Angel funds being given away by I3 - no transparency, input, or explanation?

[Thom]

And every member of this community better never forget, or they may find themselves in great peril.

[fuzzy]

We appreciate the understanding many have shown on this thread.

We try to be as transparent as possible, but please realize that we are operating under the assumption that sooner or later every three-letter agency in the world is certain to audit us with a fine tooth comb.  We have consulted with five international legal or accounting firms about how to be ready for that rectal exam, and we intend to be.

But every single post we make restricts our freedom to respond to newly-discovered regulations and newly-invented interpretations of those regulations published by The Powers That Be.   These regulations Do Not Compile.  There is no easy closed-form solution guaranteed not to be arbitrarily overridden in opposite directions by different agencies.

So while our natural instinct is to be transparent to a fault, our highly qualified counsel has advised us to put a cork in it.

If you feel we are blatantly ignoring your requests for Too Much Information, you are very perceptive. 

And here I was just thinking competition would be interested.  I almost forgot that the biggest competition is the currently entrenched Legacy, Dinosaur system. 

[Stan]

We appreciate the understanding many have shown on this thread.

We try to be as transparent as possible, but please realize that we are operating under the assumption that sooner or later every three-letter agency in the world is certain to audit us with a fine tooth comb.  We have consulted with five international legal or accounting firms about how to be ready for that rectal exam, and we intend to be.

But every single post we make restricts our freedom to respond to newly-discovered regulations and newly-invented interpretations of those regulations published by The Powers That Be.   These regulations Do Not Compile.  There is no easy closed-form solution guaranteed not to be arbitrarily overridden in opposite directions by different agencies.

So while our natural instinct is to be transparent to a fault, our highly qualified counsel has advised us to put a cork in it.

If you feel we are blatantly ignoring your requests for Too Much Information, you are very perceptive. 

[Rune]

Page Marketing is working only on an incentive bonus agreement tied to achieving specific measurable objectives.

This is one of the things that really set me at ease. From what I was told he will be paid based on each doubling of BTS' market cap and is thus getting paid precisely nothing as long as our market cap is stagnant. This of course doesn't prevent him from reaping huge rewards if someone else ends up doing the crucial marketing that gets our network effect going, even if he contributed nothing. However this is once again one of those "AGS situations" where the whole point from the start has been that people gave their trust and money to bytemaster and I3 because they trusted them to make the right decisions - but that also means you have to accept the decisions they make with those funds.

I guess people just have a very hard time "accepting" that a marketer isn't creating instant returns (before the official launch), because people in general don't trust marketing guys, and take the lack of instant returns as proof of these preconcieved suspicions.

[zerosum]

Page Marketing is working only on an incentive bonus agreement tied to achieving specific measurable objectives.

Enough details on which are publicly available, btw.

[Stan]

Page Marketing is working only on an incentive bonus agreement tied to achieving specific measurable objectives.

[jae208]

I'm 100% sure that the market cap would be about the same as it is right now even if we had ZERO marketing expenditures.

Have we actually had much in the way of marketing expenditures so far?  I doubt it. 


Also, yes the market cap would be the same right now if there was no marketing team, because the marketing campaign hasn't even started yet.  All that has happened so far is that they have been developing the campaign.


Once the marketing campaign actually happens, we can begin to see if it was effective.  Later on we will either be able to say that the marketing was great, or that it was a waste of money.  For now, it hasn't even launched yet.

True, we will be better able to see if it was effective after the fact but it is not like there are unlimited resources so there has to be some prioritization. I think that they shouldn't be collecting a check if they are just preparing. I'm not sure how they are getting paid. It would make more sense if they were paid a set amount for the marketing campaign rather than a monthly salary. I don't know how it is that they are being paid though.

[santaclause102]

assets entrusted to I3 for purposes of development and marketing

This is them spending it on development. Contract negotiation is a reality... Maybe you disagree with these particular expenditures. I've disagreed with lots of Dan's in the past.

I'll let Dan explain the details when he gets around to it. In the meantime, consider these two facts that have been brought up a few times:

* I gave up $150k / year at Google to work for a fraction of that salary at enormous risk. The other devs are at least as skilled as I am.
* We are the only people on earth capable of delivering on BTS. If we left right now BTS would die, while we could make a viable competitor.

If you think we aren't actors you want to make into vested interests well in excess of what we could buy from working another job, I suggest you lay out what you would need try to build something without us. I guess your alternate PTS is trying to do this, so far all the people actually building this thing seem to just blow it off.

I completely agree with giving those that work for the DAC a (big) stake in it so they don't have to do other undesirable "deals" to make a buck!

Alphabar, has some good points. You (alphabar) would encourage a more constructive discussion and would see less aversion against your points if you also could acknowledge the work that is being done and see the trade off in this (the same about the point you made about dilution today on mumble; acknowledge other people's points if you want to make the discussion fruitful and convince someone (allow him to not loose face))

[jae208]

I never asked for anyone's time, money, or their especially their trust. My arguments stand on their own. Let's not use strawman arguments about accounting for "every dollar" that is spent. I never suggested that. I simply stated that (i) a clear disclosure of what is happening with the funds and (ii) ongoing accountability is necessary to prevent FUD. And yes, I am upset that I was asking nicely, privately and publicly, for the past couple of weeks and got no clear response. Then I saw it on the blockchain and here we are. In fact, we still don't know what the plan is for the funds (in aggregate, not dollar-for-dollar)...

I would prefer they keep it a secret. *I know, ME...the hater of ALL SECRETS! *

Why?  Because sometimes we have to trust these Brilliant guys to recognize moments in time when divulging their plans could potentially clue competitors in on strategies being used.  Let's remember in this space that there are many competitors who would gladly (and have gladly) taken it upon themselves to use the openness of this community and the dev team against us.  I personally have become a bit impatient with watching our investment capital be burned to enable innovations just to have a competitor listen to our hangouts or read some of Dan's posts...and then copy/claim the innovation as their own.  I understand your frustrations though....as at heart I am one of the people who this "secrecy" stuff seems to hit hardest--at least on most levels.  Let's say I've been largely forced by reality to start evolving those opinions.

True, but it is probably the openness that drew people and keeps people here in the first place. Those other "competitors" don't have the loyalty or sense of community that is present here. Also, they can only keep pretending for so long before it catches up to them. Why do you think the Chinese government bans western sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google? Partially because they want to keep censoring their people but I think it is mostly because these three western sites are superior than anything else in existence in China. Have you ever used Baidu? Its terrible! As a result they feel threatened and block them from doing business there.

[Ander]

I'm 100% sure that the market cap would be about the same as it is right now even if we had ZERO marketing expenditures.

Have we actually had much in the way of marketing expenditures so far?  I doubt it. 


Also, yes the market cap would be the same right now if there was no marketing team, because the marketing campaign hasn't even started yet.  All that has happened so far is that they have been developing the campaign.


Once the marketing campaign actually happens, we can begin to see if it was effective.  Later on we will either be able to say that the marketing was great, or that it was a waste of money.  For now, it hasn't even launched yet.

[jae208]

The marketers have been off of payroll as well and their own conditional lump sums arranged by Dan. Before there would have been no way to responsibly pay for additional marketing because I don't trust dan to spend it well.

I think the real transparency problems come from the fact that I don't think you guys appreciate how quickly we would have to switch to dilution to pay in any case.

I haven't looked at the spreadsheets for a while - how much money do you think was in the AGS fund before and after this lastest expenditure?

What latest expenditure are you talking about exactly? I haven't followed every single detail.

My main concern is that we have gotten very little in terms of marketing. However, they still get nice salaries for little results. Marketing is NOT like development. We can deal without marketing but we can't deal without development. I've mentioned this before but I'll mention it again. How is it that Bitcoin got a market cap of billions of dollars without ever having a formal salary paid marketing department? I think we should try to emulate Bitcoin rather than trying to emulate a traditional corporation in terms of getting the word out of Bitshares.

 I sometimes get the feeling that the  marketing department is good at bullshitting and Dan buys their BS. I know Adam B Levine has brought it up a number of times. The effectiveness of the marketing. I'm 100% sure that the market cap would be about the same as it is right now even if we had ZERO marketing expenditures.

[sumantso]

The marketers have been off of payroll as well and their own conditional lump sums arranged by Dan. Before there would have been no way to responsibly pay for additional marketing because I don't trust dan to spend it well.

I think the real transparency problems come from the fact that I don't think you guys appreciate how quickly we would have to switch to dilution to pay in any case.

I haven't looked at the spreadsheets for a while - how much money do you think was in the AGS fund before and after this lastest expenditure?

Since paid delegates are the new way of going on, why not use AGS funds to buy BTS, and then put them as the payments instead of using block rewards? This can continue till all are burned off and then switch to block rewards. The payment cap per delegate can be lifted to make the compensation suitable (the overall cap remains).

The PTS can just be burned off as a reward for the PTS holders (disclaimer: I am not). BM and co have been loud in mentioning that PTS is getting a great deal from the merger and that the price later doesn't matter, so they shouldn't have problems destroying that stash.

[fuzzy]

Mumble?  Alphabar is in here talking about this stuff as we speak if we want clarity.

[cass]

Accountability yes, but the I3 team doesn't have to post on the forum every time they want to spend a dollar.  That would annoy the shit out of everyone.   You donated the money because you trusted that they would competently manage it.  Those were the terms you agreed to.

Exactly 

 

[GaltReport]

I never asked for anyone's time, money, or their especially their trust. My arguments stand on their own. Let's not use strawman arguments about accounting for "every dollar" that is spent. I never suggested that. I simply stated that (i) a clear disclosure of what is happening with the funds and (ii) ongoing accountability is necessary to prevent FUD. And yes, I am upset that I was asking nicely, privately and publicly, for the past couple of weeks and got no clear response. Then I saw it on the blockchain and here we are. In fact, we still don't know what the plan is for the funds (in aggregate, not dollar-for-dollar)...

I would prefer they keep it a secret. *I know, ME...the hater of ALL SECRETS! *

Why?  Because sometimes we have to trust these Brilliant guys to recognize moments in time when divulging their plans could potentially clue competitors in on strategies being used.  Let's remember in this space that there are many competitors who would gladly (and have gladly) taken it upon themselves to use the openness of this community and the dev team against us.  I personally have become a bit impatient with watching our investment capital be burned to enable innovations just to have a competitor listen to our hangouts or read some of Dan's posts...and then copy/claim the innovation as their own.  I understand your frustrations though....as at heart I am one of the people who this "secrecy" stuff seems to hit hardest--at least on most levels.  Let's say I've been largely forced by reality to start evolving those opinions.

Nailed it. 

Yes, me too. Even once the delegates are the only institution left in BitShares, it won't be completely run by democracy and consensus. Sure, the voters can vote out anyone they choose at any point, so that is the ultimate control. But a gigantic town hall is a wasteful way to make every single decision. I want someone to make decisive choices, not check with me about when they should eat breakfast or use the potty. I strongly favor a representative model or even a trustee model. Ask for my vote, I'll trust you to handle the responsibility and do your job for a term, you make the decisions and communicate to me regularly, and when it comes time, I'll decide if you're doing the job I elected you to do.

Yep, I consider BM the "project/DAC" manager/CEO and look to him for this decision making and management of other devs/marketing etc... taking input from, seemingly, everyone.  This is all for convenience of discussion sake. Not meant to describe a legal arrangement or contract.

Can't have chaos or the impression that everyone is in charge.  it will sink investor confidence.