1/ Kimbal Musk’s @biggreen DAO Is a Big Step for Web 3
Can a DAO founded by @elonmusk's brother solve philanthropy’s many pain points?
THREAD 🧵
Can a DAO founded by @elonmusk's brother solve philanthropy’s many pain points?
THREAD 🧵
2/ On the heels of a $40 million experiment that caught mainstream media attention, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are taking another step into mass consciousness today as Kimbal Musk – the billionaire Tesla board member and brother of fellow entrepreneur Elon…
3/ …Musk – is announcing the opening of membership applications for Big Green DAO, a Web 3 charity focusing on food justice.
4/ Musk said that one of the goals of the charity is to overhaul the philanthropy industry with the use of blockchain-based tooling – a sector he believes is plagued by inefficiencies.
5/ Big Green is also launching at a time when DAOs appear poised to follow non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as the next blockchain tech-based acronym to enter the public conversation.
6/ Search engine interest in the organizations, nominally leaderless online investment collectives that are jokingly referred to as “group chats with a bank account,” is at a multiyear high following the capers of ConstitutionDAO, a collective of 17,000 donors who raised…
7/ …millions in an attempt to purchase a rare print of the U.S. Constitution.
8/ In light of the sudden scrutiny, Musk’s experiment is a daring step from a public figure risking personal and professional reputation to embrace an often sneered-upon technology, and a validation for the many developers and builders who have advanced DAO tooling in recent…
9/ …years.
Musk’s venture into blockchain began in earnest “a year ago,” spurred on by other billionaires – including his sibling, who was recently, and perhaps incorrectly, crowned richest man in the world – getting involved in bitcoin.
Musk’s venture into blockchain began in earnest “a year ago,” spurred on by other billionaires – including his sibling, who was recently, and perhaps incorrectly, crowned richest man in the world – getting involved in bitcoin.
10/ “There was Michael Saylor’s loud-and-proud investment, followed by my brother’s decision to participate at Tesla, and I’m on the board at Tesla – just as a responsible board member I had to spend more time on it.”
11/ Quickly he determined that crypto can be divided into two camps: what he calls the “speculators” and “the religious.”
“The religious are awesome. They are total believers that this will decentralize the world, change governance, bring power back to the masses.
“The religious are awesome. They are total believers that this will decentralize the world, change governance, bring power back to the masses.
12/ It’s a beautiful conversation when you’re connected to someone religious about it.”
Nonetheless, the speculative noise – what the DAO scholar Paul Dylan-Ennis refers to as “the moat of trash” – nearly turned him off on the sector.
Nonetheless, the speculative noise – what the DAO scholar Paul Dylan-Ennis refers to as “the moat of trash” – nearly turned him off on the sector.
13/ Musk emphasized that he largely doesn’t even like investing his money in the stock market, and it was only the true believers that “kept him digging.”
“When someone is religious about something, I need to find out why.
“When someone is religious about something, I need to find out why.
14/ There’s some bad religions out there, but for the most part, there’s usually something underneath it all tying people together,” he said.
The thing tying people together in Web 3, according to Musk, is primarily community creation.
The thing tying people together in Web 3, according to Musk, is primarily community creation.
15/ “It’s community like I’ve never seen it before. I’m a restaurant guy in my non-tech life, and I love that it brings people together, so that kept me interested. And the fact that it decentralizes power – that’s interesting to me.
16/ I’ve always had a healthy disrespect for the authorities,” he said.
17/ Once Musk decided to start a Web 3 community of his own, he sought to surround himself with advisors both from the cryptosphere and from traditional finance.
18/ While early conversations with crypto natives (including members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT community, whom he speaks fondly of) steered him toward projects that would create speculative assets – using an NFT drop to raise funds for charity, for instance – Musk’s…
19/ …initial focus for his Big Green DAO venture is on pure philanthropy.
20/ His right-hand man in the effort is Matthew Markman, a Ph.D. candidate and a “DAO facilitator” for metaverse gaming community Decentraland, as well as a project manager and community moderator for two other projects – one of Web 3′s many prolific, assiduous polymaths.
21/ Markman and Musk were connected via a mutual friend, Bear Kittay, a Web 3 investor and former Burning Man spokesperson.
22/ From there, the project’s network of crypto advisors grew to include Synthetix founder Kain Warwick, venture capital maven Vinny Lingham, frequent DAO contributor Priyanka Desai and ConsenSys executive Mike Kriak, among others.
23/ Musk reports being “overwhelmed” with the “positive energy” he’s received from the crypto community.
“It’s not normal for me to have that degree of a warm welcome.
“It’s not normal for me to have that degree of a warm welcome.
24/ The amount of people who would spend 20 hours on a whitepaper, just so my reputation wouldn’t be hurt – it’s my reputation! I thought that was very cool,” he said.
25/ So far, the public response to Big Green DAO, whose white paper was released last week, has been overwhelmingly positive.
“In the past few days when we released it, we expected trolls to go nuts. I don’t think we got a single Twitter troll.
“In the past few days when we released it, we expected trolls to go nuts. I don’t think we got a single Twitter troll.
26/ For me, I get involved in a lot of things – cool, world-positive things – and you always get trolls. Not one,” beamed Musk.
According to Markman, the DAO’s architecture is the product of significant research, and it largely builds on preexisting models.
According to Markman, the DAO’s architecture is the product of significant research, and it largely builds on preexisting models.
27/ The DAO leverages a multi-tier system including an executive committee and a broader voting community. 
28/ At the advice of project advisor and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, the DAO took steps to ensure it could remain registered as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
29/ This means the DAO is under the purview of a legal entity’s charter, which requires the group to focus on food justice, and the executive committee can vote down spurious proposals to ensure compliance.
30/ When it comes to voting on grants distribution, however, power is largely in the hands of DAO members, and Markman is aiming to experiment with ranked-choice voting (which involves tinkering with DAO voting platform Snapshot’s base functionalities with a homebrewed user…
31/ …interface).
32/ The ultimate goal of the project is to enable frontline food justice workers to choose not just who gets the money, but also who gets the power in the organization.
33/ Said Musk: “The core appeal of a DAO is a thesis: If we put the grant-making authority in the hands of the frontlines will it make a bigger impact than keeping the decision-making centralized?”
Time will tell, but I'm greenish (bullish).
Time will tell, but I'm greenish (bullish).
35/ If you’re just starting your DAO learning journey check out the Ultimate Guide to DAOs: doola.com/blog/what-is-a…
36/ If you prefer threads, check out the DAO MEGA thread to go from 0 to DAO real quick:
https://twitter.com/arjunmahadevan/status/1405664279873740805
37/ If you’re looking to start your DAO LLC today check out doola.com/dao-llc
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