S.1 Ep.0 Governance Futures Podcast: About us
In this ’About Us’ episode of Governance Futures, hosts Jamilya Kamalova and Eugene Leventhal from the Scroll Foundation discuss their backgrounds, experiences, and passions in decentralized governance and Web3.
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Transcript
Before I just go do. This whole movement, it was, like, just eye opening to me back in 02/1516. And I was like, how can I get involved? But I just never understood,
like, on a deeply emotional level, how people just have the audacity to just, like, shape the lives of others. If there was a specific problem you could get everyone to focus on together and prioritize, what would it be?
Welcome to Governance Futures, a podcast exploring the past, present, and future of decentralized governance. I'm Jamila. And I'm Eugene.
Today's episode is meant to help provide some context for why we're doing this podcast, where we're trying to head, and what we're looking to get out of these conversations. As part of that, we also figured it's only reasonable to share a little bit about who we are and set the stage for why we're doing this. And so with that, I'll pass it back to you, Jamila, and would love to hear a little more about who you are as a person.
Thank you, Eugene. So I am governance facilitator at Scroll Foundation. And before that, I've been working in web three for quite some time. I was a researcher and, still doing my PhD in governance. And, it's just been an absolute pleasure to not only have, like, theoretical academic backgrounds, but now also to work with you and build something, like, actually build something. So, Eugene, I joined Scroll Foundation because because you were there. So I'm curious what led you to Scroll, but also, ultimately, what led you to governance in Web three in general?
Yeah. And, I feel like we have the similarity where we've been interested in governance and looking at it from various perspectives, but hadn't had the chance to be on the side of actually, you know, architecting the full governance system and shepherding people through it and all of that fun stuff. So I feel like Scroll is a similar, first for both of us in that sense. But in terms of how I got here, so, prior to joining Scroll, I was with MediGov, which is a governance research nonprofit. I'm still technically with them as a research director, so I still oversee the Grant Innovation Lab team there, which has produced papers like the state of Web three grants reports and hosted a couple of grant operator summits. But when I was there full time, I was the executive director and just generally working on, you know, trying to make a governance research nonprofit sustainable. But I had been kind of in and around, governance related nonprofits, since 2021. So I guess a bit over four years now. And, yeah, I have just been very excited about at least the theory around governance. And I think from the first DAOs, pretty much immediately, there were versions of, like, this isn't going well or this is broken for x, y, and z reasons. And, I guess I've always been more of a let me stop and think and read before I just go do. And so that's kind of despite getting into the space arguably back in 2016 when working on a DAO project to make crowdfunding more, transparent and accountable, I did, you know, went to academia first and then the nonprofit. So a very long and circuitous route to getting to actually working on governance. But, yeah, as I've gotten older, I've realized a lot of my random interests from psychology to illicit markets to all kinds of other things, all kind of center around how humans collaborate and coordinate. And so, yeah, it's just been really exciting getting to come here and getting to kind of plan the initial DAO activities and, how we're organizing and where we're trying to head. And I'm very happy that you both saw and decided, saw the ad to come join us and decided to come join us, because, yeah, it's been a lot of fun getting to geek out on a lot of the governance details with you. And I'd be interested from, you know, your vantage point when you're thinking about why you're getting excited. You know, what is it about the general exercise of what we're doing in terms of getting a DAO started and this initial experience? What in all of that spoke to you where you were like, that's the thing I need to go be doing right now?
Oh my god. It's actually you know, your question is is personal. Like, I struggle to explain to my parents what I do, and I Oh, yeah. Genuinely struggle to like, and they see me excited. They see me happy. They see me busy. They see me travel to different conferences. And but they're like, okay. But what what are you doing exactly? Yeah. But I also feel like I had different interests, and I was just kind of, like, all over the place. I had, spent a little time doing, like, just purely legal work. I've done research, but I've always been interested in in people, in how they communicate in my PhD where I focus on dispute resolution. I'm just I'm just interested how people interact with each other, I guess, and self organize. And, I'm I'm very much, like, inspired by, for example, Eleanor Osterholm's work and her bottom up concept of governance. And I feel like even before, like, long, long before where I actually fully consciously realized, oh my god. This is something I want to do full time. I feel like I was inspired by just this notion of, oh my god. People can just, like, self organize, create a DAO, and just, you know, do what they want. But also, they this whole movement, it was, like, just eye opening to me back in 02/1516. And I was like, how can I get involved? I have zero technical background. Unfortunately, I'm not a coder, but I was like, I'm so curious. There must be something, like, probably there there has to be a place for people who understand very little about technical aspects of that, but really happy to facilitate, coordinate. Actually, I saw you posting on Medigolf channel, that, you're looking for someone. And I was like, oh my god. That is so interesting. And I've checked Scroll, and I saw the governance philosophy, and I was like, oh my god. This is something that I can relate to. This sounds very interesting. I haven't, like, heard much about Scroll. I I've heard of it, but I actually didn't check the community before, and I saw that the governance was just getting, you know, formed. And I was like Yeah. Oh my god. Let me actually take a closer look. And I feel like we had a call and I you explained to me a little bit better. And I was like, well, that actually seems something that I felt like I was missing because I was more on the theoretical side. And that is an exciting thing to do. But I also felt like I wanted to be involved maybe with a particular community and see the actual results of, you know, some of the experimentation or some of the work that we're doing actually, like, long term. Not just come, observe, and leave, but also, like, come, co create something, and maybe see this something hopefully turn into something exciting. But I can relate very much to having so many different, like, experiences, and somehow it all ties down to governance seems to be the thing that I do enjoy the most.
Yeah. And I can really empathize with what you were saying on the, no clue how to explain it to your parents. No one in my family has any clue in the slightest of what it is that I actually do. They all just appreciate that I seem to be enjoying it and having fun with what I'm doing. But, yeah, it's its own kind of challenge now and thinking and, like, forget about parents' generation because just like that's a big enough bridge. But, that also just makes me wonder of how do you explain or have you found a mechanism for explaining, like, a governance team in a foundation Yeah. And in a way to a non Web three person where they're like, nothing that you just said make sense.
You know, actually, I found that people tend to when I try to explain what I do, they actually ask, oh, so you're an HR? Or like, oh, so you're a project manager? So it's like and I was like, well, perhaps, maybe a little bit, but not really. So I get that the most. I feel like people, like human relations or, like, some of the business processes, they relate that to either project management or, like, yeah, HR. But I'm curious about you, like, because you you've had such an extensive experience working with different organizations, as you've mentioned, grants, meta golf, a lot of just, like, volunteer organizations. So what has that, you know, shaped, or some of the maybe learnings that you've had from your experience that kind of, like, made you realize, you know what? I actually think that doing governance is is my thing because I absolutely think that governance is your thing.
Yeah. It took me a while to figure it out. I think almost roughly until I was in my, like, late twenties to have the right vernacular around it that, like, governance is the thing I care about. But I guess ever since I was young, I was both on fascinated with people creating things. And then just someone who like naturally, there's a good phrase in Russian for it of, like, Like, you live shaking and you die shaking. I'm just, like, you approach everything in life from this point of fear. It's so dark and it's so Russian. I'm sorry. It's like, never heard a Russian phrase that was, like, optimistic, you know? Sorry. No. But But yeah. Our our culture is not good at that. But, yeah, it was this element of, like, I would approach everything from both, like, wanting to do new things, but being super afraid of doing new things. So, it was always this, like, inherent contradiction in me. But I just never understood, like, on a deeply emotional level, how people just have the audacity to just, like, shape the lives of others. Right? Because, like, as a parent, your job is kind of to, like, rear a child and make sure they, you know, at least survive. But then when it's, like, starting a company or changing culture or changing society, and it was, I don't know, I was just always fascinated by those things. And I remember when I was, you know, like, however young we are in The States when we learn about, like, World War Two for the first time. And I just remember hearing about, like, Hitler and Stalin and, like, these big names and, you know, like, personalities that forget just about the number of, you know, like, lives they affected. They literally left tens of millions in the ground and affected arguably the whole world. And just as a meek and mild kid, the thought of just like, oh, I have the audacity to just, like, go send a million people to their death or something like that was just like my brain could not comprehend that. Right? Like the whole Stalin quote of, like, what is it? One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. Like, I just could not fathom how people are comfortable saying such things. It's just like, how how does that work? And then as I got older, you know, like culturally being new immigrants to The States, it was like you're going into medicine, into finance, or into law, like, pick your choice. And I was like, well I don't think it's a staple for Russian parents, though. Like, I don't know. Yeah. I think by I imagine for the folks who are maybe, like, five or ten years younger than me, they might have had, like, computer science added to that. So I feel like for my generation, CS was still, like, that thing your parents go do for a bank that no one really respects, whereas, like, engineers and startups are in a different part of, like, the social hierarchy, so to say. But I don't think, at least for my age bracket, I don't think a lot of parents caught on to that right away. But, yeah, I chose finance because it was the least schooling. I hated the finance world and everything about it because it was just, like, making rich people richer. And I don't get how I couldn't get why people wanna do that forever. So I kept looking to different communities, whether it's, you know, what you're saying on the decentralized governance side of just, like, advocacy and human coordination, or, like, how did people topple dictatorships, or how did people make government change happen when it seemed impossible? And then, like, entrepreneurship, how did people just decide to start up an idea and all of a sudden it's a thing we all use? And, like, that desire to just, like, create a thing and have other people interact with it was always a fascination. And another example I like bringing up was also, like, I grew up most of my life in the New York area, and there it was very common to hear, like, oh, the mafia, that's a mob job, like the, you know, the the ephemeral mafia out and about and, like, making things inefficient and stealing money in the background. Right. But nonetheless, it, like, kick started this own weird fascination with, like, illegal markets, and, illicit groups. And, like, as I got older, just all these things started converging to, like, it's all about who gets the power, who designs the system, and, like, how do you actually diffuse power in a system? And, like, that is an intentional choice. And, yeah, that's why when I got into Web three, it was right as, like, I was on the board of two nonprofits. I was working in the corporate world. I was try I was, like, itching for startup stuff and creative endeavors.
And then I just, like, stumbled into it, and I was like, woah. Stumble into it if you're a corporate person who have background in finance. Like, how do you come across that and not think to yourself, oh my god. This is a complete scam. I'm gonna not pay attention to it ever. Like, how do you come back to it? I'm I'm just trying to find this. Like, how do you find it? And what was the first cryptocurrency perhaps you bought or sold or what caught your attention?
Yeah. Yeah. On the last side, it's very, personally disappointing answer of not much bought and sold in the early days. But, I actually owe this credit to my former intern in the corporate world. This is a close friend of my brother who who is great. He unfortunately passed a few years back, but, it was Ruben. He randomly emailed us like, hey, I keep, like, reading about this Bitcoin thing. I think you're gonna find it interesting. And I was like, I don't know. It sounds like a scam. Digital money. I don't get it. Why is this interesting? I think What is that? Like This is 2015, 2015. So not not ahead of the curve by, like, you know, it's not 2010 or anything. But nonetheless, it was still pretty early. And by the end of that year, because right around that time, I had just taken up two roles at two separate nonprofits. I'd taken board seats, and I got much deeper into the dynamics of, like, organizing fundraisers and fundraising. And I was just like, this feels kinda icky. Like, there's people with money and power, and then there's people dealing with problems, and there isn't really a good communication channel between the two to, like, solve the problems together. And that's when I was like, oh, wait. But I just heard of and then I revisited it in, like, January 2016 as I was just trying to do more research on banking the unbanked. And so, like, Bitcoin and Ethereum kept coming up, and then the Dow happened just after that. And it's like, wait a second. Like, forget about the investment side, but if I do that thing, but for nonprofits and crowdfunding, like, that could be a really interesting alternative. And our fantasy was that, like, you start with crowdfunding, but the ultimate goal is to make the Department of Education have fully transparent accounting and finance because then you just have less waste. And that was what got EduDAO started. And that was actually where I met Chris, who was the person who brought me into Scroll. So, yeah, that was where, like he and I and another friend, we started working on it. And yeah, that was just like the beginning of me understanding that, like, wait, governance might be the thing, but I had no clue how to go pursue a career in governance. So hence, grad school and then nonprofits and then finally scroll. That's actually so cool because I also had kind of a weird,
I don't know, first ever encounter of crypto. I was a law student, and I was actually I was quite bored because I had to pick a topic to write my thesis, and all the topics seemed, like, I don't know, sarcastic. And then my dad actually was like, oh, have you heard about this thing called BDC? And I was like, I have no idea about. And I honestly, like, my dad, he's also a lawyer, but he's not that much into crypto at all. He doesn't he has no idea what I'm doing, as I said. But he's very curious. He reads a lot. And every time he comes by new information, even like AI now is trending, you know, he would always say, oh, have you heard of this? Have you heard of that? And it's just so fun, but I really do thank him for introducing me to crypto or just, like, even mentioning that to me. And then it all started from there. And similarly, like, I've organized a blockchain club within university, and then I proposed this idea. Oh my god. Because there there is a problem with fake diplomas. And Mhmm. I feel like in every country, there probably are some people who are faking it and licenses and whatnot. And for my university, I proposed an idea for, like, could we please introduce, like, you know, like, just put all the information, all the diplomas on blockchain so nobody could actually, you know, fake one. And then the response that I got from the, management of whatever innovation team at uni was that, oh my god. You're not gonna be liked at all. You're gonna be actually very much hated. And I was like, but why? I'm trying to create transparency. I'm trying to kind of help to, you know, so we can uphold the reputation of our, like, university. The idea, yeah, wasn't very much supported.
But What year was this? That was 2016,
I think. Somewhere around that time. And then there there was whole, like, boom of different legislation. And, I mean, I don't know. I've just I've I remember, some of the people were you know, mining was very big back then. People were selling farms or farming equipment. And it was such a crazy era, and everything was very, very new. Ethereum was just starting to get some traction. So I think back sometimes, and I'm like, oh my god. And now I get to do that full time, and I'm exceptionally happy. But I have just one small question that I wanted to ask you. It feels like we had different reasons why we were drawn into the space. Mhmm. And very similarly, we were fascinated by this idea that people can self organize, and they can make decisions for themselves and not rely on some authority or someone else's taking that decision making power from them. So, you know, what are your thoughts about, you know, this this kind of promise that we were attracted to, that crypto offered back then in 02/1516. And what is it now? And how do you feel about whether we were overpromised or we were just so excited? And now, we're a bit, you know, just coming to a realization that there's still a lot that needs to be done. Yeah. How do you feel about it?
Yeah. I mean, one thought that comes to mind there is it feels like experiencing Web three arguably has been the first time I've, like, lived parts of the hype cycle. Whereas, like, in other ones, it's like, oh, you understand that it's happening or you you can see it or get it or look back and understand whatever. But I guess I was getting into it just as, like, the first, you know, corporation plus blockchain conferences were happening. And actually, like, my first conferences were all, like, looking back on it now, I'm like, I would not wanna touch those conferences with a 10 foot pole because it's all just, like, corporate's thinking about should we blockchain or should we not? But, like, from where I was, that was the logical starting point. And so I don't know. I think it can be very easy to say that we were overpromised and underdelivered. But I guess another way of taking that would be, at least what got me excited feels like one of the least spoken about and thorniest parts about the problem of human coordination, which for me is just, like, how do you get the individual level changes needed in a person for them to want to act differently in a collective context? And that is very unclear. And in blockchain and in other spaces, like, it still seems like a very under explored element. So I don't know. I mean, there's definitely a huge gap. I think there's also, like, the ideological side of it, right? It's like there's a bunch of people in Web3 who are just hardcore libertarians. And for them, the goal of this, or at least my lazy interpretation of it, is that it's like to distance themselves from structures. Whereas the goal for me is not to, like, run away from society or run away from structures. It's just to make them more representative of the people who constitute them. And, like, how do we have this, like, complex layered and nested versions of different organizations where self organization can kind of come and go and life is fluid and things rapidly change. But, yeah, you're not just reliant on, like, one or a few power players or oligarchies or monopolies to, like, control all of the flow. So I don't know. I, like, I wanna hear your answer too, but, it depends on the mood I'm in with, like, my view on where we actually at with that and how optimistic I genuinely am in any given moment. But, yeah, what about you? Like, what what's your view of that?
I don't know. I also feels like it is important that, in 2016, I was just, like, finishing university, and I was around 21, 22. So I feel like now I'm a bit of a different version of myself and different life experiences. So I feel like I was initially drawn to this idea. And, also, I grew up in, in Russia. The first twenty five years of my life, I lived there. And, I love my hometown, which is Kazan. I love it. The best place on Earth. But all things aside, I've always felt that, you know, I I I just can't find myself there, and I can't find, like, a crypto community either. Although now, there are a lot of crypto community. We have so many teams that are actually based in Russia and build from there, and I'm, like, huge respect. But, as a person who had, like, a legal trading and I started to understand, oh my god, like, I I start to not enjoy the political situation progressively more and more to the point where I'm like, wow. And then I was thinking I was looking around, and it's not like I was drawn to any particular country where I was like, that seems like amazing ideal democracy. No. I was in my 21 year old mind, I was like, no. We need to go for something, like, completely different. It has to be a revolution. It has to be. And I was reading a lot of, you know, literature around anarchy and the state. So, that would brought me into the space. Now, of course, I still meet people who, as you've mentioned, they want to distance themselves and who actually highly criticize people who, for example, like, still bank or they, you know, still rely on institutions for many things. I take more of a kind of, like, middle ground approach, like, I enjoy. And, I I see a lot of use from crypto and, you know, for example, I can send money to my dad in crypto which is, wow, amazing. I won't be able to do it anywhere else. So, and I know that there are many teams, that actually got funding because it was for crypto and they weren't able to, you know, get it otherwise. So I see big value in that. And I also see value in having those bridging conversation. I don't see that everything I don't think everything should be so black and white where, like, you're either completely, like, libertarian, like, anarchist, or, you know, or you're, like, you know, complete normie. I feel like there could be, you know, it could be a middle ground. And Mhmm. At the end of the day, I feel like there are many things that change, but, I strongly believe that it's not the place that defines a person, but the person who defines the place. So, you know, sometimes we burn out. Sometimes the things that we were working on don't work anymore, and that's fine to move on and find your people and build with them things that you want to build. And, hopefully, this podcast is yet, like, another attempt to perhaps, you know, talk about governance, things that we both enjoy. And, hopefully, it will also be kind of like a project where we both enjoy personally as a passion project, but also something that will be hopefully useful and, hopefully, something that we can learn a lot. I do have Yeah. A ton of questions for you very quickly. So for listeners, we introduced this structure in our podcast where we would talk to a guest, and then we would have a little block of, like, quiz where we just basically ask a question and ask the guest to only answer this with one word. And then we have our signature one sentence, which is what is the future of governance, and we ask the guest to provide one worded answer. So I didn't tell Eugene. I didn't disclose Eugene what the questions will be. So we'll see. We'll see, and hopefully, none of them would be edited out. Okay. So, Eugene, one word answer. Let's do it. Let's start with something mild. What drives you forward in governance? One word.
Humans.
If you could fix one governance flaw, what would it be?
Incentives.
What's the biggest value guiding your work?
Yeah. My yeah. Love.
What's the one thing you fear most in this space, in web three?
Recreation.
Yeah. And what emotion best describes how you feel about governance in Web three?
What emotion best describes?
Mhmm.
And I do think I would have to come back to optimism.
Mhmm. And the signature one, what is the future of governance?
People. Now you I feel like I'm cheating and using humans and people in separate answers, but I especially, we'll see how, yeah, how they build throughout the season, but I'm interested to hear how the variance will be on that question across all our guests.
Definitely. I mean, I I wish we were asked going forward as we launch this.
Yeah. For sure. And I I will also, wanna ask you some quiz questions as well. But I am very excited to see the ideas that we come across here. Right? Ultimately, we're doing this from a somewhat selfish perspective of we want to learn more and we want to find time to read a lot and talk to a bunch of people. And by making a public commitment to release something on a weekly great way to prioritize that. And, yeah, we're really excited to kind of see what ideas come up. And I think we're, at least from my perspective, you know, like, just exploring the most amazing ideas would still slightly fall short of aspirations. I think, at least from my view, the aspiration is explore as many ideas as possible and try to articulate clear experimentation and research to do to keep advancing them. So to try to have that bend towards action that we do, whether we trial something internally, whether we just learn about what someone else is trialing, just making sure that these conversations don't stop where we hit end, but we realize that, like, hey, we we should go talk to the governance lead over there or to that researcher over there or that product team over there and try to connect the dots and just generally drive it forward. And I guess before, yeah, getting to the quiz, I guess, is there anything on your side that you're most hopeful and excited about with, you know, whether it's a couple months from now or a year from now? Like, what's gonna make you feel like this was a success?
I really am coming with open mind, and I'm really willing to learn. And also, as you said, whilst we're trying to figure out what is the future of governance, I feel like human element is so important. And despite all of the great things that AI brings, I feel like we should be human centric and focus on humans first and see how perhaps AI changes, you know, some of the things. So, yeah, I hope that this series will be something new, something interesting, and, also,
I'm very curious to hear back from other people who are actively involved in governance. Awesome. And I think that is a a perfect segue then for our closing segment and me asking you a couple of quiz questions as well. Now you get to be in the hot seat instead of just asking them. But, first one that I wanted to start with is a bit looking back in one word. How would you describe your experience with DAOs?
Much harder than I thought. Volatile.
How do you think about where the intersection, or, basically, how do you think about the future of law in digital communities?
How do I just frame it in one word?
That's our challenge. I keep asking harder and harder questions to answer with one word.
I mean, if I have to give one word, I would just say present. It will be present. I don't think we can escape escape that.
Yeah. For sure, it's, what the the only two constants in life are death and taxes, a lot lost somewhere in there with taxes. When it comes to this kind of specific challenges, we're seeing more hands on both with ScrollDown and Emblematic of of DAOs in general. If there was a specific problem you could get everyone to focus on together and prioritize, what would it be?
I feel like coordination.
How does AI make you feel? I would probably say
concerned.
Mhmm. And then last and certainly not least, what do you see as the future of governance in one word?
I see it being bright. I do believe that, you know, there's just so many people in the space that are just doing great things. And I ultimately believe that the future is positive and that it is bright.
I hope that you are right. And, yeah, we will, do our best for this podcast to be our own little contribution to some brightness or, I guess, dialing the light a little up and not down, so to say. But, yeah, I really, appreciate having this conversation, Jamila. This has been a lot of fun. I guess, any final thoughts or words before we try doing a more official sign off?
No. Thank you for the questions. And, yeah, we could continue for hours, but we have to stop somewhere. So
Well, thank you so much, and thank you to everyone for listening. This has been an about us episode of governance futures. We already will have another episode now when you're hearing this, so please go check out our conversation with Eric Alston. This podcast has been produced by the governance team at Scroll Foundation, which includes myself, Eugene Leventhal, and
Jamila Kamalova.
And it was edited by Hradesh Sapkota. Music has been, gotten from Blue Dot Sessions. Any images that we use are from Shutterstock. And we just appreciate everyone who's taken the time to listen to these first, introductory episodes. Please subscribe, if you are interested wherever you listen to podcasts or on YouTube. Leave us a review. They do actually help for discoverability, and you're always welcome to reach out to us if you ever wanna geek out on governance. Stay tuned till next week.