tl;dr: On the mindset and economics of aligning large groups of people in pursuit of a common goal.

One of the questions I am asked (and sometimes ask myself) is “how can you both be the CMO of an OKR-focused startup and lead an investment fund for crypto assets?”

There are at least two answers.

The first, simpler one, is that “well, as long as the necessary outcomes are delivered for each set of stakeholders, it works.” When one of them says, “you’re not giving me what we need,” then I will have a choice to make (or it will be made for me).

But there’s a deeper, less obvious, more orthogonal way of looking at it because the two are actually related.

Both cryptoeconomics and OKRs (the Objectives and Key Results goal-setting methodology) are about the challenge of aligning groups of people in pursuit of a common goal or set of goals.

OKRs provide strategic clarity to an organization through the use of quantifiable metrics. I like to think of it as a symphony where everyone can see the entire musical score, has visibility into what each of the other instruments is supposed to do at a given moment, and also has clarity about her individual responsibilities and role.

Meanwhile, cryptoeconomics offers a similar type of transparency. The monetary and fiscal policy are written into code, instead of musical notes or metrics. The commitments of the network are enshrined in smart contracts, and the software outlines the incentive mechanism. From there, the network allows actors to behave however they want, but there are a common set of rules that everyone must follow…or they won’t be able to participate.

These are two different, and I would argue potentially compatible, ways of solving the much bigger challenge of: how can we get large groups of people to align themselves in pursuit of a common objective?

With OKRs, that objective may be set by one or a few leaders in pursuit of value creation, the ultimate outcome.

In cryptoeconomics, the designers of the protocol work with a community of stakeholders in an ongoing, collaborative yin-yang, to optimize the balance of risk/reward so that the most number of people benefit in the greatest possible way, in pursuit of a goal of community wealth creation.

There are probably other ways that will work, so these aren’t the only two, but they are the two best ones I have found that are well-suited for a digital-first, knowledge economy.

As we head deep into the 2020s, facing challenges of a massive, global scale, we need ways to coordinate and align across groups and borders.

OKRs and Cryptoeconomics (and potentially the two of them working together–more on that later) offer two possible approaches.