IIP-59-Final: Data Economy Index (DATA)

@Pepperoni_Joe Can you please queue IIP-59-Final: Data Economy Index (DATA) for a DG2 vote to take place on Monday, August 16? Thank you!

cc: @anon10525910

cc:

I think this clause is pretty extreme. It differs significantly from what is offered to any other methodologist and it’s unclear the [potentially immense] technical requirement to even execute this.

I would feel much better about this proposal if this clause was removed and our normal offboarding process [CGI] was the norm.

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Hello @puniaviision - thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I’ll be honest that your comment surprised me given that the Fee Split is based on the official Index Coop DATA Methodologist Fee Split Offer that was prepared with input from a cross-functional group of stakeholders:

Regardless, Titans of Data would rather hear your open and honest feedback even after an official offer has been agreed upon so that any outstanding issues or concerns can be addressed ahead of a (hopefully successful) DG2 vote.

Here are our comments and questions in response to your legitimate concerns.

To be clear, it is not Titans of Data’s preference to have a stop-gap agreement like the one we have mutually agreed to with the Index Coop. We would have strongly preferred to go into the DG2 vote with a long-term methodologist fee split/reward program in place that all stakeholders could be excited about. Our intention to have a fair and equitable long-term agreement that could be used as a template for future products and methodologists is the reason we brought forward multiple proposals including the Methodologist Accelerator Program which we spent considerable time and effort researching and designing.

Ultimately, the DATA Methodologist Fee Split Offer was mutually agreed upon so that progress can be made on the product while a future template for simple index offers is being designed.

My understanding is that the primary technical requirement of off-boarding would be to transfer the Manager Address from the Set Labs Multisig to a Titans of Data multisig. I have done this before with a TokenSet that I created and it was ~10 minute process. Are there additional requirements or complexity that Titans of Data is not aware of or considering that would be a considerable burden for Set Labs or Index Coop? Adding @dylan for additional context and clarification from an engineering perspective so we can adjust the final IIP if necessary.

Titans of Data does not think the IIP to deprecate CGI due to lack of product-market-fit should be considered a “normal” process for product off-boarding. We also do not think the off-boarding clause for DATA should become a precedent for future product off-boarding though we acknowledge that could be an unintended consequence.

If I correctly understand your concern, potentially shared by INDEX tokenholders, it would be that Titans of Data could off-board DATA if it becomes a successful product without the Index Coop’s consent. On the other hand, our primary concern is that without the off-boarding clause we have no recourse if the Index Coop decides not to overhaul the current flawed methodologist system; we could be permanently stuck with the existing methodologist fee structure. Titans of Data and Index Coop is in a Catch-22 under the existing methodologist structure.

In conclusion, we completely empathize with your and other INDEX tokenholders concern about the off-boarding clause but do not know how we could revise the IIP to eliminate the Catch-22 and build mutual trust.

We’re open to any suggestions that build mutual trust and give tokenholders the confidence they need to vote FOR the final DATA IIP.

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I tend to share @puniaviision concern regarding this clause. I find it unnecessary, unbalanced and risky.

What I think would be a fair approach:

  • Titans of Data still has to demonstrate its value. Don’t get me wrong, I believe you guys can achieve what you are aiming and I really hope it will be a huge success. But for this development stage, in my opinion you are too aggressive in your requirements.
  • If Titans of Data delivers in the coming months, you will have the bargaining power to negotiate adjustments to the future methodologists compensation scheme (if needed)
  • I am convinced that the Index Coop will negotiate in good faith if Titans of Data shows its value
  • Therefore I would recommend to move forward without this clause. It would be an excellent signal of good intentions for the vote.

Regarding the exit clause, this is how I see it:

  • Unnecessary: there is no need for an exit clause, because you will already have this bargaining power if you show the value the Titans of Data brings
  • Unbalanced: it is not balanced because I do not consider that the methodologists are “owner” of the product. The Index Coop is the owner, and if we want to negotiate an exit we should think in something else than allowing to go away with the product (like an exit compensation for the time spent for example)
  • Risky: this could cause a precedent for future products and create wrong incentives for methodologists
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Thank you for your input, @trx314 - Titans of Data is very interested to hear your perspective and suggestions to improve the proposal and signal good intentions for the vote!

We respectfully disagree with two specific points you made - could you elaborate more on our responses below?

Without the off-boarding clause, Titans of Data has almost no negotiating power post-launch. The only guarantee we will have is that the fee split agreed upon in the DATA Methodologist Fee Split Offer cannot be changed without our consent.

Do you disagree? Why do you think Titans of Data would have more negotiating power given that DATA becomes a huge success after launching with Index Coop?

Titans of Data needs credible commitments from the Index Coop that signal its good faith.

The Index Cooperative presented Titans of Data with an official offer which we accepted.

Having multiple Index Coop FT contributors / working group leads signal publicly and privately that they do not support the offical offer that they helped create does not signal “negotiating in good faith” to Titans of Data.

Still, we are listening to and considering eleventh hour changes to the final proposal that would reduce or minimize concerns with the off-boarding clause. This is Titans of Data signaling its good faith to work with the Index Coop and negotiate fairly.

What changes would you suggest making that reduce off-boarding risk to the Index Coop without Titans of Data throwing away its negotiating power?

Well, negotiating power comes either from the value that you can bring to the other party, or from the destructing power that you have on the other party.

My point is that if Titans of Data shows its value in the coming months, the Index Coop will have all the interest to keep your incentives strong enough to ensure a long term collaboration. If I understood well the purpose of the Titans of Data DAO, it is to create an active community around the product, turning it into an ongoing effort which will accrue value over time. The more value you will bring to the ecosystem around the product, the more negotiating power you will have.

Yes, sorry I am reacting a little bit late, I saw the offer when it was published and was happy for having an agreement to move forward with the product, until I understood later reading a comment that the manager contract would actually be transferred in case of exit.

I consider exit clauses as damage mitigators in case of failure rather than negotiating levers. So the exit clause could be a kind of safety net in case not agreement is reached, a compensation for the efforts and time spent.

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DG2 voting begins on DATA today. I will be voting AGAINST this proposal. I want to see DATA launched and I am a big believer in this market, but I do not believe it should be launched with this clawback clause in place.

Why are we giving DATA a clawback clause? This has not been present in any product proposals (with DFP, Bankless, Token Terminal, etc as methodologists), and while I think the methodologists are incredibly bright and capable people, they bring the least amount of any prior external methodologist in terms of audience and distribution to help the Coop grow this product.

The Coop should not be in such a rush to launch DATA under these conditions. My read of the situation is that it is more likely than not that the clawback option gets used by the DATA methodologists. The outcome I see in which they do not exercise the clawback is if we can re-work the initial methodologist bounty program. I am doubtful this gets accomplished in a way that satisfies the DATA methodologists and the scale of renumeration they are looking for given the stalemate that has occurred on the subject for the past couple of months. It also is just a really bad precedent to set for future product launches. DG2 votes should not include clawback clauses.

The clawback being exercised would be a negative for the Coop, and while we would recover, it just does not seem necessary to set ourselves up for that? If the clawback clause were removed, I would be much more inclined to vote for DATA to be launched as specified.

I will likely vote towards the end of the period to take in further feedback.

tagging for visibility / feedback: @verto0912 @BigSky7 @LemonadeAlpha @ncitron @DarkForestCapital @Matthew_Graham @overanalyser @dylan @oneski22 @Metfanmike

(and others as well please, sorry can only tag up to 10 people)

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I am in full agreement that the break clause is unacceptable to me.

For this, and other, reasons, I will be voting AGAINST the DATA DG2 vote.

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I will be voting FOR the DATA DG2 vote.

@jdcook Firstly, thank you for being a big supporter of the product (DATA) itself from the beginning and providing @Kiba and myself lots of great feedback during the process from the initial Request for Discussion to DG2.

I understand and empathize with your concerns, but am still disappointed to learn you will be voting AGAINST the proposal, especially just minutes before the beginning of the DG2 vote.

The terms of the mutually agreed upon deal were posted 11 days ago in the forum. I wish both you and @overanalyser would have posted your concerns publicly before the vote started so we could have worked with you and others to construct a final deal acceptable to all involved.

Given that voting has already begun, we’re committed to seeing it through.

I also want to address this specific comment you made in regards to the off-boarding clause:

Titans of Data (@Kiba and myself) have worked tirelessly with the Index Coop community for the past 3 months to launch DATA through Index Coop. We see tremendous value in the community here and that’s the biggest reason we were excited then, and now, to launch DATA through Index Coop. Our investment of time and energy without compensation is a reflection of the immense value we see in this community.

From my perspective, the product onboarding process went smoothly from Request for Discussion (6/2) to Request for Comment (6/18) to a successful DG1 vote (7/16). It was only when conversations began about changing the existing structures and incentive mechanisms for methodologists that that we ran into significant challenges during the product onboarding process.

While developing the IIP for the DATA proposal, I realized that the Methodologist Bounty Program that had initially attracted me to become a Methodologist for the Index Coop was unfair to new products and methodologists like ourselves. These sentiments have been shared by community members across the Index Coop and are acknowledged in the final fee split offer:

We’ve thought deeply and analytically about the incentives for methodologists working with Index Coop. I developed and put forward a Request for Discussion around a possible Methodologist Accelerator Program that I think is the first draft of a much better construct for aligning methodologists with the Index Coop. We hope to continue participating in ongoing conversations to re-design incentives for methodologists in the “methodologist committee” proposed by @snasps in such a way that is equitable for both methodologists and IC.

I’ll reiterate a portion of my original comment for this IIP:

@Thomas_Hepner thanks for the reply and your thoughts. I recognize you have done a lot of work to push forward that conversation around Methodologists renumeration, but the Accelerator Program that you proposed just does not seem to be a realistic expectation - and that is what leads me to be afraid at the probability of the clawback clause being enforced by you and Kiba.

You’re proposal requests that methodologists be paid on the order of millions once the product reaches $20m AUM. I tend to side more with what @Matthew_Graham said in response to that proposal:

But I also proposed adding a revenue-based AUM bonus structure to the fee split as signal for the Coop’s desire to work with great partners. In our conversations, you have told me this is not sufficient.

So I am left to believe that the Coop will not be able to deliver on the kind of renumeration that you are seeking within the next 3-4 months - leading you and Kiba to exercise your clawback. As I said earlier, it is simply a case of the probability of that being too high for me to be comfortable with, and that I think this sets a bad precedent for future product releases.

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Thomas, would you and Kiba be willing to agree to work on a different off-boarding solution if it ends up being too technically complex to off-board as described by you and BDWG?

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I completely agree with @jdcook’s sentiment. My biggest worry is that we will spend time, energy, and capital in promoting DATA and ensuring it is a success during those critical first months. At that point, Titans of Data are incentivized to take the offboarding clause and immediately triple their revenue after the Coop has invested so much into the product.

Additionally, encoding the offboarding clause at the smart contract level requires some additional engineering work. It’s certainly not a crazy complex effort, but I wonder if we can be spending our scarce engineering time on better things.

I will be voting AGAINST this proposal and all other proposals that do not specify a defined fee split before launching.

I apologize @Thomas_Hepner for not relaying my views earlier. I understand how frustrating it must be to see this discourse in the last mile.

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Absolutely, and ideally the off-boarding would never happen as DATA would stay with the Index Coop for the long-term.

Just a reminder - the off-boarding clause was only added because of an inability to reach consensus in a reasonable timeframe before launch.

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Using this as a confirmation of a mutual understanding that the terms of “off-boarding” may change due to the realities of engineering, I will be voting FOR this proposal.

Thomas and Kiba are starting a company that one day may become huge across the data economy space. While Kiba has broken our norms around respectful conduct multiple times, Thomas has not and Thomas is the primary contact between IC and Titans of Data.

I hope that both parties can be patient and flexible when it comes to working with a DAO.

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@Thomas_Hepner I don’t know if this was an expectation, but to be clear, this is one of the things that we cannot do.

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@ncitron @puniaviision There is no expectation from us that the off-boarding clause would be encoded at the smart contract level.

I’m sorry this was unclear - we did not think that level of detail was appropriate to include in the final IIP to launch DATA. Regardless, I should have reached out to both PWG and EWG ahead of the vote to clarify.

CC: @oneski22

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@puniaviision Thank you for the vote of confidence!!

Like many (maybe most?) members of Index Coop, this is my first time working in and with a DAO.

Reflecting back on the past 3 months building DATA with the Index Coop community, there are lots of things I would have done or said differently. I wish I had been more patient and empathic in multiple instances.

I hope to take what I’ve learned over past 3 months to work collaboratively with the Index Coop community to make DATA a successful product that creates a win-win for everyone involved.

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I understand community concerns over the exit clause, that was negotiated between WG coop leaders x Titans of Data, but it’s a strong yes on this proposal from me. @Thomas_Hepner & @Kiba have demonstrated their intent, through proof of work, to create long term value for both the coop & themselves within the existing, admittedly flawed, methodologist structure that has been available since genesis.

There have been some bumps along the way

but I think the coop should make good on its signaled intent to launch DATA by Sep 1 & buckle down to rewrite the methodologist incentive structure that we all know is needed for the next phase of growth.

I do have some open questions over Titans of Data’s distribution strategy for DATA, as they don’t have the platform that a DeFi Pulse or Bankless do, and I feel that has flown significantly under the radar given all the other conversations afoot. However, I feel that the product-market fit will be strong enough to generate investor interest as the sector isn’t covered by existing coop products.

Do existing index coop investors want exposure to DATA, but not have it currently? If the answer is yes, DATA will likely be a great success. If it is no, Titans of Data x Index Coop will have their work cut out for them making the product a success. This is one of those questions that I’d love to see growth x analytics team up to explore further @jdcook @LemonadeAlpha especially post launch. growth could do customer outreach & analytics could review onchain data post launch.

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