If I had a 1:1 with Vitalik Buterin today like we used to, regularly in 2014-2016, I would tell him this.
No, this is how the game is played.
You created Ethereum, now the largest development-driven ecosystem in the blockchain space. It grew and grew and grew I’m sure beyond your initial imagination.
So, you have a responsibility to grow with it.
The community is not asking the Ethereum Foundation to change its mission or what it fundamentally does.
We are asking it to do better than it did 6-8 years ago, because a lot of things have changed since then.
The main thing that changed is the competitive nature of the market reality.
Today, there are many more L1 players, and they all want to eat Ethereum’s lunch including some L2’s who prefer to take more than they are willing to share.
We know that these competitors are cheating the decentralization playbook. They are generally “vertically integrated” players with a so-called foundation calling the shots while being tied at the hip of their ecosystem. They mimic the decentralization ethos without really practicing it, and certainly not even being close to Ethereum’s decentralized infrastructure.
We know that’s not fair game, but as they say in the military, “on the battlefield, the enemy gets a vote.”
The Ethereum Foundation wants the ecosystem to fight for itself because decentralization needs to do its job. Understood.
But the ecosystem still depends on the EF for its core roadmap, research, some key development and essential communication. They were crying for a little more help.
We are not asking the Ethereum Foundation to do more. Maybe do less, but do it more efficiently (faster), more transparently (tell us more regularly), with more accountability (more independent eyes judging progress), and be more focused about it (managers need to manage people).
In essence, grow up a little, because the ecosystem you created has grown in leaps and bounds. It goes hand in hand. There is nothing anti-decentralization about organizational changes. It’s normal, happens regularly, and is part of growing-up.
In fact, not all great founders are able to continue leading their organizations following gigantic success when they started their ideas at a young age.
Of those that did, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg come to mind.
A key success factor was their ability to grow professionally while surrounding themselves with (the right) trusted people, and they listened to those people, not the other way around.
In the meantime, the Ethereum Foundation which the ecosystem still depends on, is moving too slowly. There are limits to what the ecosystem can do without faster core updates. Paradigm has written an excellent critique, Ethereum Acceleration with a lot of gentle feedback worth considering.
I’m a pretty good analyst and not a complete outsider given how close I was to Ethereum during its inception years, and all along.
I know it hasn’t been too long since the start of the harsh Ethereum feedback on Twitter, but the community is chomping at the bit.
If the community and Ethereum’s loved ones are voicing feedback about change, let’s assume they are half wrong. But what if they were half right?
From the voluminous feedback given in the past month, I would ask: what specific parts have you taken to heart and doing something concrete about?
Based on what I’m seeing, the remaining objections include:
1/ lack of regular communication
2/ pushing more on the L1-L2 relationship
3/ perception of weak leadership & management
4/ slow development that follows research
5/ the Danny Ryan conundrum
6/ expanding governance and oversight
Even if you are working on these items, it would be a good idea to communicate head-on and with details about what’s being done on a regular basis. You can’t just be silent and hope that people will wait and wait until you are ready to say something. That’s not how crisis management works. You need to get ahead of it.
So yes, the game is played by growing-up a little, listening more, being nimble, and not being afraid of organizational changes.
Never take your market leadership position for granted. So many people owe their success and happiness to Ethereum and your incredible vision for it.
You started the dream. Don’t be the one ending it.