S4 Ep.01 Chase Chapman - Modularity, Autonomy and Agreements: the future of DAOs and Orgs

Chase Chapman is a DAO researcher at Metropolis, focused on exploring how DAOs will shape the way humans think about and engage in work. She is an angel investor, host of On the Other Side, a podcast exploring the human side of web3, and spends most of her time collaborating with and writing about DAOs.

DAOs—Decentralized Autonomous Organizations—represent one of the most interesting concepts in the blockchain-enabled space. A DAO is a self-governing organization independent from any central authority, and its rules are enforced by smart contracts.

In this episode, Chase helps us better understand how DAOs have evolved over the last few years and explore today’s DAO landscape. We also dive deeper into the possibilities of developing an inter-DAO evolutionary organization model and debate the importance of developing organizational building blocks that can interoperate across DAOs and, eventually, traditional organizations.

With Chase, we also discussed how the atomic unit of the DAO (and organizing) is not the individual contributor but rather the small group, and how DAO tooling is moving from financial tools to cultural and organizational tools. We talked about how traditional organizations can also use this approach (or maybe not) and how DAOs can possibly help governments develop public policies that facilitate social and ecological transition.

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/chase-chapman/

Key Highlights from the Conversation
👉 The DAO landscape has changed: it was once heavy on automation, now it's a way for companies to become more democratic.
👉 DAO is a modular ecosystem, composed of a “quite monolithic DAO” community.
👉 Trustware vs. Socialware.
👉 How Metropolis’ pods help small groups play a role in the DAO system.
👉 How DAOs can work in a traditional context.

To Find Out More About Chase’s Work:
👉 Chase’s podcast - On The Other Side: https://www.othersidepod.xyz/
👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/chaserchapman
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chasechapman/
👉 Chase's appearance on Kevin Owoki's podcast Green Pill, where she spoke about Socialware and Trustware: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/34-evolutionary-daos-with-chase-chapman
👉 The original post on Socialware and Trustware: https://blog.metropolis.space/scaling-trust-in-daos-trustware-vs-socialware/

Other References and Mentions:
👉 The DAO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)
👉 Cryptokitties: https://www.cryptokitties.co/
👉 Metalabel: https://www.metalabel.xyz/
👉 David Ronfelt’s TIMN framework: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2005/P7967.pdf
👉 Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State: https://thenetworkstate.com/the-network-state

Chase’s Suggested Breadcrumbs (Things Listeners Should Check Out):
👉 A Prehistory of DAOs by Kei Kreutler: https://gnosisguild.mirror.xyz/t4F5rItMw4-mlpLZf5JQhElbDfQ2JRVKAzEpanyxW1Q
👉 Life after lifestyle by Toby Shorin: https://subpixel.space/entries/life-after-lifestyle/

Get in Touch with Boundaryless:
Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast/
👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
👉 Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts/
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo/

Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music