Transistor OpenGov Political Philosophy Version 0.1
Transistor is a U.S.-based blockchain research and development shop founded by Peter Mauric and Yoon Kim. Peter studied political science in college and spent the decade before he started working in tech (as Ethereum governance and Public Affairs lead at Parity Technologies and as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Web3 Foundation on its SEC engagement) as a political operative, public policy lobbyist, and corporate affairs strategist working between New York City and Washington D.C. Yoon was a philosophy and economics major at U.C. Berkley and an MBA from Stanford Business School. He worked on Wall Street before crypto, exposing him to a range of corporate and public sector governance efforts and issues.
Our team and advisors combined form a highly connected and experienced network of professionals and policymakers in corporate and public affairs as well as the budding blockchain “politics” space. Our long view on the development of governance structures and norms informs our three key priorities for supporting good governance in this new DAO-centric model:
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Work to improve OpenGov’s design and educate it’s enthusiastic albeit less experienced participants. Providing public education on the history of good and bad governance in corporate and public spaces will be core to our Decentralized Voices work, and our guidance and education on comparable historical governance scenarios will inform each major decision we support.
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OpenGov’s design exposes it to structural challenges from short-sighted actors. This is similar to how aggressive hostile takeover proxy battles work in public companies but without the safeguard rails of professional management and independent boards. As a result, OpenGov is exposed to “tyranny by the majority.” Some actors are engaged in governance to ensure an outcome that is effectively not aligned with the network’s long-term success, but rather an attempt at short-term token appreciation. The long-term cost of such short-sighted strategies is high.
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OpenGov capital allocation (treasury spend) now should be focused on core network support functions like operational marketing teams, targeted ecosystem and business development efforts, and new product innovation. Because there is a lack of fresh investment capital in the Polkadot ecosystem, the treasury should begin to step in and support core teams and innovative products and support infrastructure that may or may not have a profit incentive to fill the gap created by the lack of private venture capital available to Polkadot-aligned application teams.
Finally, Transistor will advocate for conducting a strategic token sale from the Polkadot treasury, to create a fresh set of high-impact stakeholders and users for impending Polkadot 2.0 core time markets.
As our political and business experience has trained us, we will run a professional, cordial but serious government, political, and corporate affairs effort to support the potential nomination from the Web3 Foundation’s Decentralized Voices program and will happily accept nominations from other Polkadot stakeholders in support of our mission to make Polkadot a serious contender in North America and globally.