Autonomous corporation “The DAO” has become the biggest crowdfunded project

This actually does a much better job explaining the project than the website does. I'm glad I have something to show friends/interested parties that is understandable!

An interesting concept, but I'm not buying the hype.

At the end of the day a bunch of people bought shares in a company (or did they? Legality is weird) with the special condition that in addition to owning a share of said company they also get to vote on what the company actually does, and even submit proposals for what it should do.

Oh, and they also bought said shares with cryptocurrency. Magic internet money guys!

Admittedly I think enabling this kind of democracy in a company is a bad idea. It might actually wind up being less nimble than an actual corporation because of the extra consensus required.

Meanwhile, even though one might assume that the shareholders might be more informed than "the common mob", they might still propose and vote on more misses than, say, a corporation where new products and services are proposed through an informed internal decision making process that ultimately ends in the CEO using the information at his or her disposable to make the final decision. In a good corporation, bad decisions are self-correcting, in some cases leading to such extremes as a leadership shuffle.

By contrast, who's to blame if the DAO votes on a proposal that wound up being a miss? How do they learn from their mistakes so it doesn't happen again?

And I'm sure there are many other issues, but those are at the top of my list. I'd rather a company be run by those most capable, rather than the crowd.

> The DAO isn't actually worth 120 million.

I you tried to sell all Apple stock in a single day it would also sell at well below market rate- Does that mean Apple is worth less than its market cap?

That said, I personally have not invested/speculated in the DAO because I just don't see it as a good opportunity.

There is also the Small-Business Administration, which can fast-track certain well-known types of companies. As an example: say you were a woman who had served time in the military and are trying to setup a hair salon. There are two incentive programs for your demographic specifically, and an additional set of resources for your business specifically. You'd basically get an "account manager" from the SBA who has setup several of these before, such that the experience is practically turnkey and requires very little of your own money.

Now, if you're trying to do something really risky like make a smartphone app, no, you're probably not going to get anywhere with the SBA. They aren't VCs making bets on long-shots. But they are more willing than a bank to work with you and help you get set up.

What a bunch of snake oil.

If you invested or are thinking of investing ask yourself a few simple questions. Who are the Shareholders/Directors/Officers of this corporation? Do you know what state it is incorporated in or going to be incorporated in?

Just a few buzz words. Decentralized? No shit, any corporation with more than one shareholder is decentralized. Smart contracts? Defined as a self enforcing contract, guess what they don't exist. Autonomous? I'd like to see how this code is independently filing annual reports and preparing taxes sending out K-1's to its shareholders autonomously, because that alone would be an enterprise solution every single corporation in the US would pay top dollar for, because DAO just singlehandedly replaced corporate compliance lawyers and CPAs with code.

Still not convinced and eager to get in on this? Then why not cut out the middle man? Create your own "DAO" as an Investment Club (Corp or LLC) the only issue is you will be capped at 100 members/voters/token holders and $25M in investment. But you will be able to tell people your created your own decentralized corporation every bit as autonomous as DAO, complete with 100 tokens people can buy to become a member/shareholder and use to vote on investment opportunities presented by the DAO or members/shareholders of the DAO.