Compensation | V2 Priority Hiring Guidelines

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Authors: @Pepperoni_Joe, @anon10525910

Co-authors and reviewers: @iluscavia, @bradwmorris

This post is one of six exploring the comprehensive overhaul of Compensation and Community Ownership at Index Coop. Whilst each topic is a stand-alone piece, they are interrelated. We recommend reading through the posts in the following order:

  1. Compensation & Community Ownership - Next Steps
  2. Retrospective Airdrop to historical contributors
  3. Dynamic Staking Model
  4. V2 Fixed Salary Hiring
  5. Owl Levels (not yet released)
  6. Flexible Compensation (not yet released)

It is also worth noting that these discussions of airdrop, staking and compensation are occuring in parallel. They are interconnected and can be approved and implemented independently - hold ups in one area does not prevent implementation of another.

The holistic picture of our new Compensation and Community Ownership work was mentioned in the kick off post and is displayed again below.

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Simple Summary:

  • This post introduces for discussion v2 Hiring Guidelines
  • It is one piece of the broader Compensation and Community Ownership work. If certain pieces of that work are not enacted, this post will be updated. Such changes are not expected to substantially change this proposal.
  • Delegating hiring decision-making to a nominated group that can be refreshed by the community is a core piece of this proposal. This is intended to be an improvement over v1’s usage of a static committee and IIPs to confirm hires.
  • This delegation intends to make full-time hiring more efficient and agile.

Last but not least, this post is intended to start the conversation. Questions and feedback are requested! :owl:

Situation

The Index Coop has grown and evolved dramatically since launching in October 2020.

Part of that evolution included how the Index Coop hires full-time contributors.

Currently, the Coop has 5 “full-time” contributors. They were selected based on the criteria detailed in IIP-36 (Lemonde Alpha, Big Sky), Hiring - Web3 Engineer (0xmodene), Hiring - Head of Analytics (JD Cook), Hiring - Smart Contract Engineer (Noah). Continuing to hire full-time contributors is essential if we are to achieve and maintain long-term success (see “Motivation” section below for more). Today, many Working Group Leads and other contributors are not technically “full-time.”

Thus far, we have gone through two iterations:

Generally speaking, the v1 guidelines were effective. They delegated responsibility to small groups of DRIs, made expectations for the role clear upfront (i.e. Hiring - Web3 Engineer), and resulted in multiple hires that have helped increase the Coop’s technical autonomy. Each hire was confirmed by Snapshot voting.

However, they were not perfect, especially given the evolution of the Coop. Together as a community, we’re on a never-ending journey of growth and improvement. Those v1 guidelines are in desperate need of a refresh with Index 2.0 in full swing and Compensation & Community Ownership taking centerstage.

Now, it is time to introduce v2 Hiring Guidelines for discussion.

Once these guidelines receive sufficient buy-in, we hope these allow the Coop to quickly begin a new round of hiring in line with the revised guidelines and the broader changes brought about by Compensation & Ownership. Questions, feedback, and iteration are expected.

Read on for:

  • Differences from v1 Hiring Guidelines
  • Core principles
  • Motivation
  • Proposed v2 Hiring Process
  • Who decides which roles to prioritize? Wise Owls Group
  • Who runs interviews? Interview Team(s)
  • Next Steps

Differences from v1 Hiring Guidelines

In June 2021, v1 Hiring Guidelines were proposed, iterated, adopted, and used to make a few hires.

What is being proposed in this post is less of a teardown of those guidelines and more of a refresh. It is intended to better fit the direction we’re moving in with Index 2.0.

Compared to v1, the core differences are:

  • Delegation of decision making on roles - the v1 guidelines delegated decision-making to full-time contributors and a Set representative. This group is no longer best suited for this role. We propose that this decision be delegated to the prospective “Wise Owl” council. If that council fails to form by November 28th, 2021 we recommend forming a “Hiring Team’’ with the same responsibilities described in this post.
  • A holistic view of hiring - v1 decision making was made on a role by role basis, rather than a strategic view of what multiple roles need prioritization & why. The Coop needs to be more intentional and strategic when it comes to hiring full-time contributors.
  • Equity - v1 compensation for full-time hires included an equity element. This is proposed to be removed as ownership is covered by “Dynamic Staking Model” which enables the Coop to put equity/ownership on sliding scale (vs. “your in” and “your out”) and offer competitive market salaries fixed in USDC.
  • Hiring approval - v1 had INDEX token holders ultimately deciding who got hired via IIP & Snapshot voting. This proposal instead puts that decision-making in the hands of the community-elected Wise Owls.

Core Principles

These have been slightly modified from Hiring Guidelines v1.These principles are intended to make clear some fundamental thinking.

Get the right people on the bus: “When facing chaos and uncertainty, and you cannot possibly predict what’s coming around the corner, your best “strategy” is to have a busload of people who can adapt to and perform brilliantly no matter what comes next.” (Good to Great)

The Coop hires people who are relentlessly resourceful & ship: The Coop is pioneering a new way of collaborating in order to launch and maintain structured token products and is trying to grow fast. In this startup-like environment, we need people who are resourceful in their pursuit of delivering impact for the Coop and are able to crank out a high-volume of high-quality work (Hire For The Ability To Get Shit Done, Relentlessly Resourceful).

Commitment & Trust: We, the Index Coop, should be willing to increase our commitment to contributors who earn trust by delivering impactful outcomes and who embody the principles we believe are important to our long-term success.

We earn our people: We believe the best people are recruited (internally & externally), not bought. Protocols that pay top-of-market will always win salary-optimizing people. We believe the best people want to learn. Winning and retaining these people means creating an environment optimized for growth and learning, and so their long-term career capital. We believe that if we improve Index Coop member’s long-term career capital, we will get the best people (Carta 101 & The Alliance).

Speed & iteration: Similar to v1, we need to create a good-enough solution out the door that enables us address the major talent retention risks we face while still leaving room for iteration. That said, the goal is that v2 is a longer lasting solution.

The Coop hires to fill high-leverage needs: There are many ways to fill a need or solve a problem, including: software, process, technology, monthly rewards, and other programs yet to be created. Given those alternative solutions at hand, the Coop should use hiring as a tool to find & retain the right people to address high-leverage needs we can’t otherwise solve (Carta).

​​Fairness: The Index Coop is a prominent actor with exciting prospects for growth in a highly innovative, and highly competitive, space. We intend to provide full-time contributors with attractive compensation packages, while also ensuring the Coop is set-up to thrive in the long-run. Compensation should be objectively based on skills, capability, and expertise. Full-time contributor compensation should be fair (market) and based on the value/impact they provide to the Coop.

Mutually exclusive: If someone is compensated as a full-time contributor, they will not be compensated separately via separate existing or to-be-created programs (no “double-dip”). This may be moot should other Index 2.0 compensation structures come online.

Motivation

Market Realities

Simply put, the competition for great people is fierce.

Crypto organizations are well-funded and strategic. The Coop must be able to compete with these organizations.

  • These organizations (DAOs, corporations, startups) are flush with cash and are aggressively hiring.
  • They offer lucrative, full-time packages (salary, equity, benefits) to attract and retain talent.
  • They are strategic about talent acquisition.

Good humans with talent are scarce

  • There just aren’t that many people that have deep experience and expertise working in crypto (we are lucky that so many of them are contributing to the Coop today).
  • For folks that have important expertise outside of crypto and are looking to break in, there just aren’t that many who want to work for a DAO. It is a novel, evolving way to work that isn’t for everyone.

Why do we need full-time contributors?

The Coop needs contributors primarily prioritizing Index Coop in order to achieve and maintain long-term success.

Here’s why:

  • The Coop is on a mission to make crypto investing simple, accessible, and safe for everyone. At our heart, we are a tech organization helping create deeply technical products, in addition to creating a lasting organization in a new organizational paradigm.
  • Many mission-critical functions require dedicated, focused effort over long periods of time. To build the type of organization we all want the Coop to become, we need to hire the right people capable of building and executing these functions as their primary responsibility. This co-exists with other types of contributors who are deeply valued and are also important to long-term success.
  • Hiring full-time contributors is currently the best known mechanism for aligning people & protocol in pursuit of long-term objectives. Should a better mechanism come along, we should be excited to explore it.
  • We must avoid a revolving door of contributors in highest-impact areas.

What happens if we don’t hire full-time contributors?

Index Coop lasting success will be hard (if not impossible) to achieve.

  • We won’t retain talent - loss of core contributors represents the biggest threat to Index Coop’s long term success.
    • We are conscious that right now the Coop is at risk of losing contributors unless full-time hiring continues.
  • We won’t attract talent - they will go to other crypto organizations that offer full-time packages.
  • Short-termism will prevail. Long-term success will be hard to achieve

The Index Coop needs to be able to hire full-time, long-term committed individuals who focus on developing high-impact areas with an “in it for years” mindset. This is to the benefit of all Index Coop stakeholders.

Such long-term contributors need predictability and commitment in the form of salary. Other benefits, including equity are covered by other aspects of the compensation model. The only non-financial benefit which may also be covered within the v2 Hiring Guidelines is for health insurance.

Proposed v2 Hiring Process

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We propose the following v2 hiring process to enable Index Coop to quickly act to address our hiring needs.

The changes we propose as part of “Compensation & Community Ownership” work are multifaceted and comprehensive. Thus, it is important to note rolling out the v2 Hiring Guidelines is not necessarily dependent on these other topics. We hope to get community buy in for this proposal, and then immediately look to launch a round of fixed salary hires.

This process relies on two distinct teams with delegated responsibilities:

  • Wise Owls - Responsible for hiring on behalf of the Coop (prioritization, guiding interview process, determining fair market salary). Should the Wise Owls group fail to form by November 28th, we would then form a “Hiring Group” responsible for the same tasks, unless or until a suitable replacement emerges.
  • Interview Team - Responsible for interviewing individual candidates.

More detail on those two teams follows after this section.

Hiring Process

The goal of this section is to provide clear guidelines for how the Coop hires.

This is the proposed hiring process, it assumes that the “Wise Owls” was properly formed with community buy-in.

#0) Wise Owl drives conversation on needs: Ranked order priority of roles to take through the hiring process. This will be done following the principles of openness, transparency, and seeking feedback from key stakeholders.

#1) Interview Team formed: Nominated and formed for a specific role.

#2) Interview Team scopes role: Create a hiring scorecard and conduct initial research on a competitive market salary

#3) Open application: The hiring scorecard will be shared via the Coop forums (Who). This forum post should include an application (Google Form or a dedicated tool like Lever) that applicants will be asked to complete in order to submit their application to the hiring team.

This is intended to both 1) prioritize looking internally first and 2) make the role crystal clear to set all sides up for success.

#4) Conduct the interview process: An interview process will be run by the “interview team”. This will remain flexible for v2. Depending on the candidate, it may include the following (Great CEO Within):

  • Phone screen
  • Topgrading interview
  • Focused interviews
  • Work trial

#5) Salary offers, negotiation & close:

  • The Interview Team conducts the initial salary negotiation
  • The Interview Team thens makes a recommendation to the “Wise Owls” on an “go” / “no-go” on a hire with a proposed salary offering.
  • The “Wise Owls” will then approve the proposed salary offer and/or counter proposal.
  • Final offer presented to the candidate
  • If the conditions are approved by both parties, the hiring proposal will be confirmed publically. Final salary offers will no longer need to be approved through the IIP process.
  • If the hire is approved, proceed to an onboarding process which may include a clear statement of alliance.

#6) Pass:

  • If at any point in the hiring process it is determined to not be a fit by either side the process will end.
  • Alternatives may be discussed (i.e. Working Group, Treasury Rewards, and other payment programs that may exist in the Coop)

Termination

This is a challenging topic to navigate. Letting someone go is a stressful experience for all parties involved, but sometimes it is necessary.

When necessary, here is the proposed process:

  • Clear expectations: The Index Coop aims to be transparent in our expectations and measurement of performance. This is the purpose of the scorecard (step #3) & statement of alliance (step #4).
  • Attempt to resolve: Any failure to meet these measures will first be discussed by the Wise Owls and other relevant parties
  • Decision: The decision to terminate will be discussed by the Wise Owls and put into effect by the Finance Nest in the event that performance expectations cannot be met. If the Wise Owl model is discontinued long term, an alternative clearly identified group will fulfill this role.
  • Severance: There will be a severance package of 2 months salary.

Any gross violation of our guiding principles will result in immediate termination without severance.

Salary

Salary will be determined based on fair market rates within the industry.

The Interview Team will conduct research on a comparable role the candidate is looking to fill, and base their salary options on this fair market rate.

For example, when recruiting for a head of product, the interview team should research typical salaries offered to a head of product at other web3 organizations.

Further, a note that typically (and in v1) salary and equity are tied together in comp. However, in v2 we are separating these out, and address equity and community ownership through a more holistic approach as defined in the “Dynamic Staking Model”.

Equity and Non Financial Benefits

Once contributors move onto fixed salaries, they will still be eligible to participate in the staking model and non-financial benefits packages offered to all contributors based on Owl Levels. The Owl Level of the fixed salaried high will be fixed for the duration of the year, for the foreseeable future, all fixed salaried hires will be Gold Owls.

If this does not come online by Feb 31st, an alternative equity, ownership and non-financial benefits packages will be proposed instead. Indication of what this will look like will be made during the salary offer, negotiation and close phase.

All fixed salaried hires will be awarded benefits aligned to their given Owl Level. Further negotiation on benefits may be conducted if required.

Salary recalibration

Owl Levels can change and are not tied directly to a salary. Every 6 months, Priority Hires are expected to go through a salary recalibration conversation where salary may be readjusted.

The Wise Owls also has the right to immediately kick off a recalibration of an individual’s salary if their current involvement with Index Coop has changed.

Who decides which roles to prioritize? Wise Owls Group

Similar to v1, we recommend delegating this decision making to a small group of people. However, to update this for v2, we recommend the creation and usage of the “Wise Owls” group.

Upon formation, the group would be responsible for:

  • Ensuring the v2 hiring process guidelines are maintained for all prospective fixed salary hires
  • Determining which roles to prioritize and articulating why. This will depend on the strategic importance of filling the role.
  • Negotiating and determining and approving a final salary offer for those going through the fixed salary hiring process.
  • Considering salary recalibration as needed.

*Given the ongoing Index 2.0 work, it is critical to note that the responsibilities delegated to the “Wise Owls” is intended to be iterative. We have seen success with delegated decision making both with hiring and elsewhere (MGC, FLI parameters, etc…), and we are trying to continue it here.

This post refers to the dedicated “Wise owls” post for how that group forms and other details.

Who runs interviews? Interview Team(s)

When interviewing candidates, it is important the composition of the interview team has relevant expertise in the given field.

Thus the responsibility for practically coordinating the interviews and making a recommended salary proposal will lie with an “[role_name] Hiring Team”

This will be comprised of:

  1. Member of the Hiring Team
  2. Subject matter experts
  3. Other relevant individuals

Other members of the Coop may be asked to attend a discussion with the candidate and hiring team, and/or the hiring team.

The interview term will then make a recommendation to the “Hiring & Owl Levels” on an “go” / “no-go” on a fixed salary hire with a proposed salary offering.

The “Hiring & Owl Levels” will then approve the proposed salary offer and/or counter-proposal.

Next Step

The immediate next step is to gather constructive feedback and questions.

Please share any comments/questions/objections/concerns you have below!

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Change Log

  • Updated terminology from “Full Time” to “Fixed Salary” to better reflect the focus of this proposal
  • Expanded the opportunity for Health Insurance to contributors also located outside of the US
  • Confirmed that Fixed Salary contributors will also have their Owl Level fixed
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This is annoying but can we define the term “Full Time”. Is it 37.5 hours per week, that’s easy to do. Can someone work two jobs or multiple DAOs, is it hours (clock on / off) or is it output based. I’ve curious how we define, maintain and create accountability for impact these resources are rewarded for. I’m a good example here,
I have a day job and I do stuff around the ecosystem. If certain roles are defined as needing to be “Full Time”, that would create a glass ceiling.

Why is health insurance limited to one particular location within the world ? Are there any geographic trends in other parts of the world that need to be considered ? Medicare and Supperannuation in Australia. At what wage figure does this become the individual’s issues not the DAOs ? It is an interesting topic, high cost destination with plus plus benefits versus other parts of the world.

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Unless I missed something, V2 will transition newer ‘full time’ hires into a fixed USDC salary, but this automatically removes the ability to participate in the Dynamic Staking Model. Will a fixed salary hire be able to negotiate a fixed salary paid in both $INDEX and USDC, or is the expectation here that they will need to buy $INDEX on the open market in order to participate in the DSM.

Seeing as the wise owl group might not materialize in the time frame set above, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to prioritize forming a hiring group, with ownership of this process transferred to the wise owls as soon as that group is formed. This way we can proceed with any high priority hires immediately.

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I worry forcing us into a lower monthly INDEX, higher USD-denominated salary puts a sense of a ceiling on INDEX accumulation; which I think is a suboptimal incentivization paradigm. I believe you’ll find that the many high-value contributors largely want to optimize for INDEX stake.

For me, I don’t understand why the dao would rather pay me more from its scarce USD coffers than allow me to ramp up my incentive alignment

In fact, I would actually prefer to go to 0 USD compensation and increase my INDEX vest. Something like a 30k INDEX top up on my vesting contract over the next 2 (7500 yr 1, 22500 yr 2).

My current status: $5k cash, 625 INDEX/mo
My ideal status: $0 cash, 1250 (yr 1, 1875 yr 2) INDEX/mo
Proposed: $10k+ cash (?), 487 INDEX/mo

so, for me and thinking about my retention on a personal basis, I find the lack of flexibility a bit demotivating.

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Hi @Pepperoni_Joe,

Seems this is getting a bit of attention. I also favour the distribution of INDEX enabling contributors to accrue equity over USDC.

Touching on this public health, private health is like upwards of 10% wage increase for Australia (Superannuation is another 9% to 15% on top). It would be prudent to consider if eligibility requirements are needed if Index Coop wishes to reimburse these costs as each part of the world will be different.

I tend too revert back to a simpler model which is to get the headline figure right and push these costs to the individual to manage. I doubt Index Coop wants to be verifying individual private health insurance spend or spend time to determine if any claim for some part of the world is fair. In some parts of the world, some employers extend health insurance to family members. It is a big topic, the world isn’t the same everywhere. I don’t think Index Coop should try offset geographical cost bases through reimbursement, it gets complex and can be a lengthy discussion.

My logic is more like, contractors and self employed people cover these expenses themselves and in a fluid labour market like crypto, this feels like a better model than introducing the complexity of catering for these lifestyle costs. I refer to lifestyle here as not all people value health insurance equally, it is often linked to personal circumstance age and life experiences.

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I see the opportunity for a full range of commitments and contributions from different people. From Advisors (analogy to a none exec director???) who are heavily involved in other projects, to full-time owls, to people starting to flex their wings in DAO’s and DeFi. It’s obvious that we need links to other groups and ecosystem links are essential.

However, an organisation with ~1/2 Billion USD AUM, and a monthly contribution rewards budget > $200,000 needs a core of people who are:

  • Fully committed to INDEX coop’s long term success.
  • Fully focused on maximising value accrual to $INDEX.
  • Have the time to build social networks and trust within the coop
  • Involved in the day to day weeds of the forums, work groups and are looking across the coop.
  • Has skin in the game in wanting to act and wanting to build for the benefit of INDEX holders.
  • Doesn’t have numerous other responsibilities and duties that will distract them or question their other interests.

The coop is not the organisation I joined 13 months ago, it’s grown, matured and is becoming more capable and more complex.

It was always a high bar to get a FT position and I see no reason for the coop not to maintain that standard while we expand their numbers. We have gained a huge amount of talented and focused people across all areas, people who have crossed the terror barrier and committed to the coop.

Fixed salary from the coop is a large commitment from the coop, I see no reason for us not to expect a similar level of commitment from those we select for such privileged positions.

For me, the full-time people / fixed salary hires should be the core of INDEXcoop, they should be focused on the long term sustainability of INDEXcoop and $INDEX and, like a stick of Blackpool rock, they should be INDEXcoop from end to end.

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Hi @overanalyser,

I agree with lots of the sentiment but perhaps not the implementation. Let me play it back to you, to make sure I understand correctly. If an individual does not comply with the above quote, then they are non eligible for Fixed Salary over any extend time horizon. Is that the right interpretation ?

If so, then only a select subset of the contributors mentioned in the quote below are eligible. I don’t think we will be able to find an advisor who is not a seed investor or consulting to other DAOs. What can we do to attract these types of contributors over extended time horizons ?

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Hi Matt

I absolutely value the contribution that advisors / non exec senior contributors can bring to the coop. However, I don’t see how they can be core Full Time coop when they are not 100% focused on the coop.

I don’t have a problem with such advisors being offered a long term package. However, as such (I think) it should be limited.

I suppose I’m thinking of a two their system for long term positions:

  1. Full-time core coop contributors - full committed to the coop.
  2. Long term strategic advisors who benefit the coop with their insights and network.

The second group are immensely valuable to the coop. However, (I would say), they are not FT coop and so should not be offered a FT coop position.

Some examples for each group:

  1. @BigSky7 , @jdcook , @ncitron , @0xModene
  2. @oneski22 (AAVE core contributor), @Kiba (Cream core contributor and methodologist, @mcgpetch (at the time a Coinshares employee), @verto0912 and @DarkForestCapital (MVI methodologists).

I see a distinction between how much they focus on the coop and how much on external activities.

I think the coop should only be offering FT packages of the type @Pepperoni_Joe is describing (Say > $5,000 per month ??? ) to people in the 1st group.

The other group can be part of the monthly contribution rewards process, or offered a stipend for a known period.

I actually have no problem with such a glass ceiling. It is fully within the individual’s choice to break it.

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quick correction - i’m not a Cream core contributor, i’m more of a consultant as part of their Listing Committee that i proposed and helped start (which did not list any of the assets involved in the recent hacks btw)

I also somewhat disagree with the sentiment that if you are not fully committed to the coop you can not provide maximum value. @Matthew_Graham is an amazing asset to the coop in part because he is involved with other protocols like FEI And AAVE. Crypto and web3 is built on networks and the strongest network has the most connections, if you constrain your network you are inherently less valuable than a larger network. Even if some of those connections are weaker overall the network will be stronger. Why is it that we were willing to offer VCs a better deal than we’ve ever given community members? Because they have networks and value add even though they are not FT coop.

I stopped contributing at the coop for a few reasons but relevant to this convo is that I simply was not payed enough. I can make FT entire yearly salary in one month on my own without having any responsibilities, meetings, endless forum posts, etc. so why go through all that effort for less money? Even if i were to want responsibilities, on Cream Listing Committee i was getting 200 CREAM / month which was ~$3,000 / month prehack and i never had any meetings and only had to put in a few hours of work per week, yet i was responsible for one of the most important aspects of the entire protocol and helped onboard millions of dollars of TVL to their protocol. A lot better pay and higher leverage opportunity than I’ve ever been given at the coop even though I’ve been here since literally day one.

Because of this poor compensation model, even though I haven’t contributed since January 2020, 10 months ago, I still own more INDEX tokens than people that have contributed for 3x longer than I have. This also invalidates half of the reasons why you said fulltime contributors are necessary because I have much more incentive and resources to push INDEX than someone on a meager FT salary. Your sentiment is antithetical to the concept of token based governance in the first place.

Literally no one worth their salt in DeFi is going to be fully committed for $60k a year lol. Its not about being “salary-optimizing”, its about feeling valued. You guys want a billion dollar DAO but don’t want to share the rewards? Thats a good plan to get forked. You want people to take responsibility but don’t want to give people the ability to take action? Also a good plan to get forked.

In my opinion the coop has always had a “corporate” attitude. You guys want to see people sitting at a desk and deliberate by council instead of pushing radical ideas and people that actually create value. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend at the coop, it matters how much value you create for the coop. Compensation models should be structured accordingly. Yes you need people with deep context that can help navigate and structure the org but that admin overhead should be kept to a minimum not be the optimal solution, especially in a decentralized organization. If you have proper mechanism design that should take care of itself. CRV for example only has 6 fulltime employees. 6!!! But their tokenomics have driven a robust, self-organized community with minimal central planning or authority figures. Thats a true crypto organization, not a replica corporation with a token on the side.

TL;DR; Be a DAO not a company. Pay people more to get better results.

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A simple question:

What is “Full Time” ?

Are we a manufacturing plant where people clock on and clock off because the counters say 40 hours. Does one need to be solely dedicated to Index Coop, ie: can not receive contributor rewards elsewhere and not draw another line of income from other activities whether it be working hours in a day job or researching the latest pool to ape into, both are the same thing hours away from the coop.

If a “Part Timer” can deliver:

  • Create the Treasury Working Group
  • Onboard and develop a full highly skilled, highly efficient team
  • Generate the first (or one of) Income statement in all of DeFi
  • Basically single handedly fought to get DPI:ETH LM tapered, eventually people seen my view, and we saved Millions by tapering
  • $10M in DPI sales
  • A tier 1 lending protocol listing for DPI that has $63M of DPI in Aave V2 now
  • $1,200 a day incentivising DPI on Aave V2
  • wMATIC risk parameters that are being changed on Polygon that unlocks wMATIC2x-FLI
  • DPI listing on Aave Polygon markets that unlocks DPI2x-FLI once we boost liquidity

So two potential new products that in time will come to market, free LM incentives and a huge sale that no group of contributors combined has bettered. All that whilst building one of, if not, the strongest finance group in DeFi. It is small, efficient, consistent and delivers.

If I am framed as a simple freelancer, part timer, then well, clearly my output exceeds some that are or seeking to be Full Time. The real challenge is as @Kiba highlights, Index Coop needs a system that supports results, not 40hours a week on a timesheet. Get the structure or in this case “Framing” branding of “Full Timer” wrong and well clock on, clock off and internal politics is the game to master.

Apologies for the dig, but i don’t think folks realise just how bad the framing full timers and being solely dedicated to IC hurts IC longer term growth. IMHO it is being weaponised as a tool to suit a select few, delicately placing hard power within corporate policies and process.

I want a coop where the best talent is attracted and results are rewarded. I care not for many hours or how many calls people attend, I really just want IC to win and the petty politics to go away. The corporate culture will drive talent away. It already is and these exclusive criteria through soft polices hurt the ability to ship product and grow AUM. Networks can be applied to advance any community in this space, better they be applied to Index Coop than somewhere else in my opinion.

The above is targeted solely at the concept of being an exclusive contributor to be considered a full timer.

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Thanks all for this amazing feedback :pray:

We are making a series of changes to our Compensation and Community Allocation model based on your input from across all three posts. We look forward to being able to share an updated model for further community input as soon as possible.

Whilst this is worked on, to share my two cents on this discussion…

DOAs have created the most flexible labour market in history. To me, this is the single greatest advantage Index Coop has over traditional organizations. We need to play to this strength.

To succeed we need both:

  • People who work across many DOAs and who contribute through their expertise, connections, network and creative ideas (to name just a few)
  • People want to focus primarily on Index Coop and who are prepared to do the unglamorous, unrecognized activity day in, day out to make Index Coop a success.

Index Coop will not succeed if:

  • It is comprised of 80 individuals all spreading their time across many other DAOs and IRL jobs
  • It fails to empower contributors to work flexibility and seeks to rely solely on a small cohort of “full time” contributors who are prevented from contributing elsewhere.

We need both!

Some contributors need security and stability. If we can’t offer this security, they will leave (or never join). Some contributors prefer to work across many DAOs and/or day jobs. If we fail to fairly reward them, they will leave.

You may notice that I have removed all mentions of “Full Time” from the post. There is no expectation that the contributors moving to fixed salaries will be working on Index Coop 100% of their time. Building networks with other DAOs as a contributor is clearly a hugely valuable thing (as you yourself have proved Matt). At its core, V2 Hiring Guidelines is about providing stability to core contributors who are primarily focused on Index Coop by moving them onto a yearly fixed salary.

Other aspects of the contributor rewards process (flexible rewards) will cover how we can compensate those wishing to contribute to Index Coop in a more fluid way. @Kiba, @Matthew_Graham your feedback on these upcoming post will be important as it better reflects the contribution model you choose to take.

This post has failed if it has led to the conclusion that:

  • Flexible contributors will not be fairly valued or rewarded
  • High impact contributors will not receive competitive market rates
  • The desire to provide long term stability and security to contributors makes us a “corporate hack”

Index Coop is becoming the gold standard for DAOs. This takes time, but don’t underestimate how transformative what we are building here is.

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Hi @Pepperoni_Joe

The framing of “primarily focused” is great. I am primarily focused on Index Coop. I do more than the conventional 35 hours a week at Index Coop and more hours at Index Coop compared to my day job. A common misbelief, is that I am part time. Reality is, I just have a different work / life balance to most. It is a 24/7 industry after all and there are always weekends for catching up on stuff. Whilst “primary” is the term, then I am equally as eligible as someone who does solely Index Coop and has a very different work / life balance. :slight_smile:

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