AADAO Oversight Special Report: GM Misconduct/Mismanagement

[Patricia]

@Better_Future

I actually wanted to keep this embarrassing mess of a situation private as a humanist who tries to live by the principle of never hurting others. Your actions and Youssef’s actions let the entire DAO down, and rather then publicizing a lose-lose outcome for the two of you, I hoped you could escape from this situation with some lessons-learned and step-up and apologize proactively and repair the situation and save your relationship with Youssef and the community.

What exactly did my actions contribute to the current situation? By transparently raising legitimate concerns that ultimately led to the majority of contributors deciding on Youssef’s resignation and by openly discussing these concerns with Grace?

This situation is not a personal conflict between Youssef and me, it’s about the lack of transparency in his actions, which seemed to benefit himself. I was the only one with full visibility into these details.

You need to understand that, regardless of the final outcome of his compensation, if the process had been handled with objectivity and proper disclosure, it would not have compromised his integrity. I have consistently tried to involve everyone in the discussions I initiated and have never attempted to conceal anything.

If you cannot see that the real issue was Youssef pushing for individual bonus payments without proper disclosure to the community, despite my expressed discomfort to Grace and in the full-team channel, then you’re missing the heart of the problem. My refusal to proceed without transparency led to this escalation, not personal disagreements. I don’t think you fully understand the gravity of the situation if you overlook this critical point.

Have you considered what would have happened if the bonus payments had been made? How could I, as the Financial Controller/Internal Auditor, allow such a thing? The people who own the funds would have been paying for things they were unaware of. What would you have done if you were pressured to act unethically? And how would you have reacted if, after refusing to proceed with non-transparent payments, Youssef publicly accused you of lacking integrity during a group call?

I had to bring up the February incidents. When someone questions my integrity in a group setting, how else should I respond?

[Cosmos_Nanny]

Your memory of our conversation is inaccurate. I have a complete recording of our call to verify this.

I’ll share both the entire transcript and the recording, though it’s quite lengthy. To save time, I’ll provide a summary for the community, emphasizing that there’s nothing controversial or concerning in the content of our conversation.

Btw, you were informed by the other contributor on the call that your recollection is incorrect. I’m left puzzled by your choices Jordan.

[Better_Future]

What do you mean I can’t be a victim of a situation I helped create?

Hi Pati, gm. how about you first answer these two questions I asked you yesterday, and then I can respond to this question I asked you here, yeah?

• How many times from Jan 1 to Feb 23, 2024 do you remember asking Youssef or Damien for bonus comp for Oversight? For example, was it 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 times? Or more then that?

• Also, how many times did you remember asking Youssef or Damien to have the retention formula changed to the 2023 methodology? For example, was it 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 times? Or more then that?

[White_Marlin]

Better future….Why did the person “Roo” post these same questions and then delete their post and then your post was essentially a copy paste? Why does that person like your posts in this thread? Are you using sock puppets to make AADAO look better in this thread? How is this ethical?

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Better_Future

Where do you believe all of the alt accounts defending you on the forum have come from?

I don’t use alts.
It’s all pRoJeCtiOn.

But it appears that you do @Better_Future aka @Roo!

And so does AADAO’s Marketing/Communications lead.

While not criminal, it’s certainly unethical to manipulate community conversations on governance matters this way. This is all very undignified and disrespectful.
I’ve had enough.

No more comments needed from me. Will circle back with transcripts.

[Better_Future]

Hi Whitemarlin, the Roo account is mine and it is the only other account I have on Cosmos forum. I created it about a year ago thinking i might start to write under my real identity (my initials RO), but I never did transition and have always stuck with the pseudoynm and that’s how everyone in the community knows me, and hence why this Roo account has never been used. You can see in the stats it has never ever posted anything (apart from that one misfire post 20 mins ago). When I login in the morning “with Gmail” if I am using my RO gmail, then I get logged into this Roo account, and I errantly did that this morning. Sorry for the confusion. I’ll continue to post as betterfuture, as that is how I’m known in the community.

[0xjordy]

@Cosmos_Nanny

Your memory of our conversation is inaccurate. I have a complete recording of our call to verify this.

I’ll share both the entire transcript and the recording, though it’s quite lengthy. To save time, I’ll provide a summary for the community, emphasizing that there’s nothing controversial or concerning in the content of our conversation.

Btw, you were informed by the other contributor on the call that your recollection is incorrect. I’m left puzzled by your choices Jordan.

Thank you for the reply Grace @Cosmos_Nanny.

To be clear to everyone, I do not have a recording of the call between myself, Grace, and the other DAO contributor. My recollection is just based on my memory recall of the events.

In the spirit of being cooperative, I am generally a reasonable person so I am more than happy to be corrected, if the recording does differ significantly at all, from my recollection.

My recount I typed above is all based upon my rough recollection of events through my perspective, as I typed them at 2-3am my timezone, last night. They were also unedited, and I did not receive feedback from any other AADAO members prior to posting.

I also want to flag I was not quoting you Grace directly word for word, hence why above in my original post that I use the words “something along the lines of”.

Grace mentions something along the lines of, “the DAO [AADAO] may have not have any choice but to vote the GM out”

The exact words said can very well deviate in actuality vs. my recollection, but that was the gist of it to my understanding & recall. I could be wrong and I am willing to admit that.

I also did ask you, Grace, after, if there was any other reasonable path forward for AADAO other than removal of the GM, to at least explore what other viable solutions are possible in the sense of being able to assess all of what options are at play, to which I believe you may have backtracked the original statement of voting the GM out, and responded to me something along the lines of “it is not the Oversight’s duty to give a recommendation of how to fix the incident/issue (?)”.

Again, I do not have the luxury of having the recording in front of me.
So it is highly likely the words are not exact here.

=======

@Cosmos_Nanny

Btw, you were informed by the other contributor on the call that your recollection is incorrect. I’m left puzzled by your choices Jordan.

I’m not sure what is meant by this, nor when that the other DAO contributor informed me that my recollection was incorrect. Again, I am willing to be corrected here.

[common_spelling]

Are you advocating for a system that, through a lack of disincentives, incentivizes malfeasance and, once discovered, negotiates with the wrongdoer to correct the misuse of funds while allowing them to remain in place to find new ways to misappropriate resources?

[BendyOne]

Obviously not.

I am actually saying either oversight need to accept the position of the dao or they/the community need to vote to disband it.

[Cosmos_Nanny]

What you need to understand is when you’re aiming to challenge a person’s credibility and reputation, “something along the lines of” is not good enough.

And it’s wholly inappropriate to allow and or invite your colleagues to make alterations to your given account/statement. The group effort that is clearly your “statement” invalidates it.

[common_spelling]

@BendyOne

Obviously not.

I am actually saying either oversight need to accept the position of the dao or they/the community need to vote to disband it.

what does that mean? are you saying AADAO’s position is one advocating for a system that, through a lack of disincentives, incentivizes malfeasance and, once discovered, negotiates with the wrongdoer to correct the misuse of funds while allowing them to remain in place to find new ways to misappropriate resources?

[0xjordy]

@Cosmos_Nanny

What you need to understand is when you’re aiming to challenge a person’s credibility and reputation, “something along the lines of” is not good enough.

And it’s wholly inappropriate to allow and or invite your colleagues to make alterations to your given account/statement. The group effort that is clearly your “statement” invalidates it.

Grace, I was not aiming to challenge anyone’s reputation or credibility. I mention this in my original post above. I was told by fellow DAO contributors that they thought my recollection of all events, including both my onboarding to AADAO of receiving the job offer from the GM, as well as my call with you and the other DAO contributor- was important to at least add to a holistic report.

Again, I also did not have the luxury of the recording of said call.
You do, in this case. So I am willing to be corrected within reason.

My statement above is not the result from a group effort.

Respectfully I want to reiterate on the Strategic Committee call, September 20, I was asking for feedback on the call because this is my first time ever posting to Cosmos Hub forums, I am relatively newer to Cosmos in a professional setting, the first time I have had to interact with a community in an escalated situation such as this. I was also not sure if they wanted to take my written perspective in a Google Doc to aggregate it into a central doc, or if they wanted me to post it straight to the Cosmos Hub forums.

[tknox35]

So how are we going to move forward? This back and forth bickering on things can only go for so long. The community deserves a resolution to this ASAP.

[Cosmos_Nanny]

There have reportedly been two full DAO team discussions about the “Master Report” process and production.

During one of these team calls, you apparently shared your recollection of our call that took place on August 30th between you, me, and another contributor.

You reportedly stated that during this August 30th call, I suggested removing Youssef, possibly implying that I was prematurely advocating for his removal before the review was complete. And that this was what you perceived as my motivation in organizing the call with you and another contributor.

This is incorrect.

And in fact, the other contributor who was on that August 30th call with us corrected your recollection, communicating to you that your recollection is inaccurate.

According to her, she was actually the one who first mentioned Youssef’s potential removal, in response to me sharing what transpired on StratComm call earlier that same day.

I have recently listened to the recording and the recollection of the other contributor is true. I did not bring up Youssef’s removal first. And it’s true to say that was clearly not the objective of our call given what was discussed.

Specifically, the other contributor mentioned the option of removing the GM bc of the clear misconduct of Youssef involving his wife in DAO related matters; and his wife’s acts of intimidation and coercion to manipulate the Controller into approving policies the Controller could not objectively or reasonably support.

To clarify the actual content and purpose of our August 30th call (since your memory appears to be vague at best): we spent over 70% of the time discussing your and the other contributor’s salaries and negotiation processes.

We also spent a considerable amount of time discussing the appropriateness of the GM citing commensurate salaries for his role in the private/similarly positioned venture funds in crypto as basis for his total possible compensation.

And the selective inequity of subjecting new hires especially of a accepting lower salaries because AADAO is a “public” – community owned DAO.

The primary purpose of that call was to discuss compensation. While Oversight perceived a parity and equitablility issues with the team compensation structure, I felt it was necessary to understand the perspective of the contributors themselves. After all, if the compensation structure makes sense to the team, Oversight has less cause to go on withholding approval.

Specifically, I wanted to:

1. Understand the reasons contributors agreed to salaries below market rates.
2. Learn about any promises or guarantees given regarding bonuses that would potentially bridge the gap between your current pay and your purported or perceived market value.
3. Do you think the compensation structure and proposed bonus methodology is fair.

Regarding the mention of removing the GM (General Manager), just want to reiterate that:

1. This topic came up after the other contributor had introduced it as a possibility the team should consider during our call.
2. When I mentioned it subsequent to the suggestion, it was more as a point of discussion rather than actively advocating for or “lobbying” for this course of action.

You also sent me messages in Twitter DM in the immediate aftermath of our call. I won’t be sharing those publicly at this time. But I believe you have other motivations as to why you are participating in this less than dignified group narrative exercise.

Please. Just do the right thing. It’s not complicated.

[Syed]

Yeh, wish people just stopped.

DAO currently voting on: AADAO Team | Update Internal Protocols and terminate the employment of Youssef Amrani as GM

[BendyOne]

Frankly this is a disgrace.

[tknox35]

Set egos aside and hop on a call to determine a path forward. He-said she-said stuff could potentially go on for weeks. Figure it out, folks. We need to move on so the DAO can finish their mandate, or cancel the whole damn thing.

[Better_Future]

What exactly did my actions contribute to the current situation?

Thank you for asking that question.

• In v0.1 Internal Protocols that went on-chain with Prop 865, Oversight was given the role of finalizing the Performance Incentive Plan protocol. The intention was that this be done in an absolutely neutral and irreproachable way by an independent Oversight.
• Prop 865 provided about 60-80% of what was necessary to administer the performance comp, yeah? And there was still work to do, yeah? KPIs, KPI measurement, formulas for calculating retention, etc.
• When you started asking about performance comp and retention that seemed to benefit yourself, then I understand that Youssef felt he had to take the performance comp admin task away from you on grounds you were being self-interested, that is what I personally witnessed happening on the Feb 23 call, yeah?
• So once he took it away from you, this was the beginning of the current situation of Youssef going off on his own and creating his own version of bonus pool splitting formulas and retention formulas and admining the plan (which is NOT the positive design architecture involving Oversight as a guardrail to admin the plan passed under Prop 865);
• If you had done the job in an irreproachable way, performance comp admin would have remained with Oversight, and Youssef wouldn’t have taken it away from you, yeah? and then none of this could have happened at all, as structurally you would have stayed very involved in all of it, yeah?
• So to your question, “what did my actions contribute to the current situation”, my answer is “well, in a way, everything”, if you had not asked all of those questions that seemed self-interested I assume Oversight would have remained in control of the Performance Comp admin task… and likely none of this ever would ever have occurred at all"

[Cosmos_Nanny]

I feel it’s important to remind ALL AADAO CONTRIBUTORS that, as previously communicated to you, all conversations regarding Oversight’s review have been recorded. This includes every discussion beginning with my initial call with Patricia on August 27th onwards.

Utterly baffled by the actions of certain contributors who are promoting predetermined narratives for the “Master Report”. The invalid conjectures and directionality of your Master narrative conflict with the factual evidence captured in many of the audio recordings.

Why is there all this energy invested in creating doubt on our work and harm to our reputation? Why do I hear a perverse joy in your voices as you coordinate to hack a report that Pati and I are not “peachy keen peachy clean.”

You’re driven by motivations that are unclear to me. I don’t need to know the answer. Not right now. For now, I ask you all to do the right thing.

Recommended sequence of “doing the right things:”

1. Immediate GM termination
2. Lift ‘operational freeze’ on Oversight
3. Migrate AADAO to Cosmos Hub
4. Establish AADAO Oversight SubDAO by 9/25
5. Alter your charter and bylaws to make it unequivocally clear, the Oversight Committee is an independent committee from the the CoreDAO. Oversight mandate is to serve and represent the interests of Cosmos Hub stakeholders, not AADAO core contributors or the organization’s business and or political interests.

[kopeboy]

Why can’t the community end this drama by just voting to “fire” everyone, freeze & get back control of the funds, and make new elections?

Probably Juno, not having legal entities, wasn’t so bad nor slow & bureaucratic

Do new structures & governance processes still need to be defined? I can help.
It will be much easier & transparent now on DA0DA0…