Hi all,
I am writing here to share my deep concerns of the wild overreach path the Oversight Committee has been engaged in the past few weeks. I have been running AADAO since inception and I can confidently say the way Oversight behaves is political and not done in the best interest of AADAO and by extension the ATOM community itself.
AADAO is the only organization that is fully aligned and owned by the Cosmos Hub and has been since day one a net positive for the Hub. Thank you @BlocksUnited for the kind words on AADAO.
However, the situation has started to deteriorate over the past 2 months and the arrival of Grace on our Oversight. As a reminder, I was behind the initiative of creating the Oversight Committee during prop 95, which established AADAO. The objective back then was to show to the ATOM community that AADAO was a serious organization that wanted to provide the best transparency and ethical guarantees to the Hub. The lack of trust has always been an issue in the Cosmos Hub and the establishment of an Oversight and transparency function within AADAO was a direct response to this.
Public scrutiny has never been a problem for AADAO or myself, as long as it is a benevolent and fair scrutiny, not one at the service of a political and malevolent agenda. AADAO has always prided itself in being transparent and an open book to the community and the community has generally well received this transparency. In line with accepting public scrutiny and further aligning with the Hub, AADAO started the process of having a community elected Oversight member. Nothing forced us to do so. That was us deliberately giving away some of our authority as a proof of our goodwill. Our goal has always (and remains) to be the most aligned Hub’s organization and having an elected member on our Oversight seemed like the right thing to do.
While Oversight is supposed to represent and maximize the interests of the ATOM community, it is currently not doing so by severely disrupting the operations and morale of our team. ATOM is currently at a cross-road and what we need right now is an AADAO org that has a culture of peak operational performance – and not a culture of internal investigations – if we are to have a chance of saving the Hub from the dangerous negative spiral it has embarked on the past year.
We always had a positive, collaborative and open work culture at AADAO. This culture is now in great danger of being replaced by a culture driven by selective prosecution, fear, and paralysis. I have made a couple of small mistakes over the past years, and Grace makes it her full time job to dig up the issues, sensationalize them, and present them to the community in the worst possible light.
Contributors are scared to speak out and communication lines between my team and myself have been broken on purpose to isolate me from my team, hence seriously disrupting our operations. Using the cover of the ‘GM under investigation’, the Oversight has instructed AADAO contributors to record all conversations and report any conversation with me about the investigation. This has resulted in a very unhealthy work climate.
Conflicted Oversight
Grace
- Promoting a competing chain (ATONE) while holding a position in AADAO is a conflict of interest, especially knowing that the founder of ATONE is none other than JK, who decided to rage quit the ATOM community. She even dedicated to him her victory lap following her election to AADAO Oversight:
Patricia
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She wanted Oversight to be involved in the performance bonus allocation, which I refused to accept. Why? Because the Oversight function is supposed to be neutral and independent. Plus, the Oversight is not involved in the strategy nor in the operations functions that drive the performance. Asking for Oversight to be included in bonus distribution – which would have personally benefited herself – felt like a grave ethics violation for what is supposed to be the AADAO function with the most integrity. Since this refusal, she’s been acting with a grudge, animosity, and hostility towards me.
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Not satisfied with my refusal to include Oversight in the performance pool, she also tried to change the process for the retention compensation to again increase her own salary for 2024. In fact, following the recruitment of our admin assistant, we took away from her some of the duties she used to perform and put her back on her original salary. It was in her financial interest to base the retention on 2023 salaries instead of 2024 and she kept pushing, even after I explained her the following:
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Most of AADAO contributors are full time in 2024 while they were part time in 2023. Using 2023 as a base for the work being done in 2024 will diminish their compensation while not being reflective of the current work being one
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Many AADAO contributors changed roles and compensation in 2024. If a contributor is paid 70K in 2024, he should have retention based on that amount and not 2023 where he was making 35K.
When we recruited Patricia, it was from my wife’s referral because they had worked at an accounting firm together previously, and hence my wife has a historical relationship with her and thought she could be trusted.
Anyways, this is the original situation from six months ago where Patricia holds a grudge against me, and this is the situation the Grace sniffed out thru her “investigations”, and this is now the situation that Grace has written-up in her so-called investigation without waiting to hear my side of the story to say I am unfit to serve in leadership.
Compensation and performance bonuses
On bonuses, I’d like to point out this is a red herring problem. Prop 865 specifically described the distribution of an ATOM performance and retention pool of 100,000 ATOM in the on-chain proposal. As budget approval is a primary function of governance voting, it’s reasonable to assume that a “yes” vote means informed endorsement of this specific allocation.
Questioning the validity of clearly outlined budget items post-approval will set a problematic precedent. It will lead to a need for granular consensus on sub-items and will make Cosmos Hub governance a nightmare to navigate.
I’d also like to point out that the withholding of said bonuses is seriously impacting the team morale. AADAO contributors are all hard workers and they are doing so in a difficult context where:
- ATOM price is sinking
- Their paycheck is significantly hurt by the price action
- The general public sentiment is an all time low
Talent retention is important in a hyper competitive crypto workspace and I have serious doubts the current Oversight investigation will produce any positive outcome for AADAO and by extension for the Hub.
On my own compensation
- Base salary brackets approved by Prop 865, and my base salary is within the brackets
- Performance and retention allocation approved by Prop 865, as part of the framework presented to the community and approved with the passage of Prop 865
- Last year, there were 2 Program Managers, @Better_Future and myself. This year I’m the General Manager so I took on the entire executive function.
- Managing a part time workforce last year, transitioned to a mostly full time team in 2024, and I personally have set aside all other professional obligations to work on Cosmos Hub as its driving force 10+ hours per day and 6-7 days per week
- AADAO Scope of work has significantly improved: from grants to becoming the Cosmos Hub growth DAO: grants, ventures, PSS onboarding, and Hub’s marketing
AADAO has always prided itself in being a community owned builder and a net positive contributor to the ATOM community, bringing hope back and promoting good governance. Cosmonauts, beyond the Hub and including the entire Interchain are proud of AADAO. All of this is now in jeopardy, caused by an Oversight that doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation in which the Hub is and who’s forcing for an unknown agenda, in complete disconnection with the current reality.
On the investigation itself, I am more than happy to call for an independent, unbiased and qualified investigator to uncover the truth. I just don’t think the current Oversight is the right entity to do so, given the current circumstances and how conflicted it is with the only two members (Patricia and Grace), one having a grudge against me for denying her performance bonus, and two serving in the promotion of a competing project, $ATONE.
I’ll be around in the next few days to protect the hard earned reputation of AADAO and also to clear my name from these false allegations that have been shared, both within my team workspace and on this forum. If anyone would like to discuss, feel to schedule time on my Calendly:
Summary Thoughts:
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In the future the Oversight function of any project or chain should not allow conflicted members who are also aligned or aligning with other projects, as it creates an opportunity for infiltration and muckraking. (this is the situation with Grace now)
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If a member of Oversight commits an ethics violation by demanding bonus compensation and also manipulation of the formula of calculating retention, the community needs to see the full information about this situation, before reacting too quickly about the role of the GM in the situation. (this is the situation with Patricia now)
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If the only two members of Oversight are acting together with somewhat selfish motives (ie Grace and Patricia together), the whole idea of Oversight being a neutral steward of the interests of the Hub is undermined. This is a challenging situation, and I would appreciate advice from the community on what to do under these circumstances. (this is the situation AADAO finds itself in now)