building a decentralized company

Gerd_HGGerd_HG Member Posts: 42
I am CEO of a startup called CytoComp http://www.cytocomp.com We are focusing on building a microprocessor from biological parts.

I am interested to build the company structure in a decentralized manner. I would like to discuss how one can do this on top of Ethereum. Especially interesting subjects are IP, crowd sourced project development, micro payments for crowd sourced micro contributions, distributed location of coworkers, crowd funding of project ideas, crowd shares, contracts, in general tot figure out how a working company structure on top of Ethereum will look like.

Looking forward to discuss.

Comments

  • Gerd_HGGerd_HG Member Posts: 42
    The GitHub repository for the project can be found here: http://bit.ly/1qSEScZ
  • JasperJasper Eindhoven, the NetherlandsMember Posts: 514 ✭✭✭
    Project Douglas is a good start. Of course it is but an approach taken, i think it is a good one, but doesnt cover all the issues. Here is their

    DOUG is a 'core', you call contracts by name via a central contracts, and what that central contract determines what is actually on the names. This allows you to change what is actually behind these names and change it afterward. (I think this concept is probably 'the' solution)

    C3D is a system they have magnet links that get stored in the contract, Eris uses this to store comments in a forum decentralizedly without overloading the blockchain. Forums, and git repos can then be put in there is software for that is developed, making more of the DAO decentralized. These resources can also be refered to via the name registry, which can be controlled by the DAO aswel.

    C3D sortah corresponds to 'Swarm', afaik currently every comment needs magnet link in the blockchain, which might be too prohibitive. Something like hanging('auditable') blocks(shameles plug) could make it take vastly less.

    Basically, the above are the infrastructure to build on. Any asset that can be controlled would need some way to control it externally. For it to be a DAO, for anything important, it should impossible to control unilaterally.

    For instance, the DAO controls the front page, because it controls the magnet link of the front page.(IP?) However, to make it difficult to change centralizedly, you need some rule that allows changing it. For instance members could have votes.(possibly with delegation) So there is a whole range of decisions like that. The voting power of members could be dependent on who is affected by the decision, and stake that people build up with interaction with the DAO. Basically, crowd shares.(such stake needs to be Sybil proof)

    Next to decisions, if a DAO has a business model of sorts, it needs code for that.

    'Earning from authorship' idea is to try figure out the graph of creations of users, who is deriving from who, and then have donations and ads for income. We have the nodes-to-files; cryptographic commitment by hash proving you had a file before others, but we dont have the edges, who is deriving from who. Methods for that could differ, for instance a 'wiki-DAO' or 'software DAO' could try use the history. There might be some kind of pieces of work where you can look at the data of the work itself.(saw a youtube video mentioning just this about foldit)(this probably needs trickery to avoid computation on-blockchain) Yet another approach is to just have people produce software packages, and the dependencies between them are the edges. In all of those there is a measure of trust in the consumers; inherently they can run away with the data, or worse go to a parasite that just copies everything, and has a business model to make money.(The latter is stupidity) Dont get me wrong this sound pretty difficult!

    The above seems to be closest to applicable to something like CytoComp. But no idea if it fits. I went nuts writing about some other things.(making it even longer than it was)

    Another interesting idea is a 'investment DAO' the desperado-theory blog suggests it. Instead of pooling existing value, it takes the approach to simply issue a subcurrency when investing, and using a reputation system that gives people making investments that pay back more ability to do investments. Could largely sidestep finding funding, changing it to 'convincing this system'. The currency could get its value, for instance by having the DAOs it launches operate with the currency itself.(and loyalty) (Generally, dont take for granted that a system isnt playable)

    Something like a crowdfunder('assurance contract') doesnt necessarily need a full blown DAO, it could in principle just be a single contract. Similar for bounties. That said, maybe it could benefit from a supporting DAO that develops the community, behavior, and maybe provides some protection when things go bad. For instance developers might be good judges about developer-tool bounties.

    And then i also wonder if you could make DAOs that allow people to oppertunistically move goods and people when they're going in some direction too, and have it be safe. Or handle little chores.
  • JasperJasper Eindhoven, the NetherlandsMember Posts: 514 ✭✭✭
    I think i may have focussed on DAOs that are strongly 'DAO mediated', i think there can be variants that basically only control a website, and things are 'more informal blockchain wise'. I.e. employees do stuff with some organization said in words on the website, and vote for decisions on assets of the DAO, where those assets are data, but not necessarily relationships between the data.
  • Gerd_HGGerd_HG Member Posts: 42
    @Jasper‌ I really appreciate your great comments. A great link. I will look a bit deeper into it. Your tips and comments are of great help to me. Thanks so much. I will have a deeper look into it.

    I am still at an early stage of researching these question and thus have so far just very rough ideas, which needs iterations.

    The talk of Adrian is great. Fortunately the technology has evolved so much since 2012, that we are much closer to implement a system like this. Especially the opportunity to integrate payment will add a missing brick. FoldIt is a role model for my project.

    At the present I am trying to understand if a large piece of work e.g. (analysis of a whole genome, or a complex coding project, a complex system like gene networks) can be fragmented to well defined parts of the problem, these fragments get distributed to many computers /people get analyzed there. The results get assigned an address which can be used for payment for the task and to reassemble the parts on the machine of the person who wants the work done and payed for it.

    I am working for CytoComp on a prototype of CAD software where you can design a microprocessor from biological parts. I share it here on GitHub https://github.com/CytoComp/CytoComp_CAD-version-0.20
    The Covert lab at Stanford https://github.com/CovertLab is working on the computer simulation of whole biological systems. This kind of work can my humble first draft of a prototype push to a new level, as you might be possible to make valuable designs totally in silico. For the moment I discuses this concept with one person from this lab. I wish to develop the software to a point where you can model parts of a biological computer, which can solve e.g. a specific biological problem. It would be great to be able to fragment the problem, let people work on a CAD system, reassemble the solution try prediction software and test only the most promising systems, thus basically crowd source the solution as done in FoldIt.

    The payment in such as system could come from a cutover who might e.g. be willing to pay typically something in the range from a few 1000 to 100 000 $ for the in silico solution of a biological problem. There are some palaces on the net where you can find such request. You can distribute such a request and use the money to pay the crowd respective to their contribution. Synthetic biology and biological computing is very suited for this tasks as this field as a practical application of systems theory and systems biology is in larger parts executed in silico. As the sequence cost of a genome has dropped to about $1000 we will now move in the area of personalized medicine. Analysts have found out, that we have reached a prize tag which will make this technology desirable for the masses. EG in case of cancer, you will need to analyze the cancer genome and design biological computer utilized in therapy. We might need to design very individualized therapy solutions. A huge emerging field. The problem here will be to perform all the analysis and biological system design work. This needs both to be done with speed and with security for the DNA data.

    Such a system might produce an unseen problem solving speed, if we can utilize in one form or another the collaborative intelligence. This is both of advantage to solve urgent medical problems and will give in addition a competitive advantage over people working in other kind of settings.

    As said in the beginning I am still in the problem definition phase with this part of my project... Hope this gives some impression of what kind of organization I wish to try to implement.

  • vaXvaX Austin, TXMember Posts: 78 ✭✭✭
    edited September 2014
    Gerd_HG said:


    As said in the beginning I am still in the problem definition phase with this part of my project... Hope this gives some impression of what kind of organization I wish to try to implement.

    Sounds like a bLeading edge, honorable ☰ndeavor @Gerd_HG. Looking forward to it's ☰volution.
    "collaborative intelligence"
    You're in the right place (((o)))
  • Gerd_HGGerd_HG Member Posts: 42
    edited September 2014
    awesome @vaX I made a free open source review about biological computing in case you wish to read about the scientific part a bit http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S200103701460026X

    About my experiments with crowd sourcing of science you can read in Nature SpotOn http://www.nature.com/spoton/2012/05/tool-tales-leukippos-synthetic-biology-lab-in-the-cloud/ and in the last edition of BioCoder http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000002036/ch03.html

    I will keep you updated about the developments.
  • vaXvaX Austin, TXMember Posts: 78 ✭✭✭
    @Gerd_HG I'm still reviewing everything.. Great stuff! Love your enthusiasm, devotion and vision. It's all ϟhifting much faster than traditional /\cademia, Sciences, and Governments can even begin to ascertain, much less wrap their PhD's and megalomaniacal tendencies around.

    ☰thereum is poised to greatly empower individual researchers and scientists such as yourcellf. What is being built is an 'always on' virtual finance machine, that will greatly expedite the cryptofunding ov meaningful, vvorthvvhile endeavors, while simultaneously helping to foster the organic cellf-organization ov trvly magickal teams. Collective Intelligence Orchestration will essentially be baked-in to the protocol, with A.nonymous I.dentification and R.eputation integration structured at the backbone ov the ϟystem.

    An ☰thereal world made up ov Scientists ov all sorts, forming ÐΔO's and ÐΔC's, to consensually /\rchitect vvholly dynamic ÐΔPP's, shall ultimately usurp previously praised efforts such as: ResearchGate & Mendeley

    I'm curious to hear your THOTHts on the gov/corp funded: helix nebula?

    VVe're living in ☰xtra0rdinary times; standing smack dab at the decentralized centaur ov it all.

    (((o)))
  • Gerd_HGGerd_HG Member Posts: 42
    @vaX on passion:

    Academica is broken. Our Leukippos group is working on this for a few years. See Nature: SpotOn http://www.nature.com/spoton/2012/05/tool-tales-leukippos-synthetic-biology-lab-in-the-cloud/
    and
    BioCoder
    http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000002036/ch03.html

    I totally agree with your view on the current scientific praxis. Unfortunately projects like Research gate and Mendeley do not work out. One problem might be the business model behind academic science - high impact factor journal publication gives you or maintains you a tax payer founded position.

    I do not share the vision of Helix Nebula: A single company can have their platforms of their own. We will show with ethereum. The age of the middleman is over. Furthermore, I think e.g. that centers like CERN, EMBL and ESA belong structurally to the past and it is not desirable to team up with them. Centralistic institutions are slow in their decision making process. EU commissions are slowing down the scientific discovery process. All these grant applications are a vast of time and money. Moreover, if you act in the frame of these institutions you behave politically and do not talk free. Also your scientific content is political (to keep your position) motivated and not by passion for content. People behave stiff, political and are not lead by passion. All together: Thus in history it was possible for Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to beat the at their time giant IBM. The best science was never build around institutions, but persons. One of the most successful place (produced a majority of Nobel prize winners) was Rockefeller University. They are build around people. Although their University concept is out of date, they were at last on the right road in respect to their focus on people. We see here also a specific european problem with still existing feudal structures - secret politics, up down over the head of people. The concept of nobility is wrong.
    In general, we have also to face in science that the EU is second grade. In the frame of institutionalized science they can not compete - the majority of talent is in Boston, New York and Paolo Alto. The US has a clear power grep on science. Thus, if you wish to do science in the frame of institutions you need to move to the US. You do not wish to team up with an EU institution if you wish to do A+++ work. You have to do A+++ as science is per definition is only relevant under this premiss. Thus you only join EU institutions if you have too. Conclusion of this very rough thought sketch: Helix Nebula is well meant, but will not work out. A waste of money (inclusive taxpayer money).


    However, my perspective is quite different. I did for 4 years now many humble experiments, which I did not scale like e.g. research gate did. We have so far not really solved the problem, but we come now very close with such a project ethereum is, as we can solve the financing. I think the big potential are people who can act free and follow their passion. We are wrong conditioned from school and were only doing work in order to pass some exams but not driven by our own interest. You can see by the history of Ethereum how this change if one person drops out of the system and follows his or her passion. @vitalik‌ i sone great example. Jack Andraka https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_pancreatic_cancer_from_a_teenager another. There are many such people around the world, sometime in very dual and unfortunate areas. I hope we can connect people in projects and let them free follow their passion. Products change the world. Building great products do not need large teams. Often can one or two people be enough. Teams of about 100 will already be large one. We do not need in a modern context these large organizations with 10 000 of people any more. Large companies in this range suffer..... P2P networks are the solution. In this structure, you have a project already done when the other people are still in the phase of grand application (which most likely get rejected as the governments run out of money...). Collaborative intelligence will lead to an unseen speed in science. The tenure track is the past. People who do not rethink will be the losers.


    Yes the times are great and we have really an opportunity to make changes to the better.

    Why join the navy, if you can be a pirate? - Steve Jobs
  • TiberiusBTiberiusB Member Posts: 1
    Hi all,
    I am new to Ethereum, but I have been eagerly waiting to get more time to engage in this community.

    In response to this thread, we are experimenting with what we call the OVN model, which stands for Open Value Networks. The main idea is to create and distribute value in long tail mode, and to redistribute revenue to ALL participants, in proportion to their relative contributions to projects.

    We started to practice this using Google Spreadsheets, back in 2011. After that, we moved to a platform created by Bob Haugen, Lynn Foster, myself and others. See it working here. Our dream/goal has always been to operate on a p2p infrastructure like the one built by this community. The day we will be able to use Ethereum, to move our operations to this framework, we'll make a HUGE of a party! and you'll be invited.

    Our contribution to the world has been implementing commons-based peer production in a real life setting. That is the www.sensorica.co community. We have also thought hard about dimensions of value, evaluation of contributions to projects, value equations, and other modules that are necessary to incentivise work, to insure quality, to increase the probability of delivery, to manage resources in a network-type organization, etc. On top of that, we have been working hard to put in place legal structures, governance and p2p normative systems.

    My personal experience is mostly in the socio-economic space, trying to understand how people react to this new paradigm of value creation and distribution, and to the new tools that we are using to support our processes. Culture is our biggest challenge!

    @Gered_HG, take a look at the OVN model and see if you can apply it to your case, and if you can implement it on Ethereum.

    I think we need to open a dialog in order to see how our experience with SENSORICA can be transferred to people who want to use Ethereum to build their open enterprises.

    I am all yours if you need more insights on the nitty-gritty and the real world problems related to the implementation of an open enterprise.
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