**Sushi - Post Mortem on AG Whistleblow**

**The Situation**
On November 24th, 2021, now-former team member, AG, was terminated following a pattern of unprofessional behavior. Post-termination, she published a series of denigrating tweets in a targeted effort to damage Sushi’s reputation. We have information that leads us to suspect that previous leaks were carried out by AG as well. These problems are symptomatic of a larger issue, which is that accountability and transparency are non-trivial human resource problems in a DAO. The Core takes issues raised by AG very seriously, and is working on building a framework for those such issues can be raised and resolved without disrupting the entire Org.

**Our Response**
Prior to the incident at hand, we had received negative feedback on the former community member’s working relations and learned of proactive efforts to subvert Sushi. Offenses include, but are not limited to:

* Negative attitude, as cited in formal complaints from several Chinese community members
* Resignation of a colleague due to toxic work environment that was stoked under her oversight
* Resorting to repeated personal attacks with baseless accusations on Sushi personnels following disagreements
* Alleged creation of external accounts populated solely by dramatics, and denial of creating these accounts when asked, namely @makibacknow
* Attempts of amicable transition of organizational-level assets and processes have failed. Certain community assets remain under her control.

We had several conversations with the former community member on these offenses, eventually making clear that her behavior was in violation of our Code of Conduct and her role would be terminated should it continue.

The behavior continued and the former team member was thus let go with more than 80% core team consensus. Following termination, Sushi requested archives of G Suite account information available, as is customary. This information revealed that the former community member in question may be behind a ProtonMail email address ([e-mail]), and attempts of reaching out to news organizations of baseless accusations in a highly public and toxic format. In addition, we are also investigating any ties to the polemic @makibacknow account.

It has become clear that the actions taken by a disgruntled former community member were done so with the sole aim of undermining Sushi following her departure. Nonetheless, we take negative claims seriously and called a public forum on November 25th to address concerns to ensure clarity for community members. It can be found on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy8X0T3AGwc). Now that the claims have been addressed and we’ve taken measures to confirm the former team member’s involvement in attacks on Sushi, we look forward to moving on and continuing to build.

**Key Takeaways**
Conversely, every crisis is an opportunity to fine tune how we interact with our community, and we see room for improvement. While we take any allegation against Sushi and its Core Team seriously, our response time and official response could have made this clearer. We have a responsibility to our community members to keep them informed, and we could have been more responsive quicker to ensure they knew we had the situation under control.

**COURSE OF ACTION**
The problems that arose created a sense of urgency to generate a more healthful and productive work environment. It concentrated energies, and provided an example of the kind of behavior that needs to be prevented, while also creating a sense of community among the members who produce without fail. An Open-source Contributor process and a human resource system are currently being sought, and a formal code of conduct is underway as well. In addition, a Sushi Gigs platform has been in development for some time, and a framework for onboarding new members is being formalized.

These individual aspects are pieces of a new structure for the Sushi Org, which we have referred to conversationally as Sushi 2.0. It has become clear that the existing flat-org structure is not working. The existing structure makes it too challenging for individuals to raise genuine concerns, and on the flipside, it makes the Sushi work environment vulnerable to Sybil attacks.

We agree and admit that there were mistakes made. Sushi is the largest ground-up DAO in existence, therefore we are the first to experiment many things. There will inevitably be bumps on the road, but collectively, we will strive to build smooth processes and structures that best serves our community. Going forward, we are committed to involve the community in larger decisions, and create more transparency with the community. We will soon release a second statement that provides clarity and context around some of the actionable next steps, and will address the issues raised by the community at large.

Further response to the allegations can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy8X0T3AGwc

We will continue to respond to the community in the most appropriate formats to provide clarity and context around the current events.