Tengji Zhang

“All the successful DAO founders I know weren't trying to start a DAO in the first place,” Hillis tells me after more sips of tea. “They were just self-actualizing in a community and that’s what came out of it.”

Towards the end of my tour at Cabin, Jonathan leaves me with two sayings that Cabin’s core contributors (like him and Rafa) are trying to distribute among the community: “The DAO provides” and “Manifest your role.” He also leaves me with a sticker of their logo.

Cabin has no formal job application process, geographic requirements, or time-bound commitments for completing bounties. It’s like playing Minecraft. You have some agency and all these tools. You get to decide where to apply them.

“If you look at a typical company, the founders and investors own 80-90%,” he goes on. “All of the employees own the other 10-20%. It doesn't make sense. It's not who is producing most of the value. We wanted to flip that model on its head. With the DAO, the community controls 80% of the tokens; the founders and strategic partners control 20%.”