Big Green DAO: Democratizing & Disrupting Philanthropy - Kimbal Musk

foreign there we go uh hello everybody I'm Lucas matinee I'm an editor at TechCrunch very psyched to have Kimball here with us is this your first eat Denver it is my first East Denver and I gotta say it has been a wonderful day you guys are awesome so how are you involved with crypto I am not involved in crypto um if everyone thinks what I'm doing is crypto actually it's web free we have we do not touch cryptocurrency so it's a up and of course Buffy they they them [Applause] but they might be asking a question uh so in the wet 3 world tell me a little bit about this Dow that you're working on sure so um who here has heard of big green Dow cool a couple people so um what I've been what I find fascinating about web3 is this concept of decentralizing authority and um that that is just a if you think about capitalism where you you have issues around you know any inequality otherwise when you think about communism and you have issues around uh just creating creating wealth this is a new governance structure it's a it's decentralized autonomous organization I am absolutely fascinated by it so so I started to look at how could you apply philanthropic decisions to uh to using web three and what I um what if what I did I don't need to make money so I'm not here to speculate on any tokens or coins or anything and frankly I don't think most of you are either I've really enjoyed my conversations today with you guys this is the theme of this conference is Biddle not Hotel you're allowed to huddle don't worry but Biddle is what you want you want to be building and you guys are all Builders and so what I love about with three when we when we make philanthropic decisions we're working out of a home office in Boulder or if you're the Gates Foundation you're in Seattle and uh you're really I consider myself an ivory Tower philanthropist I have a I live in a beautiful place I try very hard to give money away and I don't really know how well it does and when I saw this concept of a Dao I wondered if we could put grant making power into the hands of the front lines my philanthropy is focused on food Justice so we would give voting power to non-profits working in food Justice and they would have a treasury I put a million dollars in and I said fifty thousand dollars each to each Dow member Dow Committee Member and I said you guys now have to decide who should get another round of funding so they have a two to three hundred thousand dollar range to give away this quarter but the catch is they have to give a voting power away with every donation so last quarter I chose the first six this quarter they'll choose the next probably 12 and it'll become an 18 person Dow then you'll have 18 non-profits choosing the next round which so it might turn into a 40 percent Dow and eventually we'll start bringing donors in as voters as well but it's progressively decentralizing and I believe we will have not just a better way of deciding who should get a grant but we will have a decentralized way of monitoring how well those people use those funds so that people if we're giving money to someone in Detroit there are going to be members of the Dow that live in Detroit and will be able to over Discord share their thoughts it's um it's really about decentralizing power and I'm very excited about it so I think you know as far as donors like one of the first questions a lot of people might have especially being involved is sustainability is just you know maybe some of the initial donors will have misgivings about the blockchain and kind of sustainability with you know the ethereum or Bitcoin ecosystem Bitcoin someone irrelevant with the Dow but sure well um I really do not agree with the environmental environmental impact of of crypto but I love what it does so we just got to figure out how to do it without the environmental impact and it's already happening um I uh I was proud to be able to tell vitalik earlier that I put some eth into stake for eth2 and uh you know you got to put your money where your mouth is and that's really the answer is we need to get this to be a low environmental impact it's just not it's technically we need to be done but there are many other services algorithm Solana cardano there are a lot of players out there will do it if ethereum doesn't but it's simply not an option to have this environmental impact and it should I believe the term is sharding the sharding should happen soon and um when it does we won't have this problem so I guess for the folks who are kind of you know getting involved with it early on like do you just say this is going to be not going to be an issue once you know eth2 or the consensus layer kind of comes around like just get involved now well we we do work on polygon so we are not we're not subscribing to any environmental impact or gas fees and it's Kevin told me to to look at it and it was the right cool we moved our our voting we used snapshot on polygon and we feel pretty good about it and but in terms of scaling we would prefer a prefer prefer to be on layer one and I'm kind of Switching gears a little bit I'm in you know without going into any details that haven't been publicly talked about I guess you know or maybe but like you know Tesla has Bitcoin on its balance sheet you know they're obviously more environmental concerns with that than maybe you know a consensus layer ethereum do you think that more companies are going to be investing in ethereum down the road is that something you think they'd be interested in sure I mean I I think first of all when we invested in Bitcoin we were very ignorant we had no idea the environmental impact we literally didn't know we're like this seems like a good store of value it's good way to just sort of diversify assets and of course didn't take very long to for to get a you know a million I'm not kidding probably a million messages telling us what we were doing to the environment and of course we are our company is about creating an alternative energy future so we we really we really were not informed enough when we made that decision we don't necessarily regret it but we are glad that things are moving towards in a more environmentally friendly Direction so kind of Switching gears back I mean you know talking about the future of philanthropy using Dao's um how do you feel about like you know you talked about it a little bit in the future but like the voters um who are actually the donors kind of getting a stake like that's not something you're launching with why is that well we um we're treating this as an experiment and um I am I am I've been around the block enough to know what I don't know and I don't know a lot in this space I don't know a lot so we we actually use the word experiment to say that after September 30th we can undo everything and restart um we also uh in the in that process I just want to thank any of you guys who might be donors we got 1700 donors into big green down the first month we did not expect that so thank you um when you have 1700 donors and you said you were going to give them all voting tokens but you have six non-profits that doesn't work so we have to say sorry we will get you your vote soon in some form and we will figure out how to do that but we are really trying to make sure the nonprofits have the strongest voice the decentralized decision making are are there we're playing around with two different possibly a dow that would be like a Congress that would be the donors and the Senate that would be the nonprofits and it's quite beautiful to work on governance like this I'm actually studying how the US government was formed how the Constitution was written and you're like wow this is really cool like to be able to do that for for a new entity and and Dows Do not sit in American League American law they're supernational so this could be worldwide if we wanted to be or when we already people in China are translating the white paper um we had a request from India recently that we might translate it into into one of those languages and um uh but it's an experiment so we think that the the so far it's going extremely well very proud of the Big Green Team for the amazing work they've done this is totally new for every single person on the team no one no one on the team knew what maybe we knew what crypto was but none of us knew what web3 was or blockchains or Dallas nine months ago and um I will say it has been a beautiful warm welcome you guys are very much about community building I think it's actually your superpower the community building in web 3 is not talked about [Applause] so getting involved with the Dow experiment first what do you want to do next in crypto what's what's are you starting a crypto startup what's next for you um you know I'm my life is uh really about philanthropy you know I I um I do have businesses I'm involved in I'm very proud of those businesses but um for me I love I love using web 3 in a way that can make the world a better place that can help people who are donors understand how their money is being used help non-profits get funding in ways that are a little easier a little bit more friendly to them what people who don't know this giving money away is actually very hard and the simple example is if you have one Grant and your Grant is maybe twenty five thousand dollars you might have 100 non-profits applying for that and and every non-profit who applies to that spends about a hundred hours on um on that application so you've got 10 000 work hours applying and then when you receive the grants you've got to have a team of people to review the grants and if you're and that's another few hundred hours so you're looking like eleven thousand hours to review a twenty five thousand dollar Grant it is the worst use of time you could possibly imagine and if you just instead took away all the money that goes towards the administration on the nonprofit and the foundation side you're going to be able to give away a lot more money um of course the Dow has to work it has to actually deliver good results which we'll find out but I think it will but you have no admin you have and um we're we're intentionally keeping the again the Dow could change these rules but as as oh by the way this is amazing about Adele I started the doubt I'm the founder and I have nothing I have no control I had to I had to come to terms with the fact that a Dao is not command and control I cannot tell them what to do they've already changed the rules on me and I don't I don't even have a vote so I think that's super cool that's like super cool um yeah so uh uh the where was I um yeah so I think that you take away that Administration side which is exhausting and by the way big green 501c3 building these beautiful gardens around the country School Gardens we've worked in it for 10 years I sorted it before I had made my own my own wealth so I was fundraising hardcore and um it's it's a very it's very hard it's very hard to make to to fundraise hopefully with this process by joining a Dao as a non-profit joining a community building that Community with other non-profits you can start to see collaboration amongst nonprofits which also doesn't happen it doesn't happen much you get to see donors getting transparency so they can see what's going on with their money how beautiful is that to you know you give a thousand dollars and you know where it's going in traditional web 2 or anything in the past it is a black hole you have no idea where your money goes and you know there's a lot of promise but I do think this is what it's for this is what web3 is about it's about decentralization of power and transparency so big green Dow is kind of operating you know you have a traditional non-profit structure that's kind of loosely tied like you know what do you think the future is of just like purely on-chain you know charitable giving Dows that don't involve the 501c3 sure actually the way big green dial works today if you want to send money to uh to Big Green Dow there's a wallet it's public you can do it the the Dow committee would have total control multi-sig wallet but because it's not an American structure you do not get a tax deduction so the reason why it goes through the 501c3 is then you get your tax deduction the Dow gives the 501c3 instructions and if big green is not doing what the Dow wants the dial could work with another non-profit but because of American the tax law you need a what's called a fiscal conduit in in taxable you need to be able to give money to a 501c3 that somehow relates to whatever the Dow's doing and then you get a tax deduction which you should get if you're a donor you should you should get credit for that How concerned are you about the idea that you know these philanthropic dials could start up you know I guess theoretically if they're more separate from the 501c3 but you know say like they get hijacked or something and all of a sudden the people who have voting control don't share the same you know values as the people with the original this might not be so much a problem with yours I think that that there's there are many many ways to fail this one could fail spectacularly and I had to kind of be okay with that like fraud hacking I don't know they take the money and go gamble in Vegas I mean literally they can do whatever they want and and so far I am so proud of the Dow committee that we formed these are food Justice Warriors they're taking it seriously they know that if they do this right they don't just change philanthropy for their own organization but they might actually be a model for the entire country and maybe the world it's really beautiful I guess being aware that things could you know obviously go south um you know what kind of protections can you essentially build in or you know is that something you're interested in or is that just going to make it more centralized so during the experimental phase the money comes into the 501c3 the Dow um dub creep provides instructions to the 501c3 and then we literally I know this is going to sound painful we literally write checks and we put them in the mail it's the worst worst system in the world we don't want to do that forever I think we've had a few jokes why don't we use horses to to uh to to ride them over but you know between between the cities so we do have to get on chain we do have to not have to we should we should and that's a major part of the benefit but we do also need to make sure that we're very educated that there's a very small chance of fraud there's a I mean hacking is a sport in web 3 and what I've heard is that even if you get hacked they might even give the money back they just want the credit for hecking yeah I don't like that for me I want to baby steps and just appreciate this money is for these beautiful powerful non-profits did you really wonderful IRL things kids growing food in the soil We Believe at Big Green that growing food changes lives it improves your nutrition security you're not not afraid of starving you actually can grow improve your mental health it gets you out into nature it opens your eyes up to the where the volatility of climate change growing food changes lives and big green Dow that's our goal is to to deliver on that mission looking towards a future where you know more philanthropic organizations Embrace this um and hope you know hope that the good effects kind of like trickle down to folks I guess like what ultimately do you kind of see is the consumer future for you know web3 or just kind of consumer future for Dows in general well I I think that the philanthropic model that we're creating or we'll work on create together with a few other philanthropic dials and eventually get a model I mean I've definitely drunk the Kool-Aid just like all of you guys here it's way better I mean I can't tell people who in the old I know many many of my friends who work in the old philanthropic model they think I'm insane they think I'm a martian I mean I can't barely even uh they obviously cannot understand what I'm saying And yet when you see it work with you guys and whatever you whatever you're working on you're seeing it work and you might go to oh this is I've got to tell you the story so I'm old I just want you to know I look young of course but I'm but I'm old back in 1995 I did my first startup and it was an internet startup and I was we my brother and I were building a yellow pages for the internet we were we were building maps and door-to-door directions and you could search for a business and it could be right around the corner and crazy things magical magic tricks and I remember being in a meeting with an old guy about my age and uh at my age now and he I talked to him about what we were doing about the internet and how we were going to replace the Yellow Pages he was a Yellow Pages company and he picked up this thick Yellow Pages book and he threw it at me I'm this 22 year old kid I'm like what what just happened and he said do you think that the internet will ever replace this and I quietly walked out of the room and I I remember that very well because I did not it was not a good meeting for me and so in this process of web 3 I just want to be a better old person [Applause] still looking looking towards the future but say this goes spectacularly well doesn't blow up um you gave a million dollars to the initial you know I'm assuming that you're kind of working with some other organizations outside of Dao's that you're still giving to I guess what would it take for you to just completely only give to Dao you know philanthropic organizations big green is about a 10 million a year giving budget 9 million goes to traditional Grant making um which by the way we are very proud of but I think it's going to move more to the web 3 side of things and then we've also been able to raise a good amount of funds from from the the donor Community um I I don't know the answer I I think there's a there's a role to play for traditional Grant making I think that um it needs a lot of innovation but there there are experts in the field so if you're for example doing scientific research and you're you want to um you wanna uh you know raise money that way I mean there it certainly needs Innovation but Adele may not work as well or maybe from I'm sure in the room there's probably five people who have an idea on how to solve that exact problem but but I do think that web3 will be a powerful part of the future and I think that's it's okay that it lives in partnership with them we still have the email works and we still have the telephone I think you don't know this but the telegram still exists so like you can still send a telegram if you want so I think all of these things will co-exist for quite a long time I guess as we're wrapping up here uh maybe just kind of talk a little bit about the thing that kind of excites you most about the future of you know ethereum and the crypto world and then kind of thing you're the most worried about well let me start with what I'm always worried about and I and you know I really don't think it's something to worry about but I am worried that the the eth2 transition either doesn't happen or does it in a disappointing way I think that would be devastating to the ethereum community so I just want to make sure and say that I'm I'm new to the community and it needs to it needs to move in that direction and I'm sure it will but I just say I I am worried about that on the positive side I am so impressed with the uh the intelligence in this community the smiles on everyone's faces everyone's coming at it for the joyful maybe it's East Denver I've admitted any of the other ones but this one is filled with spotting faces Buffy what do you think yeah no I'm very excited and I think it's really about smart people doing good things and I think you guys you guys are just that so thank you for having me today [Applause]