---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'Episode 179: February 24th, 2022'
tags: [G&R]

---

---
tags: G&R
---

# Episode 179: February 24th, 2022

## Agenda

- [00:00](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=2): Introduction
- [01:05](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=65): Votes and Polls
- [03:00](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=180): MIPs Update
- [07:27](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=447): Forum at a Glance
- [13:09](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=789): Initiative Updates: ETH Denver
- [36:46](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=2206): Discussion - Service Provider CUs 
- [1:27:55](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=5275): Conclusion

## Video

<https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE>

## Introduction 

### Agenda and Preamble

#### Payton Rose

[00:00](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=2)

- Hello everyone, welcome to the #179 Scientific Governance & Risk Meeting. My name is Payton; I go by Prose11 online. I am one of the Governance Facilitators at Maker. Today I am joined by other workers and people generally interested in the DAO and the protocol. As usual, we have an Agenda to get through today. We are recording this meeting. Side comments or questions are always welcome in our sidebar. You can use the raise hand feature on Zoom to join the speaking queue. We want everyone to participate in the conversation, do not be shy to speak up.
- As far as the Agenda goes, we will start with our governance roundup. Then we will move on to initiative updates pertaining to ETH Denver, in which many of the Core Units took part. We have selected a discussion topic: is the DAO equipped to work with service provider CUs. We will tune in for an open discussion if there is still time. 

## General Updates

### Votes

#### Payton Rose

[01:05](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=65)

*Polls:*
- 1 Weekly Poll 
    - MakerMan Retroactive Delegate Compensation – PASSED
- 1 Ongoing Greenlight (Voting ends March 7th)
    - Punk (NFTX CryptoPunk Collateral)
- Monthly Ratification Polls in MIPs Update

*Executive:*
- Executive Proposals resume this week 
- Tomorrow's Planned Executive Contents 
    - MakerMan Retroactive Delegate Compensation 
    - Increase PSM-GUSD-A Debt Ceiling

### MIPs

#### Pablo

[03:00](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=180)

[Weekly MIPs Update #75](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/weekly-mips-update-75/13330)

![Calendar](https://i.imgur.com/Uu6jek2.png)

![MIPs General Updates](https://i.imgur.com/Qi1pXtc.png)

![Ratification Polls](https://i.imgur.com/I94xfoF.png)

![Ratification Polls Votes](https://i.imgur.com/gbBqixU.png)

- Instead of having 5 or 6 slides for this, I decided to use a single one this time. I hope it is all clear.
- All proposals are currently passing. All but one was passed unanimously.
   
![Proposals in RFC](https://i.imgur.com/H2kzjlw.png)

![RFC MIPs](https://i.imgur.com/2inUZJ8.png)

- MIP65 establishes a framework to arrange, coordinate, and execute a Liquid Bond Strategy to replace part of the current Maker USDC Exporter.
- MIP61, Delegate Compensation, is still being trialed. It has seen a couple of changes recently, so please give it a new [read](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip61-recognized-delegate-compensation/10640) if you have not in the last couple of weeks.

![Core Unit Budgets](https://i.imgur.com/yDGER0U.png)

![Core Unit Offboarding](https://i.imgur.com/nJrsVkc.png)

- Deimos has posted the draft of an Offboarding Proposal set for removing the MakerDAO Shop.

![Amendments](https://i.imgur.com/fQAJOVj.png)

- MIP4c2-SP15 amends the Core Unit Framework, defining MIPs 39, 40, and 41 to improve the current less-than-great Core Unit Offboarding Process. The pull request for this amendment will soon be incorporating all the feedback it has received so far, so please [keep an eye](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c2-sp15-core-unit-offboarding-process-amendments/12920) on it.
- MIP4c2-SP17 amends MIP64, which defines the Bug Bounty Program run by Immunefi Security to make small payments more agile. This entails a modification to Immunefi Security's previous budgets.
    - Originally, this was MIP43, an amendment for proposals younger than three months, which had a shorter-than-usual feedback period of one week. We discussed this with Joshua and agreed that it would be better to stay on RFC for a bit longer and enter the monthly cycle instead. If you have not checked it out, [please do](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c2-sp17-rapid-payment-for-small-bug-bounties-mip64-mip40c3-sp42-amendment/12869). We think it is important for this proposal to gain more exposure.

![Others](https://i.imgur.com/AJD4Ikf.png)

- We have renewed the mandate for the Governance Communications Core Unit, whose goal is to adjust its accuracy and to provide enhanced accessibility to the Core Unit's documentation.
- A Declaration of Intent-Invest in Short-term Bonds is proposed as a solution to MakerDAO having its balance sheet composed of around 60% stable points.

![That's all for MIPs](https://i.imgur.com/XzjWBdY.png)

- Gala and I have been reaching out to remind authors that the posting period for eligible proposals starts on March 2nd. The formal submission window for March opens on Monday 7th.

### Forum at a Glance

#### Artem Gordon

[07:27](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=447)

Post: [Forum at a Glance: February 17th - 24th, 2022](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/forum-at-a-glance-february-17-24-2022/13425)

Video: [Forum at a Glance](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=447)

## Initiative Updates

#### David Utrobin

[13:09](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=789)

- I want to add some context. We aim to do an Initiative Update once every month for each active initiative being tracked. We will do things slightly differently. We will put each initiative in context and assess its progress to effectively decide if it is worth including in a particular update. We will still be targeting monthly appearances, although this could vary. 

### ETH-Denver

![ETH Denver Updates](https://i.imgur.com/6TkhWce.png)

#### Dai Foundation

[14:25](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=865)

![Dai Foundation](https://i.imgur.com/UFc3QoU.png)

- We have noticed we need a dedicated event targeted to the MakerDAO community members, specifically for the Dai Foundation. We took the discussion over to the Governance Communications Core Unit and agreed to bring several Core Units to ETH Amsterdam. This is precisely for the Dai Foundation and its board to be present and specific Mandated Actors and recognized Delegates.
    - We have done some temperature testing during ETH Denver to see if we can make that happen, so that could be one of the upcoming items on everybody's agenda.

#### Real World Finance

#### David Utrobin

[16:34](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=994)

![RWF Core Unit @ ETH Denver](https://i.imgur.com/m2VJf34.png)

#### PECU

#### Derek

[17:30](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=1050)

![PECU @ ETH Denver](https://i.imgur.com/grwiHht.png)

#### Questions:

- David Utrobin: Paper Imperium was asking in the chat about the conversation with TrueFi.
    - Derek: Dialogue started assessing our opportunities in terms of scaling. They support undercollateralized loans similar to Maple and offer multiple loan types. If we can onboard them comparable to Maple, that would give us a scalable solution.
- Person 1: It is key to add that they have exposure to Real-World Assets. What is boring about Maple is crypto speculation. With TrueFi there are real-world user experiences. For example, in Mexico, they provide credit lines for real businesses via TrueFi. Therefore, it would be a great way to get exposure to Real-World Assets. 
    - Person 2: We will have a call with Maple later. Their business model is very different. It seems promising, but we need to determine the best structure and risk-return profile. If they do things the proper way, they can leverage their platform without us reinventing the wheel on the structure inside.
- Person 1: Furthermore, with this uncollateralized lending, there is an increased possibility of default. This is why we should have a reasonable surplus buffer again.
    - Person 2: It depends on your structure. Maple, for example, is uncollateralized on-chain. We could ask the junior pool delegates that required security off-chain through contracts with the borrowers to absorb most of the first losses to decrease risk. I, as an individual, would never advise the protocol to do a D3M with something uncollateralized, managed from the other side of the world by a single team that is yielding 25%. That would seem like throwing money out of the window. 
- Derek: It was good to kick off the discussion and bring people together to have it face to face. We can now take it to the Forum and continue it on.

#### GovAlpha

#### Payton Rose

[23:33](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=1413)

![GovAlpha Core Unit @ ETH Denver](https://i.imgur.com/8tNcOYa.png)

- This was my first GovAlpha conference due to the Pandemic and not getting my Passport in time for Lisbon. I got to explore and see what was going on. I found the whole experience very valuable.
- Thanks to Lenkla is was able to get up on stage for the "Future-proofing Governance Panel."
    - A lot of the feedback for that was that we need to discuss Governance more often in this space. A good signal was that not many other seniors talked about Governance issues. 

#### CES 

#### Robert

[24:58](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=1498)

![CES Core Unit @ ETH Denver](https://i.imgur.com/5NFc6t2.png)

- We were hoping to have an off-site first, but unfortunately, all the craziness in the world and some passport issues disabled us from doing that. Nevertheless, Kauê was able to make it, and I made it too.
- For us, the two main areas were education and goodwill, followed by the Maker relationship building.
    - The first part allows us to learn about new projects, networking, focusing on community building education, which is critically important, as we are in this in-between time with not having a formal marketing presence inside of MakerDAO. 
    - Another invaluable part of it is that, after two years of screen-time with co-workers, ETH Denver evidenced how important IRL is to get things done, to build tighter relationships with everybody. After leaving ETH Denver, we will build upon to get our work done when we collaborate or ask questions. It is critically important, and there is a theme of that going on here. 
- In light of recent events, I want to mention that we have a team member who lives in [Lviv](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=1606), in Western Ukraine. That is on the border of Poland. I would ask of you, whatever your belief system might be, to hold him in your prayers. It is challenging for him and his family, as he has a young baby. I'd appreciate your consideration for him in these trying times.

#### GovComms

#### David Utrobin

[27:26](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=1646)

![GovComms @ ETH Denver](https://i.imgur.com/2jSsDQm.png)

- The three of us talked about the strategy for GovComms for the next few quarters. We discussed what resources our team needs to further improve its offerings, to professionalize what it does. For that, we would like to bring on somebody from the Public Relations side that can help MakerDAO.
    - A part of that was attending several meetings and Maker events. We independently met with various stakeholders in the organization and had many conversations about Coordination and Comms.
    - One of my missions during this trip was to gather feedback around GovComms moving to expand and make a proposal to hire a PR professional. The feedback was positive for that movement, so it will be a part of our budget proposal, which will be up in about a week.
-  We had a very productive ETH Denver. Meeting people in real life is crazy. Zoom is good, but when you spend the same time in person with a handful of people, there is so much more. You get a much richer conversation. You get a lot. It also gives you a chance to bond with the people in the organization, finds that cohesion, and reaffirm the knowledge that we are all on a team together, although we are independent Core Units.
-  Another interesting fact was that, as the Dai Foundation mentioned, they helped us surface the need for a Mandated Actor, Recognized Delegate, and DAI Foundation offsite in the EU, around Amsterdam. We're working on getting that organized.

#### Growth

#### Nadia

[31:04](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=1864)

![Growth @ ETH Denver](https://i.imgur.com/jctrNwA.png)

- Hey everyone. We had an incredible time. Conferences are always intense; while we tried to spend time with the Maker family, we discussed different ideas with partners and potential partners. I will not talk about some of these considerations until we finish working on them.
- We thought a lot about the multi-change strategy, and now that is one of our main objectives for Maker Growth; to help Maker with that. Everything we are doing is with that objective in mind.
- It is the first time I have seen that many new faces. It was packed with people, all of them interested in learning more about Maker.
    -  It was also interesting to see how people who attended the Real-World Finance side event were keen on finding ways to interact and integrate with Maker to get a loan from us.
    -  People also showed interest in working with us, which was great. After I participated as a speaker in ETH Denver, I talked about Maker Growth and how we want to incubate the Marketing Core Unit, and many of them reached out to cooperate with us in this project.
    -  There was also a girl from Tik-Tok asking me if we were interested in collaborating with them.
- I've noticed, and it is something to work on for the next event, that new people did not know that Dai is a part of Maker. I'm aware we do not have a Marketing team, but we have to clarify that Maker and Dai are not separate things.
- We had different internal meetings. One of the most important was with Oasis and Protocol Engineering to talk about institutional votes.
    - We are planning to partner with Oasis for the front end of a new service we will offer.
- I want to thank David for helping me organize the dinner with other Mandated Actors and Delegates. It was the first time we had done something like that.
    - We had the opportunity to discuss different strategies in the Forum: Maker burn, surplus buffer, multi-change strategy, and how to scale Maker. It was great. We need more of these conversations.
- We also collaborated with other Core Units in creating the Maker Party, Daivinity, which was awesome.
    - We had a church covered with the Maker brand and Dai logo. You can watch the video on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DaIvinity/status/1497571300667240451).
    - I want to thank everyone involved: Protocol Engineering, the Oracles, the Oasis team, part of my team also collaborated. Everyone did an amazing job at organizing this party. We would like to repeat the experience in the future, so stay tuned for that.

#### David Utrobin

[35:25](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=2125)

- I also want to express enormous gratitude for Strategic Happiness. Although we did not have a formal sponsorship at ETHDenver, the incredible amount of MakerDAO hats, and Burban organized and ordered in partnership with [Kat](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=2146), was mind-blowing. There were four times more people at ETHDenver than the last one I was at, and Maker had a huge presence: one in every four people was wearing one of our hats.
    - Nadia: You're right, David, I forgot about that. I'm still receiving messages from people on LinkedIn or Twitter telling me they have a Dai beanie. Thanks to Strategic Happiness for that.

## Discussion: Service-Provider CoreUnits

### David Utrobin

[David Utrobin 36:41](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=2201)

- Welcome to the discussion segment. Today, we will be taking on a topic recommended by JustinCase, a recognized delegate here in MakerDAO. The main questions are:

![](https://i.imgur.com/Xbn3rLe.png)

- Since MakerDAO lacks a formal, centralized power structure, and no CU can impose their standards on others:
    - Is the DAO equipped to work with service-provider CUs?
    - Is the DAO ready to deal, use and listen to the advice of service-provider CUs?
    - How should CUs interact with each other to gain trust and provide value?
    - Can CUs serve other protocols?
    - How can we work together and have a buy-in around the various types of work we do?

![](https://i.imgur.com/u2EHhfF.png)

- Here is a list of the 21 CUs. These are like independent teams that each do their scope of work. Risk team, for example, produces assessments on various levels. GovAlpha makes recommendations on governance issues and moderates and mediates the governance side of Maker. GovComms does a lot of the communication side of things and recommendations. It is a service-provider CU. SES, to an extent, also is another service-provider CU. Several of the CUs in this list are very much in this service-provider category. 
- If you would like to further elaborate on the topic, Justin, that would be cool. I would also love to hear what other CUs have done to produce buy-in around their initiatives and recommendations.

[39:04](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=39m04s)

- JustinCase: The reason I brought this up is that we are recently about to onboard a few CUs that are more explicit in their support function. We can do some kind of test: if you remove the other CUs, will this CU still make any sense? And the less sense it makes without other CUs, the more of a support CU it is, as far as I can tell. And the reason is that some CUs might get a role where they should try to make standards for all the CUs, and the only way to be successful in that endeavor is if you have earned the respect of the DAO as a whole; since we do not have a formal power structure, you need to be recognized by the community by bringing value to the table. 
- I also think onboarding these kinds of CUs takes a little more effort from the community. We need to show their need because if the community does not support them, they will fail. I do not believe in onboarding CUs that are set up to fail, which is why I wanted to bring this topic to a wider discussion.

[40:48](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=40m48s)

- Payton Rose: Awesome. It makes the most sense to pause there and see any questions about the topic or the scope before we get too deep into it.
- So far does not seem like it. Well, in that case, the floor is open.

[41:35](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=41m35s)

- David Utrobin: I think that a big key to working cohesively together as a DAO is communication. I have observed in cross CU initiatives that - whoever is leading them - there is not a lot of consideration; an important work item gets put on the table with not too much regard for other teams' bandwidth. I think this happens because there is so much stuff happening, and often things are slow to get moving because everybody has to take time to digest what is being proposed to come up with a sensible and thoughtful position before engaging. And that just takes time. 
- I think communication, lead times, and CUs who want to put forward standards have to make a very case for that standard and also have to do a lot of priming work before making it public.

[42:57](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=42m57s)

- Robert Jordan: One of the things I want to comment on is that decentralization does not eliminate the need for certain functions. If you look at a centralized organization, certain people or groups are needed for its success, and they are organized. In MakeDAO, you have what I call *core* CUs, and then you have the supporting CUs, and we need those supporting CUs. The easiest example: people and talent is our most important asset in a DAO, and that function somehow needs to exist. Each of you can decide whether or not the current CU that is being proposed is the one to do this, but we need that function. So there is a necessity, and decentralization does not eliminate that necessity. I support having these supportive organizations and do not feel anybody is forcing me. I have a choice as a facilitator to use or not to use those services. 
- My stance is: let me, partner, where I can, and where I can not. I will have to do it on my own, but I prefer to partner and collaborate.

[44:30](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=44m30s)

- Niklas Kunkel: I like what Robert just said: many of these services are necessary. And so it does make a lot of sense to have a CU focus on them to solve the problem once rather than having each CU spending a bunch of resources on their own solving the same problem.
- I also want to reinforce that CU should not be forced to use a certain solution. If a solution is good, it will prove itself over time to be good, and you will naturally gravitate towards using that solution. One example I like to bring up is Accountable: I do not think it is a CU, but it is a service that many CUs use because it is useful. CUs are not forced to use Accountable, but in the end, many of them do because it is a good service.

[45:41](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=45m41s)

- Mariano Ventura: Thank you. There have been a lot of discussions around our ---Maker Talent's--- relevancy and if the setup was correct. The first thing we need to consider is that we are learning how to create supporting functions CUs. And what I noticed, being a new member of MakerDAO, is that we are too afraid of losing our independence and our capacity to work autonomously in the CUs. This sometimes leads us to think that any supporting function will take out this ability to work, instead of seeing us as a partner and seeing the supporting functions as someone that will help me perform better while taking off my desk things that are using a lot of my time. 
- I think this is the first conversation we need to have before seeing if a CU is prepared for success. Most of the CUs ---the ones we had so far--- are focused on the product. It was easy to quantify: to give performance metrics, locate business plans, and sell quantity. But in this case, what we're talking about is people, and when I started, I realized that no one could use metrics to forecast what we need, the workforce we will need in the future. 
- I will not just stand here watching because this topic comes from Maker Talent. This is the place for this relevant, healthy, and necessary discussion. We need a change of mindset here: supporting functions CUs will not force me to do things a certain way or will issue policies because this is not the approach that we want to have. We are prepared for winning because we want to see MakerDAO growing and performing. My best example is Governance, which is being responsible, acting professionally, and is gaining respect for what they do. Nobody thinks that Governance is taking out authority or facilitator's freedom. So I think that this is the best approach possible. We will not come and impose policies or force anyone to do anything. The best way is to let in anyone that wants Maker talent to perform and grow, and we will come up with a bunch of best practices, good examples, and success stories. The main thing is it will be optional. 
- We are not planning to force anyone to use it or to resemble the typical HR department issuing policies that everybody will need to follow. This is not what a DAO is meant to be, and this is not the right approach either.

[49:40](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=49m40s)

- JustinCase: I want to echo some of the sentiments that have already been provided. It is very important to retain different CUs' autonomy, and I envision these services as advisory service providers. Different CUs can choose whether they want to use them or not.
- At the same time, we must have a realistic expectation that they will be chosen to be used; otherwise, it does not make sense to onboard them. It takes quite some time and resources to do the onboarding process while provoking expectations in whatever CU we are onboarding. It is really bad for everyone involved if we have to offboard a certain CU after six months because the larger community decided not to use this service. 
- So, while I believe in the voluntary bit of this, I think we should have some sort of temperature measurement in the community, whether this is something they believe in or are willing to try. We do not want to force this on anyone, but we need to openly ask that question before we approve such CUs.
- MakerDAO is getting to the point where we are large enough to need specialized knowledge in other fields, rather than just our Core operating fields. We need an expert at talent, marketing, accounting, legality, and all these other classical support functions you find in a large corporation. But for them to thrive in a decentralized environment, we need to have a certain expectation that the larger community will use them.

[51:53](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=51m53s)

- Mariano Ventura: A chat discussion asks if this should be optional. I mean by “optional” is that we will not force you to use a CU you do not want. We are trying to align ourselves and do everything in the same direction to improve scalability and provide MakerDAO with a framework. Are we providing a compensation frame for facilitators to use? Of course. But if you want to use something different, you can always pay your vendors. And if you want to use different services, go ahead and do it.
- We want to be relevant for all the DAO. We want to provide a compensation framework, job evaluations systems, an induction system for everyone, etc. We are not prepared for outsiders who do not want to use it, but we want to be relevant for those who want to be aligned and see MakerDAO growing. 
- Of course, there will always be someone that does not want to use your system. We need to discuss how the DAO will be managed in the future and what happens if we have a CU that does not want to get aligned with us. We need to have processes for that. But let us now set up a difference between being optional and letting other CUs not be aligned. We are spending money and resources to bring more success and practice. For example, we are going to need aligned practices in marketing. Does this mean that CUs can not use their marketing resources in the future? This is a conversation we need to have in the future. But this does not mean that “optional” means “irrelevant.” 


[54:55](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=54m55s)

- Unknownspeaker: We need to support CUs, particularly those CUs related to legal issues. In SES, we think MakerDAO needs many legal CUs, and SES plans to incubate a series of legal CUs. However, we have to be very careful scoping the mandate. This new legal supporting CU must not have decision authority over other CUs. We need legal support, but we do not need the type of legal support that a centralized company or traditional legal counsel has. 
- The most relevant point is that each CU should be responsible and accountable for its own decisions. If you have supporting legal CUs, the services of this CU should be only on demand and not mandatory. We must not create ---with this supporting CUs--- hierarchies or points of centralization or types of control elements. To avoid this, we will need principles to guide the process. 

[56:08](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=56m08s)

- Juan: I think that this is a feature of a DAO. When you are in a normal company, the top boss might usually mandate you to fill out a form to experiment with a new optimization tool. This might suck. Your whole department might be stuck with it because someone in another department or some expensive consultant thought this great idea and that they will solve world hunger with this. 
- When you are a CU, you are only accountable to the MKR holders. If you decide to serve other CUs, you need to consider them as users. You need to ensure their use of your services adds value to users and makes it so easy that they do not need to do much. Ideally, you need to provide a lot of value at very little cost, which could be time. It could be another Excel sheet that they need to form. This is a huge feature of the DAO. CUs designed to provide value to the DAO are quite powerful. 

[57:40](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=57m40s)

- Payton Rose: Thanks, Juan. One question has surfaced related to these kinds of service CUs: 
    - What happens if their service is not needed for a period of time? 
- A lot of these CUs are structured in a way that they have mandates to be doing at all times. However, if you base your deliverables on what other CUs need, there is a chance that those other CUs will not need your services for a period of time. 

[58:58](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=58m58s)

- Payton Rose: There are many scenarios where you can not be relevant. For example, your CU can no longer be relevant for the business due to outdated technology. This is something that could happen to many CUs.
- In terms of talents, I have been in HR departments where we have been downsizing and where we have been doing loads of things not necessarily connected to hiring. This is one of the biggest challenges that we have. We need to stop thinking that HR is useless if we do not hire. This is the first thing that we need to remove from our current mindset.
- Talent is relevant, especially in bad times. When things are not going well, and you are not hiring, you are not scaling. This is when you need to think about what's failing within your structure, as people usually start leaving when you are failing to scale up. This is when talent is relevant again to identify why people are leaving, why the current structure is not functioning, and why we fail in our people practices.
- What we need to take into account is that the business model can fail. If someone decides to leave Maker or fails to provide a good structure that responds to the market, talent will be relevant again. Usually, in the finance world, hiring is as simple as going to a newspaper posting an ad, and waiting for people to apply. What we are bringing here is much more than this.

[1:04:59](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=3899)

- David Utrobin: Teams at MakerDAO can greatly benefit from supporting function-core units. Not having to retain a talent pool, conducting one to three interviews, and assisting in creating job descriptions already offloads a lot of bandwidth and resources. Whether it is Talent, Strategic Finance, or SES, there is gain from having specialization in the DAO. Then, it is a matter of scaling. A support function that serves and provides value for 20 different teams is more efficient than all the teams. The main challenge is buy-in and the risk of onboarding a Core Unit that might not be very good at being a supportive function. For example, Content Production presented themselves as a supporting Core Unit, but as many people agreed, they did not deliver. The real challenge is clearly defining the scope upfront and the delivery. 

[1:06:28](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=3988)

- Robert: Mariano, thanks for the prompt. This is what is challenging for me. I had some great conversations at ETH-Denver with some delegates about it. Our core units require a great deal of leadership and experience from their managers. I have yet to speak with all the facilitators and people involved, but my gut says we do not have a strong depth of experience with people hiring and managing teams in addition to building and leading companies. I have a background in startups and big companies and held many different roles. I see a people development function inside my Core Unit that is extremely important for my future. I have a few people, but I now have a vast organization. So, I am currently looking for some part-time help. Let us work together. I want to assess my team and provide tools.
- I love her post, but I do not know her name. However, the V18 team and Asia talked about employees and a development perspective from the contributor viewpoint, which is so critical, right in the path that they may not follow. Every day, I keep this in mind when I think about hiring because we hire people globally and retain talent. It is critical for me because I have been there many times before. Others may or may not see its importance until a Core Unit needs some assistance with specific issues. So, I want to throw that lens of perception out there. I intend to use it. I will turn to Mariano and ask tools, systems, or processes are you putting in place? How can I plug into that? I want to make sure my contributors on my team have that as a resource available to them because I want to retain people. It is that simple.
    - David Utrobin: Being young and not as experienced as you, Robert, filling gaps for experience is very relevant to me as a people manager. It is helpful when I have other people and the DAO to call upon for help.

[1:09:13](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=4153)

- Mark: I have some brief comments now that relate to my Core Unit and my hiring experience for the new Strategic Finance team in the past few weeks. By and large, there is a higher requirement to be deeply involved in the community to build trust and relationships with people from scratch for a support type function. Last April, I came on board the DAO as an investor and started pitching out part-time. It slowly ramped up and built trust over time. That is tough for other Core Units that do not organically do this. From a talent perspective, my thought was: do I trust this person to hire for my team? I do not know anything about them.
- I have not had any conversations with them. Ultimately, my decision was no. I decided to use Bankless for my Core Unit, which others are using as a hiring board for crypto. It filters out people that are not natively interested in crypto. In my experience, it has been highly beneficial to understand the candidates out there when making my job descriptions, interviewing people, and doing screenings. It also helped me better understand what we want for our team. For basically $750 per candidate, I will probably have two full-time people hired in a few days. That is an inexpensive way of putting the profiles up there. Sebastian, Teej from RWF, and I have met and interviewed candidates. For now, I do not see a need to change my process. We are getting talent.
    - Mariano: There are other essential things in terms of retaining people. For example, have any facilitators set up for your team members a career plan? Do they know what they will be doing 6, 12, or 18 months in the future? Are we able to offer something for them to retain themselves? Are we having feedback meetings to know what technologies our developers want to work with? These frequent questions concern the admin side of recruitment and the retention side of career plans. Xray revealed that people are not usually leaving for money but instead leaving because of career plans or to work on their projects. We need to pay attention because some core units are not leaving space for these things to happen. 
    - I agree that it is helpful to get the market pulse regarding what Mark Phillips was saying. However, when you need to seek candidates for a miracle unit that has ten positions, you want to see six to seven candidates for each position. This is because there are many reasons why a candidate cannot be a match, such as a lack of full-time availability, salary conditions, or knowledge. It is important to have someone who filters those candidates and provides the ten you want. This does not mean losing the market pulse or not learning from outside. Having a talent department is not always about delegating and picking the people I work with. It is more like a partnership. What are the things you need? Where are we going to find them? Amongst these people, who are the best ones to phone screen to gradually go through the process? It is a team effort, so let us change that a support unit is merely picking the people we work with.

[1:14:01](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=4441)

- Niklas Kunkel: I want to bring the topic back to the general Core Unit services. People have talked exclusively in this column of talent. I want to describe that this discussion is a symptom of a much bigger issue that comes up frequently: a corporation versus a DAO. Although a DAO is more inefficient than a corporation, it is more resilient. DAOs are optimizing for resiliency, not for efficiency. However, a push-pull relationship in a DAO aims to negate those efficiency losses by constantly trying to win back the efficiency gains. And those tend to happen around centralization. If all these core units have this problem, let us have a Core Unit that provides the service to solve this problem for everyone.
- You have gained efficiency and lost resiliency because now you have this central point of failure. Paper Imperium mentioned in the chat that we should have a Banking Core Unit because it is hard for Core Units to get banking. Well, imagine if the Banking Core Unit gets picked off. Then suddenly, every Core Unit would lose banking at the same time. There is no right or wrong answer here where always say yes or no to service Core Units. However, I would like us to keep in mind their service. How big of an impact would it have on the protocol or the DAO? How debilitating would it be if that Core Unit was targeted? In some instances, we can live with those consequences. It makes sense to have a service Core Unit that provides that service. And in other cases, the threat that poses may not warrant the efficiency gain.
    - Prose11: In terms of reflection, Nik is built from the facilitator's perspective. You have this interesting dynamic at play where you are responsible for the Core Unit. It is your little autonomous organization within itself. If it is not performing, you can be offboarded or face other consequences. Even if you are willing to lean on a service unit, it is with the understanding that their job still needs to be done if they cannot do it. So, in many ways, it becomes a harder sell for facilitators. However, a benefit of delegation is using less brainpower and labor. That is a win for the DAO.

[1:17:41](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=4661)

- Mariano: There is an interesting conversation in the chat about the daily tasks needed to retain people. Of course, this topic is not black and white. We will not stop asking questions about retention because we have a support team and challenge the Core Unit. Supporting functions can provide help and human resources tools, new apps, and other things to help your platform. You may not know these things because it is not your core business. The idea is to bring value, not complete delegation. There is something in the middle, and every Core Unit's contribution level is different. All the positions that we closed since we started were different. Some wanted to do the full interview, and others did not. The great thing about the DAO is that everybody can choose the contribution level from the supporting Core Unit.

[1:19:47](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=4787)

- David Utrobin: I am curious to hear responses to Paper Imperium’s points in the chat. Support CUs could break away, and you would still be responsible. There is some resiliency there, but are there not irreplaceable core units like Oracles and the engineering teams? It is a huge risk if they fail or are underperforming.

[1:20:25](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=4825)

- Juan: We tried to make every single point of failure disappear. That is how you fully decentralized; this is the objective. A shameless plug: there is a call in the status update for SES at 3:30 UTC for three new tracks we will be releasing. One of them includes outreach and has to do with Comms and Marketing. The other has more to do with transparency reporting. We are working closely with Strategic Finance to make that better. And last one deals with legal risks in many ways. How do we deal with those risks? And how do we make sure that Maker is even more decentralized and avoid having this point of failure?

[1:21:38](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=4898)

- David Utrobin: We need to incentivize graceful offboarding in CUs, especially if there are many dependencies. This could be through MKR compensation packages that continue to vest if you gracefully wind down your Core Unit. I saw that in the GovAlpha MKR budget proposal. There are other mechanisms to minimize centralized points of failure in major core units. To Long's point in the chat, if GovAlpha drops off the map, the processes are written down in the MIPS. Anyone can operate the governance processes well enough to recover. We are trying to do something like this at GovComms. We make all our documentation public. We do not want the function to disappear if we are voted out. We hope that somebody can take our work and make it better. But at a minimum, we do not want to have a silo of the information or our processes. We want to make it so that we are replaceable. This is not great for the security of our team in terms of our positions here. However, the DAO needs to have open-source projects to make documentation around various functions available. Part of that is accounting standards, cross-team knowledge, and team-specific knowledge.
    - Mariano: We have started a communications plan to talk with facilitators about their concerns. If we go through another voting cycle, the communications plan may change. There are no concerns about the roadmap. We agreed that most of the touchpoints in our MIP are necessary. The level of adoption is the challenge here. This is what we will be working on for the next cycle.

[1:24:46](https://youtu.be/71jiZxW2cHE?t=5086)

- Nadia Alvarez: What happens if only one CU uses the support service? Is that okay? Or is the idea for most CUs to use that service? We need to answer that before we onboard a new support Core Unit. If we have the freedom to decide the service providers we want to use, what is the objective for the DAO in onboarding the support CU? Is it to be used by one CU, all of us, or half of us? When does it make sense to onboard it or keep it as a service provider?
    - Mariano: Are we tackling our daily problems? Are we working on issues that we commonly understand need to be addressed? Having metrics for compensation, hiring, and onboarding people in the future will make our lives easier. It will also make our scaling processes easier. We all agree on that. Then, the discussion focuses on the project quality that makes you use these services. You will not be providing different projects to different Core Units. Instead, we must ask additional questions. Do we have a problem with salaries in terms of how we hire? How efficient are we in hiring intelligent people into the DAO? If we all agree on the issue, the supporting CU is relevant. Otherwise, it does not make sense. So, the question is, are we working on relevant projects? Are we addressing real problems that we are having? If all the facilitators agree on that, then it makes sense.

## Conclusion

### Payton Rose

- It has been an excellent discussion here today. I do want to be mindful of everyone's time, though. Keep these discussions and ideas going in the forum. That is the best place to debate these things for the long term, share ideas, and learn. So thank you, everyone, for joining us on this covered service call. And we will see you again next week, same time.

[Suggestion Box](https://app.suggestionox.com/r/GovCallQs)

## Common Abbreviated Terms

`CR`: Collateralization Ratio

`DC`: Debt Ceiling

`ES`: Emergency Shutdown

`SF`: Stability Fee

`DSR`: Dai Savings Rate

`MIP`: Maker Improvement Proposal

`OSM`: Oracle Security Module

`LR`: Liquidation Ratio

`RWA`: Real-World Asset

`RWF`: Real-World Finance

`SC`: Smart Contracts

`Liq`: Liquidations

`CU`: Core Unit

## Credits

- @Artem_Gordon produced this summary.
- @Harrizko produced this summary.
- @larryag produced this summary.
- @Sol_Invictus produced this summary.
- Everyone who spoke and presented on the call.​
