guidance counselor 2.0 · episode 135
web 3 and developer_dao w/ isiah hill
key takeaways
- daos are community-driven organizations where membership votes are equal and decisions are transparent on-chain.
- developer dao helps engineers onboard to web3 by connecting builders, offering education, and enabling collaboration.
- nfts have multiple uses: art collectibles, community membership cards with utility, and conference access tokens.
- start with documentation and learn before investing; do due diligence on teams, competitors, and protocols.
- adopt a student mindset in web3; ask questions, stay humble, and recognize you can build while still learning.
listen or watch
listen
about this episode
learn about daos, developer dao, and web3 community-driven opportunities with isiah hill from denver.
Huge shoutout to my guest, Isiah Hill !
Like what you hear? Connect with me-
Website: www.taylordesseyn.com
LinkedIn: Taylor Desseyn
Tweet me: @tdesseyn
Tik Tok: @tdesseyn
Pics of the life, wife, daughter & dog: @tdesseyn
full transcript
auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.
Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. So that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.
So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco, VACO.com is how to get in touch with me, old-fashioned email, social media at tdesntesnyn. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. So let's give the people what they want, Isaiah, who are you, man? What do you do? And where are you in your car right now? Yeah, so I'm actually in Denver right now. The Denver conference, it just wrapped up. Some people are going on to a retreat, but I have to go work on some of these projects, and concepts we were discussing with other engineers here.
But yeah, so that's why I'm like, in the middle transitioning, but I was like, man, I really want to do this, look forward to speaking with you, and had heard and saw a lot of positive things from what you've been doing with other engineers and other creators and other builders and makers and whether it's in web two or web three. So I wanted to make sure that yeah, I spoke with you. I appreciate you being so flexible, man. I appreciate being so flexible. What do you do? Like who do you work for? So right now, I'm working with Jack. Yeah, so I went to graduate from Georgia Tech.
So right now I'm just kind of, I would say a hybrid between somebody who's really focused on marketing and growth and kind of achieving certain business development goals within just the web through space, but also understanding that there is a level of, there's a technical curve that has to be addressed in order for more people to be onboarded into web three. And so when I say liaison, I kind of see it as being somebody who can speak to more than like one, I guess, frame of reference or one perspective. and kind of just being a facilitator. It's interesting, I think there are modes of leadership and modes of operation.
And I think facilitators are people who recognize that they are maybe for like, but whereas bilingual, maybe within a certain discipline and having the ability to speak to multiple teams and people in their realm of genius and helping them understand how it contributes to the bigger goal. And I think, you know, I found it in Web3, it's better to look at things from a standpoint of like, you know, being a facilitator and being liaison rather than always trying to be a leader or be in charge. And I think, you know, it's just, you end up being able to work with a lot more people, end up being able to add a lot more value and also learn a lot more.
And so right now, my primary, you know, operate, I guess in Web3's, work with developer Dow, and then I've been contributing to get coined out. and also with the radical team as well. But developer Dow is kind of the medium to which I've been able to kind of get involved more in web 3 and got connected with render ATL as well. And so yeah, just learning a lot, man, learning a lot. I think the way I look at it is like continuing to always look at things from being a student of the game and just embracing the fact that it's constantly evolving. But I think as long as you constantly are looking to understand and adopt new frameworks of thinking and apply that to the previous learnings.
I think you'll be able to kind of look at things from being a student in the game rather than trying to be an expert. But I also feel like and then I had to, Alicia Chimes in, guidance counselor road trip edition. Listen, we're just gonna be a guidance counselor render atl edition and it's gonna be lit. But I'm Justin. What up? I can already talk about. Yeah, Justin, what's going on, buddy? It's good to see you. So, but all right, so let's talk about developer now. Yeah. I also feel like what you're saying about helping student of the game, being involved, I feel people don't talk about that enough with web three because I feel like that's what that is.
It is incredibly community driven. Yeah. I try to understand that there's things that are, you know, I guess, I guess I'm gonna say personalized, but my perspective and my worldview is heavily influenced by my upbringing and where I grew up and things I did prior to jumping in the web three. And so I would say when I'm looking at things of being a student in a game, I look at people who are, you know, I guess for, you know, if you look in sports, right, people who are best at that, they always highlight or reference that person being a student in a game, they understand things from a first of principles perspective.
And that's also something that's embraced in tech and engineering is just the idea of like, hey, and like solve problems, like your reference point being first principles not being abstractions what kind of stuff are you know, not necessarily always accurate or true. And so I think and you mentioned earlier, just the concept of pattern matching. I think that's why I look at it from that perspective. And then I think, you know, when it comes to, there was a question in somebody. Oh, no, that's a good one. OK, yeah, and I thought somebody had a question about that. But yeah. And so so, yeah, being a facilitator, I think is it's still it's a web three.
It's nice because there's this very different energy. I would say when you're building with people, there's not a sense of titles or having to take credit because it's on chain, who can ship it, who had it value. So I think now you operate from a sense of like, okay, what's the goal and objective? And how can I best add value? And so I think when you recognize that, hey, you might be on a team of 10 people, but you're maybe one of, or two of the 10 members have the ability to understand market and growth, but also understand development and engineering. It's like, why not benefit me?
Yeah, why not be a liaison? And I think, yeah, just kind of not being prideful. And so I think, I think kind of looking at it from a sense of like, how do I add the most value? And how do I best contribute to the space? And also recognizing when people are more gifted in a certain area than you are and being humble and being say, hey, let me learn from you. Let me ask questions. Yeah, it's not about, but like ask questions. Constantly be, you know, like as a student of the game, like I was learning, I think web three has advanced so much just within the past six months.
I think that it behooves anybody in this space to not ever see themselves as an expert and more so to see themselves as a contributor. Operating within there, I guess, room of expertise, but knowing that that can quickly change as, you know, I think when you look at just whether sports I'm using things like that. Like trends change the way people embrace it change. And the new, I would say contributors, whether it's like people who are transitioning from legacy tech into web three, or it's people who are part of the younger generation, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, who are quickly starting to adopt and embrace web three technology.
And they're embracing it as like, native users that they don't have, they, I guess they don't have to online things because it's all new, like they're learning while you're unlearning. I think it's been interesting to see Congress. You never see, you rarely see in a situation where somebody who might be the age of say, a college student will be working hand in hand with somebody who's in their 40s. Yeah. You see that a lot in web three. Yeah. And I think it's dope. Yeah. So what, so what is so break it down for me real quick and the people are watching and get you all if they have any questions about web three, definitely ask now's the time for you to kind of ask questions about an area that I'm still learning a ton about.
Isaiah, what is, what is a DAO? Can you break that down and then talk about developer DAO specifically? Okay. DAOs, I think are an evolving, I would say, an evolving thing, but really it's just looking at something where it's like we are, I'd say for developer DAO, it's a resource to the Web3 community where people are being onboarded in the Web3. they're able to find and connect with other engineers who are in the space who are wanting to, say, build similar projects. And also people can, I guess, whether seeking community, seeking education, or seeking collaborators, I think that's kind of where developer Dow sits in space right now.
And I think one of the things that, when it comes to defining what a Dow is, I think it's really important to define what it isn't. I think it's not going, it's not, it's not like any, I would say, of the legacy organization structures that we see where you have a, you might have a board that operates, you know, with anonymity and I think in web three things on chain, right? You have governance, people can speak into things as transparency. And I think, you know, as people start to learn more about dials and you see more dials spring up, I think Elon Musk's brother, his younger brother, launched that.
Yeah, what'd you say? I didn't know you had a brother. Yeah, his brother launched a doubt, or you have, you have Crowds House Dow, which is like, you know, they are, I'm trying to acquire minority stake and NBA team. You have, you have a doubt of right now, I think that's trying to acquire, if I'm not mistaken, they want to buy and have ownership and wagas completely on the Denver Broncos. Right? I know where it started. Yeah, that was something that's- And the Constitution. The Constitution Dow, right? So it's like basically what you have is you have people who are able to quickly create or put together core team or contributors who are all saying, hey, we're going to complete this goal.
And you have maybe whether they're investing their time or investing capital people who are contributing in different ways. But it's like a way for you to go about that where you're not having to be concerned about people operating and moving when integrity, there's ability for everybody to vote. And as they have a say, but even those tokenomics are, I guess the way that goes down by it's still mirror or looked very familiar to some of the models that were used to seeing, you know, in traditional tech. But I think for developer Dow, what I liked about it was that nobody's vote counted more than anyone else's because it was just everybody's vote counted as well.
Yeah. Yeah. For where it's like, you know, if you say look at Constitution Dow, depending upon how much money someone contributed to the Treasury, which was the wallet that everybody was investing into, they might be able to outvote other members even if their contribution or even if their I think involvement was minimal or their understanding was very you know it wasn't as strong say as other members and so I think something that you know was intriguing to me and something I liked about developer die was the fact that you know the one-to-one membership NFT sort of a cards that you know kind of I I think will become more common.
Allow for people to not feel like they are capital limited in their ability to have a say based upon, you know, how much disposable capital or how much money they want to put into something when it's initially launched. And it alleviates people, you know, I guess you have, in legacy, well, I said, tradition tech, you have situations where somebody might come in and they'll use their money to quickly capture influence influence within decisions, key decisions, the core decisions made within that organization. And people not being able to do anything about it just because they just don't have as much money. And so I think when it's one to one like that, you will alleviate that.
And I think it's very flat organizational structure that I think will start to become more common amongst even them doubts that are starting to have success in Web3. So I know there was a lot just now. No, so a DAO then is just a community. A DAO community. Okay. You have you have doubts that are focused on education. You have doubts that are focused on charity. I think you have doubts that are focused purely on investing, right? You have doubts that have 10,000 people and you have doubts that have 10 people. Yeah. And I think James. James, that's a great question. I'm glad he asked this.
And this is kind of why I wanted to bring Isaiah on is where you think the best place to start with web three is and the best community get involved with. I mean, this is kind of literally why I wanted to have Isaiah on. So great question, James. Yeah. I think it depends on what you are interested in. So I think if you are interested, say like in product design and UI design, VectorDow, which is a DOW that is made up of designers and just they product designers, UX, UI, is they have a lot of very talented people in that, and that DOW who work, focus purely from like almost like an agency kind of model where they help other DOWs and projects in Web3, build user interfaces and user experiences that are high quality, understanding that the DOWs and the people who are forming these communities aren't necessarily always going to either have the time or the expertise to make that very, like, you know, to match and be on par with say the other elements of what they're presenting to people, whether it's, you know, B2B or B2C.
And so I think, vector doubt is a resource down and they are adding a lot of value. And so if you're a private designer, say, go there versus if you were interested, say, in, you know, creating your own, I would I'd say a token or social token or something like that. I think forefront down would be one, would be in embrace. Yeah, for you interested in esports, there's an esports that's called Black Hand started by a guy named Sir Sue, well, that's his social media handle. But he is a very, I would say, very, he's one of those people to watch that saying what, he's going to really have a huge impact on the space.
But he's focused purely on esports. And so I think it just really depends on, hey, what are you interested in? What do you want to do? I learned yesterday about a charity dial called Pizza Dial, right? And I think there's just a lot of different dope, there's a lot of projects and opportunities. And I think vehicles for people to jump into the kind of a contribute and learn about dials, but I would say the best way to go about it is to just almost date, define very clearly, very early, what you want to do, what you're interested in, and what you hope to accomplish. And I think from there, different people in web three or who involved different doubts will be able to point you in the right direction.
And I love that. And also too, this just popped my head as you're talking as they I'll get with you through email. And if you want to send me some doubts that you like, I'll get that posted on my website. Um, and, and to get people more involved. Yeah. Awesome. And then with something I thought about as well as like, you know, if you would say, you know, when you go into college or you, you're dictating like, Hey, what do I want to do? You know, after high school, you define maybe what you're interested in. And then people kind of point you in the right direction.
I think that's something to consider as well when it's embracing Web3. It's like, hey, where do you see yourself adding value? What goals do you have? What do you want to accomplish? And I say, yeah, the people I came across just within just on Twitter or whether in real life, they're very eager to help you find people who can help you accomplish what you're trying to do. Because I think reality is like, if you, uh, you will find success and find joy and find peace and find your purpose and helping other people find theirs. Uh, that is really heavily in WebD. That'll preach. That'll preach.
So it was a better thing. Thanks. Yeah, that makes it. Yeah. I love that. I love that. So, so where do you think this is heading, man? I mean, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, right? Because, you know, I've been in a lot of conversations with people, you know, I know the hacking has gotten out of hand recently. I also, if you podcast, I know the hack has been nuts. But like, I don't know, man, like what do you think? Six months, a year, two years, like where do you see web three? And how do you think companies are going to kind of embrace it?
I have some thoughts that I would love to chime in after you answer. So you can correct me. Uh, I think that there are. On boarding improvements and or ramps that are big that will be built out that will drastically accelerate the timeline and reduce the amount of time it takes to people to learn about web3 or just crypto as a whole and get involved in it. And I'm also learning that making predictions is probably one of the, I guess, uh, least valuable things you can do at your time. Cause it's like, you're going to be wrong. Right? Cause it's like, I think there's always, uh, there's always people who are building in silence who end up having the idea that solves a lot of problems.
Um, and so I think about like, um, when NFTs first came out, like I remember I was learning it was like the first NFT was made by you know this gentleman named Kevin McCoy in 2014 on Namecoin. Little did they know that Ethereum which was also created in 2014 was going to be the actual you know platform or blockchain protocol that a lot of the NFTs that we see today are minted on and so I think like you know NFTs were going to be a thing we just didn't know what chain it was going to be primarily built on and I think the same thing for Dows and crypto, it will be adopted.
I just think the way it looks, the frameworks, I think, will be drastically different. It won't be drastic, but it will be slightly different. And in three years from now, it will look completely different than any of us. So my thought and my interest here are thoughts with me breaking down in my non-technical head. So when we're talking NFTs, non-fungible tokens, for those of you who are watching, Basically a digital asset, right? And a lot of people wrap, or it's hard to wrap their minds around. Basically I tell them like if you've ever played a video game, you've ever spent money in a video game.
Yeah, that's an NFT, right? Yeah, essentially. And so NFTs in my, in my mind are kind of two different things right now. And I know I'm going to want a little off topic with what I just asked. But so NFT obviously kind of have the art side of things, right? The board apes, the all that stuff. the, you know, the actual. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was thinking community driven. Is that same thing like the community driven entities? I think, yeah. No, you're right about that. I say, um, uh, there's a down called link style, which was wanting to award members who were early adopters with the membership NFT card that would grant them access to any and all of the, um, you know, golf courses that they were going to build around the world.
And so I think about it in a sense of like, save the founders of we work As long as we work, decided to raise money from the members who are going to be working in the we work buildings rather than private investors in Wall Street, I think that's the way to kind of look at it from a community perspective, with utility. And then of course based upon how they set up their, I guess, their down structure or their governance, whether or not that NFT could be transferable or resold. And if it could be resold, could you hold more than one? You know, because I think, you know, if you remember we were having to key cards, doesn't make sense.
It's taught to your personal identity. So that way, whatever actions you commit inside of we work, they can be associated with your car. And I think that's kind of like the way to look at, you know, web three's membership and community NFTs that are being built. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think the PFPs or the art projects, I think those are just kind of a, those still have a community element, right? I think it just depends on it. What the intentionality is because I think you'll see situations in the future where you have to have a NFT to Access something so I think I Gary Vee would his be friends project.
Yeah, yeah In order to attend the conferences you have to buy one of the NFTs And so I think that is another you know level of utility built in both Whereas like developer data Genesis NFTs they they didn't necessarily have an artistic component visually But there's artistic component based upon um, you know gaming and Defy that kind of had were already on trend at that point. So I think, you know, the people looking at their NFT as a set of attributes that they could then use that to create these different visual NFTs, I think, was something that was going to be understood by some members.
But I think it was interesting to see and observe how other members within the Dow who who were newer to web3, how they learned about it, how they understood it, and how other people were staying and educating them. Yeah, yeah. And then, and so, so we're talking, so, and again, we're kind of going back to the basics here, but I want to leverage, you know, guys' minds like Natter, like Isaiah, who understand the space. And so we're going a little 101 again, for those of you who are watching, my dad's tuned in right now. So I'm trying to go one, 101 for my dad because he's watching him.
So we got the NFT, we covered the NFT real quick. which was obviously more art based, right? I have the Samsung kind of picture frame TV. Literally my wife and I went on Etsy and you can buy backgrounds. You can buy backgrounds for your TV. layman's terms, that is an NFT on the art side of things. Community driven NFTs like Isaiah and I are talking about the conference side of things. Let's talk about crypto because crypto is different than NFTs, but still in the same space. So break that down real quick. Yeah, okay Yeah, go ahead. All right. No, no, I'll go go ship resting here.
Yeah. Yeah, so the best thing I heard is basically Instead of buying stock and Netflix and Google you're basically buying into a platform Yeah, that's that's a good way to look at it. Yeah, yeah, that is a good way It's interesting. I guess um Category is based on the category. I think depending upon the category. I think it quickly Uh can shift in regards to how you would define an empty, you know, yeah So, um, so I don't get like a So what what platform should people be looking for from the crypto side? Oh crypto side. Okay. Um, I'll send with the crypto side. Um Are you talking about just investing or looking at it from a research perspective both like trying to get more It's freaking good though.
It's freaking good. Okay. Two years ago or before they had an IPO, I would say Coinbase would be a platform that people tell you not to go to learn about the tokens and things like that. But I say to reduce. Oh, Isaiah, you want me to? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm saying I think looking at educating yourself before you invest, whether it's Coinbase, I think there are, after this, I'm going to send you that list of education. Yeah, please, please, please. But there's different, well, by the way, the Coinbase, Kraken, Hazard, FTX, US, I think you're seeing educational content being made by Ethereum Foundation, along with, like, you know, I think it just depends on the tokens you're interested in, starting with the documentation before you purchase.
I think it's probably the best way to go about looking at, you know, learning about different tokens or different crypto protocols and blockchains that are going to become, I think, kind of more standard as we see this space grow more. That makes sense. Yeah. And I think, and again, I think Ethereum, Ethereum has got a pretty good. It's there in Solana. I would say Solana. When you start to see, I would say two indicators to me of a crypto currency, whether is new or whether it's maybe something that's been in the space for a little bit and it's starting to see more developer activity on it.
When you start to see institutional investors create or send in a file paperwork with the SEC to fund, create it or I'd say like a different investment vehicle is created so that people can expose themselves to that asset more whether it's, you know, through directly and directly, I would say that's when you know, like, okay, it's definitely something to, you know, pay attention to and based upon your comfort level with it, you know, should invest in it. But I would say, look at the way that we go about investing in stocks, you do your homework, you vet the team, you vet the landscape, the space like, you know, who are the competitors, like doing a full, I would say, SWOT analysis.
Maybe that's the best turn, but like, yeah, actually just doing a due diligence based upon your comfort level with the space and also talking to other people. I would say ask questions and get different perspectives on it from people who are proven to be knowledgeable in say a specific D5 article. Yeah, correct. Which is why I've had Isaiah and Nader on at this point. So Isaiah, so as we wrap up here, 30 minutes rise by when you're having fun, especially when you're in a car Denver. Yeah. I always let my guests leave a little bit of last little bit of nuggets with with the viewers today.
Any any encouraging words around web party, any advice, any suggestions, anything that you're pretty passionate about right now, now's your kind of time to to give your life. Yeah. I would say always constantly, you know, I guess, start with the start with the documentation, and start with the learn before you, I'd say, learn before you act, just in regards to the sense of, like, you know, doing your due diligence, I feel like it's very, very, very, very, extremely critical in this space. When people have their wallets hacked and things like that, not that those, you know, I guess, situation scenarios are always the fault of the user or the users, but I think there are moments where if they were knowledgeable about the nuances of the tech, drastically helped them.
And I see mistakes where builders who are used to being able to hit the ground running because their earth like pick up on stuff fast. It's like if they had just read chapter four, they would have got their whole project. Yeah, the four H23 blast paragraph. Yeah, and it's like you see in court where, you know, I mean, whether it's TV or in real life, people have different moments where it's like they did not read the manual, right? Or they, yeah, like, you know, like you said, chapter four paragraph four, a sectionist so that they've already did some. And it's always that like one page you didn't pay attention to.
In crypto, it's important I say to pay attention to all the pages. But know that you can start building when, you know, as you're still learning. And just, yeah, just doing your due diligence, asking questions and not feeling like, you know, to ask questions is to admit like that you're not knowledgeable. I think there are, it's humbling to see people who are, you know, building the tech and also learning from the people who they're educating on at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say, yeah, just ask questions. Don't be afraid to tweet the, the builders and the founders of these protocols and projects that you're interested in investing in.
I love it. I love it so much. Well, Isaiah, thanks for coming on, man. stay on real quick. Okay, wrap up. And y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us this morning. Had a lot of comments. We appreciate it. Go connect with Isaiah. Isaiah, what's your Twitter handle? It's at Isaiah Hill. And yeah, definitely start for those technical errors. But but yeah, Isaiah Hill, I was trying to post in the chat, but it wouldn't let me. So I will. I'll follow up and post your information on the chat after we're done. But y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us. again check out render.
I got a code being created today GC dash two zero I think we're going to kind of make a little NFT type thing I talked to Justin this morning about it so we'll see. I'm a big floral shirt guys so maybe we get some cool NFT prints with floral but anyways more to come there so y'all thank you again tomorrow morning 9 3M central I'll be back with a hiring manager here in Nashville he's fantastic he was a Michelin star chef then turned engineer. Now he's a director of engineering. Fantastic. His story is incredible. So you all hang out with us tomorrow morning. Go connect to Isaiah.
I'll throw it in the show notes and you'll have a great one. Y'all take it easy. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finish an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like right now. Unless you're driving, then don't do it.
So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, tailor at vaco.com or at T. Destin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.