Starting Over
After a series of unsuccessful proposals and months of failed communication efforts, I am starting back from the beginning -with a new (old) boss and a new communication strategy. Previous efforts to understand the reasoning behind and definitions of stakeholder groups have been unsuccessful, as have been my efforts to understand what "full stakeholder control" means. In another attempt to understand the former, I have outlined the stakeholder groups heretofore mentioned and my understanding of how Jeff sees these groups and why he wanted to include them - with no commentary or judgement made whatsoever - just to clarify. In an attempt to understand the desired level and type of stakeholder control, I have outlined a spectrum of possibilities for stakeholder involvement in governance - all of which could be understood as allowing "full control" to stakeholders.
My Attempt to Summarize My Understanding of Jeff’s Reasoning Behind Stakeholder Groups Mentioned in Prague
Employees- “The company’s employees, other than me, should share in both the successes and control of the entity they are working to build.” (this is just Jeff’s words straight up. I don’t think further explanation is required)
Developers -Giving this group profit shares was because they needed some way to fund dapp and protocol development, but I think giving them voting rights was just about making this a community-owned company, with “the community” being Ethereum. Also, I suppose it is because developers have contributed enormously to the ecosystem and therefore probably have its best interest in mind. A sort of ethical force.
Trusted Sources- These were, at one point, the individuals who will be conducting the vein scans and verifying identity information. I believe that the thinking here has changed, and I remember reference to groups of lawyers, like JAMS or something. Maybe a group to do arbitration for the company? I think the idea I heard here is that they can be trusted because they have licensure at stake, but I am not sure if that’s why they are included or if it is just why they are “trusted.” These are all people who have been given the government’s stamp of approval though – so maybe it is something about regulatory compliance?
Power NetID Users- I believe that this would now be more of a general “product user” group, and that they would be included because they could give good feedback on the quality/usability/ethics of our company.
Education-focused Nonprofit: I believe that the reasoning here was because a non-profit would have the public good in mind, and also a close relationship to the knowledge-base and guiding ethos behind people who want to use blockchain technology. Originally, I believe that ETHNews was going to be included here, because that would provide a kind of neutral reporting to help increase transparency and honesty within the company and the ecosystem more generally.
Investors: Investors are a self-explanatory group, but I have heard you say that they should either receive no voting power, or limited voting power. The reasoning here, I believe, is that investors represent Wall Street, Big Money, and financial interests, and you spent decades learning as a lawyer that these people often do not have the best interest of people in mind. However, I believe that you see them as a necessary evil to get the smart city and other projects built quickly.
**It is unclear if the groups other than investors are expected to buy voting and profit shares, or if they are granted them. This would seem to be important in determining whether or not they are securities.