The dYdX Community Values
Recently a discussion was started on what, if any, values the dYdX community should adopt. Here are my thoughts as a community member as to how the community should think about values, and how these can be translated to a DAO.
Why should we care about values?
Values are the most effective way of coordinating large groups of people, whether it be a company, country, or DAO. We should make it clear what we, the dYdX community, care about and how we will operate. This is an important first step to frame discussions, make decisions, and enable better long term operation of the DAO.
The Values
Posted by the dYdX Foundation on the community forums
dYdX’s goal is to build the world’s leading crypto trading platform. The path to attaining that goal remains undefined. Therefore, alignment of the dYdX ecosystem with a common set of community values may become necessary in order to, among other things: (1) guide discussions and provide an efficient decision-making framework, (2) track and measure performance and maximize impact, and (3) in general, ensure that all dYdX community members and efforts are moving in the same direction.
Think 10x bigger
We challenge ourselves to think 10x bigger. We focus on what we could achieve, rather than trying to protect what we have. We are long term focused, and realize our goals will likely take years to achieve. We make bold decisions, and accept that we will likely not entirely achieve our goals. We are motivated by the chance that we do.
A players only
We only hire world class talent. We do not hire if we have not yet found an A player for a role. We consider an A player to be someone who is top of their field, has high integrity, and whom we genuinely like. We heavily invest in developing employees and retaining top performers.
Act like a founder
We take ultimate responsibility for our areas of focus. We act as owners, and always push for what we each think is best for dYdX. We take initiative to champion value-add initiatives even when we are not directly told to do so. We assume authority. We think from first principles and empower ourselves to be great decision makers.
Ruthlessly prioritize impact
We exclusively focus on driving exponential outcomes for dYdX. We ruthlessly prioritize and continuously ensure we are working on the highest value tasks. We are not distracted by things that do not drive us towards our goal.
Decentralize through transparency
We believe that in order to decentralize ownership, decision making, and execution we must empower our teammates and the community with knowledge. We default to sharing as openly as we can, and prioritize clear and concise communication. We are honest and prioritize speaking plainly over sugar coating our messaging.
Move fast
We believe that in almost all instances, fast is better than slow. We believe progress is exponential, and moving faster increases our exponent. We prioritize moving fast over always being right.
My thoughts on the values for the community
Posted by me on the community forums
The values should be actionable, divisive, and non-obvious. The purpose here is not for us to say good things about our community to make ourselves feel better. It’s to make hard choices about what we care about and how we will make tradeoffs.
Given this, here are my thoughts on what each proposed value would mean for governance and the community:
Think 10x bigger
We, the community, must challenge ourselves to think bigger. We must have the same, huge goals. We must not focus on protecting what we have. We need to make bold, sometimes risky decisions, and accept things will inevitably go wrong, but that is worth it to enable the 10x outcomes. We must accept that we likely will not entirely succeed, but continuously be excited about the opportunity that we do.
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- Focus on long term outcomes
- Focus on what we can achieve, not what we could lose
- Do not be satisfied with the current standard of doing things
- Deprioritize arguments about what could go wrong with given proposals/initiatives
- Set ambitious goals
- Always remember the ultimate goal, and that we are not even close to having achieved it
- Do not get distracted with small smaller matters (especially in governance)
A players only
We should focus on working with, listening to, and funding ONLY the highest quality people. We should be willing to sacrifice inclusivity for quality. We must realize that all talent is not created equal, and challenge ourselves to continuously only work with the best.
We must invest in infrastructure to identify top talent. We consider an A player to be someone who is top of their field, has high integrity, and whom we genuinely like. We should not tolerate disrespect, excessive politics, or those acting without integrity. We must hold those working on the protocol (companies, DAO, grants recipients) accountable to high performance standards. We must compensate performers towards the top of tech-level compensation levels.
We should aim to long term make working on the protocol feel as or more prestigious as working at FAANG companies.
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- Only fund grants to very high quality recipients. Reject most grants applicants
- Move on quickly from grants recipients / team members that are not performing well, and double down on those who are
- Be willing to pay top dollar for great talent
- Invest in infrastructure that enables top talent (operations of DAO, legal structures,
- Collectively, do not allow not-top-quality people to exert significant impact
- Believe execution is more important than inclusion or deeply considering all viewpoints
- Explicitly not make the dYdX community for everyone (only for those using and building [/building on] the protocol)
- Act with integrity, and make great people want to be a part of the dYdX community
- Do not feel responsible to engage with every stakeholder, or respond to every argument. Only focus on the highest quality engagements
Act like a founder
We should all assume authority — this is even more true in a DAO than a company. We should take initiative to do what we think is best for dYdX, and assume if we don’t nobody else will. We should identify great decision makers, and aim to become them ourselves. We should set clear goals, and hold ourselves accountable to results.
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- Take initiative to be the one to bring up a hard question, submit a governance proposal, champion an initiative. Assume that if you don’t do it, nobody else will
- Set and communicate clear goals back to the community. Hold ourselves accountable to the goals
- Educate ourselves on how to be great founders
- Challenge ourselves to think from first principles, and come up with non-standard thoughts
- Do not wait to be told to do something. Just do it
Ruthlessly prioritize impact
We should ONLY prioritize the highest impact things. We should not tolerate getting distracted by things that do not significantly contribute to our ultimate shared goal.
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- Quickly deprioritize low priority discussion topics / proposals
- Ignore minor special interests and focus exclusively on driving towards the ultimate goal
- Think how your initiative / forum comment / area contributes back to the top line goal
Decentralize through transparency
We should prioritize transparency with the community and public in all that we do. We should recognize that this is necessary for everyone to have the required context to do their jobs (act like a founder). When something is not clear we should ask those with the context to share publicly the answer. We should continue to build tools to make it possible for knowledge to be shared as freely as possible.
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- Prioritize infrastructure like the metrics site, forums, and other tools that make it easy for knowledge to be shared publicly
- Prioritize documentation. Write more things down
- Hold the core teams and contributors accountable
- Ask when things are not clear
- Give clear and consistent feedback to those building dYdX. Realize this is critical toward building the best possible product/protocol
Move fast
We should prioritize moving fast. This is *especially* important in a DAO structure which defaults to going slow.
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- Do not tolerate unnecessary debate on proposals
- Do not be afraid of making the wrong decision, especially for reversible decisions
- Do it now. Don’t punt important things to later
Please leave your own thoughts on the dYdX forums! Looking forward to continuing the discussion on how the dYdX community should think about values there.
