By Michael Bazzi, Co-Founder at Node Haven
In the blockchain industry, decentralization is a major topic of research and debate. What industries should be decentralized, and which still require intermediaries? Distributed ledger technology allows peer-to-peer networks to take over much of what we’ve relied on centralized entities for in the past, and it’s an exciting time to examine just what this means, both on a technical level and an interpersonal level.
Back when I worked at Microsoft as a cloud strategist for government agencies, I increasingly saw the opportunity for improvement of the cloud services market. Decentralizing the cloud and providing the hardware allows for a more efficient network with less latency. As an incentive to join the network, the revenue generated is dispersed to all participants. Now that we have the technology to decentralize many of the things we’ve previously relied on governments and intermediaries for, we can embrace this concept and examine how our internal corporate teams can best reflect this.
I entered the blockchain industry as a huge advocate for decentralization, and a believer that everyone should have access to crypto mining and the limitless potential of blockchain technology. The ideal of decentralization should apply not only to the tech we build, but to the roles we hold. That’s part of why you’re starting to see many crypto projects exploring various governance structures, including mine.
At my company, we’ve chosen to avoid leadership titles. We don’t have a CEO. My cofounder and I have found this to be extremely effective so far. When we approach a problem, we often have different ideas about how it should be solved. We are forced to put our egos aside and come up with a creative solution we both agree on, which always defeats our own individual solutions.
When it comes to startups, titles are arbitrary. Founding teams wear so many hats. By forgetting about titles, organizations are able to feed off each other’s strengths to make progress as a company. Co-leadership roles are only successful with strong trust and constant communication. A decision-making process based on these fundamentals leads to generating greater confidence, inclusion, and morale amongst teams.
Taking decentralization to the next level isn’t for everyone. But once you re-examine the reason many of us entered the blockchain industry to begin with, and what we stand to lose by continuing to rely on traditional corporate structures, it makes sense to consider. Governance is a fascinating aspect of blockchain projects today, and the next wave of startups may start applying this to their internal teams in manners as innovative as their technologies.
About the Author:
Michael Bazzi is the co-founder of Node Haven, a Wyoming-based startup building a secure, intelligent and decentralized super cloud. He previously worked for Microsoft as a Cloud Solution Strategist where he focused on cloud security for government agencies and built relationships with cloud partner networks.
