Community, Crypto, and Culture... DAOs w/ Derrick Thomas

the being hired by one another. And it all started because on the court, it provides an opportunity for members to essentially like play and essentially have like these non verbal communications queues being activated, like you know, when you're passing, you put on the ball and you're making a shot. I have a relationship with you that's a little bit deeper than you know just me giving you a business card. I'm with Lucas and this is Black Tech, Green Money.

I'm gonna introduce you to some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas. Feel Black in building or simply using Texas to get your back.

This podcast is Feel Derek Thomas, otherwise known as DT, is founder and CEO at Doal Labs, a launch path of dows which stands at the intersection of community, crypto and culture, and social engineer, co creator of Miami Tech Runs and l A Tech Runs which brings together emerging and established founders, vcs and creatives to build community, hoop

and practice mindfulness. In my d m s, they're full of questions about dows, crypto, n f T s and like, so I brought on Derrek Thomas DT to talk about the ows and really break down what they are and what they could mean for you and your organization. A DOWN stands for decentralized autonomous organizations. You know, as the name suggests, it's a DOWN. A DOLL is a organization that's automated by computer code UM and open for anyone to participate as long as they meet some basic requirements UM.

Being autonomous means that the smart contract can help run the majority of the process without human interference, and out is created and managed by a community with collectively manage which collectively manages its funds and projects. So you know, that's kind of like how it works and a very lament way of saying it is. A DOW is essentially a group chat, shared bank account, and cap table. So as an example, I'm gonna guess, like, so, like let's

take your Miami Tech runs. You're gonna say, if I hold one of these tokens, or these coins, and we want to play on Saturday instead of Sunday. You know, that's a proposal that I can make to the community. Yeah, absolutely, So you know, when you're thinking about you know, in practice, right, UM, there are certain things that you want to propose to the entire community, and then there are certain things that you may want to propose just just like you're working

group UM. And I'll explain what working groups are in in the later half of this, but essentially there's usually you know, governance is something that everyone is essentially trying error trying erroring and creating some type of process around. But essentially when you're thinking about UM playing and the rules of the game as well as the cadences of

which you meet. When when you guys uh decide to you know, pay certain people when the treasury is used, usually you use that use that voting UM tool to actually make that possible. So you know, there's so many people who are you know, very Internet savvy, can can

build software, etcetera. And there's others who are just really good community builders, people who know how to get people engaged in you know, social efforts and etcetera, which which is more important when you think about creating a successful doubt, the technology of a doubt or the ability to galvanize community around it. Great question. Um, I think both is really really important. UM. But being good at the community

I think stands become it becomes just more it's more imperative. UM. There's tons of tools out there that allow us to you know, spin up a doubt and not necessarily focus so heavily on the actual underlying technology. But essentially the way that the technology works is built on like these open source blockchains where you know, anyone can see what's

written into the code, right UM. Proposals can be submitted, audits can be happened around the group's treasury, UM, and it you know, other actions can actually you know, be recorded and essentially shared on a transparent record UM, around the entire community. So like you can focus on the technology, but there's no doubt or there's no community, I mean if there's there, if there there's no community, you know, no doubt, there's no doubt, right so, or no successful

one for sure a doubt. So you know, I think that community becomes the true indicator of like what's important. UM. And there's a few things you've got to really consider when you think about the community, Right, you gotta think about the north star, like what's important, like the purpose behind why you're creating it. Um, you got to think about whether or not, like what you're choosing to do the functionality is it truly decentralized? Can you achieve that?

Can can can what you want to achieve be better off centralized? Or should it be something that you get a collective vote on? Um The logic sticks around that, which is really important as well as like how you handle um certain things to actually accomplish that. And then like the narrative, like what are you're sharing to the community to keep them engaged, keep them moving forward? The mission and vision of values, and then like essentially the lifespan of it, like where are you going to Like

how what do you create this doubt to do? Like the constitutional doubt for example, was created to simply purchase the constitutional I mean the constitution and make that whereas in some like like tech runs. You know it's started off as basketball, but essentially the next of it is the idea of building like this playground at this ultimate

playground in the metaverse. But eventually what we're getting to its building and decentralized sports league, like and what and how having different you know, locations play against one another, So what does that look like? Right? And so all these different pieces play a role, but none of that can be done without community. Could so could you could have the new version of the NBA in five years or ten years? Pretty much? I mean as possible. I

mean anything is possible, right U. I'm not saying that. Uh, you know, it just comes down to we're explored. We're gonna explore. You said, you said a couple of things there that I thought were really interesting in it. I think there's two ways, Like you started these tech runs with people who want to play ball, right and then but when I listen to you talk now here like

something like there's a mission in some respects. What was the thing that got people excited about these tech runs when it's like we're here to play ball, But it wasn't like we're here to save you know, the whales. You know what I'm saying. I get like why people want to save the whales, but why would I buy a token to play basketball? What was the value there that you believe was you know, the driving force to

people being engaged with techlers. Good question. Um. The key thing for us is we're building the ultimate playground at the intersection of the force crypto and culture, you know, for us, and it it was really about how can we mobilize and essentially grab the crypto curious, those who are crypto native, but the crypto curious and bring them into Web three UM in a way in which that was really native and to their current like way of life, right, UM, And I think the the what we are we're in

a we're in a new generation the internet, and the Internet is essentially moving at a pace that's um, you know, that's exponential, but also at a pace where a lot of people, and we've seen this in the past, have

been left behind. So my question is like, how can we not onboard the masses into Web three, but how do we bring Web three down to the masses so that it can be digestible, easy for them to understand, and then through that process of that shared interests, we can then you know, essentially teach them the way UM in a way in which that's fun, native, um and respectable by most. So you know, when you think about dalstals,

one of a doll killer would be idleists. So when you're thinking about sports unifies, that's the natural property of it. It's one that people can play, it's one that people can watch and bet on UM. And we saw, you know, me being a former athlete, like I've seen it in

so many different ways build and essentially unite communities. So I wanted to test that model UM out in this space and create one of the first sports social clubs that can allow for people to kind of gather around, build around something that they completely understand, and then take that, take that lesson and UM taken to the next level. So the mission is, the vision is a lot larger than even that, But we knew that we had to get people in the game. And we're not talking about

on the court. We're talking about in the game of web grade. No that that response, it's probably one of the better ones I've heard, because I see so many doubts and I don't have a question here, but this is more common. I have all of these, you know, dials that come across my desk, you know, a proverbial desk, and you know, everybody is looking for like what the utility is, Like, what is the value of somebody owning this particular token? And the way you just described it,

you know, the dial killer is idleness. And so when you're creating something that creates community, getting people out in the basketball court, I get now why that that's stronger. The utility UM is so important to the success of

the doll. You've got these people who are coming out, celebrities, even people who are can be crypto whales come out and play because they want to be around like minded people who are investing in this thing called Web three and they found community and they want to get out and play ball with some people who you know are similarly situated, so really really good in and let me share and let me share if something but if that's okay. UM. The result of that, right, the result of using sports

as just a proxy UM. You get the people that when we first started UM had no cryptolola, they knew nothing about purpe um, and just a short four months, not only did they have full understanding of you know, they are now crypto native, they were also you know,

choosing certain lanes. So some were going down the n f T Degon route where they learned a lot about n f T. That became something that they were passionate and interesting, interested in some went down to the down, you know, and created more downs, like we spent up a yoga down out a result of the tech lines

down UM. And now they go on retreats and holding that membership token allows you to get access to places all over the like Egypt, um um, excuse me, all over the world, like Egypt and St. Louis, St. Lucia and you know, in some parts of Africa. So but beyond that, it's about, you know, and I think it's really important. It's about collaborative competitiveness on the court, but collaboration off the court. So on the sidelines where the

magic happens. It's the dealmaking. It's the four million dollars being invested in each other. Um, it's the starting new projects, it's the being hired by one another. And it all started because on the court it provides an opportunity for members to essentially UM like play and essentially have like these non verbal communications queues being activated, like and when you're passing you on the ball, when you're making a shot, I have a relationship with you that's a little bit

deeper than you know, just me giving you a business card. Right, So it's like thinking about it in that in that fashion, and I think that's what created the success of it, and not from an economic perspective. You know, not only are we playing together, building try having fun, but we also token is rising because more people are joining, more people are finding the utility UM successful student valuable to them and then through them you know, now people are

also earning at a high pace. No, I like that a lot. And you talked about this the value of that community, and it's starting to pervade into other lanes of athleticism yoga. You mentioned when you think about tech runs, what was the initial catalyst that caused the community you're building to be successful? Because anybody could have just said I'm gonna put together a basketball down, But how was your community built? Like, what was the impetus to get

people interested in d T S? Right? I think, um, it was a couple. The number one thing is the community became the mode. We were very very like intentional about like who we had joined um to kind of spirit had this community. So we went after entrepreneurs, founders, creators, investors, those who are you know, not just like minded, but

they have something to offer. And it got to a point where during the second half of members who were essentially um, you know, like we started to recognize that, like the news, the headlines that were happening, the mergers and acquisitions, the big plays that were happening not only interesting where three, but just around the country in tech. You know, someone in IDOW actually played a part in our role and making that possible. So now someone like me who did this last did this like our you

know t K deal. You know, like, can you share some some thoughts around us and give us some insight so you know, from the public view, they can allow us to see, you know, how deals are being done, how things are being built, and giving me a certain knowledge set that I had no you know, no access to prior to being a part of this style, right, So I think it's stuff like that that creates a lot of value UM And through that, partnerships started to happen.

And that's when, like we played at the Miami Heat arena, we partnered with like the f t X arena to actually make that possible. And that's when you know, the news, you know, the news took off. I mean, people start to recognizing that, oh wow, like this this is not only a cool doubt, but they also played on NBA cords and then skyboxes. They're going to Puerto Rico. They're like, right now our logo is on a professional basketball team,

which is incredible. And that's exactly what happened from there. Like once that started to take off and we started to scale into different cities, we believe that we're like a global community, but essentially like a local culture. We want to make sure that. The reason why we do it this way because we recognize every city has their own culture and we don't want to distruct that by making it like one size fits all. I love that

you're a businessman too, you know. I don't want to assume that you do this just because out of the kindness of your heart. I imagine it could be, but I imagine that there's a business opportunit here for you as well and for the community. And so can you explain how the economics work? You know, because if I start a company, I get you know, I sell a product, I generate revenue. If I sell a service, I generate revenue and something. You know, whatever that bottom line is,

you know, those that's my profit. That's the money I get to take home and buy a new car, A new house or whatever. Pay my bills with the DOW. How does it work in the respect of I get to build something that is governed by a decentralized and autonomous computer system software, but there's revenue in it for not just the community. But how does DT get paid? Because if I want to go hard to DOW, how do I get paid? Ultimately? Absolutely absolutely, so they're the

economics is pretty proofful. It's really supportive of the entire give. Essentially, dolls get value to the edges and community. So the way in which you can earn UM is by engaging UM. We have a system set forth where you know, members can join working groups and build different silos of the community so that the community can function as a whole right. UM. We have growth leads, partnership leads, We have people that handle membership relations which is essentially like onboarding people. UM.

We have people that lead the community. We also have people that lead the governors to treasury management. So the way we do that UM is we provide resources like we provide the resources in the in the form of the native token UM some U s DC depending on like the scenario UM, and they get paid for bounties like different projects that they work on and complete. UM and as this token continuous to increase, you know, we have a structure where you can pay. You can get

paid in two different ways. One is, you know, you can get paid by a certain set of tokens right which you can capture the outside as it continues to increase UM. I Obviously the variable or the risk to that is like if it starts to drop, you'll you'll catch that out, you know it catch it downside as well.

But on the other side, there is also the stable aspect of it, like you can say, hey, listen, I'm gonna we can all vote to give someone you know two part time for a month of their opportunities or like if they complete a certain amount of tasks I when you're put on either a salary or a project based situation, and that would be given into the native token, but they were given in the amount in which we set for, like if it's two thousand, two thousands worth

of this native token UM and uh so that's the way we incentivize our community. And so the way I get paid is you know, the same way. UM And then like there's a couple other you know, a mad like magical I think magical opportunities where you can, once you earn enough tokens, you can do a lot of things with it to actually like transition that into eat or um, you know, like you know, create what they call liquidity prod pools to actually like pay yourself, you know,

through the fees. And I mean obviously I can go into the great detail and that later, but essentially you can be a liquidity provider where like I take some of my tokens and now added to a pool, meaning so that other members like you will and that's how or whoever can actually join the community. And because I create a pool, I expanded the pot of which people can join, right the amount of tokens and encirculated supply. And because of that, it's almost like a token appreciation.

I can get paid in fees, almost like a bank to actually have people join and be can be in a an important be in the form of ethereum, or it can be in the form of the native token of vote. So and this is from my mown benefit, because I've had so many people We've been having these dial conversations, and I heard this quote that says you can't bring a web two way of thinking into web read and I think there's like a disconnect with so many people who are trying to think of how to

make this make sense. And so I'm gonna ask you, like, is is it what you just explained? Is it kind of like you know, I get paid, Like think about the traditional stock market. I get paid in more stocks of you know, McDonald's or whatever. And by engaging with the community of McDonald's, they give me more stocks, and so I get to pay my bills when I cash that stock out. Is that what you're saying kind of how dolls works off? If I engage with the tech

runs down, I earn these tokens. Therefore, you know you're saying, I get to, you know, realize that personal reward. Does that is that get turned into dollars when I just decided to cash in some of those tokens so that I can go pay my bills, so that I can go take a vacation, Right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, to a certain degree, yes, like you have you can

get paid in the quote unquote company's equity. Right. Um, when I was at Tesla, you know, you know, through bone this as we have bonuses and instead of cash, we had equity. We got paid more and more testa stock UM, and that can pay off later on, like you know, especially when you're giving earlier UM. Given the fact that Tesla has you know, performed the way it has in markets, so the same model comes here. But it also, like Web two is not completely vanished from

Web three. So like the idea that like there's a complete separation. No, um, it's just a follow on. Like it's ReadWrite and own. It's not only own, it's also right too. So like when we think about the model, we still wanna you know, how do you make you know, the salaries competitive. We look at ways in which we can um. We look in the market and say, hey, listen, how much more someone get paid in normal dollars and then like we can apply that in this model. Um,

and we're just getting paid in the native token. So it all comes down to now when we're talking about the Web three, you know, play of it. It's okay your you might receive the native token, if you might receive and those two things. UM, it's something in which if you have coin based, if you have all these other like if they're blocked by some of these other like banking tools that are more web three native UM.

It can give you an opportunity to you know, you can hold your crypto and like borrow against it, or you can essentially cash out whenever you you find out to be suitable as well. So how can people who are you you talked about some of the people who came to tech Runs didn't even have a wallet in

the beginning. How can people who are UM trying to get dial experience interested in things like tech runs and others friends with benefits and of it, Like, how can we easily get dial experience if we want to dip our toe in the water to just kind of figure this thing out. What are some things you would recommend we do. I think the the best thing you can do is participation so you can learn a little bit.

But I think just jumping in UM. And what jumping in looks like is you know, there's communities, like if you see say tech runs, and you see the activity that's going on, like our d ms are stacked, and in our d ms we have members saying, hey, listen, I want to join. How do I get up? How do I get a how do I get around or get around like becoming a member or you know, how do I participate UM. The best way in which we can do that is through UM. We have like a

membership application process, right, so like you can apply. Once you apply, we have our membership relations people, you know, start to do her due diligence and essentially reach out to those people and those people and she kind of walks through that process why they be a good fit, et cetera, and then eventually they buy the token. So like the decentralized part of it is, you know, for most people, you can you can buy your tokens and you can buy someone's tokens and that's the first start.

So friends with benefits the same thing, you buy their tokens. You can apply M. Once you apply, you get reached out to and you know you join that that that first group, that private discord channel, once you own those tokens and you've been approved, and then they walk you through that you know, their own boarding process from their from their ether. So it's you know, every process has a different model. UM. Some you can just join by just buying the n f T or just a token.

Some has an application process because they're kind of like vetting the vibes and trying to have controlling They just making sure that like the vibes are being you know, UM are fourth yeah, is being protected. UM, but it's it's not necessary. And then some just have an open group chat like l a tech runs has an open

group chat. You can join by just clicking on the Lincoln by in an Instagram bio and then boom like once you're in there, you can talk for some of the members, you can talk to some of the tokenholders and UM, you can figure out who the leadership is. You'll see all the the UM, all the notes and vision vision vision envission values. You can break things down from there. So I'm always interested in where black people fit,

you know, with regards to Web three opportunity. What unique perspective do you believe black people bring to the conversation of Web three, not just dis but n F T S and the whole Like, what what do we uniquely bring that we can realize the value of good question? UM? Our culture? I P. I think the way in which we operate UM, it's it's clearly very different. The way we consume is very powerful. UM. The way we you know,

we can influence different brands. I mean, most of most brands, and it's in America is built off of black culture. So when you think about, you know, how we can play and how we can you know, participate in this new this new paradigm shift that's happening in the Internet. I think that the key thing is we can bring that those tastemakers, we can bring the way in which

we want to do business. Like there used to be a cookout, you know, dow that essentially brought people together and essentially had that same model of the pigure like hey, listen, we're gonna talk about this over you know, over play the food or whatever, case and be. And then essentially, you know, as they built out certain projects, they're gonna

invest in one another. Then there's opportunities like ours, which is a very diverse and inclusive down sports it was dominated by black culture, to be honest, right, So how can we how can we leverage And I noticed that like our down and some of the other social downs out there, mainly us in Friends of Epest are like some of the most diverse dous. We're not like all women's style, we're not all anything that We're literally a melting pot um. I think it's because of the cultural

ip that we chose to participate in. Um. Beyond that, I think it's what we choose to do, right. Um. You know I said this before. I was talking to a friend and I mentioned that I never traded collectibles when I was a young kid, I was still in line for our pair of Jordan's right. I you know, I put things on the lay away. I put my no official awhere, like I did things like you know my parents put just to set up so that you can still use the same thought processes to actually play

in the space. Right, Like putting your sign on the layaway is basically saying all, I'm gonna put some down at the at the floor, and then when it becomes popular or when it becomes in season, essentially I'm gonna go in and and buy up. So it's the same thing like buying a n f T is like minting at the early stages, and you're learning how to get in at the early stages, and then when it becomes popular you can buy more where you can you know, you can sell or you can do things, but you're

learning how to get in early. And the same thing with the drops, right, like Jordan drops whatever it is, and you're still in a lot of for us, so you understand that process of like getting in early and the value of having access to information to actually make that decision happen. But I think that the type of communities that we're gonna be able to form in the

black culture is going to be second or nine. I think it's sally under represent it, um, but gladly in a in a in a position that we're going to actually be able to play at like at the you know, I think at the forefront. I love that when you think about particularly black communities, but communities at whole, Like, there are things that are still missing in our culture. Dows are new to most people. Um. This is probably a phrase we got familiar with in the last six

months or so. But if I'm thinking about creating a DOW, what are spaces that you believe are super right for DOW creation? UM, believe it or not, any community with that has purpose, right, I think the possibilities are endless. Um. We're talking that reddi group chat that you have, you know, that Facebook group that wants to gather around to raise capital or raise resources to for some positive some outcome. Right, There's things like ours, like bringing together people to build

sports leagues. There's, um, I mean just the possibility and endless. I think that I would like to you know, have people encourage I mean encourage people to actually just try new try new things, whether it's a songwriter down where you're bringing together people together to essentially um, you know, write songs from major artists and then that major artists like Beyonce can pay that dolls treasury to lightnse some

of that work. There's there's so many activations and I think that and uh, you know, the potential for use cases for dolls is you know, it's it's endless. So to that end, how because you talked about black culture in dolls, you know, and what we bring to it. But how does culture impact the success of a doll? Like you talked about black I P and etcetera, Like is it important to be more fully who we are more presently black? And like how does that impact the success? Gotcha? Um?

You know, we're living in a world where authenticity is scaling, right, um, Our digital identities are becoming more prevalent than anything else before. But everyone is becoming creators. You know in this new world, you know you own the value create. So as we are creating on the Internet, I think that the way in which we choose to create um plays a huge

role in that. So when you think about cultural impact, we're thinking, you know, it drives the engagement because people get to align themselves with things that you care mostly about. And I think the engagement is the essential building block for a successful doubt. If your culture speaks to a community, you know, your community will naturally drive that doubt success

through participation in engagement. So you know, when you think about cultural impact, it's like, you know, it's it's the words that we choose, the language, it's the way in which we talk to one another in that down you know, right now you have a big thing you see gm g mg MGM. Right, that's that's cool for you know, that's a culture. That's a cultural like that's a cultural language. But if you think about someone like Beyonce she has to be high, which is like a cultural world in itself.

Or you have someone like uh, you know, think of Nicki Minaj. She has the Barbie Crew and they speak a certain way, they act a certain way, like there's a there's a there's a cultural I P and and swagger about them, and I think that which keeps them aligned, and it keeps them engaged, and it keeps people participating and also identifying who they are. And the same thing goes for Greek. So when you think about cultural impact UM, you can think about the like what are the what

are the norms? Like what like what is the language you're trying to get? And also I think it ties right back into like how communities are built, right the best way in the way communities are built, it's your purpose, the goals, the purpose of that community need to be defined. And then through this like the community can naturally be built. And then now and when you narrowly define your community's purpose and goals, you know, that's everything during the initiation

process of building. And then like once you set the community, set to throw the culture um, you can now collaborate and coordinate because there's people that already have, you know, a sense of belonging and they feel like all right, like I you know, I know where I'm going, I know what I'm about, I know what I'm a part of. And now you can start building these these tribal um you know U effects, it's really really really really uh ex exciting, but it's also really fascinating at the same time.

So for folks who are not super technical and they're watching this right now um or listening to this howere and they want to start it down, They've got an idea for a community down in their local geography. They want to build one for their city or for their friends group. I remember one of the guys you were in with at Afro Tech executive in Miami. He said, like a doll is like a group chat with a battle sheet, and I thought that was pretty important and sweet.

So if if I'm not super technical, but I want to start a DOW, where do I start? How do I do this? Right? I mean there's tons of resources online. Um, there's DOW launch pads. I mean, we have one Labs is essentially a down launch pad where you can come and learn and make we make it easy to make it manage social dowa um, and we provide you with the tools to token creation as well as the uh you know, help you with to go to the community strategic because we recognize that some of these members of

crypto curious versus cryptal native. Right, So, um, there's launch paths out there that's also an opportunity for you guys to read up on different materials and launch you know, a group chat. Right, there's cole and there's discourse. You can start there. Um, it doesn't really you know, the first part of building downs you have to build a community.

So building a community having a north star that one liner purpose of like what what you guys are getting together about, right, um, deciding whether or not this community is centralized and decentralized as another factor, right like and then um looking at the logistics, like identifying like what needs to be handled, you know, to accomplish the north star goal. So like, once you have like some of these key things in place, then at that point you

can just go to one of the launch pads. You can come to me if you need to, um, you can go to other communities that already have hows um join one, and then like from there you learn to lay the land. Black Tech Green Money is to production of Black and the Afro Tech, the Black Fact Podcast Network, and i Heeart Media, and it's produced by Morgan Dubon and me Well Lucas, with additional production support by Love

beacham Risa Lewis. Special thank you to Michael Davis, your main halles's of car savan Yan you know like the white Yes, that's this really. Learn more about my guests and other technis shoppers to innovators, to afrotech dot com, and the video version of this episode will drop the Black Tech Green Money on YouTube. So tapping enjoy your black Tech Green money, leave us a five star rading on iTunes. Go eat your money, peace and love,