Block Zero Stage | Navigating the Future of Work in the Web3 Era

Captions as YouTube publishes them, usually machine-generated, so product and people names can be misheard.

1. 0:01

   Eric um and Eric Nelson Julia and Gus on navigating the future of work in the web3 era please have a seat smart as well clean your eyes have like okay oops all right hi everyone so welcome to the uh next panel my name is Gus uh I work with uh with Jordan from Heroes as you can see that was just presenting and also founder of uh near week uh so we have as all of these panelists been experimenting a lot uh about what are these new technologies blockchain being

2. 1:10

   of course one of them uh changing the way we work um and and really like reflecting on this in this panel will will be the main focus uh before we kick it off we love to also hear an intro from uh from you guys so maybe Julia you want to start yeah sure thanks for the heads up uh hi guys my name is Jia I'm HR Director at inc4 we do blockchain development and Consulting and also I do

3. 1:36

   some Consulting on my own for the HR Direction uh I managed a team of 100 developers which was a team of 10 developers when I came so we've been through some scaling processes we've been through some web3 related changes we've been through like setting up all the operations inside and I feel like there is a lot of stuff that we're missing from web to just because we have this weird feeling about claiming that that's the past the past is bad we've

4. 2:08

   like survived that let's forget that we should actually transform stuff from that our experience and use it in the modern world in modern team and follow these new rules that would be created by the experience we've received so uh my main approach here when we're talking about the future of work in the web tree era is follow the rules but create your own rules based on the experience other companies other like markets are giving to you uh in our case it would be about

5. 2:43

   creating the politics that will enhance your um skills and your talents and they will help you automate stuff you do not want to deal with so it will save time save your emotions and it will help you to create new technology te Oles that are really really needed on the market thank you very much and very interesting stuff I will definitely make sure we touch on on some of those um Eric I know you have a very long

6. 3:15

   uh history basically experience in in work from also serving as an CEO from a very large uh Enterprise uh so yeah please tell a bit about yourself and thank you for reminding me that I'm the oldest in the room the most one let's point out so my name is er I'm today an executive coach uh I've been managing business in the past I was CEO of technology and Telecom business mainly in the UK and the us and for the last seven eight years I've been an executive coach uh and I work mainly

7. 3:50

   with uh young leaders and co-founders not only in technology but mainly in technology and specifically for the last few years uh thanks to to near foundation and the near ecosystem I've been able to work with many leaders in the web 3 and uh as you have uh reminded everyone uh I have a long experience so I remember the web one I remember the web 2 and I'm so pleased to be part of the web three and um what I discussed

8. 4:21

   with some of you a little bit earlier I've remember the mistakes we made at the time of the web one Web Two and we will make a number of promises that were quite identical of the promises of the web stre about decentralization about transparency about openness and uh I want to make sure and that what I would like to do with web stre leaders they help them make sure that we don't make the same mistakes than in the past and we create a better

9. 4:54

   world thank you very much yeah please Nelson yeah sure so my name is Nelson I am am amongst other things the global head of HR for gate.io we are a centralized exchange um for for the few of you who might not know on the side I also advise and I consult for web3 startups this means that I work with web3 Founders and Leadership teams to do everything from developing HR processes people management vision and strategy as well and I also sit on The Advisory

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    board for two uh web have three growth platforms and a couple of uh VCS as well which allocate me to uh web3 projects on their rosters so I support and I contact a lot directly with Founders and so on uh helping them take their people vision from zero to one on both these Scopes uh we are often confronted with what is what will the future of work look like in web 3 what does the present of work look like in web 3 for sure at

11. 5:58

    gate.io we we do our best uh and I would say the bulk of our job is to educate leaders and what it means to decentralize to distribute work to hone and to manage people in a way that is truthful to the to the essence of web3 and decentralization and actually was just having a conversation a few minutes ago I hope we get to touch on that how often issues that come up with product and with delivery in web 3 you can trace

12. 6:28

    them back to to the preparedness or lack of from the leaderships and managing people in a decentralized way but still very often Concepts like distributed and decentralization get mixed up and confused so I would say there's uh underneath the surface of many many issues that we all know web3 has there is a people solution in there and I do hope we get to touch on some of those topics today here yeah it's a it's a great point that uh Nelson is making uh

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    sometimes if not often there's a confusion between having leadership and having a a vertical organization and clearly the mistakes that we have experienced in the past is we have implemented organization very verticalized and therefore we ended up what we have today which is an internet control by four or five organization I think it's possible to uh deliver the promise of the web and to have within those organization of the

14. 7:32

    web your organization a more decentralized type of organization while having a leadership and that's that conflict that seems to be obvious actually is not a conflict and can be successful and actually a number of organization non web related like pentagonia have created very flat type of organization where everyone is very much accountable to each other owning that task and creating very successful organization I totally agree with you by

15. 8:05

    the way on this one uh I don't know did you notice but lots of companies right now the ones I'm talking to they tend to decrease the number of management and they move uh forward like more responsibility to some uh employees on their they will like find the piece of work piece of process they're responsible for and they will be like kind of managing it but it's not the exact like work of management it's the whole process when you kind of pay attention to it and you feel the

16. 8:36

    responsibility and it might um affect your decisions in future based on this work so lots of companies try to decrease the management costs and times for the management and move to more responsible workers that are actually interested in the success of the whole company yes it's exactly that so uh we we and we still have today uh the role of the manager being in some way the one who decide of everything decide of the technical Choice decide of the

17. 9:07

    performance review there to resolve conflict while actually some of those tasks can be uh spread out across the organization and have another group of people resolving conflict making the technical decision by another group of people and reducing as you said the number of managers having a more flat better organization so uh zooming zooming a bit out and and reflecting on like the future of work in in web 3 I think it's

18. 9:39

    it's it's F interesting to hear a bit bit about and frame the discussion around uh what is the big Paradigm Shift here what constitutes this new paradigm shift to work environments we have had in the past uh obviously we should not go through the whole human history uh but I think we can agree that there has been certain Tendencies different uh Technologies converge the educational

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    level interconnectedness what the internet has provided has already changed a lot and now we have suddenly this uh public good type of generalized computer that you can deploy small programs on Smart contracts you still have a lot of data that is offchain that you're doing regular interactions that is not on the Chain but if you also are working these tool using these tools in your work process you also begin to have a lot of

20. 10:29

    onchain data as well uh and and what I've seen many different crypto projects approach that a bit differently what is the onchain thing they're looking at what is the offchain thing um to incentivize organizations or try to you know look differently at them at maneral vertical organization so yeah I just I know that's a that's that's a lot but I just specifically like for example from

21. 10:52

    you Nelson like what give some examples on how how do you approach this today and and like what what are we actually doing uh with this stuff and and yeah how do you view this for sure so like so much in web 3 I believe there's a huge long tail between what we can do today and what is actually being provided to people as a solution and also in the job market I think this will have numerous

22. 11:16

    applications first of all let's take the front of um the job search for example I honestly I wish I had the time uh but I don't know what's stopping somebody today from starting a a job Marketplace in which everybody's CV there is an nft where you get paid symbolically for your data for your information every time a company wants to get your experience they go on there they pay you whatever a fraction of a scent of a Satoshi whatever you want it's not for you to

23. 11:47

    get rich off of it but at least the principle of the job search is closer to the principle of decentralization in web 3 in which you get paid for your data and instead of some recruitment agency getting paid 15 20 25 30% of your gross annual salary so that you guys can get hired and their job is basically to promote a handshake you know so the very basic principles I think of how we apply decentralization even before we zoom

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    into how this is applied in uh people management yes not everybody here for sure uh wants or or will manage people in in an organization but everybody here at some point will look for a job so there is a huge base of the pyramid where we can apply decentralization processes in the future the present if you will of uh the workforce of the future of work and so many opportunities

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    are out there uh just waiting for somebody to grab them and it seems like it's just another reflection of one of the biggest issues in web 3 in which everybody's always so focused on the next big thing the the bleeding edge I have these conversations with VCS often uh the money is all pushed towards the tip of of the sword and nobody's looking behind to see the technology we have today how can it be applied to so many people you know so this is one and then

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    briefly zooming into uh the work within the organizations I would say that to the exception of dows there's really no other type of organization that is competently applying the principles of automation decentralization using smart contracts as rule definition so that every one of us can work more effectively and then in a more distributed way as well we were talking about the future of work and what that will look like one thing I'm willing to wager and just to make a bridge to what

27. 13:38

    we were just discussing is there's always such a discussion around will jobs survive the future of work where there will will we have jobs quote unquote in the future of work I'm sure we will one thing I'm not so sure will survive the future of work is the job of a manager yes I think web 3 will pave the way for lessons that very quickly uh web2 and other Industries will learn from to integrate in their own Industries and I think at a faster rate we will see jobs be extinguished we

28. 14:11

    will see manager roles be extinguished before the more because the more you automate and and Implement smart contract like protocols in other Industries such as web 2 or others the more you will find that the need for a manager becomes smaller and smaller and this is something you're already preparing for at gate.io uh and I'm happy to discuss this as well if anybody wants some hints outside thank you very much n do you want to follow up yes so uh that's where I would disagree so uh I

29. 14:43

    would agree on the end goal I really believe uh it's possible over time to remove the management layer however I don't believe that would be only through technology that that would happen the reality is still today and over time we are still dealing with human beings meaning that we have uh personality trait culture education all different we have bias we have insecurities that what make uh the organization difficult to implement a

30. 15:24

    decentralized type of organization where everyone is accountable that's why there is a number of skills that are required and there are those soft skills we know them we've been trying to implement them but they are difficult and from my personal point of view they are absolutely necessary to implement if you want to implement those smart contract technology in the end of management and those skill is first of all self-awareness I need to understand all

31. 15:54

    the bias that I have I need to understand what energize me and what drains me I need to be a great listener I need to be able to manage difficult conversation and conflict because conflict and difficult conversation are necessary in an organization in order to create commitment and accountability and those S RIS Skys self-awareness active listening and being able to provide feedback and having those difficult conversation you won't be able to

32. 16:26

    replace them through technology so yes but have those skills and that's really something that I think all of us whether we work in organization as a manager who as an individual contributor or simply as a human being should master I really like this perspective but do you think these qualities they're still as important as it is in web 3 when everyone is working basically online everyone in their random places and all the communication is basically some

33. 16:56

    texts and emails I mean AI works perfectly for replying in a very polite way to something that pisses your off you know so you just can ask AI to reply in a way you want it to be and do not really think on how to propose something how to I don't know put your mind in it so maybe I'm old and I'm with those old the uh concept of soft skill Etc but yes on the contrary I would say that the

34. 17:29

    more you work in a remote type of environment the more as a human being we make up stories what is he really doing why she's not calling me why didn't me involve in that meeting why Etc why why why so and there therefore more communication more effective communication are essential to really create the culture that you want to have in your organization and those three skills that again and again I believe every human being should Master when you

35. 18:02

    think that in school the teachers had to calculate had to code how to talk U but they don't listen they don't teach us how to listen I think that's pretty U weing I would say so those three skills self-awareness active listening and how to manage difficult conversation are essential to implement I think the promise of the web stream may I just add uh just another thought um I fully agree with what you said in terms of the the human skills needed um today from Managers from

36. 18:34

    everybody working even in web 3 I would however bet uh or taking from the the what I see in my my usual practice this need for the humanization of the workspace and therefore the need for people practices in the workspace it will become less and less significant I believe over time uh and we see this even uh whether with the projects I work with or at gate more and more especially the younger Generations coming in to the job market they're not asking about the

37. 19:12

    communication style in a company they're not asking about the leadership style they're not asking about what's the culture like they're asking about what's the Tex deack like what's the communication tools that you guys use what are the resource sharing tools or the project management tools you guys use more and more especially from web 3 or remote native audiences I get the feedback that people regard work as a place not to bond or to

38. 19:42

    grow or develop but as a place to work and that's okay we try to promote some um online Gathering event or some buddy system for onboarding and people tell me I would rather just spend time having real beers with real people in in my neighborhood or you know let me set you up with a great course for you to learn this skill and the reply is my university is Discord or Reddit or or I have online people who do this for me so there's also this dehumanization of the

39. 20:12

    workplace from the younger Generations coming into the workplace and whereas a lot of my HR colleagues tend to see this as an existential threat to HR uh I think we should roll with it and say and that's okay and that that's fine if people come to work for work our priority should be to meet expectations not to impose what our expectations are of what people what we think people want because then is when we will run into this existential wall where we will have

40. 20:45

    this um HR uh stubbornness where we're trying to revive a dead body who's not responding because we're not giving them what they want so to the extent that today people still require exactly this humanization and these skills of management in the workplace I fully agree however I have a big question mark in regards to not even if but how long it'll take this until this kind of dwindles and the workplace is a much

41. 21:17

    more colder dehumanized uh and just robotic uh uh environment and again if we get there that's okay I'm not particularly concerned thank you very much um I have a lot of thoughts around what you guys are talking about so I'll just like take one uh from from the beginning so I really like the like specific soft skills you talk about Eric um and I think how however you an organization

42. 21:46

    you know any organization with a country a small startup is is you know you need to have some purpose right the glue uh and the purpose you know there's a certain amount of what's what's right and wrong there actually Etc and and how I think about you know small startup that of course comes often from like a Founder team managerial like betting that hopefully also like leading by example if if it's working well and I

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    see with smart contracts and Dows a tendency that some of these soft skills either in like the the way the process work process organized there are certain like you know responsibility and obligations Etc youth rights um but you also have some of the same kind of values but coded into like HR policies in in a dow so I I sometimes have seen like these soft skills still exist uh but it's less person driven suddenly because it was more like the founding fathers of the smart contract that that

44. 22:44

    did that um and and I see like in like blockchain again was all about uh first narrative at least like uh trustless right trustless Tech uh maybe you need to trust the developers or maybe you know trust the code if you the developers that say they understand the code if you cannot verify yourself so I think which fits more to like ver verifiability as as as like but at the same time trust in humans interactions

45. 23:08

    is is everything right that that is the like soft skill that makes everything glue so I just how how do you guys see that like what is how does trust play a role something fundamental as trust in a in a we tree area in terms of like yeah you know I guess uh for the first time we've faced that at uh covid era when uh we first started working online from home from whatever place you're at and

46. 23:32

    uh there was a stigma that if something goes wrong when you switch to working online it's because you have bad managers uh I don't think that's completely true like something is wrong in your politics system approach Etc but it's not the manager it's mostly the employees as well so you have to uh cherish the employees that that don't come just for work so it's a whole different uh approach about motivation types and stuff but people who just come for money

47. 24:03

    they won't uh try working hard for your business for your success for your team's success they will just think about their own success so trusting someone is hard and usually um people fail you uh that's quite common stuff but uh you have to be as transparent as possible with them that's the only thing that helps you have to set clear goals clear expectations what do you want them to achieve what do you want to achieve with their help that is what important and with that you can

48. 24:39

    like see problems secure much earlier and that's the only thing that helps as I think what do you think G you're absolutely right and G you're absolutely right trust is the essential you must have a very good coach guys um so I think it's it's essential because we trust I come back to those difficult conversation that we need to have in an organization um I have the uh privilege to coach co-founders of a young startup

49. 25:10

    and as soon as they raise money immediately challenge is taking place and and I do coach them at the same time in the same room like a couple therapy and it's exactly the same challenge is we have to build trust we have to make sure that we have right communication that when there is a a conflict and there will be conflict that's necessary that's it's human uh being so we need to have those conversation so there is the commitment and then there is the

50. 25:42

    accountability so trust is absolutely critical there are techniques to build trust uh and and they are necessary if you want to make your organization successful for sure you need a great product you you need a great technology but the history of startup is Founders have been able to work together through the difficulty of product delivery product fit pivoting fundraising and uh

51. 26:16

    the one who have been able to be successful is the one who have been able to have those difficult conversation 100% And also from working with um okay so let me be the advocate for Skynet here again yeah so more and more also and again agreed that trust is a key absolute key uh concept and skill for um for Founders more and more especially with younger Founders and maybe because knowing how to trust is not a very well honed skill because you

52. 26:55

    have to know how to trust not just trust blindly um I might send some of them your way because they would benefit from having Eric uh uh uh shaping them and helping them uh in Hing their skills but more and more I see Founders having a bias towards trusting protocol rather than trusting people so can we smart contract our way out of this can we run this as a Dosh Frankenstein um so that I have to trust

53. 27:26

    people less and Trust code more and again here I go back to undeniably trust and and these skills we're debating are major today um question mark will the dependency from these skills decrease over time I think so because again the transit I see um and here I stand on the fence a little bit but I see found Founders and again it's okay this isn't good or bad it's what it is but I see

54. 28:02

    Founders having a bias towards trusting protocol rather than people building success despite of people instead of in favor of people and building also their process and their products in a way that's people proof in the sense that is failure or success will not come from the people people in a project will come from the coding and and the protocols embedded in the project so 100% today we talk about leadership we talk about Rolling Out product and developing uh

55. 28:38

    startups in web3 very still people focused is this the trend to maintain and stabilize over the future yes or no or will in a couple of years we will be talking about this people focus or culture Centric approach as a legacy approach in web 3 I don't know but we'll be here to check it out uh but again if it turns out that we're building companies to be culture proof and people proof uh much to the dismay of HR then it's okay and that's how we have to roll

56. 29:09

    with it so this is just another instance where I'm not sure if the reality and the needs we discussed today will be the reality and the needs that we will be discussing later on uh and maybe in a couple of years we'll be talking about embedding culture in the smart contract rather than in the people and at the very least it'll be fine watch so I still have two years of work or as many as you want uh I mean

57. 29:33

    how fast can you learn how to code oh God thank you very much uh we are getting close to the end of this very interesting panel uh I just want to ask you in the end Julia um if you were hack like participating for the first time at this hackaton you were interested in Industry you want to like get into it and also prepare yourself for for like the web tree future work how what are some advices you could give people how would you how would you see it

58. 29:59

    uh I guess the main advice would be talk talk to people talk about what you do like you have to sell yourself and listen to people what is going on on the market it's not about the like business money and stuff it's also about skills you never know which uh mix of skills is unique and it sells you uh you have to explain to people that you're unique you will show them you can give something that's they don't have that's like only

59. 30:29

    about being something people want to have thank you very much and uh yeah thanks all of you guys and I enjoyed talking to you thank you very much for having us thanks everyone have a great conference thank you thanks thank Youk you let's let's continue talking