Honestly I hesitated to write this. It's evident in the Contributor Server from the lack of a widely inclusive and transparent preparation of this KIP; the sudden nature in which it was revealed to us (barely 1 week ago); and the absence of objective data warranting this KIP, I regret the Core & Council's agenda is to pass this KIP no matter the reasoned objection. Should it pass, I chose not to continue contributing in KlimaDAO (for reasons explained below). But if we dissenters don't speak up, I think we are doing a disservice to the community, and if Core & Council won't listen to us, maybe they will listen to you.
I love KlimaDAO. I've been neglecting my IRL job for a few months, working mostly 7 days a week. I've been so impressed at the positive contributor work culture; how much talent and energy there is; and how relatively organized and efficient we've been as a mostly self-managed DAO. But don't take my word for it: in debriefing with Eco, their number one feedback was how blown away they were at our professionalism, organization, and delivery.
You may or may not know the DAO is currently organized in several "departments", including Engineering, Policy, Operations, Partnerships, Marketing, Creative, and Community. Each of the departments have leads, and most all the departments are broken out into areas of focus, which ordinary contributors have taken subsidiary responsibility for. Most of the departments also have weekly syncs/agendas, KPIs, project management systems, and work flow processes in place. This was all achieved organically and consensually. Frankly, its natural emergence was inspiring in both its relative smoothness and effectiveness.
All material decisions at the moment go to the community for approval. Internally the groups decide collectively which these include (apart from those that come from the community). And we continue to ship, whether its several partners signed up to KI and in the pipeline; one marketing & creative campaign after the other; a new website, offset dApp, and beta climate dashboard; community events and bounties; and policy that is among the best in Web3.
KIP-10 set out the historical compensation expenditure for contributors, along with average and top earners. For now, ordinary contributors' compensation are decided by their department leads estimated based on their monthly work portfolio, although any contributor can discuss with their lead if their pay hadn't aligned with expectation. Ordinary contributors' pay was published inside the Contributor Server last month, although the Core's and Council's are yet to be disclosed.
So this is all to say, the DAO is organized, we have a strong culture, and we get stuff done at high quality. And this has all manifested on a relatively decentralized basis. I think that's beautiful.
Suffice to say, a number of contributors are scratching our heads why do we need this KIP-19? It's not because we're disorganized or inefficient.
Hugh wrote that we need to find product-market fit. Great, we are all for that! He linked a description of our Klima Infinity goals, which can go for a dedicated KIP and delegate the discretion to Product to develop and iterate.
Unfortunately, there is no reason for this KIP as is, which is too vague without empirical justification. It passes far too much authority to the Core & Council, centralizing KlimaDAO into what will essentially become a company (aka KlimaCorp). But with less compensation to attract talented contributors, less accountability by the new "Board" and "C-Suite", and increasing risk of contributors' personal liabilities instead of limiting them & failing the Howey Test (i.e. whether KLIMA is a security). And contributors lose the independence and agency that brought us together and gave the DAO our creativity and dynamism. We should be lowering barriers in the DAO, not stratifying it further.
Left unsaid in this KIP anticipating its newly gained powers is that a number of contributors are already being suddenly cut without real explanation or prior warning. These include people who left their jobs encouraged (by Core/Council) to come work full-time for KlimaDAO. The operating budget had mostly been overseen by Core & Council and last month we came close to a DAO wallet runway (used to pay contributors/advisors, seed liquidity, etc.) of less than 2 months. Putting the DAO first, these difficulties if anything show we need to devolve recruitment/compensation to the contributor teams, who themselves should be empowered to prepare quarterly budgets to propose for the validation of the community.
I joined KlimaDAO to drive forward climate action and democratized coordination. We do not have to sacrifice the latter to achieve the former.
Accordingly, I am voting against this KIP-19 and suggested it be broken out into:
1) Validation & delegation of Klima Infinity product go-to-market
2) Immediate & long-term plan to improve DAO wallet runway
3) Endorsement of mission, vision, values for KlimaDAO
4) Detailing KlimaDAO working organization & governance
in that order with a reasonable few months' pre-defined & consensual timeline.
I would also form a governance council responsible for shepherding this through with equal representation from Core, Council, Ordinary Contributors, and Select Community Members, with as much of the work done in public as possible.
In terms of hierarchy/prioritization of stakeholders in preparing 1-4 above, to me we should prioritize: 1) Community; 2) Contributors; 3) Investors; 4) Partners; 5) Public Good (I realize 1 & 3 have overlap, but Community I'd define as active Klimates, versus 3 are more hands-off speculators).
Long live KlimaDAO! I love you all, and it's been an honor contributing to the DAO. Thank you for the opportunity <3.
P.S. I would post to the public KlimaDAO Discord for the community's information the recordings of the Contributor AMA calls discussing the reorganization document leading up to this KIP-19.
P.P.S. For full disclosure, until last week, I was proposed (although not yet formalized) to join Council for Partnerships, so am not opposing this KIP having been among those planned to be "let go", but on merit and principle, in that it'd make the DAO more fragile rather than resilient.