In PIP-26 we outlined at a high-level the roles we expect to play in supporting Pocket’s ecosystem, which are included below for your reference:
- Nurture Pocket’s values: assist stakeholders with continued refinement and reinforcement of Pocket’s values
- Advocate for Pocket’s stakeholders: be available to listen to all Pocket stakeholders, track and amplify their issues, and provide them with a platform to be heard by others
- Empower Pocket’s contributors: support the personal development of Pocket contributors and unblock them from creating value
- Facilitate Pocket’s governance: help Pocket stakeholders make more informed decisions and build the mechanisms required to make Pocket a true hyperstructure
- Preserve Pocket’s public goods: help the DAO to protect the integrity of Pocket’s open-source IP
- Connect Pocket’s community: facilitate meaningful connections and reduce coordination costs between Pocket stakeholders
- Represent Pocket’s DAO: carry out the DAO’s wishes through governance transactions, contracting with third parties, monitoring counterparty compliance with contracts, and enforcing accountability standards
- Accelerate Pocket’s ecosystem: maintain a thesis for Pocket’s success, support strategic initiatives that further the thesis, and channel contributions towards opportunities
- Defend against Pocket’s attack vectors: proactively identify and neutralize attack vectors, protect the DAO’s checks and balances, and eliminate central points of failure
Note that these role descriptions are subject to evolve as we learn more about being an effective steward of the Pocket Network ecosystem.
We also set out the following operating philosophies that we feel will uphold our mission and make us role models for the standards - and stewards for the culture - that we expect members of the ecosystem to adopt and maintain:
- Gardening, not Gatekeeping: We will focus on helping a rich and diverse Pocket ecosystem to bloom, not on growing the size of (or reliance on) the Foundation.
- Availability, not Access: We will engage with and listen to all stakeholders, not create an ecosystem governed by proximity and connections.
- Empowering, not Entitling: We will level the playing field for everyone to contribute, not grant exclusive rights to the few.
- Clarifying, not Controlling: We will eliminate asymmetries of context, so that stakeholders can understand, align, and participate consensually, not force them to trust us and fall in line.
- Partnering, not Parenting: We will work side-by-side with the community as peers, maintaining a feedback loop built on conversation rather than curation, being constructive about our disagreements, thoughtful about our communication, and authentic about our blind spots.
- Continuity, not Conviction: We will provide a stable presence by anchoring around our values and our mission, not by subscribing stubbornly to specific solutions, to create a directionally consistent opportunity space for innovation and evolution.
In the spirit of these principles, we are breaking down our role as PNF further into a full outline of the responsibilities we are delegating to each member of our team. This will serve as context for the personnel expenses in our annual budget, help you to understand who to contact if you’d like to discuss a specific area of PNF’s work, and empower you to keep each of us accountable to our responsibilities.
Note that, like the broader PNF role descriptions above, these individual role descriptions are subject to evolve as we learn more how each team member can be most effective in service of our mission.
All Foundation staff
- Be available to listen to and support all stakeholders
- Act as a role model and steward for the culture, values and behaviors of the whole network
- Help the DAO to develop and nurture its culture and values
- Evangelize the DAO
All Directors
- Manage and invest PNF’s treasury to advance PNF’s mission
- Coordinate efforts to formulate and maintain a holistic strategy for PNF and the DAO
- Support the other directors and staff/contractors with, and keep them accountable to, their delegated responsibilities (outlined below)
- Uphold the DAO’s Constitution and reinforce checks & balances
- Proactively identify and neutralize threats to Pocket Network
- Multi-sig, including governance transactions
Jack (Executive Director)
- Keep PNF accountable to its roadmap and mission
- Maintain the systems and tools to help PNF facilitate its mandate and execute on its roadmap
- Hire, onboard and manage PNF full-time staff and contractors
- Define and embed PNF’s communication strategy & procedures
- Lead improvements to Pocket DAO’s governance, including efforts to design v1’s on-chain governance and disintermediate PNF as governance transaction executors
- Coordinate governance processes
Dermot (Director)
- Manage relationships with POKT’s institutional stakeholders
- Support special projects in our ecosystem
- Lead formation, negotiation, and management of strategic partnerships
- Lead negotiations on PNF’s contracts, and manage and negotiate the DAO’s contracts on behalf of the DAO
- Maintain policies & procedures to ensure compliance with PNF’s policies & procedures and relevant laws
- Manage PNF’s part-time CFO
- Prepare and manage PNF’s annual budget
Nelson (Director)
- Manage relationships with POKT’s institutional stakeholders
- Prepare and release quarterly transparency updates
- Manage PNF’s banking relationships and financial tools/systems
- Maintain PNF’s existing relationships with capital markets institutions (custodians, exchanges, market makers)
- Coordinate internal admin with PNF’s supervisor and secretary
- Maintain and reinforce PNF’s OpSec policies and procedures
Ben (Head of DAO Ops)
- Lead improvements to the DAO Operating System that increase our operational effectiveness
- Design and coordinate grant, bounty and other contributor or strategic programs and keep contributors accountable
- Improve the contributor experience - from identifying opportunities, onboarding, delivering work through to rewards and payments
- Maintain systems that support contributor operations, measure and ensure long-term contributor growth and satisfaction
- Maintain policies & procedures to ensure transparency and compliance around work and payments
Ming (Head of Community)
- Lead improvements to the community experience
- Maintain communications channels to enable productive discourse
- Coordinate community leaders, community events, and community building programs
- Ensure a welcoming environment for new community members
- Track and escalate community issues within PNF and the DAO