Hey hey, there are weekly updates posted here.

In addition, there are biweekly governance calls where delegates, contributors and proposal authors get together to discuss live proposals and notable discussions on the forum. It happens every other Tuesday at 4pm UTC, and the agendas and recordings are posted here.

You can subscribe to the ArbitrumDAO governance calendar to make sure that you don't miss out on any of these calls moving forward!

Hey hey, there are weekly updates posted here.

In addition, there are biweekly governance calls where delegates, contributors and proposal authors get together to discuss live proposals and notable discussions on the forum. It happens every other Tuesday at 4pm UTC, and the agendas and recordings are posted here.

You can subscribe to the ArbitrumDAO governance calendar to make sure that you don't miss out on any of these calls moving forward!

We are cautiously in favor of the "Boosting DAO Efficiency by 10x" proposal, as we believe that streamlining operations and increasing throughput are essential for Arbitrum’s continued success. However, there are several areas that require clarification and refinement before we can offer our full support.

Budget Justification

While we agree that @DisruptionJoe and @AlexLumley have demonstrated significant value in their previous contributions, the $200k budget for a six-month period needs more transparency. Specifically, we believe the breakdown of the budget should be more detailed to justify the costs, especially in light of potential overlaps with other DAO contributors like Entropy. Given that this includes travel and compensation, we would appreciate seeing a more granular outline of anticipated expenses.

Role Overlap and Coordination with Entropy

A key concern is potential redundancy with @Entropy and other contributors already performing similar functions within the ecosystem. We recommend more explicit coordination between Joe, Alex, and existing teams to avoid duplicative efforts. Clear explanations of how responsibilities will be divided will alleviate concerns about inefficient allocation of resources.

Accountability and Deliverables

We fully support the introduction of clear accountability mechanisms and performance tracking. Having clear metrics for success—whether through direct DAO oversight or involvement from teams like Entropy—will ensure that funds are being allocated efficiently and that deliverables are met. Regular reporting on progress should be mandated as part of this proposal to maintain transparency.

Early Termination

Although some members have raised the issue of early termination, we believe a six-month term is reasonable to assess whether meaningful progress has been made. We suggest retaining the right to reassess at the three-month mark but allowing for the full term to complete unless significant underperformance is evident.

We are cautiously in favor of the "Boosting DAO Efficiency by 10x" proposal, as we believe that streamlining operations and increasing throughput are essential for Arbitrum’s continued success. However, there are several areas that require clarification and refinement before we can offer our full support.

Budget Justification

While we agree that @DisruptionJoe and @AlexLumley have demonstrated significant value in their previous contributions, the $200k budget for a six-month period needs more transparency. Specifically, we believe the breakdown of the budget should be more detailed to justify the costs, especially in light of potential overlaps with other DAO contributors like Entropy. Given that this includes travel and compensation, we would appreciate seeing a more granular outline of anticipated expenses.

Role Overlap and Coordination with Entropy

A key concern is potential redundancy with @Entropy and other contributors already performing similar functions within the ecosystem. We recommend more explicit coordination between Joe, Alex, and existing teams to avoid duplicative efforts. Clear explanations of how responsibilities will be divided will alleviate concerns about inefficient allocation of resources.

Accountability and Deliverables

We fully support the introduction of clear accountability mechanisms and performance tracking. Having clear metrics for success—whether through direct DAO oversight or involvement from teams like Entropy—will ensure that funds are being allocated efficiently and that deliverables are met. Regular reporting on progress should be mandated as part of this proposal to maintain transparency.

Early Termination

Although some members have raised the issue of early termination, we believe a six-month term is reasonable to assess whether meaningful progress has been made. We suggest retaining the right to reassess at the three-month mark but allowing for the full term to complete unless significant underperformance is evident.

We appreciate the need for improving operational efficiency within the DAO. However, even after reading the responses to other delegates on the same point, we see a strong overlap between this proposal and the scope of Entropy Advisors.

The DAO has committed $2.47M per year (plus bonus) to @Entropy to help with the governance process and governance proposals, synchronize the activities of various stakeholders, attract strategic partners and top talent, and improve operations and cash flow.

While we appreciate this initiative and the work both Disruption Joe and Alex Lumley are continuously doing for Arbitrum DAO, we believe this specific proposal to be redundant both in scope and funds allocation.

The idea behind this proposal is very good and indeed needed to be way better structured and organized. Especially for new delegates its hard to keep up. Im myself are still struggling to keep up with everything and to detect new proposals and where and when to vote/comment.

The only problem I have is the amount of money being asked. 200k for 6 months seems a lot for me. Are you planning on working fulltime 40h+ a week on this? If not I would rather say 120k seems more reasonable. It seems that the amounts in web3 aren't based on anything real or realistic.

Getting 33k per month for two persons is in my opinion too much.

Thanks for the proposal! It tackles a point that is surely needed: context. The wider the organization, the lower is the context that everyone involved in decisions have. It makes sense to have a structure to help to increase the information quality.

But it takes a lot of time to produce meaningful reports that really can make a difference. That is my main concern on this proposal: the workload taking its toll on the quality of the proposed items.

Leveraging the suggestions of other delegates that it would be interesting to add a "watchdog" feature to the proposal, I would like to suggest the proposal restructured considering:

• The addition of 2 "clerks" to help to handle the massive workload of reporting, database, wiki creation and maintainance.
• Alex and Joe focused on "watchdog" / coordination functions.

gm!

Thank you very much for the proposal. I have a few comments and questions regarding it.

Regarding the identified issues:

I believe the issues identified by the delegates are valid, but I am not entirely convinced how adding more calls to Arbitrum DAO’s and a sentiment vote on an already demanding schedule would solve this. I'm not saying having a monthly report call isn’t useful, but delegates who are not up to date with the proposals likely won’t stay informed just by attending a call with a summary. The role of a delegate is more than just voting; it’s their responsibility to stay up to date with what's happening in the DAO and the execution of initiatives.

I agree that points 1 and 2 regarding accountability require a solution that we currently lack. As a DAO, we don’t require proposals to include measurable and enforceable milestones or KPIs, nor do we consistently monitor whether reports are published in a timely manner. Additionally, the quality of those reports is rarely questioned. Even when there are failures, reaching consensus on the necessary actions is difficult.

However, I believe -in the future- this can be addressed through discussion and social consensus about the minimum requirements a proposal must meet to be voted on. Until we become more demanding about the quality of proposals and reports, this issue will persist. I’m not convinced monthly calls can resolve that issue.

Regarding point 3, I believe the discussion initiated by Entropy aims to address exactly that.

Even though the first point is debatable, I understand the pain of going through the governance process and the complexities of the DAO for the builders. However, I also understand that Entropy is the entity addressing that issue, serving as a bridge:

Perhaps there is something that needs to be fine-tuned if you are detecting a shortcoming in that area, and you could discuss it directly with them.

There’s probably room for improvement in communication here. I agree that understanding the DAO’s context and getting a sense of what delegates are thinking takes time. But, well, that’s part of the work you need to do if you want to engage with the DAO. The upsides of building a relationship with a DAO the size of Arbitrum far outweigh the complexities, in my opinion.

Does that mean we won’t make things easier for builders? No, of course not.

But I believe the issues raised by potential contributors are exactly what Entropy aims to solve through its “proposals as a service.” Am I wrong about it?

Also, there are initiatives like the Domain Allocator that specifically aim to fund experimental and early-stage work.

Everything mentioned as part of the Accountability phase is good, but I believe much of what is outlined there should be required from anyone receiving payment from the DAO. The check-ins and documentation of proposal progress, as well as the learnings (I’ll quote the ADPC report, ARDC report and DIP report as examples of how I think this should be done), should be the responsibility of those who intend to continue providing services to the DAO.

It's also not entirely clear to me how these tasks address the issues identified for builders and contributors. This proposal seems more focused on facilitating the work of the delegates, who, under the newly approved -tempcheck- DIP, will be offered a significant incentive for fulfilling their role at a high quality level.

That said, accountability is a problem right now. That’s why I agree with Jojo.

What we are missing is a watchdog—someone who applies a certain level of "pressure" and oversees the execution of proposals, providing expert opinions on how things are progressing and recommending actions if something starts deviating from what was promised. The thing is that it’s a very unpopular role. But in my opinion, given the current state, this is exactly what the DAO needs today. And I would vote in favor of it.

That said, I have a couple of questions about the execution of the proposal and the budget.

Why do you think two people in a “senior” role (17K USD per month) are necessary to execute the proposal? Honestly, the pricing seems a bit excessive to me. It would be great if, beyond expressing your full-time commitment, you could explain a bit more about the rationale behind the number.

Joe, apologies if you’ve posted or mentioned this somewhere before, but I couldn’t find any reference. Does this mean you’ve set aside the execution of Plurality Labs milestones and the pluralistic grants?

Lastly, I would like to know your thoughts on the compatibility of accessing this proposal while maintaining the incentivized role as a delegate.

Thank you very much for the proposal. I know both of you are focused on ensuring the long-term success of the DAO, and it’s excellent to have you contributing to Arbitrum.

There will be a lot of discussions, on both the merit and, of course, the numbers, which are always one of the most sensitive things for most.

I want to keep it brief.

As I understood it, the team's goals here will be to:

1. be a coordinator/secretary of the dao
2. be an observer of all dao initiatives, with reporting
3. be a researcher of "pillars", that I see as fundamental values that should drive the dao.

I'm ok with 1. I have always advocated for more coordination in the dao; if someone new comes, random people send him to other random people accordingly to what they know. I'm ok with 2. We are a big dao, we definitely need more eyes on all initiatives I'm ok with 3. Partially overlaps with one of the current work of entropy but I also think is a good research. As I stated in the call tho, I think we lack something complementing the second point.

4. be an entity that can give a strong, opinionated answer on "is the initiative X going in the right way" or "has the initiative X achieved at his end what it was supposed to achieve".

Yes, i would like for you and Alex to be some sort of opinionated experts on the dao. If you want to call it watchdog, you can, I don't think you would be that, but I think you would be people that can come and say "in our view, this was succesfull" and "in our view, this was a failure". And will @AlexLumley mentioned in the call that it would be difficult to apply this to initiatives, already established and not properly formatted, with no clear KPI, I'll be honest I trust both your experience to be able to give a judgment that I can rely upon, and to which I can build my opinion.

This doesn't mean you would be judge, jury and executioner, no. You would just be experts putting their opinion out.

To be crystal clear

• is this an hard job? yes
• is this a job in which you would likely create for yourself a lot of enemies, or at least you won't likely make new frens? yes

Also

• is this something I would be willing to potentially pay 200k for 6 months? Yeah.

Don't get me wrong, you mentioned a good list of deliverables, and I don't want to go on each 1 by 1 because I don't think is as much important as defining a proper role here. We have several gaps in our dao. I see you being able to tackle here coordination, monitoring and accountability, with a dry run of 6 months that can be renewed and expanded. I think you can start to fill these gaps, I think you have the tools, experience and knowledge to do it.

Hi @DisruptionJoe, first of all, thank you for taking the time to develop this proposal.

From SEEDGov we agree that DAOs need employees facilitating operations. In the past, we have proposed the introduction of the facilitator/facilitators concept without much consensus.

Then the DAO opted to introduce Entropy in a kind of role that (at least in our view) incorporates governance facilitation tasks, especially for drafting proposals, designing governance processes, and pushing initiatives that may have been around this forum but did not have enough consensus/maturity to become something more.

Now, all of this covers only a part of the DAO operations and this proposal is looking to solve some tasks not covered by other people/SPs in the DAO.

Therefore the motivation from our perspective is valid, although we would like to provide some feedback and ask questions on some points where we have doubts.

With Joe's potential participation in the proposal “Establishing a dao events budget for 2025” we would like to be sure that Joe can handle all the responsibilities or how you plan to distribute responsibilities.

To be 100% honest and as we have already mentioned in the telegram group, this feels somewhat rushed, it is a proposal where the DAO is basically hiring full time employees for a highly important task. While it is true that the economic risk is “limited” to the cost of salaries, shortening the pre-vote discussion to just five days seems insufficient to us if you are looking to get feedback from as many delegates as possible.

While we understand that times in governance are slow, we do not believe that shortening the discussions should be the solution, which may result in the proposals not being of sufficient quality to obtain the expected results, as mentioned in one of the motivations for this proposal:

From SEEDGov we seek to avoid setting a dangerous precedent in terms of the discussion time of proposals prior to Snapshot. While we understand that this is a non-binding vote for the DAO, it is important to give delegates the necessary time to form an opinion or provide feedback.

Another detail we would like to point out is that if Snapshot is sent to Snapshot on October 10, voting will end on the 17th (Thursday) and (following the schedule approved in Improving Predictability in Arbitrum DAO’s Operations) it should be sent to Tally on Monday, October 21 so that voting starts on Thursday, October 24 (instead of the 17th as mentioned in this timeline). We make this clarification because these additional days between Snapshot and Tally could give delegates more time to share their rationale and perhaps provide valuable feedback before the proposal reaches Tally.

Regarding the Governance Reporting Calls, we understand that @AlexLumley is currently in charge of them. Have you received any remuneration from the Foundation for this purpose or should a retroactive payment be considered?

What would be the proposals you have taken as a reference? 200k to hire two people for six months represents about 200k per person per year or almost 17,000 USD per month. If we compare it to this source which usually provides higher data than the rest of the sites) it would be almost double the average for an Operations Manager in the United States. Our suggestion is to start with $120,000 for the first six months and evaluate the incorporation of a small OpEx budget (if it was already considered in the first estimation please make a breakdown for further analysis).

It is important to mention that if you have taken Entropy's proposal as a reference, although in both cases exclusivity is offered, the nature of the tasks in both proposals is different. The Accountability deliverables have a lower complexity than the objectives proposed by Entropy and the Alignment and Throughput deliverables (which in principle could provide much value to the DAO and be more complex) are proposed as bonuses with a low probability of execution during these six months.

While salaries often vary from person to person, tasks are one of the main components to consider when evaluating how much to pay. Are those tasks you performed in exchange for these 150k per year comparable to this job?

Here we would like to point out that the tasks related to Accountability are of monthly cadence and its load could increase as new proposals to “oversight” or that need operational support appear. It is unlikely that the rest of the proposed “bonuses” will be executed at the same time as the Accountability vertical, being only two people.

Finally, we agree with @thedevanshmehta that some kind of collaboration or alignment with @Entropy would be fruitful not only for synergistic purposes but also for the oversight he mentions. Needless to say, we are interested in @Entropy's opinion on this proposal.

I really appreciate your contribution to the development of our community and DAO.

However, tbh I have doubts and I have several questions:

1. Since you are active participants of DAO, will you, if this proposal is approved, receive funds from DIP?
2. How will your work differ from Entropy Advisors? They also have similar goals.
3. I see the main problem, as you indicated in the proposal, that there is no list of tasks, and in fact - a plan for the development of DAO and Arbitrum. And I hoped that you would indicate the main goal of creating such a list of goals and achievements, but you do not have it.
4. I saw your explanations of the salary, but regardless of the results of this work, you will receive $ 100k per person. It seems to me that it would be appropriate for you to indicate the KPI and the level of your income depending on their achievement.

Thanks for the kind words from a few of the responses here. It is good to see that there is recognition of past value brought to the ecosystem!

I'm going to try and respond to all questions received up until now. These answers are from me and may not fully represent Alex view on the situation.

It would be logical. As I was working with them on the 2025 events proposal, I had brought up a desire to be a pm to that proposal which could potentially work with them or a future upcoming OpCo - which they are also spearheading. There are two reasons why I didn't pursue that angle.

1. These functions we are proposing to do would best live in an entity fully dedicated to Arbitrum over the long term. This proposal is a way for us to design some processes that the OpCo could adopt if the DAO loves them. While Entropy is figuring out how the entity might be setup and how we could legitimately hire someone to lead it, this work keeps Alex and I firmly in the ecosystem.

2. Some delegates have expressed a desire to have another dedicated group so the optics aren't that everything has to go through Entropy.

Personally, I love the work Entropy is doing and would expect to continue collaborating.

Yes, it seems to be comparable. It would cover travel to conferences, lack of benefits, and higher risk for a short term engagement. As we aren't looking to create an entity (maybe roll into OpCo if desired down the road), this seems like a fair amount. As for myself, I have almost 4 years of onchain history of being paid over $150k/year salary and that doesn't include bonus, equity, and tokens.

The primary upside I see from executing this proposal is reputation gain when we are successful.

In the Specifications section we have output deliverables listed. The timeline includes extra deliverables we will attempt if we fully execute the accountability phase. For all the deliverables, it isn't just about executing the work, but gaining meaningful adoption of the systems, tools, and processes. It is about driving the cadences that make the systems become ritual.

Additionally, it is about generally keeping us 100% Arbitrum focused. Over the last year, I've delivered at least networks to be supported by the foundation and/or OCL. I've also presented for at least 10 communities in the past year repping Arbitrum the whole way - from a talk at Eth Denver to 2 presentations for recipients of questbook education grants.

The point is that I intend to continue creating as much value as I can and I hope the DAO agrees that the cost we are asking for is worth it.

Doesn't this question about "Who watches the watchmen" then flip around if we were to do this working for Entropy? I don't think it properly assesses what our role would be. Our work is making it easier for delegates to quickly understand how the initiatives are doing, not to be the judge of how they are doing.

In our discussions with them, we see that there is no need for any overlap. I believe we would be working together on a lot and they are skilled communicators. I don't see any issue of redundancy here so long as we are communicating.

I'd also like to address a concern from @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth from the delegate telegram:

The concern is that this proposal is rushed. In terms of the norm of 1 week on forum, 1 week on snapshot then tally, yes it is being rushed by 1.5 days. However, Alex has organized the past two GRC calls and rather than proposing backpay we are simply trying to move this forward quickly. We are aware that we could wait an extra week, but we don't feel that there is that much that would change if we added the extra 1.5 days back - especially because the nature of this is full-time contract rather than only specific deliverables. Yes, that does require trust from the DAO. I hope we have earned that, but it is up to the DAO.

We are excited to engage more with the DAO this week to make adjustments and get a proposal that is up and unchanged for a week before it goes to Tally.

We think you and @AlexLumley definitely have shown your value to the DAO and this would make sense from a high level.

We are a bit confused as mentioned earlier about the overlap between you guys and Entropy. We know Entropy are looking to expand their team to 10ish by the end of their engagement, would it be logical to apply to work for them? Compensation wise, all in, it probably seems comparable? Given both of the agreements to be exclusive as well.

As for the $200k for the six months, you also mentioned it would be around that, what would the final judgement of the salary be?

Thanks for the proposal @DisruptionJoe !

Some feedback and comments from our end:

• As a risk it was stated that “The cost of funding two full-time contributors for six months or less if the DAO decides to cut it early.” – what is the process and criteria for early termination if the proposal is not achieved its intended goals within the 6-month timeframe?

• As per our conversations on Telegram, I think it'd be a good idea to provide details on previous experience and qualifications that would naturaly result in you and Alex being fit for the roles here. This role is an operations-role in nature and you'll be undertaking this 'operations role' in relation to an Ecosystem with a 2Billion+ dollar treasury. Additionally, you'll be a main contact point for all initiatives governing/facilitating/operating with or by virtue of a 2Billion+ dollar treasury and thus a bit of a rigorous vetting/disclosure process re. experience should be had here in our opinion.

• We do not see this work as similar to what Entropy does given that Entropy's role is more in relation to submitting governance proposals that optimise the DAO's overall governance architecture. In this regard, we do not see an overlap and thus, we also do not see a reason as to why the remuneration should be based on what Entropy had proposed. Are there any benchmarks you can point to that would grant delegates data on the fair-value of the 200k?

• I'd like to also point out that some of the work that's being proposed here is already done by AF's DAO Relations team (and quite optimally imo) - this is where we see most of the overlap. Some clarity as to how this would be balanced would be beneficial.

• Also, the recommended Forum period before Snapshot should be 7 days as per the Constitution. Albeit this not being binding, I do not see a valid reason as to why this should be rushed to an extent whereby this period is not abided to. This does not grant us a positive signal and gives the impression that this proposal is being rushed through the governance process without giving due time for delegates and contributors to read through, debate, and come up with a well-thought-out opinion.

Great to see this proposal posted! I like the idea of known contributors going directly to the DAO for their salaries. Alex and Joe are longtime contributors from the beginning so its a great start to the DAO having its own employees.

I wanted to know how your initiatives would overlap or complement with @Entropy , which has a similar mandate of full time work with the DAO.

Given they budgeted for a 10x increase in number of employees, has any attempt been made to gauge their interest in taking on these responsibilities and overseeing the work for you and alex?

Basically, its a question of "who watches the watchmen". If you and alex are overseeing other programs, who is overseeing and keeping you both on your toes?

We appreciate the need for improving operational efficiency within the DAO. However, even after reading the responses to other delegates on the same point, we see a strong overlap between this proposal and the scope of Entropy Advisors.

The DAO has committed $2.47M per year (plus bonus) to @Entropy to help with the governance process and governance proposals, synchronize the activities of various stakeholders, attract strategic partners and top talent, and improve operations and cash flow.

While we appreciate this initiative and the work both Disruption Joe and Alex Lumley are continuously doing for Arbitrum DAO, we believe this specific proposal to be redundant both in scope and funds allocation.

The idea behind this proposal is very good and indeed needed to be way better structured and organized. Especially for new delegates its hard to keep up. Im myself are still struggling to keep up with everything and to detect new proposals and where and when to vote/comment.

The only problem I have is the amount of money being asked. 200k for 6 months seems a lot for me. Are you planning on working fulltime 40h+ a week on this? If not I would rather say 120k seems more reasonable. It seems that the amounts in web3 aren't based on anything real or realistic.

Getting 33k per month for two persons is in my opinion too much.

Thanks for the proposal! It tackles a point that is surely needed: context. The wider the organization, the lower is the context that everyone involved in decisions have. It makes sense to have a structure to help to increase the information quality.

But it takes a lot of time to produce meaningful reports that really can make a difference. That is my main concern on this proposal: the workload taking its toll on the quality of the proposed items.

Leveraging the suggestions of other delegates that it would be interesting to add a "watchdog" feature to the proposal, I would like to suggest the proposal restructured considering:

• The addition of 2 "clerks" to help to handle the massive workload of reporting, database, wiki creation and maintainance.
• Alex and Joe focused on "watchdog" / coordination functions.

gm!

Thank you very much for the proposal. I have a few comments and questions regarding it.

Regarding the identified issues:

I believe the issues identified by the delegates are valid, but I am not entirely convinced how adding more calls to Arbitrum DAO’s and a sentiment vote on an already demanding schedule would solve this. I'm not saying having a monthly report call isn’t useful, but delegates who are not up to date with the proposals likely won’t stay informed just by attending a call with a summary. The role of a delegate is more than just voting; it’s their responsibility to stay up to date with what's happening in the DAO and the execution of initiatives.

I agree that points 1 and 2 regarding accountability require a solution that we currently lack. As a DAO, we don’t require proposals to include measurable and enforceable milestones or KPIs, nor do we consistently monitor whether reports are published in a timely manner. Additionally, the quality of those reports is rarely questioned. Even when there are failures, reaching consensus on the necessary actions is difficult.

However, I believe -in the future- this can be addressed through discussion and social consensus about the minimum requirements a proposal must meet to be voted on. Until we become more demanding about the quality of proposals and reports, this issue will persist. I’m not convinced monthly calls can resolve that issue.

Regarding point 3, I believe the discussion initiated by Entropy aims to address exactly that.

Even though the first point is debatable, I understand the pain of going through the governance process and the complexities of the DAO for the builders. However, I also understand that Entropy is the entity addressing that issue, serving as a bridge:

Perhaps there is something that needs to be fine-tuned if you are detecting a shortcoming in that area, and you could discuss it directly with them.

There’s probably room for improvement in communication here. I agree that understanding the DAO’s context and getting a sense of what delegates are thinking takes time. But, well, that’s part of the work you need to do if you want to engage with the DAO. The upsides of building a relationship with a DAO the size of Arbitrum far outweigh the complexities, in my opinion.

Does that mean we won’t make things easier for builders? No, of course not.

But I believe the issues raised by potential contributors are exactly what Entropy aims to solve through its “proposals as a service.” Am I wrong about it?

Also, there are initiatives like the Domain Allocator that specifically aim to fund experimental and early-stage work.

Everything mentioned as part of the Accountability phase is good, but I believe much of what is outlined there should be required from anyone receiving payment from the DAO. The check-ins and documentation of proposal progress, as well as the learnings (I’ll quote the ADPC report, ARDC report and DIP report as examples of how I think this should be done), should be the responsibility of those who intend to continue providing services to the DAO.

It's also not entirely clear to me how these tasks address the issues identified for builders and contributors. This proposal seems more focused on facilitating the work of the delegates, who, under the newly approved -tempcheck- DIP, will be offered a significant incentive for fulfilling their role at a high quality level.

That said, accountability is a problem right now. That’s why I agree with Jojo.

What we are missing is a watchdog—someone who applies a certain level of "pressure" and oversees the execution of proposals, providing expert opinions on how things are progressing and recommending actions if something starts deviating from what was promised. The thing is that it’s a very unpopular role. But in my opinion, given the current state, this is exactly what the DAO needs today. And I would vote in favor of it.

That said, I have a couple of questions about the execution of the proposal and the budget.

Why do you think two people in a “senior” role (17K USD per month) are necessary to execute the proposal? Honestly, the pricing seems a bit excessive to me. It would be great if, beyond expressing your full-time commitment, you could explain a bit more about the rationale behind the number.

Joe, apologies if you’ve posted or mentioned this somewhere before, but I couldn’t find any reference. Does this mean you’ve set aside the execution of Plurality Labs milestones and the pluralistic grants?

Lastly, I would like to know your thoughts on the compatibility of accessing this proposal while maintaining the incentivized role as a delegate.

Thank you very much for the proposal. I know both of you are focused on ensuring the long-term success of the DAO, and it’s excellent to have you contributing to Arbitrum.

There will be a lot of discussions, on both the merit and, of course, the numbers, which are always one of the most sensitive things for most.

I want to keep it brief.

As I understood it, the team's goals here will be to:

1. be a coordinator/secretary of the dao
2. be an observer of all dao initiatives, with reporting
3. be a researcher of "pillars", that I see as fundamental values that should drive the dao.

I'm ok with 1. I have always advocated for more coordination in the dao; if someone new comes, random people send him to other random people accordingly to what they know. I'm ok with 2. We are a big dao, we definitely need more eyes on all initiatives I'm ok with 3. Partially overlaps with one of the current work of entropy but I also think is a good research. As I stated in the call tho, I think we lack something complementing the second point.

4. be an entity that can give a strong, opinionated answer on "is the initiative X going in the right way" or "has the initiative X achieved at his end what it was supposed to achieve".

Yes, i would like for you and Alex to be some sort of opinionated experts on the dao. If you want to call it watchdog, you can, I don't think you would be that, but I think you would be people that can come and say "in our view, this was succesfull" and "in our view, this was a failure". And will @AlexLumley mentioned in the call that it would be difficult to apply this to initiatives, already established and not properly formatted, with no clear KPI, I'll be honest I trust both your experience to be able to give a judgment that I can rely upon, and to which I can build my opinion.

This doesn't mean you would be judge, jury and executioner, no. You would just be experts putting their opinion out.

To be crystal clear

• is this an hard job? yes
• is this a job in which you would likely create for yourself a lot of enemies, or at least you won't likely make new frens? yes

Also

• is this something I would be willing to potentially pay 200k for 6 months? Yeah.

Don't get me wrong, you mentioned a good list of deliverables, and I don't want to go on each 1 by 1 because I don't think is as much important as defining a proper role here. We have several gaps in our dao. I see you being able to tackle here coordination, monitoring and accountability, with a dry run of 6 months that can be renewed and expanded. I think you can start to fill these gaps, I think you have the tools, experience and knowledge to do it.

Hi @DisruptionJoe, first of all, thank you for taking the time to develop this proposal.

From SEEDGov we agree that DAOs need employees facilitating operations. In the past, we have proposed the introduction of the facilitator/facilitators concept without much consensus.

Then the DAO opted to introduce Entropy in a kind of role that (at least in our view) incorporates governance facilitation tasks, especially for drafting proposals, designing governance processes, and pushing initiatives that may have been around this forum but did not have enough consensus/maturity to become something more.

Now, all of this covers only a part of the DAO operations and this proposal is looking to solve some tasks not covered by other people/SPs in the DAO.

Therefore the motivation from our perspective is valid, although we would like to provide some feedback and ask questions on some points where we have doubts.

With Joe's potential participation in the proposal “Establishing a dao events budget for 2025” we would like to be sure that Joe can handle all the responsibilities or how you plan to distribute responsibilities.

To be 100% honest and as we have already mentioned in the telegram group, this feels somewhat rushed, it is a proposal where the DAO is basically hiring full time employees for a highly important task. While it is true that the economic risk is “limited” to the cost of salaries, shortening the pre-vote discussion to just five days seems insufficient to us if you are looking to get feedback from as many delegates as possible.

While we understand that times in governance are slow, we do not believe that shortening the discussions should be the solution, which may result in the proposals not being of sufficient quality to obtain the expected results, as mentioned in one of the motivations for this proposal:

From SEEDGov we seek to avoid setting a dangerous precedent in terms of the discussion time of proposals prior to Snapshot. While we understand that this is a non-binding vote for the DAO, it is important to give delegates the necessary time to form an opinion or provide feedback.

Another detail we would like to point out is that if Snapshot is sent to Snapshot on October 10, voting will end on the 17th (Thursday) and (following the schedule approved in Improving Predictability in Arbitrum DAO’s Operations) it should be sent to Tally on Monday, October 21 so that voting starts on Thursday, October 24 (instead of the 17th as mentioned in this timeline). We make this clarification because these additional days between Snapshot and Tally could give delegates more time to share their rationale and perhaps provide valuable feedback before the proposal reaches Tally.

Regarding the Governance Reporting Calls, we understand that @AlexLumley is currently in charge of them. Have you received any remuneration from the Foundation for this purpose or should a retroactive payment be considered?

What would be the proposals you have taken as a reference? 200k to hire two people for six months represents about 200k per person per year or almost 17,000 USD per month. If we compare it to this source which usually provides higher data than the rest of the sites) it would be almost double the average for an Operations Manager in the United States. Our suggestion is to start with $120,000 for the first six months and evaluate the incorporation of a small OpEx budget (if it was already considered in the first estimation please make a breakdown for further analysis).

It is important to mention that if you have taken Entropy's proposal as a reference, although in both cases exclusivity is offered, the nature of the tasks in both proposals is different. The Accountability deliverables have a lower complexity than the objectives proposed by Entropy and the Alignment and Throughput deliverables (which in principle could provide much value to the DAO and be more complex) are proposed as bonuses with a low probability of execution during these six months.

While salaries often vary from person to person, tasks are one of the main components to consider when evaluating how much to pay. Are those tasks you performed in exchange for these 150k per year comparable to this job?

Here we would like to point out that the tasks related to Accountability are of monthly cadence and its load could increase as new proposals to “oversight” or that need operational support appear. It is unlikely that the rest of the proposed “bonuses” will be executed at the same time as the Accountability vertical, being only two people.

Finally, we agree with @thedevanshmehta that some kind of collaboration or alignment with @Entropy would be fruitful not only for synergistic purposes but also for the oversight he mentions. Needless to say, we are interested in @Entropy's opinion on this proposal.

I really appreciate your contribution to the development of our community and DAO.

However, tbh I have doubts and I have several questions:

1. Since you are active participants of DAO, will you, if this proposal is approved, receive funds from DIP?
2. How will your work differ from Entropy Advisors? They also have similar goals.
3. I see the main problem, as you indicated in the proposal, that there is no list of tasks, and in fact - a plan for the development of DAO and Arbitrum. And I hoped that you would indicate the main goal of creating such a list of goals and achievements, but you do not have it.
4. I saw your explanations of the salary, but regardless of the results of this work, you will receive $ 100k per person. It seems to me that it would be appropriate for you to indicate the KPI and the level of your income depending on their achievement.

Thanks for the kind words from a few of the responses here. It is good to see that there is recognition of past value brought to the ecosystem!

I'm going to try and respond to all questions received up until now. These answers are from me and may not fully represent Alex view on the situation.

It would be logical. As I was working with them on the 2025 events proposal, I had brought up a desire to be a pm to that proposal which could potentially work with them or a future upcoming OpCo - which they are also spearheading. There are two reasons why I didn't pursue that angle.

1. These functions we are proposing to do would best live in an entity fully dedicated to Arbitrum over the long term. This proposal is a way for us to design some processes that the OpCo could adopt if the DAO loves them. While Entropy is figuring out how the entity might be setup and how we could legitimately hire someone to lead it, this work keeps Alex and I firmly in the ecosystem.

2. Some delegates have expressed a desire to have another dedicated group so the optics aren't that everything has to go through Entropy.

Personally, I love the work Entropy is doing and would expect to continue collaborating.

Yes, it seems to be comparable. It would cover travel to conferences, lack of benefits, and higher risk for a short term engagement. As we aren't looking to create an entity (maybe roll into OpCo if desired down the road), this seems like a fair amount. As for myself, I have almost 4 years of onchain history of being paid over $150k/year salary and that doesn't include bonus, equity, and tokens.

The primary upside I see from executing this proposal is reputation gain when we are successful.

In the Specifications section we have output deliverables listed. The timeline includes extra deliverables we will attempt if we fully execute the accountability phase. For all the deliverables, it isn't just about executing the work, but gaining meaningful adoption of the systems, tools, and processes. It is about driving the cadences that make the systems become ritual.

Additionally, it is about generally keeping us 100% Arbitrum focused. Over the last year, I've delivered at least networks to be supported by the foundation and/or OCL. I've also presented for at least 10 communities in the past year repping Arbitrum the whole way - from a talk at Eth Denver to 2 presentations for recipients of questbook education grants.

The point is that I intend to continue creating as much value as I can and I hope the DAO agrees that the cost we are asking for is worth it.

Doesn't this question about "Who watches the watchmen" then flip around if we were to do this working for Entropy? I don't think it properly assesses what our role would be. Our work is making it easier for delegates to quickly understand how the initiatives are doing, not to be the judge of how they are doing.

In our discussions with them, we see that there is no need for any overlap. I believe we would be working together on a lot and they are skilled communicators. I don't see any issue of redundancy here so long as we are communicating.

I'd also like to address a concern from @axlvaz_SEEDLATAM.eth from the delegate telegram:

The concern is that this proposal is rushed. In terms of the norm of 1 week on forum, 1 week on snapshot then tally, yes it is being rushed by 1.5 days. However, Alex has organized the past two GRC calls and rather than proposing backpay we are simply trying to move this forward quickly. We are aware that we could wait an extra week, but we don't feel that there is that much that would change if we added the extra 1.5 days back - especially because the nature of this is full-time contract rather than only specific deliverables. Yes, that does require trust from the DAO. I hope we have earned that, but it is up to the DAO.

We are excited to engage more with the DAO this week to make adjustments and get a proposal that is up and unchanged for a week before it goes to Tally.

We think you and @AlexLumley definitely have shown your value to the DAO and this would make sense from a high level.

We are a bit confused as mentioned earlier about the overlap between you guys and Entropy. We know Entropy are looking to expand their team to 10ish by the end of their engagement, would it be logical to apply to work for them? Compensation wise, all in, it probably seems comparable? Given both of the agreements to be exclusive as well.

As for the $200k for the six months, you also mentioned it would be around that, what would the final judgement of the salary be?

Thanks for the proposal @DisruptionJoe !

Some feedback and comments from our end:

• As a risk it was stated that “The cost of funding two full-time contributors for six months or less if the DAO decides to cut it early.” – what is the process and criteria for early termination if the proposal is not achieved its intended goals within the 6-month timeframe?

• As per our conversations on Telegram, I think it'd be a good idea to provide details on previous experience and qualifications that would naturaly result in you and Alex being fit for the roles here. This role is an operations-role in nature and you'll be undertaking this 'operations role' in relation to an Ecosystem with a 2Billion+ dollar treasury. Additionally, you'll be a main contact point for all initiatives governing/facilitating/operating with or by virtue of a 2Billion+ dollar treasury and thus a bit of a rigorous vetting/disclosure process re. experience should be had here in our opinion.

• We do not see this work as similar to what Entropy does given that Entropy's role is more in relation to submitting governance proposals that optimise the DAO's overall governance architecture. In this regard, we do not see an overlap and thus, we also do not see a reason as to why the remuneration should be based on what Entropy had proposed. Are there any benchmarks you can point to that would grant delegates data on the fair-value of the 200k?

• I'd like to also point out that some of the work that's being proposed here is already done by AF's DAO Relations team (and quite optimally imo) - this is where we see most of the overlap. Some clarity as to how this would be balanced would be beneficial.

• Also, the recommended Forum period before Snapshot should be 7 days as per the Constitution. Albeit this not being binding, I do not see a valid reason as to why this should be rushed to an extent whereby this period is not abided to. This does not grant us a positive signal and gives the impression that this proposal is being rushed through the governance process without giving due time for delegates and contributors to read through, debate, and come up with a well-thought-out opinion.

Great to see this proposal posted! I like the idea of known contributors going directly to the DAO for their salaries. Alex and Joe are longtime contributors from the beginning so its a great start to the DAO having its own employees.

I wanted to know how your initiatives would overlap or complement with @Entropy , which has a similar mandate of full time work with the DAO.

Given they budgeted for a 10x increase in number of employees, has any attempt been made to gauge their interest in taking on these responsibilities and overseeing the work for you and alex?

Basically, its a question of "who watches the watchmen". If you and alex are overseeing other programs, who is overseeing and keeping you both on your toes?