How DAOs Are Ushering in the Future of Work
Why are companies still run like monarchies? It may feel like you have no choice but to work for a CEO who runs the company the same way a king used to run a kingdom. But what are the alternatives?
By Zack Abrams
April 14, 2023
Every year, it seems like workers take home less and less of the pie as the rich keep getting richer. In other words, economic inequality continues to widen.
It may feel like you have no choice but to work for a CEO who runs the company the same way a king used to run a kingdom. But what are the alternatives?
Only about 55% of Americans see unions as a positive force — not exactly a majority. And companies that run in nontraditional ways are few and far between.
This week on Coinage, we're telling you about a new way to run a company with no one at the top calling all the shots. And no, it doesn't rhyme with "bommunism."
Enter Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, or DAOs. (Some people say "Dee-Ay-Ohs, but we pronounce it like it rhymes with "browse.") DAOs are gaining popularity amongst thousands of workers because they provide a novel way of organizing workers online to develop and maintain a platform, form a social community, distribute charitable funds, and much, much more.
DAOs bring democracy to the workplace by allocating tokens to contributors, whether you're writing code, spreading the word, squashing bugs, or doing anything a business needs to do. Those tokens let you vote on the future of the company and eventually profit if the organization starts making money.
Nowadays, most DAOs are inherently linked with crypto, since digital currencies make it easy to join a DAO from anywhere in the world. And unlike traditional companies, you're free to sell your tokens and leave at any time. You can also be a member of multiple DAOs, or even join one in addition to your full-time job.
DAOs are still new and there are plenty of ways this structure can fail, not to mention all the questions around the legality of DAOs in our current framework. But, remember: American democracy is almost 250 years old and we still haven't ironed out all the kinks.
Coinage itself is a decentralized, community-owned organization, legally registered in Colorado. And we're covering this story because our community pitched it, voted on it, and made their voices heard.
For more on DAOs, check out our episode above. We had a lot of fun making this one. And sign up for email notifications to be notified about our upcoming Subscriber Digital Membership Pass drop on May 8th, which lets you watch our stuff ad-free, contribute to editorial discussions, and vote on key issues.
