Author Topic: Angel funds being given away by I3 - no transparency, input, or explanation?  (Read 22960 times)

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Offline alphaBar

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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.

Hey toast, thanks for the reply and no thanks for the hostility. Here's why I made the post, most of which you did not address:

1) I've been asking for this information for weeks with no response - there was no community input or explanation.
2) You keep comparing your Google salary to the amount of money you are being granted for work on BTS. This is so utterly and fundamentally flawed it hurts me to have to explain it, but here goes: Your entire BTS grant is paid to you up-front with no performance evaluation, expectation, roadmap, milestones, or other provable/non-provable/binding/non-binding expectation of any kind. Even your vesting PTS does nothing to incentivize any actual work - you will receive the funds regardless of whether you perform or not.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but I've been around the block a few times. There are at least a dozen different ways this could have been implemented with some accountability baked in (multi-sig oversight for example). Less importantly, there at least a dozen different ways this could have been communicated, explained, and discussed openly before "granting" donated funds with no strings attached and me finding out about it through the blockchain despite asking openly for weeks.

Edit: Here's a likely scenario. I'm a dev. I take a few hundred thousand dollars and continue to work on BTS occasionally, but also take a full-time paid position as a Google engineer. No expectations, no accountability, no recourse of any kind.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2014, 11:49:26 pm by alphaBar »

Offline lovejoy

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For what it's worth, I support the devs fully. From my time here, they have proven to be extremely dedicated and trustworthy. They are so clearly motivated by more than just money; their mission is to make a mark on human history.

 +5%

Offline ripplexiaoshan

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I consider ags fund as donation to the developing team, so they have full control of it and can spend whatever they want.
BTS committee member:jademont

Offline cass

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Also to be clear, our salaries are all ending.

indeed …will create a delegate also then… hopefully you'll vote for me…
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Offline gamey

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* 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.

Strong words...

EDIT: Just to make clear - I'm neutral towards funds redistribution. And this wasn't intended to be offensive. My comment was just for that statement.

+5% 

I have no issues with this.  I met a few of these guys in Vegas.  They're what you'd expect from developers that went all the way through school etc.

HOWEVER ...

The fact that Toast believes this just shows how little I3 delivered on the idea of the "bitshares toolkit".  Since forking BTSX wallet is the toolkit and Toast thinks it is in such a state no one could take it over, then IMO it follows that they failed on the bitshares toolkit.  This is partially why I want to support Alphabar's attempt even when I am skeptical about other issues surrounding Alphabar-PTS.
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Offline Method-X

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For what it's worth, I support the devs fully. From my time here, they have proven to be extremely dedicated and trustworthy. They are so clearly motivated by more than just money; their mission is to make a mark on human history.

zerosum

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* 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.

Strong words...

EDIT: Just to make clear - I'm neutral towards funds redistribution. And this wasn't intended to be offensive. My comment was just for that statement.
He probably means both capable and willing to dedicate to the project... I mean most people will take the security of a nice pay and job security even if they are technically capable to do it.

Offline Ander

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* 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.

Strong words...

I believe them.

Or at least, if any other group tried to make BTS now, it would take them much, much longer to learn all the lessons and get to where we are now.  That time delay would make them uncompetitive.
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Offline emski

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* 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.

Strong words...

EDIT: Just to make clear - I'm neutral towards funds redistribution. And this wasn't intended to be offensive. My comment was just for that statement.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2014, 11:26:37 pm by emski »

Offline Ander

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Even with 54k worth of PTS + some BTSX + a paid delegate salary, our developers are taking less money now by working on bitshares than they would make working for an established company.  This is the risk of working for startups. 

But when the price rises over the coming two years, you will be greatly rewarded, as it should be. :)
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zerosum

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I have given Valentine, Nathan, Vikram, and Toast each 30K PTS so they have a vested (literally) interest in seeing BTS grow.

We are very much into "no contracts" and "trust based" allocation of resources.   Each of these guys has proven their loyalty to the project and the greater cause and their passion is undeniable. 

You want independent developers making decisions and I have selected these guys as an independent team that I want to have financial independence.

They will be taking paid delegate positions, but I am limiting it to one delegate each which at 30K/year is only 20% of what they could be making and takes nothing into consideration for the extra risks in this industry.   

In other words, giving them the funds makes things more secure and further decentralizes the process.

30K PTS does not seem much, aka enough.

I hope you are also giving them (as toast hinted in his post) something extra from the BTC portion of the AGS fund (be it already or soon enough  converted into BTSX/BTS)?

[edit] new posts, while typing, make my post largely irrelevant, but I will keep it for the 1st sentence.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2014, 11:18:50 pm by tonyk2 »

Offline stuartcharles

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Seems fair to me but even if you don't think it is, you have to agree that large chunks of shares are best in the hands of those best able to grow the value of your investment and mine.

Offline toast

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I have given Valentine, Nathan, Vikram, and Toast each 30K PTS so they have a vested (literally) interest in seeing BTS grow.


54k USD is pretty fair.

I believe there's some BTSX coming as well but I guess BM wants to figure out the details before saying how much it is
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Offline betax

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I have given Valentine, Nathan, Vikram, and Toast each 30K PTS so they have a vested (literally) interest in seeing BTS grow.


54k USD is pretty fair.
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Offline xeroc

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Also to be clear, our salaries are all ending.

This is being replaced by paid delegates, and the distribution of remaining I3 funds?


You and other developers are critical to the future of bitshares and it is important that you guys dont run out of money and have to go back to working on other projects for a salary.  I for one greatly appreciate the risk you are currently taking, and I hope you will be massively rewarded for it in the future. :)

I don't want to say too much without Dan giving an official answer, but the idea is:

* All core devs stop taking a salary
* All core devs get *one* paid delegate
* All core devs get a bunch of BTS (half via BTSX and half vesting via PTS)
* The rest of the remaining AGS funds are earmarked for stuff like emergency legal defense.

Our task is:  Take this chunk of BTS and grow its value. If you can grow BTS to the point where your delegate can sustain your full-time job (so like 4x market cap sustained), good job, keep the rest. If not, you burn through it to survive until either the project dies or doesn't need you anymore.
You are talking "EACH" dev gets one delegate, aren't you?

edit: BM answered it for me .. thx

+5% !!
« Last Edit: November 05, 2014, 11:01:47 pm by xeroc »