Working for Compound Protocol

[Music] [Applause] [Music] our first speakers for today um and larry arrow and getty are going to talk about what does it mean to work for the compound protocol so without further ado let's welcome all three of them on stage and uh welcome thanks cardtech um four hours now you're all good sweet i guess the first thing i'll say is thanks so much to the global crew i mean they made it so easy for us all we have to do is show up and talk about compound which we're happy to do um you know i'm on the compound grand sleet my name is larry sapernick and just to give you guys a little bit of background on compound grants uh before we dive right into the the summit but compound grants is a community funded and independent grants program that was really uh created by just a lot of compound a group of compound fans and so it's not related to the core team and it was funded actually by the treasury which was one of the we were one of the first grants programs to do that right after unit swap and really our focus is pretty simple it's to fund really cool development happening on top of compound we've funded so far you know over 30 different grants to many many individuals and we will continue funding many more for uh for months to come we're sort of on pause right now in terms of the grants program as we're um you know we ran it for six months and now we're in the process of thinking about how to scale it to make it bigger faster and uh and even stronger than it was before and so you know you could find more about compound grants at compoundgrants.org um or you could go to uh compounds telegram or discord to learn more about what the community is up to but you know we'll dive right in and just give you guys a taste for what it means to to work for compound um this panel i'm really excited about because you know we all sort of are in getty and i we all sort of met on the internet so this is this is a very internet d5 native panel um getty r do you guys want to give a quick intro to yourselves sure yeah so i'm getty hill um joined the compound community a long time ago back when i was working with grapefruit trading and did training for the last few years and now i'm with gfx labs in our project and we do all sorts of uh fun things with compound and i'm a huge compound advocate so um r r zero zero arrow whichever uh you choose um i've been working with compound for a long time now i found compounds about mid 2019 to late 2019 and just was in awe of it like you know everyone who comes into d5 is like wow this is so cool so i just looked at the compound i was like i want to know how this works right so i went down on get read all the code it's like incredible it was on the discord for months and like initially before governance not much to do but then you know mid-2020 came and that was my time and then since then i've been helping out on proposals through any way i can and you know making impact and compound i i think one of the first things maybe we could we could chat about is like what does it mean to work for compound protocol i think a lot of people they have you know regular jobs working for companies very standard recruiting process and then they hear about working people working for protocols and it's kind of a weird thing to do and it's not clear how to even get started but can you kind of talk about like what you think it means to to work for a protocol and how you even got started in the first place i know are you just mentioned a little bit but like practically what do people have to do to start working for compounds i'll go and say that you know i sat in the community for a long time long before there was a compound token so there wasn't like a big reason back then to get like super involved um it was just like chatting with the team mostly onboarding users giving feedback on like the product and like how compound v1 worked right it wasn't really until like about a year and a little more than a year and a half ago now that like the comp token came out and that there was like this new incentive structure for community members to like participate and actually um help like grow the protocol in a more active way than just relying on the core labs team um back when they were kind of building their product um that everyone's familiar with and using today so i think in my mind just having been around the protocol enough you occasionally will ask yourself well why doesn't it have this feature why does it have that feature why isn't this thing work why isn't that thing there uh and at least for me the the biggest impetus for my participation was wanting the my first one was wanting the rap bitcoin collateral factory to be higher um and so like the compound has these cool community autonomous proposals where instead of needing like the gigantic well today it's 65 000 but back then it was a hundred thousand com to actually make a proposal you could get like a hundred cop instead so i went bought one bag of 100 comp like prior to this own no comp um which was like a fair amount of money for me at the time bought my 100 bag of comp went online like learned how to make a cap posted the cap up there and then just started like pestering and messaging people being like hey like this is a good idea like wrote out the like the methodology on the forums and then just try to keep sharing that with people until we got enough people on board to be like oh okay this is a good idea this can work and then like made a lot of friends that way and it kind of just snowballed from there um so for me like if i'm going to start from the very beginning i actually started out writing just articles and basically every proposal i would go very deep into the diff changes and the reasoning behind yes and no and trying to give people right an unbiased opinion on how to vote which would be very useful nowadays it's kind of um don't have enough time to do that anymore um but the community was very right applauded that definitely and as i was really really well positioned question from the okay um i was very well positioned to start right building things on my own and contributing things because i saw how everything was moving and then i just you know got myself in and positioned myself to start contributing independently i think that contributing to dao is very different than a normal job because right a lot of self-guidance and you really can contribute in any way it's not like anyone's going to tell you like no you're not welcome here right really any doubt that exists nowadays just needs more people doing more things and almost anyone can do any something which is helpful to the dow in some way and right get paid for their work we looks like have a question from the audience um i'll read it out loud there are a lot of defined lending protocols that do similar things in your mind what makes compound different what sets it apart from other d5 protocols that make you enjoy working with it so much um well i can go first and then curious what you guys think um i think i think you know generally that's the right positioning which is a lot of the d5 projects functionally like product wise kind of do similar things i think culturally though is where they start to differ and and my sense is and certainly what appealed made compound appeal to me personally is um you know the community i would say is way more um conservative i think relative on the risk side in particular relative some of the other kind of cowboy d5 projects and you know i think you know you want to build a project over many many dozens of years and make it as successful as it you know can be over the long term you have to think about risk deeply and think about the long term as opposed to um you know some projects that may be optimized for short-term gains at the expense of long-term thinking and then second i would say i think the website just looked really good um and the brand goodwill looked really good relative to some of the other projects which are really really confusing to use or getty what do you guys think um yeah so i'm just right i was starting started working with compound really when it was only one um right like mid 2019 late 2019 it was compound and ave was there but very small and then other than that i don't think there was anyone else um and i really just enjoyed my time with compound so much i love the community the compound team and right like just i'm in a state position where i'm really well positioned to contribute to the compound protocol and that's where i my time is the most useful um again right being conservative and thinking in the long term is really nice you don't have a like a pop-up project which is just here and all of a sudden you know clones someone else's code or something um so that's that's nice um right compound team and community is just really incredible yeah that's that's the big difference for me um i mean i'm a fan of like pretty much all the like the main protocols like compound ave um maker dao um but compounding me is the one that has the most embracing community um it's definitely like if you're new to the community even if you're just a regular user it's a great feeling to join the discord and ask questions and get like an immediate reply from a community member or even like robert like chills out into sport all the time like that's a great feeling to know that like the whole team is like there and everyone's just trying to help everyone out and build a better product um i used to like be very interested in like makered out that was kind of like my first like big foyer into like i don't know uh d5 and i think i chose make it out at awkward time because it was when the deep egging was happening and i was at like 95 cents forever and there was the purple paper and a lot of bureaucracy so it was like uh just back in the day there was only two options really and compound was the one that was most embracing and never left yeah and i think um you know for folks who are not exactly sure what we mean about all this sort of stuff like just go to the forums right and look at the sophistication of the discussions and i think you'll find a really fleshed out uh thoughtful community um and you know i look at some of the other forums and you know everyone's trying to make a quick buck this is you know not the case for compound and i think that is appealing to a lot of people you know i think one of the one of the challenges a lot of projects and certainly you know compound and compound grants have is knowing you know as a contributor you're sort of not sure what exactly you should work on and what's the highest priority thing for the protocol that you could be spending your time on in the next you know few months how do you guys think about okay here's here's what i'm going to work on over the next few months that is actually useful to the protocol into the community if you're new to the protocol i and and you have you know a decent understanding of d5 or at least just like familiar and used compound before um i say go go the selfish route and say what do i want in the protocol that's not currently there it's very likely that other people also want that thing that you would want and then just start there and make it a passion project and learn from there if you join the protocol and you truly do not know what to do but you want to get involved then we have a list of requests for proposals on compound grants of ideas for people or of course if you just join the discord chat of the forum and say hi i have these skills and i want to help um we'll throw a lot of things at you and you can choose from the long list um yeah so for me it's generally a lot of just i'd say temperature checking right like seeing what people have been talking about over the past few weeks in discord what people want what comes up often and there's a lot of things which are just things that people want that haven't been a priority so like if i have free time one of those few things would probably get on the agenda it's very subjective which is again something which is specific to working to for a doubt where you are essentially your own boss and you decide what you're going to work on um but based on community um like feel you can figure out what is going to be important we can uh talk about the the sexy stuff now which is getting paid from compound protocol um and i think we have the right folks to talk about that because you know both getty and r have been paid from that from the treasury and and getty in particular i think you're the only sort of you know salaried employee uh team member contributor of the protocol which is kind of cool i think for a lot of people it's a little bit awkward right people know exactly how much you're getting paid and it's all transparent and can you kind of like walk us through what it means to get paid from compound protocol and how you personally feel about it maybe you don't like the transparency of it maybe you do but how should people think about uh you know working for a protocol and public compensation figures yeah so i'll i'll preface it by that um compound for me is like a passion and something that i like enjoy like i have the comp i'm earning for the protocol for me is not in my mind a salary none of that will probably ever get sold it's just going towards my already my already position in the protocol um so and when i got started in the protocol and started working on project there was no grants program so it was even more ambiguous at the time as to how you actually got paid to do work um so i think for me for me personally um and from what i've learned over the last year about figuring out what the protocol does need and what's valuable to the protocol it is a lot of there's there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that the protocol needs to be working on and for me in particular at the time it was like this oracle problem so for some of you might be familiar if you've been in crypto for a while which is probably most people watching these global stuff you remember like the november 2020 like um die price happening on compound where the protocol functioned as expected but because of how it was configured it wasn't what an ideal outcome and that was like my call to action to like okay no one was fixing this for a few months i'll figure this out how am i getting paid don't really know and it was an extremely awkward process come like all right we did a lot of work here a lot of value was provided but how do i get paid um i think even today it's like we're still in the very early days of like dao so it's like only a year and a half a compound out so everyone's still figuring it out but at least today there are the grants programs if you are curious about trying to get paid talking to larry and myself or other community members there you can get a very good sense of like what compensation might look like what milestones you can reach to get that compensation so that you're getting paid before the actual work's performed in my case like all the work was performed and then i asked to get paid which makes it even more awkward um and then i guess the other half of that question is like how is it to be to know that like everyone knows when i'm getting paid and that it's like a bit of like a political issue like no matter which way you cut it like the sense that everyone knows what president gets paid in the united states and so on and so forth and all like the public servants um for my particular grant i i think a lot of it right now is back pay for the lot of the work that was performed that was kind of the preference it was submitted under was like i did six months worth of work here that was a lot of work um let's run it out for six months and at that point we'll revisit the topic and say like hey am i still contributing commensurate value to what is being rewarded to me in the community's eyes because it is all totally built on the compound protocol if the community were saying like you know what this getty guy he's not doing a good job um they could just throw up a proposal anyone could who had the votes and they could just stop paying me whenever they wanted so i'm very well incentivized right now to make sure i keep doing productive work for the protocol in the future if i want to keep earning that amount so it's um a really interesting set of incentives that is totally totally new um but if anyone ever has questions about this stuff do do reach out to me i know um or i should say i suspect a lot of people watching this have worked in big tech are currently working in big tech and are i mean you you've worked in big tech too how does it what's that for a bit right but what was that what was the experience like working in big tech and then sort of going to compound and working for the protocol what are the things you you like more about compound less potentially kind of walk people through that transition um so big tech right you obviously depending on your position but in general you're given a task right and it's quite limited scope you work on the same thing generally for a long period of time um i guess compound is about the polar opposite you can get where your skill set is similar but you're doing completely different things and right there's a lot more to what you should be doing right you're thinking what should i be doing rather than actually doing right a lot of lobbying a lot of right person-to-person skills which you need to have to work for a doubt at least at this current time right you have to be on the pro on the forums explaining your reasoning behind what you're doing um and then actually executing it right people aren't going to be holding your hands and it's something where it requires a lot more independence and drive than working for a big tech company i think for most a lot of people this is really good right big tech is well right you get paid nicely and your impact is limited and it's quite easy to just get content at big tech um working for dows keeps you on your feet keeps you up to date on all the you know newest tech and you know you got to keep running and then i i'm sure what everyone is thinking what about compensation if you're working for big tech presumably you're still there because of the money do you think it's possible to make similar amounts of money working for dao's compound or even more amounts of money um i i think that all three of us know it is definitely definitely possible to make more money working for dows and big tech definitely it's angeline um and and you know um i know we're running a little bit short on time so one one more question for you guys but you know you've been working for compound for for a while now right i think you guys are probably uh some of the the leading contributors for the protocol knowing what you know now after working for the protocol for probably years now what do you what sort of advice would you give to the newcomer or someone who's considering starting to work for compound um i can go first um i'd say for a newcomer just like don't be afraid to just you know come on to the discord and say who you are say you want to help out like compound right is such on paper such a large company but we are very welcoming for to new contributors and like if you want to get started there's always going to be someone who's there to help you at the beginning and you know tell you what tools we're using and be able to answer your questions even for me there were people who are willing to answer my questions at every point when i was starting out and there's always something to be done the protocol you just have to you know not be afraid to get your feet wet come into the discord and you know get started yeah i think that that's well said don't there will be times that um you'll get discouraged because unlike a big tech company here there is um some extra like people skills that you need in order to succeed and that you are you have to you know occasionally explain your stuff but on the bright side there's substantially more people who want to see developers and other community members and whatnot join the protocol and be productive contributors and we're all willing to i think put a lot of resources into helping onboard those new community members who are going to help us build the protocol into being the best it could possibly be awesome um and i would i would mirror that i would say um you know if you're working for a large company you're sort of like very much a cog in the machine right and no one or very few people i think like that feeling working for a protocol you know it initially may seem like you could potentially be stuck doing some minor tasks that no one really notices but it really anyone has the option and the ability to work on the thing to getting's point that you want to see in the protocol and take it from hey i have this vision in my head i think it's a little crazy i'm not going to talk about it publicly to all of a sudden working on it on the forums and making it a thing i think that's very powerful thing that many people who work for traditional companies um may not be used to um certainly i had to get comfortable with that sort of power uh yeti r thank you so much guys for the time i think we're we're running out i'll uh i'll hand it back to car tech now thank you so much larry gideon arrow um this was amazing discussion i think just uh maybe to summarize uh the best thing about this thing is that i know you kind of implicitly implied but like anybody can be part of this from any place in the world and that to me is so exciting uh that you sort of now actually have a level playing field that you wouldn't have to be sort of bound by a region or some certain prerequisites or a college degree or something to contribute you actually are normalizing it to be skill-based and interest-based so this is incredible and compound has been doing an amazing job with this so thanks for that awesome discussion and i think with that we're ready to move on to our next talk [Music] [Applause]