(Cover image credit: Shepard Fairey)

At the DAOist in Paris during ETHCC week in July 2023, I gave a presentation to a small, mixed audience made up mostly of people that are big fans of DAOs.

Below is a summary of the presentation using relevant slides and some in between commentary.

I initially titled the presentation:

But the topic was more about:

Over the past few years, I have seen DAOs form and live from the inside and more recently I’ve seen some DAOs end. I wanted to share some of the ways we have been thinking about the Life of DAOs.

For some background, there are an assortment of reasons why DAOs can end or die:

• Accomplished mission: when a DAOs mission is clear and accomplished, it becomes an easy

• Stagnation: Many DAOs out there have dies due to lack of attention

• Failure to Perform: If a DAO is not achieving its goals, it may be time

• Discount to NAV: There are a bunch of financial arbitragers out there are are going after DAOs with large non-native token treasuries.

• Out of Runway: Once DAOs have a token, the runway becomes more real.

• Poor treasury management: Has led to demise. At the same time, great treasury management has also led to demise.

• And there are more…

I want to share that:

DAOs like all living organisms will have life cycles.

Below is a comparison to nature. Think of a living forest more than a single tree.

Starting with at the Seed stage, it’s an interesting exercise to move through this cycle thinking about a specific DAO you may have in mind.

• Seed: a small, novel idea that comes from one or a few people’s minds. This idea is very maleable and ripe for change and improvement.

• Germination: During this phase, this idea can be explored by different groups, brought away and brought back, formed, adjusted, spread into communities, attracting different forms of capital.

• Growth: The often very exciting phase where many are interested, contributing many forms of capital (attention, money, skill, etc.)

• Life (creating): Where the DAO moves towards accomplishing its mission

• Aging: All living organisms age.

• Death: Most great things come to an end. There are many reasons why this can happen.

• Rebirth: A time for allowing the capital involved in the DAO to create a fertile soil that allows for freedom and experimentation.

• Seeds: New seeds/ideas are brought into the environment from different places. This can be from within, blown in from nearby, or from far away attached the hind leg fur of a curious animal.

As a community, most of us believe in Web3 rights, things like interoperability and openness.

This includes the Right to Exit.

Things will now never be the same. We can’t unlearn that a DAO can have an end.

There is a method that may allow DAOs to be healthier and also take more accountability.

That is:

DAOs need to get better at evaluation.

Forcing a decisions comes with benefits:

and disadvantages:

DAOs will continue to move through life cycles. In order to continue to learn and develop better ways, we need more iterations.

Thanks for reading and:

This is a light version of this topic. If it interests you, please reach out.