Proposal “coreteamcomp0818“ (Completed)Back
| Title: | Core Team Compensation (August) |
| Owner: | glennaustin |
| One-time payment: | 2453 DASH (73770 USD) |
| Completed payments: | 1 totaling in 2453 DASH (0 month remaining) |
| Payment start/end: | 2018-07-18 / 2018-08-17 (added on 2018-07-08) |
| Final voting deadline: | in passed |
| Votes: | 0 Yes / 0 No / 0 Abstain |
Proposal description
This proposal is cross-posted from: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-core-team-compensation-august.39328/
Background
We expect proposing a funding request related to compensation to the Dash network every month for the foreseeable future until DCG has a buffer in place equal to 2-3 months of compensation expense.
The team has 69 paid team members, and we have 3 critical open positions that will further expand this over the coming several months to ~72. The current run-rate is ~$445,000 monthly. This is an average of ~$6,500 / month / contributor.
As of end of June, the breakdown of the number of staff we have working in each department is as follows:
- Marketing / International Outreach - 11 staff - plans to expand to 12
- Development - 29 staff - plans to expand to 33
- Project Management - 4 staff - plans to expand to 5
- Infrastructure - 2 staff - no further expansion planned
- Support - 1 staff - no further expansion planned
- Quality Assurance - 4 staff - no further expansion planned
- Leadership and Admin - 9 staff - plans to expand to 10
- Strategy - 4 staff - no further expansion planned
- Human Resources - 1 staff - no further expansion planned
- Business Development - 4 staff - no further expansion planned
These numbers do not include an additional 11 freelancers that are also issued payments and/or stipends for work performed.
Last month we requested $600,000 and due to the fluctuation of Dash received only ~$475,000. We expect to be more exposed to currency fluctuation risk than in the past since we are now submitting our proposals at the beginning of the budget cycle (instead of the middle or latter half of a budget cycle) to provide the rest of the community earlier visibility into our funding requests. This month we are requesting $600,000 again. As previously communicated, the need for this specific amount is three-fold:
1) Our current run-rate including benefits is ~ $445,000 monthly.
2) One-time deposits to initiate conversion of international subcontractors to full-time status. The international professional employer organization (PEO) requires a first month and last month deposit of employee’s salary and benefits to initiate the conversion. We are asking for $80,000 to onboard the first handful of employees. This will provide the following professional management services to Dash core employees outside of the U.S.: employee benefits, payroll and workers' compensation, recruiting, risk/safety management, and training & development. We wanted to onboard the first handful of employees in July, but the sharp decrease in the price of Dash in June effectively eliminated the deposit requested for this purpose.
3) To rebuild a buffer in the Core Team Compensation budget to account for potential Dash volatility. This is the second month where we have requested additional Dash to rebuild the buffer. Similarly to our budget for the PEO, the buffer request from last month was completely eliminated by a sharp decrease in the price of Dash during the month of June. The current buffer requested is in the amount of $75,000.
What does this proposal fund?
This proposal funds Dash Core Group's ongoing compensation costs - including all developers, administrative, and support staff - at market rates for base pay, including some benefits which we are now beginning to roll out as certain contractors are converted to employee status. By extending employment and benefits to our key contributors, we aim to improve the sustainability of working for the Dash Core Group by providing compensation and benefits commensurate with the market. Providing these benefits greatly improves retention and provides a more stable workforce to the network.
The run-rate has increased in the past few months and we expect it to increase further due to a number of factors including:
a) Extending benefits to staff that are transitioning from contractors to permanent employees of Dash Core Group Inc. We temporarily ceased converting contractors to employees due to the recent decreases in the price of Dash.
b) Increase in the total number of employees/subcontractors as open positions are filled. Our rate of growth has slowed significantly recently as we seek to contain the expansion of our fixed costs. We currently have 7 open positions for DCG, however, as aforementioned,we have decided to only fill 3 critical positions in the near future. We will consider reopening our hiring plans if 2 conditions are met: 1) A fiat buffer at least equal to 1 month of expenses is present and 2) The price increases over the $300 / Dash level.
c) Targeted salary increases for employees and subcontractors to align with market rates including adjustments to account for blockchain experience (temporarily on hold).
d) New administrative deposits required by our global employment, payroll, and benefits provider for servicing employees (temporarily on hold due to lack of one-time transition funding).
If you have any questions, please direct them to @glennaustin in this Dash Forum post to ensure we are notified of your request.
Requested funding is as follows for the August 2nd budget cycle:
· 2,447.88 Dash for core team compensation ($600,000 USD @ $245.11 per Dash)
· 5.00 Dash proposal reimbursement
Total: 2,452.88 Dash
Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future compensation expenses.
Please note that as part of security improvements to our financial operations, we have changed the wallet address for Core Team Compensation. The new wallet address is: XuLHt4TN6CinfMM2zHfy7Rsb4terC1MRX5
Background
We expect proposing a funding request related to compensation to the Dash network every month for the foreseeable future until DCG has a buffer in place equal to 2-3 months of compensation expense.
The team has 69 paid team members, and we have 3 critical open positions that will further expand this over the coming several months to ~72. The current run-rate is ~$445,000 monthly. This is an average of ~$6,500 / month / contributor.
As of end of June, the breakdown of the number of staff we have working in each department is as follows:
- Marketing / International Outreach - 11 staff - plans to expand to 12
- Development - 29 staff - plans to expand to 33
- Project Management - 4 staff - plans to expand to 5
- Infrastructure - 2 staff - no further expansion planned
- Support - 1 staff - no further expansion planned
- Quality Assurance - 4 staff - no further expansion planned
- Leadership and Admin - 9 staff - plans to expand to 10
- Strategy - 4 staff - no further expansion planned
- Human Resources - 1 staff - no further expansion planned
- Business Development - 4 staff - no further expansion planned
These numbers do not include an additional 11 freelancers that are also issued payments and/or stipends for work performed.
Last month we requested $600,000 and due to the fluctuation of Dash received only ~$475,000. We expect to be more exposed to currency fluctuation risk than in the past since we are now submitting our proposals at the beginning of the budget cycle (instead of the middle or latter half of a budget cycle) to provide the rest of the community earlier visibility into our funding requests. This month we are requesting $600,000 again. As previously communicated, the need for this specific amount is three-fold:
1) Our current run-rate including benefits is ~ $445,000 monthly.
2) One-time deposits to initiate conversion of international subcontractors to full-time status. The international professional employer organization (PEO) requires a first month and last month deposit of employee’s salary and benefits to initiate the conversion. We are asking for $80,000 to onboard the first handful of employees. This will provide the following professional management services to Dash core employees outside of the U.S.: employee benefits, payroll and workers' compensation, recruiting, risk/safety management, and training & development. We wanted to onboard the first handful of employees in July, but the sharp decrease in the price of Dash in June effectively eliminated the deposit requested for this purpose.
3) To rebuild a buffer in the Core Team Compensation budget to account for potential Dash volatility. This is the second month where we have requested additional Dash to rebuild the buffer. Similarly to our budget for the PEO, the buffer request from last month was completely eliminated by a sharp decrease in the price of Dash during the month of June. The current buffer requested is in the amount of $75,000.
What does this proposal fund?
This proposal funds Dash Core Group's ongoing compensation costs - including all developers, administrative, and support staff - at market rates for base pay, including some benefits which we are now beginning to roll out as certain contractors are converted to employee status. By extending employment and benefits to our key contributors, we aim to improve the sustainability of working for the Dash Core Group by providing compensation and benefits commensurate with the market. Providing these benefits greatly improves retention and provides a more stable workforce to the network.
The run-rate has increased in the past few months and we expect it to increase further due to a number of factors including:
a) Extending benefits to staff that are transitioning from contractors to permanent employees of Dash Core Group Inc. We temporarily ceased converting contractors to employees due to the recent decreases in the price of Dash.
b) Increase in the total number of employees/subcontractors as open positions are filled. Our rate of growth has slowed significantly recently as we seek to contain the expansion of our fixed costs. We currently have 7 open positions for DCG, however, as aforementioned,we have decided to only fill 3 critical positions in the near future. We will consider reopening our hiring plans if 2 conditions are met: 1) A fiat buffer at least equal to 1 month of expenses is present and 2) The price increases over the $300 / Dash level.
c) Targeted salary increases for employees and subcontractors to align with market rates including adjustments to account for blockchain experience (temporarily on hold).
d) New administrative deposits required by our global employment, payroll, and benefits provider for servicing employees (temporarily on hold due to lack of one-time transition funding).
If you have any questions, please direct them to @glennaustin in this Dash Forum post to ensure we are notified of your request.
Requested funding is as follows for the August 2nd budget cycle:
· 2,447.88 Dash for core team compensation ($600,000 USD @ $245.11 per Dash)
· 5.00 Dash proposal reimbursement
Total: 2,452.88 Dash
Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future compensation expenses.
Please note that as part of security improvements to our financial operations, we have changed the wallet address for Core Team Compensation. The new wallet address is: XuLHt4TN6CinfMM2zHfy7Rsb4terC1MRX5
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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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We keep paying CDG to produce the Evolution code upgrade and then we discover that they are doing all sorts of other things that may distract them from achieving that goal. I actually like some of the other things Core is doing, but they should submit separate proposals for separate functions if maximum accountability is to be achieved.
Also, while we all believe in Dash as a currency, are there efforts (and which) inside DCG to alleviate price swings and assure continued liquidity of DCG? This would fall under CFO responsibilities, but I would expect DCG to also employ a professional trader who could hedge some of the funds. For example, dedicating some money to shorting funds requested in proposals during bear trend would completely eliminate the need for buffers in proposals. Earnings (or losses) from short would offset any difference in price no matter how early DCG submits proposals. Leveraged it could be as little as 1/100 or 1/50 of proposal amount (obviously I'm not proposing to go full margin to cushion against volatility a bit).
Very poor play by Core. Very poor play indeed, causing unnecessary damage to small community projects. If they were given notice they could have saved their 5 DASH if they saw you were going to take all the budget like this.
I am not happy with how core has handled the submission of their proposals this month. Damaging our work again on the community projects. Either this was done deliberately to cause damage or it was done due to inept management. Either way it is out of order and it has been noted.
Core competency is software development I'm not so sure building the core marketing department is such a good idea. I feel we should have a separately funded DAO for marketing and find specialists in the area with a proven track record in Marketing.
Could you give your reasons why you think DASH is falling down the ranking on coinmarketap month on month. We have fallen from 4th to 14th position and it seems we are continuing to fall. We have been overtaken by lesser coins such as Monero which offers a fraction of the features we offer even though we also offer a more flexible form of privacy than they do. And IOTA and Cardano which are backed by a tech team and a whitepaper. DASH meanwhile is undertaking work in places like Venezuela to establish a stable currency. But even with these projects we are slipping down the coinmarketcap charts each month and are now on a par with Etherium Classic. Can you demonstrate how your marketing efforts with 11 people is having its effect? Since DASH treasury has sponsored so many top class real world projects such as DASH HELP Venezuela etc how is it that we are continuing to fall in rankings? I don't even think that IOTA or Monero have their own marketing departments so I would have thought with us having both a PR company and Marketing team of 11 people would could have done a better job that these other coins?
Also could you please state the connection Core Marketing has with Waschman PR and what your involvement is with the in terms of co-coordinating their PR activities.
The MNOs should be able to replace separate components as necessary. It is unlikely we would ever fire our devs, so ineffective marketing groups/strategies should not be shielded by being under the same budget as the devs.
I also agree that we should have discussions about these sorts of things, but waiting until they're needing funding on their proposal page is probably not the place to propose these sorts of major changes to how the DAO operates either. We have a plethora of discussion platforms to facilitate those discussions, and Nexus may even be an ideal place for that, but continually these idealistic notions are brought up at these critical junctures and then go unspoken the rest of the time and fizzle out.
So instead of making drastic changes this month, why don't we all--as MNOs--commit to hashing these things out on some agreed-upon platform when time is not of the essence, because I genuinely do want us all to arrive at the best possible solutions to these widely identified problems.
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dcg-and-non-core-functions.39457/#post-192446
Since we're here now anyway I'd like to make a few counterpoints.
First is that it will never be a good time to have these discussions. When the price is low, maybe we're all a bit stressed, trying to remain patient, and hesitant to lose any momentum.
However, when the price is high, everybody's happy, nobody wants to rock the boat, nor lose any momentum, and we also do a lot more spraying and praying, and we can afford it, everyone is fat and happy.
But when the price is low is when we should be taking a hard look at what we're doing and if we are being as efficient as we can, while our minds are sharpened by the hunger.
Just my opinion on the psychology of the situation, for what it's worth. Two duffs, likely.
I would further argue that this moment is time is perfect for us to address it. Ryan and has served us well by identifying, attracting, and onboarding top talent to the C-suite. Now that Ryan has brought on a wonderful CFO, CMO, and CTO, it is only now possible for them to be structured as an independent Dash Marketing Group, a Dash BizDev Group, etc. Unshielded and wholly accountable to the MNOs, along with the reponsiveness and reasonable transparency we need to develop trust in their abilities. Perhaps the idea is pushed too far with a Dash Financial Group.
But I think it's true that the DCG ought to remain focused on the tech.
I meant to go on but I'll just say I'm in 100% agreement with what DeepBlue said in his reply.
We've had all sorts of ideas and opinions come up the last few months--many of which I'm actually in favor--but there are still many distinct camps within the DAO with different goals and values and sticking points. That dialectic will have to be synthesized, and while we can provoke a vote with the protocol, we have to consider the long-term implications of doing so. I feel that many suggestions are made with the wrong motivations based on the wrong algorithms with a very short-sighted view toward addressing an immediate problem in a reactionary way. These things require careful, dispassionate planning.
I do not think the Marketing, and Business Dev, etc should be grouped in with Software Dev. They should be separated into separate funding requests so that we can independently vote on them based on their performance. Because no information regarding my questions are forthcoming I'm now raising this for the attention of other MNOs . We cannot fulfil our role as MNOs without this information.
From the limited information I have on the results of Core Marketing I would say that the core marketing is not that successful based on the fact that DASH has fallen from 4 th position to 14th position and we are still falling against other lesser coins such as monero and Cardano. I think an independently funded sub DAO for marketing and PR would work better for the DASH network. If core are to keep their marketing then it should complete against other marketing proposals and we can select the best proposal based on ideas and potential results.
I have asked many questions of core and I invite all MNOS to review all past core proposals in the last few months and you will see that core has not once answered any of my questions. The one exception was from Fernando for his marketing proposal where Fernando did respond. All other core funding proposals after this I've received no answer to my questions for more information so that I could provide feedback or assess the proposal to see if it was value for money.
I think the core software development team are doing a fantastic job since we can see this from the software itself. Their salaries for certain should be funded. The rest however are not related to software development and as @Unstoppable points out these other salaries such as core marketing, core PR, core business Dev etc that provide us with very little information on performance are being shielded and getting their funding included with the core software funding requests. I feel this has to stop. Funding for Core Marketing, Core business, Core PR etc should be separated from funding for core Devs, so that we have a fair chance to comment on them and if necessary replace them. But by grouping them altogether like this they could be shielding potentially under performing groups in core. We need to weed out all inefficiencies if DASH is to be successful. I feel we would get considerably better service in Marketing if it was a separate sub DAO because we could grill them and also make contributions. We would also GET DETAILED INFORMATION instead of being stonewalled when we ask questions about the funding. That is the only way DASH is going to start climbing back up the charts where we rightly belong. We should be in 1st position. We are better than bitcoin, Ripple, Bitcoin cash so what why are we sinking down to 14th position.
In my opinion the reason DASH moved up to 4th was down to the efforts of Amanda B. Johnson that was regularly providing information for investors. That was great PR for DASH and since the DASH product is such an easy sell it just requires quality PR and Marketing to send us to the top. If we are falling in Market Cap month on month that suggests that the Marketing and PR for DASH is not getting the results we deserve. If we keep group funding all these core salaries we are not going to be able to weed out the poor performing divisions in core. My opinion is that core should be software development and software strategy only. Business dev, Marketing, PR should be separate from core and take that responsibility away from the devs so they can focus on what they do best.
If all MNO's paid attention to half the degree that you did, this would all be a non-issue.
I had Fernando and Ryan Taylor say to me that their intentions for funding were made well in advanced. Well that may be true (or not true) I don't know because I didn't hear that they were going to post 3 proposals this month and neither did all the other small proposal owners. One MNO gave me a link with the core's intentions I read it but still could not see where they were going to post 3 proposals this month, or the exact timings of those proposals. I put forward a suggestion on how this could be prevented in the future however nobody commented on that constructive suggestion. The fact is these small projects did not know core would post that 3rd proposal this month so whatever means of informing the community core used was not effective.
Now that the DASH HELP got hit they are vulnerable due to lack of funding. However it is possible that some funds will get freed up from past proposals, provided core does not put in another proposal to take that money as well.
What I think would be a terrible blow to the DASH network would be to have core attempt to make DASH HELP part of core and control their activities - I hope this attempt to control DASH HELP does not happen due to the lack of funding they are going through and the burn out they had this month from lack of funds in the treasury. The right way would be for core to pay for the additional services they need from DASH HELP e.g. marketing information, problems and bugs and issues people are having, just in the same way they would pay for any other external service e.g PR from Wachsman or Ogilvy and Matthey. The original agreement was they would provide information for free to core for 3 months, after that core could pay for that market intelligence. This could be a way for DASH HELP to be self funding. I think the very reason DASH HELP has done so well is because they are independently managed from core. They have there finger on the pulse and they know what is happening and how best to manage the support centre. The support centre is now global. They have re branded from DASH HELP Venezuela to DASH HELP. They will be the support centre for the world. For the record I support core team and what they have done and what they continue to do for us but that does not mean things could not be better. Before I raised questions about the Wachsman PR I think everyone thought that the PR was to boost DASH's profile, when in fact is it more to take away day to day PR issues from core and to deal with crisis and day to day activities. Wachsman is clearly not working for the network to boost DASH's profile as I think everyone thought it was. That has made clear we need a different PR and marketing group to do that. But that only became apparent after a heated debate based on questions that I raised. So was that a bad thing ? Whether it be for Salaries, premises or taxes we need to question and challenge and find out more. Without this we are simply living to double standards and we are not fulfilling our role as MNOs.
We need to stop protecting and coming up with reasons not to do our role as MNOs here. This is a proposal, just the same as any other proposal. I I have a "beef" it is not with core, it is with other MNOs that are not fulfilling their part. They are just voting in and giving positive comments to core and letting proposals like this sale through without reasonable debate, feedback or constructive criticism.
1. What connection DASH Core Marketing have with Wachsman PR.
2. List of achievements from marketing?
3. What is core marketing response as to why we have fallen from 4th position to 14th position compared to lesser coins such as lightcoin, bitcoin cash, Cardano et al, Neo, IOTA that don't have a governance, don't have privacy, don't have community projects, don't have evolution equivalent, don't have treasury to fund projects and development, don't have the speed Dash offers, don't have two tier network, don't have fees as low as DASH, Don't have a marketing department, don't have 29 developers, don't have 76 people working in core etc yet DASH keeps falling in ranking compared to them?
4. What exactly are core marketing doing and what are their responsibilities?
These questions were posted in my original question above and are still unanswered by the proposal owner.
Secondly not everyone reads the forums. I rarely use the forums due to time constraints. I've posted only one forum posting in the last few months I also do not use Discord - both due to time constraints.
The information regarding core intention when posting more than 2 requests should be posted in all proposals themselves clearly at the top of each proposal so we don't have to root around trying to find the information.
Core posted 2 proposals then left several days without posting anything. This then led other proposal owners to think core had finished posting their proposals and saw there were still some funds in the budget. The proposal owners then posted their projects thinking they had a chance for the remaining funds. Then core posted again
another proposal which is now going to result in these proposal owners losing their 5 DASH proposal fee. This is not just happening once or twice this is a repeated action by core.
This issue could be completely prevented by Core clearly and prominently posting in each of their proposals the intention to post 3 funding requests (or however many) at the very top of each proposal. Even if the actual value could not be determined the very fact they state that there is another core proposal going to be posted in a few days would be enough for small proposal owners to wait before posting their proposal.
Something like this right at the top of each of their proposals:
Something like this at the top of each of your proposals:
e.g. Core Proposal 1 of 3 for this month's funding: CORE Salaries: DASH 2453 (posted)
Core Proposal 2 of 3 for this month's funding: CORE Premises: DASH: 123 (posted)
Core Proposal 3 of 3 for this month funding: CORE TAX: DASH: Unknown amount. Will be posting in a few days time.
I spoke with the Venezuela proposal leaders and they did not have the first clue core was going to post a 3rd proposal. This in effect has wiped out their 5 DASH funds. Money they desperately need.
This is a repeating issue with core posting their proposals and it is causing real damage to small proposal owners. It also seems that core don't really consider the damage. They are stating we gave notice. However if that notice is not being seeing because it is being posted in places where people are not aware of it then what is the point. Even if it is posted in a place that people are aware of it the example URL you gave above it is still not *immediately* visible, at least I could not see it mentioned myself even with the URL. There are so many other related comments in amongst everything it is too easy to miss this critical information.
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dcg-and-non-core-functions.39457/#post-192446
Core's other two proposals were posted in a timely fashion and this one only less so. I spend a great deal of time every month forewarning proposal owners in pre-proposal about possible budget constraints and pitfalls, and Core's budget plans are a primary point of reference for those. One of the troubles is that proposal owners don't always take the time to post pre-proposals, and thus I don't have the opportunity to offer timing suggestions, and secondly, many of those that do often wait several months after posting their pre-proposal to randomly post a full proposal without fully understanding the concerns that change from month to month. Another common problem is that DC doesn't list the budget as allocated until a proposal is in "passing" stage, so even though Core's proposals were very close to passing, DC registers this as not passing at all, and so proposal owners think there's still 3000+ Dash left in the budget, and while that's technically the case, pragmatically it's not.
There are a lot of problems here that have more to do with your lack of effort relative to requests for labor than the failures of Core or other community members. Suggestions to improve efficiency and efficacy are helpful, but pointing to logistic problems as errors or failures on the part of others are not.
Glenn, if you're going to request funds only until you have 2-3 months of expenses then you have learned nothing from this situation. This number should be *very clearly and very obviously* no less than 12, preferably 18 months.
We also feel that pre-funding the core team to the extent you suggest is both unnecessary and counter to the intent of the budget system. As the budget system is the primary governance mechanism, such a large buffer would prevent the masternodes from discontinuing core team operations through future funding allocations, and thus would have less control over core.
Lastly, any size buffer does not eliminate the impact of a low price. If the price of Dash is low and stays low, no matter how large a buffer is, it will erode and disappear. We therefore need to operate within the bounds of a sustainable expense run-rate. Buffers will not prevent that from being the case. We therefore aim to have enough buffer against short-term price fluctuation risk.
No, there is no better use for the Dash budget than paying the salaries of our programmers, project managers and everyone else that work for us.
Masternodes can still control DCG through freaking simple voting (should we fire Ryan Taylor and get an experienced CEO?). If we need to defund DCG in order to control it, then what was that whole thing about the New Zealand trust about? We clearly don’t need to control it though immediate “future funding allocation”, and even if we did we can cut funds after 12 months, not after 2.
Don’t strawman my argument. If price declines and stay down, a 12 month buffer is objectively better than a 2 month one. You are being irresponsible by managing a company in a way that it can only survive extreme adversity for 2 months and you should know better.
The point of not building up a year's worth of funding from a control standpoint--apart from tax considerations--is that it would allow Core's operations to become more inscrutable with less oversight. It's not conducive to the vision most of us have for the network. It's not fiscally responsible. There's literally no reason to adopt your proposed "solutions." This is not "extreme adversity." Dash is not in any danger of being unfunded.
https://dashvotetracker.com/past.php
We were all taken aback by the dramatic rise and fall of Dash value. People creating their own global currency has never been done before. This is uncharted waters we are sailing.
Also, a 12-month buffer seems excessive. They need some buffer yes but they also can get funding each month from the treasury. Also building such a large buffer would reduce the amount we can pay to other proposals something which i would like to avoid.