PEP-49: PNI Compensation (Amended)

Though i dont get a vote yet!!, But i hold a big amount of POKT. And i really want POKT network to succeed.

I agree that hiring top level talent is the key. but last couple of outages had me believe , that PNI not doing it`s job properly.

I do not support DOA to give away 37.5% of its treasury.

Note: Just posting my initial thoughts on how I feel about this proposal. Subject to change here… don’t hold me to it :slight_smile:

Hindsight was 20/20 at the time :wink: I’ll focus on the present and future, not the past.

I can’t imagine the dread that some of the PNI employees are facing knowing that they are receiving pay cuts and also aware their company does not have much runway. This obviously would destroy confidence and morale. Many of the employees I’ve had the pleasure to speak with. I can confidently say many of them are hard-working individuals who wish to see the success of Pocket. It is unfortunate to hear this is the fact that PNI employees must face.

I’m willing to support this proposal because, to be frank - I feel like we don’t have that many options. I want to see V1 ship, and fundamentally the folks who are building it are all at PNI. While PNI cannot go into the specifics of how this will be distributed, I truly hope a significant amount of this budget is put toward the development of V1.

More elaboration on the “we don’t have many more options below…”


Currently, all protocol and “gateway” development is driven by PNI. One can argue that this was (or still currently is) a must due to the typical chicken and egg problem. To me, that makes sense that it starts off with a single organization (who was also given a token distribution on genesis to do so) to lead these efforts up to a certain point, and that threshold has most likely been passed already.

My support for funding independent organizations that build on Pocket doesn’t stop here. Pocket has grown to multiple teams building on top of it (Poktscan, PoktFund, ThunderHead, SendNodes, etc) who still wants to see the success of Pocket the protocol, not necessarily the success of PNI. These teams did not have the lucrative blessing of large token distribution, token sales, etc. I think many of these organizations have different perspectives on how Pocket can thrive, but we all have the common goal of seeing the protocol succeed. Some, for example, feel that the PNI burn rate and headcount are far too high in this market, whereas some feel as if it’s justified.

If a lean, agile organization is able to execute at the same pace or even more efficiently than PNI, and have a smaller spending footprint, then we should be funding those organizations as well. This reduces the large reliance on PNI and gives the DAO voters a sense of choice on where the funds should be spent. Simply put, this is key to growing a healthy ecosystem of contributions. I think the largest roadblock is how we actually get there while remaining frictionless.

I would love to see this proposal be the catalyst or evolve into something that is inclusive to all other builders in the space as well. (I believe PIP-26 will have a play in this!!!). If PNI is getting 45m, then we need to start thinking about how we baseline that with other organizations developing in the space as well. There are simply just too many talented developers in this space outside of PNI, and I think this is a golden opportunity for these very builders to be motivated and incentivized through similar grants that PNI is receiving in this proposal. Imagine a world where these organizations who have chosen to stick around the Pocket space receive similar grants, i.e Sendnodes receives 15M, Poktscan receives 15M, etc, and what insane returns that could provide to the growth of the ecosystem.

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I support this proposal

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PNIs equity will also be worth something, and may have been sold, itself, for $?

No wonder PNI staff are piling in to support this :face_with_monocle:

Seems like a bad business model to try to cover shortfalls by DAO bailout when there is the option to reduce headcount and cut costs. Also swelling to 65 staff members in a bear market doesn’t help.

However, it seems that POKT could be stuck between a rock and a hard place, a badly managed company has led to this with the echo chamber of employees being DAO voters. Where is the line here? Still very blurred.

I’m 50:50 on this, I can see some of Mikes’ points but at the same time it’s a kick in the face to the DAO (some of whom have been very unfairly compensated with regards to game changing additions to the protocol, no matter what proposals are cherry picked to say that DAO proposals have been a magic font of pokt).

I can see how incentive additions could help, but a massive 45m grant to continue as is seems crazy, especially out of the blue. To me it comes across as Laxman coming in, looking at the books and saying ‘What the hell are you doing? Why are your costs so astronomical?’. Instead of having a grant bailout, which seems to be an easy option as PNI controls much of the DAO, I’d suggest firing staff instead of hiring staff, and working towards profitability. I know it’s not that simple, but I can’t put it simpler than that.

I wouldn’t know which way to vote, but those piling on ‘this is great’ come across as deluded. The incentives here are outright blatant.

You won’t ask for more, either. This is because you are ‘confident’. I personally would have left this out, it doesn’t add a sense of confidence for those reading. That’s I suppose all you can say and I don’t begrudge you for it, it just doesn’t actually mean anything considering the current position of PNI.

I’d go halfway, give a minor grant for runway for engineers working on V1, keep the best talent, get rid of the rest. If it feels hard to let people go, it’s PNI’s right to make mistakes as a growing company, nothing left to do but own it.

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I keep seeing comments talking about runway, when this proposal has nothing at all to do with runway. And looking at the roster of voters, it’s clear that the “echo chamber of employees being DAO voters” is a straight up fiction invented by the commenter.

If you’re going to trash the project, at least find some grain of truth to wrap your criticism around.

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Less than a quarter of the DAO voters are employees.

Aidin#3375 (374990491311407107)
Anaski#7577 (393724328161705984)
ArtSabintsev#0001 (623732755401801728)
BenVan#9083 (373104516431609857)
Breezytm#9710 (277262895459336194)
ButtlerDog#5917 (414529684584398850)
CrisOG#5874 (474405294307278880)
Cryptocorn#9977 (829944618439016508)
Dragondmoney#1548 (307988561326505986)
Francesco C | Simply Staking#6038 (417781353409413122)
J.Willie#6539 (300272768891617281)
Jerry0_0#5167 (313665250492940290)
Jinx#0504 (613430581493104651)
Jorge | Overlord#2504 (234828152994660353)
Michael O’Rourke#2188 (761704144091217950)
MissKitty42#5155 (896022238392885350)
Momo_Lee#5335 (439623570117754881)
Olshansky#4187 (396319536502145024)
Paul Doggett#7657 (959189065230610453)
Pierrick#1350 (114762694283886601)
PoktBlade#5970 (849851380604338248)
Qspider#9377 (293168484362485760)
Rajeevan#4721 (582597827817897984)
Rich CL | Pocket#7639 (528196301452476416)
SCH#2356 (917966179530850335)
Sevi | Thunderhead#4502 (354470724448157698)
StephenRoss#9766 (954404759408902174)
Steve | Dabble Lab#2155 (680755383513382922)
ViraL#2868 (232187411386335232)
addi#0007 (240226339196502016)
afivesixseven8#2411 (727610876214902814)
aos#5909 (836264363668799572)
beezy#1104 (360243868161277955)
bulutcambazi | C0D3R#5571 (755543322306805903)
chris-chainflow#4082 (448904762885144576)
dachi#9569 (858111006168711170)
dermot.⌐◨-◨#6950 (447871640366219265)
disruptbanksy#1620 (313495242538221574)
garrett#3503 (132583578025328640)
giantfrog#5536 (263834704074113024)
iannn#3292 (693644362575511573)
infrabro#1073 (608751816951332913)
kDas#3234 (285871980270321682)
kongkong#7663 (856746697710370836)
kostas#9329 (355424033568718850)
luyzdeleon#3136 (162198115024240640)
magichatsam#4415 (407106281913057282)
moonpanda#7784 (584418345013608586)
nymd#0063 (240940355271393280)
o_rourke#9796 (416318100015677442)
pikpokt#1217 (588496854447292427)
shane#0809 (408136518188924929)
tony#2288 (388285489943150593)
virtual knight#7138 (692084755918749797)
zaatar#4863 (815794092293488644)

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Out of everything Trip said you picked out runway and employee DAO voters.

How bout -
Game chainging additions unfairly compensated.
Massive 45m grant.
Working toward profitibility.

This proposal has everything to do with runway. We’re not talking about 20m pokt or 40m pokt, Had they carefully managed their balance sheet, they wouldn’t need more pokt.

Funny how you’re so quick to defend PNI but when others offer criticism it’s called “trashing” the project.

295,000,000 <— The amount of $Pokt given to founders, employees, and advisors to date.

When you start off with some bullshit that makes it clear you don’t even know who is community and who is an employee, while making accusations, yeah, I give it the appropriate level of pushback.

Edits are visible. Nothing has been deleted or censored by Michael.

Glad we cleared that up.

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you can see i have ptsd from being censored in the den. :rofl:

I’ll wait for Sevi’s post.

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Looking forward to it.

I’ve seen a repeated call for compensation to Thunderhead/PoktFund and Geomesh.

Neither of those have any relevance to this proposal whatsoever.

LeanPokt’s initial proposal was rejected, and there has not been a revised proposal submitted for it.

PoktScan’s GeoMesh is a research project in progress which has not submitted a proposal to the DAO.

We do not evaluate proposals based on whether or not someone else has submitted a proposal. This is a silly objection with zero relevance.

I encourage a revised proposal for LeanPokt compensation which addresses the many issues spelled out in the first proposal. PoktFund resubmitted for their wallet after their first proposal was rejected, and it was passed by the DAO.

When PoktScan feels they are ready to submit a proposal, I’m sure they will.

In the meantime, we are evaluating THIS proposal, so let’s try to stay focused.

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I’m quite aware who is who.

I understand you really want this proposal to pass jinx, I just have my reservations about it and I’ve made them clear. Throwing fits of rage to every oppositional take comes across as childish.

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And Jinx, further to this, I also said I was 50:50, although perhaps not for the right reasons, more the survival of V1. Any common ground that could have been garnered just gets trodden on when you focus on the minutiae in an attempt to shut down any rational discussion about a frankly massive proposal.

This is what forums are for, my boy.

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No fits of rage here. Just calling it like I see it.

This was you, when the only PNI employee supporting this is the author.

So, if you DO know who is who, why are you lying about what’s happening on this thread?

And “u mad bro” is a weak response to a clear call out.

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I’ve been a forum member since likely before you were born, quite aware of what they’re for. I also know the difference between a good faith argument and a bad faith argument.

You make a false claim to open your comment. You make a follow on claim about unfair compensation without citation or basis. You make a false claim that PNI controls much of the DAO. You state that community members supporting this proposal come across as “deluded”.

Then you propose a runway for engineers, despite the fact that this proposal has nothing to do with runway.

That’s bad faith argument, my boy.

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This proposal has everything to do with runway. They mismanaged their treasury and now need more to further incentivize employees. If they had USD, they wouldn’t have had to sell 18m pokt in August and therefore wouldn’t now be asking for 45m.

Sevi said it best on telegram - “Lack of experience in managing a balance sheet requires planning, commitment and experience.”

To be clear, this proposal is not to CREATE runway, thus runway related suggestions aren’t relevant to what’s being asked. It’s to create incentives that pair with reduced compensation as part of cost cutting.