren't. Aren't paying insane amounts out to coordinate circles. You know, it's like it's, it's budget for contributors to do stuff, but you know, even if you like hardcore, get together with all your friends and game something, it'll be obvious. And the upside is just pretty low. You know, you can get like a little bit more money one month, but then burn all of the social capital that you've created inside the do.
Um, and so it's kind of like a high risk, low reward proposition. Okay. that's not to say that there, aren't obviously all sorts of dynamics that get introduced around. Oh man. You know, ING gave me 10 give, I wasn't gonna give him any, but like, I should probably give him some, um, right. These, these kind of dynamics certainly can happen.
And, um, you know, there's a few ways to address that. One of them is, uh, a feature that we're working on and, and will be shipping soon, which is nested circles. So, you know, the closer you are to a project team, the more context people have to actually give to give accurately to you. Um, and so for example, in coordinate, I may not know what to give specific individual dev.
um, but I know I want to give a lot to the dev team, so we'll be introducing a way to sort of give to specific groups and then they can distribute that give amongst themselves. Um, so, so that's one way through, and then the other way, which, which is what I'm really excited about. And, and I'm keen to, to develop quite a bit is just, you know, how do you upscale the Dow and having critical conversations with each other?
Mm. How do you. How do you do sense making, as you're looking at this map together and really understanding whether it's like, wow, did you know Kerman really add three times more value than everyone? Or is he just the most vocal on the discord? And he is there all the time and he's always posting stuff and sending stuff, which is clearly valuable.
Um, but you know, I think a really important conversation that Dows need to have is what, what is valuable around here. and the coordinate results can, can be useful in themselves. But one thing we always found to converge that I would say is like the, the conversation is much more valuable than the allocation.
So having this shared display of sort of, what do we say, we care about how are we allocating, this is this actually how we want to do it. Um, you know, we'll, we'll both. Hopefully create a better shared understanding amongst the Dow, but it will also upscale everyone and having, you know, conversations that we we're all taking responsibility for this thing that ostensibly we all, you know care about and are a part of.
Um, so I think that Dows, that are able to do that are, are actually going to really increase their ability to, to compete and, and ship and hire and all those things. If you can create a real. Emotionally intelligent culture, but that's something very difficult to do cause people need to be a resourced to do that.
Kerman: So that really, uh, struck a nerve with me. What you said of what we say is valuable versus what we reward is valuable. Like that's phase like a classic misalignment and, um, actually the lost post or two post I is post about. Intentions time and energy. Um, I call like the trife it's like a nerdy framework of how , how hell of my life.
But the main thing is like intentions and time are two of the most critical ones. And like, most people aren't even aware of what their intentions are. Um, that's like level zero, like level one is like, you know what your intentions are, but then your time is misaligned to your intentions. So it's like, I want to hire.
Someone. And then it's like, well, how much time are you spending in your week recruiting? And it's like 10 minutes. It's like, okay, well, your time is misaligned with your intentions. Um, so it's like, once you have alignment with your time and intentions, then you actually achieve on what you want to do. So that mental model like that just struck a nerve with me of what you just said of like is an organization.
Here's what we say is valuable versus here's what we reward is valuable. The misalignment of that creates organizations not actually reaching. Where they want to grow. It's kinda like the intent of the organization and the time of the organization are misaligned, um, and coordinate the distribution isn't as important, but more of like the value from understanding that intent and time is the more meta valuable bit.
Like, I don't know if that makes sense.
Zakku: No, a a absolutely. And I think, you know, that's something that, that we're thinking a lot about, uh, more and more as we sort of think about where. Where is the feature set that's most needed for Dows right now? Mm-hmm if you kinda look, you know, there's, there's lots of people doing amazing stuff with project management and with governance and communications, but where is the, the sort of the dreaded HR kind of, uh, piece for Dows, you know, how are we doing conflict resolution and how are we actually setting.
Doing performance management, you know, there's gotta be a better word for it, but, but sort of all the tools that we have are like, we'll talk to your manager and set your KPIs and then see how you're doing against them. Um, you know, in Dows, we're sort of responsible for doing that for ourselves. So how are we doing that?
What about like feedback and professional development? You know, if I'm just like relying on you to tell me if I'm doing good or not, and you're a conflict verse. Just keep saying like, yeah, it's great. And then you're like on the, you know, DMS to somebody just like, God, he's always like doing this and it sucks.
Like how are we supporting Dows to actually have these adult conversations with each other to give feedback, um, you know, skillfully and receive it skillfully. Um, how are we doing like performance management and, and how do we understand when it's time to off board somebody like these are. These human aspects of Dows I think are actually the, the most critical and sort of the least supported right now.
It's kind of, you know, just up to the skillset of the people in the Dows, but there isn't a whole lot, there's obviously a lot of people thinking about this, but not a ton of tools out there supporting.
Kerman: feels like we're just rediscovering HR and everything already existed for like hundreds of viewers of corporate philosophy.
Like here's how you're on a great organization. I mean, maybe you got too cynical, but .
Zakku: Well, it, I, I would agree, but I think that the potential, and this is, you know, the big thing with thoses is that, is that they're, they're very different. I always say like, corporations are like water and, and Dows are like steam, right?
Like very different things that can do very different things, but, but made of essentially the same stuff. Um, and so how do we make sure we. Kind of throwing the baby out with the bath waters. We try and do, you know this whole new world of Dows it's like, no, it's a human system. And all of the things that corporations discovered about human systems that work still work, but people aren't happy in them for some reason, too.
Right. And a lot of that has to do with freedom and autonomy and connection and relatedness. Like these things that we know are really valuable for folks. So. I mean to me, the opportunity for Dows is not to have an HR where, you know, I'm mad at Kerman. And so I put in a report with someone nameless and they come and tell you that someone has a problem with you.
And you're like, what the heck? It's more like I come to you and I, we have the conversation, right? Like I'm having a hard time when you do this. And it affects me this way. How can we solve this? Like that helps to upscale us as people. We take, start to take more responsibility for ourselves and for the people we're working with and for what we're trying to build together, presumably that we all own because we have, you know, voting and governance tokens in this thing.
So I, I, I think that that HR can be kind of fundamentally disempowering, like, you know, they're, they're sort of there to, to protect the corporation against people, um, and protect people from each other in all of these D. Sort of arbitration and, and mitigation sort of strategies, as opposed to, how do we support people to grow up and, and take these take actions and have conversations and sort of how do we all be HR?
that's, I think the opportunity for Dows, uh, and, and it's challenging. I'm not saying that's, that's an easy thing to do again, there's a reason HR exists, but, but for those that are able to do it, I feel like it'll be a massive competitive.
Kerman: So what prevents traditional organizations from not having an HR department?
Like what about the technology or landscape of crypto makes you able to not do that? Basically wouldn't a good traditional organization. Encourage people to directly speak with each other and solve the issues they have. Like what about crypto or, dos actually uniquely positions them to do so.
Zakku: well, I mean, it's, it's been my experience that although a corporation might say they want people to, to just solve problems on their own, really what they end up doing as they grow is creating a number, you know, it's that sort of process creep.
it's sort of like if there's a referee in, in the room, then it's a lot harder to go to you and talk about it. right. Like, as soon as the conflict gets tough, I might say like, Hey, let's have a conversation. And you're like, ah, I'm, I'm busy right now. And I'm like, ah, you know, he, he blew me off.
That's it. I'm I'm gonna go like, you know, I see my kid do this all the time. Like you fall and skin your knee. And if, if someone's around you, you you're gonna cry about it. um, but so, you know, I think we have to be obviously really careful with this like corporate. Web three sort of distinction.
Like it's a spectrum, obviously, and there's a lot of corporations that have absolutely amazing, you know, culture and amazing structures for doing this kind of thing. I don't wanna like, pretend like there's two different camps. Um, it's more of a spectrum of like, how are we supporting people to be, you know, autonomous and sovereign and also stay in, in connection and relatedness as they're working.
Um, and so. You know, I, I, I think that the reason that Dows are kind of uniquely positioned though, is just because ostensibly, a lot of the people that are contributing to Dows are also owners or aspiring owners of it. Mm. Um, and so learning to take responsibility for yourself and not sort of outsource hard conversations, is really important for, you know, the health of the organization.
Um, and I feel like. A lot of experiences I've had with sort of corporate structures in HR is that they're sort of made to, to sort of remove that responsibility from people. I mean, I think, you know, Dows, don't have managers or people that just. Are gonna make the decision, about who stays and who goes and who gets fired.
So we need processes that do that, that are hopefully more human than the ones that we have now, because, people are not seem to be not super happy in corporate jobs. there's a lot they're doing right. But clearly there's some things that they could be doing better.
Kerman: it's really fascinating that we talking about like good and bad structures. So as reading, oh, as hearing a podcast, um, there's a really fascinating company called, uh, constellation software. They're a public based company with about a 40 billion market cap. and they're actually conglomerate about 200 different brands.
and to me it was like, oh, here's what, like a Dow looks like at scale. Um, because each company, operates completely independently, as soon as it grows to a big, it gets split off into a new one. Uh, and it's this continuous mind services. HR finance legal. They're kind of like not included in those structures.
there's no managers or small teams and high responsibility, and it feels like there's this model of what optimal human collaboration looks like. And. I think one truth is you can't anything beyond 10, even 10 is pushing it, but like ideally five people, if you're collaborating with more than five to seven people, like the trust starts breaking down very quickly.
Process starts increasing dramatically. um, and HR starts coming in soon. , um, effectively, cuz you need likers of the system, but it's like as soon as you have like humans who can self coordinate in small groups, uh, that's typically the best one. I mean like you look at sports teams, right? Like they're small for a reason you don't have.
50 person, sports teams or a hundred person. So there's like something about human nature where it's like that five to 10 is the magic number, Amazon figure the south with the two pizza, role there's this fundamental, right? Of like, what's the optimal way that humans collaborate. I think it's like do script.
What are you gonna call it? That technology enables that collaboration because of the fluidity of like landscapes, uh, ownership. The actual equity of like the entity, But that, that was something that kind clicked with me as, as you're kind of saying that.
Zakku: Yeah. And, and I'm, I've probably influenced by, uh, brave new work podcast that I just recently listened to with Aaron DN and Rodney Evans.
They just had a whole episode about this. about team size? but they make this analogy too about sports teams and I'm a seven guy myself.
I feel like seven is actually the, the, the most optimal team size. and you know, in the book, reinventing organizations, you know, lots of orgs have, have shown this people like birds. So, you know, having a, a wide range, uh, a wide range of, of teams working on stuff, but Buting off paring off quickly.
When they start getting too large. Um, and of course, then the challenge is how do you make sure they have enough shared context so that, you know, they understand kind of the, the intent and then they're, they have the autonomy to go work on whatever its they wanna be doing.
Kerman: Yeah. How, how do you think they kind of share that context where they're not just individual silos reinventing the wheel?
It's like, there's like some sort of glue that has to bind all the groups together. So they're not like guns out at each other, but rather we're part of the same family. There's like a wider communal feeling, but like very strong team feeling. That's like the kind of tension I, I said.
Zakku: Yeah, definitely. I mean, those are, and, and again, you know, to the, the, what you pointed out, like companies have been trying to figure this out and are continuing to try to figure it out for forever, um, you know, to varying degrees and, and I think we'll probably see more and more.
I think we'll see successful companies start to look a little bit more like Dows and successful Dows will start to look a little bit more like, like companies, you know, companies are probably trying to be flatter with less structure. And Dows, you know, trying to be a little bit more structuring and a little bit more hierarchy to reduce some of the chaos.
Kerman: I saw this tweet yesterday that said like, at Facebook, you used to be rewarded if you ship something the same day that you thought of it, and now it's like, you get fired for the same thing.
so , it comes down to empowerment and like something that I've experienced personally is where it's like, I think the worst organizations that I've worked in or where I felt frustrated is when I know I'm talented. I know the value I can add, but I'm not empowered to do so.
and it's all about like, I think. Empowering people to do what they're best at, because I think like if we can do that collectively, I just think human race progresses a lot faster than we have. Like the rate of innovation is crazy. Yeah.
Zakku: So, yeah, I agree. And I think, I mean, for me, that's, you know, that's the reason I got interested in Dows and that's the reason I'm still like, you know, we're, we're working on co.
Because we want Dows to be successful. And you know, one of the things they're gonna have to be able to figure out to be successful is compensation. But even beyond that, a larger purpose is, you know, if we wanna navigate the anthrop scene and all of these wicked problems that we're facing globally, we're gonna have to get a lot better at collaboration and coordination at scale.
And so, you know, Dow's just become a really important piece of infrastructure that we kind of have to figure. You do you create shelling points for people to collaborate together in ways that they can actually have an. Globally, because it's pretty obvious at this point, you know, that there's no governments or billionaire philanthropists are coming to save us.
You know, we, we've got some real big issues that are growing rapidly on planet earth and, and we're gonna have to, you know, we're gonna have to figure it out. So that's, you know, the reason what we're trying to figure out Dows is I, I think goes beyond just a, a better way to organize. Um, I think it's a really important.
Important evolution of, of coordination. And obviously, you know, the folks shout out to the green pill and, uh, Kevin OAE and the folks at Bitcoin who are, who are, you know, writing and sharing a lot about the same idea.
Kerman: That's amazing. I'll definitely check it out, but, um, it also feels like a natural point to call it. And, um, yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation to really know what to expect or how it would play out, but, um, always pleasantly surprised, uh, and excited about like that. There are other people thinking about these really hard problems and.
Yeah, just bullish in the future.
Zakku: So, so are we we're we are, we are, uh, optimist despite the, the evidence and bullish on the future, despite the, uh, outlook from where we stand now.