Thanks, we will still need to have the continuous support even after the entire proposal process, the community play an important role in the ongoing development of NEM Foundation moving forward.
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Hi Alexandra, thank you again for the work put in this.
Gambling ones livelihood away does not seem like a good idea to me either, although that choice of words is a bit too dramatic for what I was thinking.
I’m from the Netherlands (that country that invented the stock market). The following graph may help translate the intention of my words.
We have a good social system in the Netherlands. Compared to the US, low and medium wages are higher, and high wages are lower. The government calculated that “a livelihood” for a family of 3 is € 1,525 ($ 1,725) per month. When I see an average management position budgetted for ~$4,150 ($50,000/yr), I hardly think that paying $2,075 in fiat - and another $2,075 (x1.5? x3?, x10?) as a delayed smart contract bonus quite literally attached to how well the team performs - is synonymous for bargaining/gambling ones livelihood. In a way it’s similar to ISOs and NSOs or time delayed incentive plans.
In fact, imagine a mandatory incentive XEM pay of 25%, there could be a secondary tax incentive for the incentive plan. Ask anyone - managers to hired hands - if they are interested in increasing the percentage of XEM pay to any amount between 25% and 75%, and they would only have to either pay tax over the difference between the grant date and the exercise date or consider the spread as taxable income, you might be surprised. It might be worth looking into the possibilities. Or not. Just want to point out the sincerity of the idea.
Although only slightly related, I would also like to point out the holding incentive plan (not for employees but for customers) of the (formerly Monaco) crypto dot com MCO holders. They need MCO at a steady price during the marketing period of their visa cards, so they are distributing CRO airdrops for MCO holders. You see them accumulate in the crypto dot com wallet. However, they are locked for 12 months, and only valid for the percentage of your original amount of MCO that you are still holding 12 months after the airdrop. This way you are free to spend, but incentivized to hold.
If the proposal is rejected, what does that mean effectively for future activity and money burn rate? For example, if the proposal is rejected, does that mean that no money is allowed to be spent until a proposal is accepted? Does it mean no one can be hired? Is there a limited number of operations that continue, analogous to a US government shutdown? Or is the vote just a formality?
Edit: Changed “.com” to “dot com” so it won’t unintentionally be considered spam.
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Thanks Alex for clarifying alot of the questions people have been asking, from what ive seen, im pretty happy with the funding proposal and also look forward to you working alongside NEMLabs if their proposal gets approved.
I highly encourage the whole community to go through the business plan for both the NF and NEM Labs proposals.
Going forward, we will have a much more robust model to go forward with the 3 entities comprised of NEM Ventures, NF and NEM Labs 
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I don’t know if you understand the traditional incentive or stock process. Since you are from the country that invented the stock market, I’m assuming that you know what I’m going to state in my reply.
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People need to buy food or medicines for an emergency. Back in the '60s when companies understood the importance of incentivizing the employee, they started rolling out stock incentives. Enter ESOP aka Employee Stock Options Plans. They didn’t cut the salaries because these employees had motivations. They added on top of ESOP to increase the performance.
If you cut the salary or hold it in an account for 12 months, history shows that it hurts employees. That’s probably the dumbest thing you can do. -
Vested Shares - The ESOP will only vest in 4 years with a 1-year cliff. That means every four years, the employees will get 100% of the vested stock. The employee now has a vision and power to envision the future. He gets some cookie from the jar every year but to get the full amount; he/she need to work hard and perform four years.
I think your post has many loose ends. The financial part is a 50% motivator in any job. People need to find happiness and excitement. We need to structure a process and fill the company with people who will think out of the box. People who can find happiness in what they do.
Thank You
Hi Pedro, could you please provide any proof that these people are real, for example their NEM wallets without specifying names and locations.
Thanks in advance
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Quoted for irony. I think it’s possible that you are focused entirely on the trial balloon of paying less salary. Let’s ignore that for now. Let’s pay full salaries, and on top of that, how about figuring out a novelty incentive scheme that is at least partially related to the performance of the team? In my idea, which is much more interesting to discuss and improve, there will be a set bonus payout in XEM 12 months later. It’s a bonus whose value is at least partially related to the success of the team. I like that idea. Feel free to expand on that if you’re willing to consider an outside of the box system. I hardly think the world is the same as 60 years ago.
Also, I’m being asked for a vote. I say with this considerable bonus package, salaries can be cut in half. Let’s not kid ourselves. If a CTO earns USD 10,000/mo in FIAT in stead of USD 20,000/mo, it’s not like they suddenly cannot buy bread and medicine. Perhaps attracting people who see a big opportunity in XEM rather than getting rich now and walk away make for a better team.
Initially 50% seemed like a good idea since I understand the realism of capitalist life, but let’s not forget where we came from. “The Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy as evidence mounts that the £37 billion part-nationalisation last year has failed to keep credit flowing.” The problems caused by the supposedly liberal capitalist system is what ruined millions of lives. This is what inspired a new economic model in the first place. I’m guessing the people who believe in an economy free of banks and those that turn out to be classic capitalists are as true as radical believers of Open Source software versus those that swear by closed source proprietary software. We could at least unify realism and idealism in a 50/50 ratio.
I don’t want to hear “I cannot buy bread with my thousands of dollars”. This is not a charity. I’m simply pointing out what I’m missing in this proposal to the people that requested my feedback in their quest to win over my accumulated importance for a vote on their proposal. Feel free to alter, amend or expand on ideas proposed. But if I can’t see even a hint of actionable sympathy for this viewpoint by people who matter, I guess it’s fair that I allocate my vote in this new PoI-based democracy accordingly.
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You are focusing on the money here. Again I agree that 10K is enough to buy bread in this world. You forget the world is still centralized. I can bet that anyone who works for Google will not join NEM. Even if you put $50K a month, they will always stick with another company that pays less than us.
There are many things we have to resolve within the team and hire people with vision who can support NEM. I strongly disagree with the theory of “cutting cost you get performance.”
I do not understand the mentality. NEM community is happy to spend $1M for consensus or Dubai roadshow. But when it comes to paying developers, they are not satisfied. Guess what; this is the reason why you are still stuck with the much crappy applications with zero looks and feel.
To be honest. It’s still the same. We crypto enthusiast live in a bubble, and we hope, pray and believe and like to force our idea of decentralization onto others. Can you live by paying BTC or XEM the entire month? If YES is the answer, the world has changed. If No is the answer, we are still in same economy and dollar is the king.
Coming back to your point, you must focus on tasks, milestones, getting good talent, working with amazing people with excellent skills, going out of the box and implementing NEM technology in government regulated industry to gain more acceptance.
It’s time to stop focusing on “WHAT DEVELOPER MAKES” and ask “WHAT DEVELOPER CAN DO AND DELIVER.”
It’s not the time to ask “WHY NOT $1” and do something.
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Joint Statement by NEM Foundation and NEM Labs
After careful consideration, NEM Foundation and NEM Labs would like to affirm the below statements:
1. Proposals are both complementary in nature
Both parties jointly acknowledge that the proposals put forth to the community are complementary in nature. The proposals can be accomplished in such a way that it improves the outcomes that are being sought after - the development, launch and adoption of Catapult.
2. Principles of co-operation collaboration
Both parties will work as independent contributors to the ecosystem but in a unified approach. This means that if both proposals are approved, the main commitment is to contribute to the Project Management Committee (PMC). As an additional measure, there will be regular joint strategic meetings in working towards full alignment across both entities to prevent ineffective use of resources. In fact, the execution of each party’s proposal will lead to an enhancement of each other’s effort through the principles of cooperation and collaboration.
3. Pursuit of Catapult
Both parties have their own scope, though we will be working towards the same objective - a promise to the community that our mission-critical priority is in the launch of Catapult. Both NEM Foundation and NEM Labs will work together to accomplish this as part of the same ecosystem.
Summary
The past days have shown that the NEM community demands purpose driven entities that can deliver results in a cost-effective way. Both NEM Foundation and NEM Labs have different scopes that complement each other. The reality is that the adoption of NEM is not the work of a single entity. Proven ecosystems all consist of multiple purpose driven entities that solve specific problems. We are convinced of a future where independent entities like NEM Foundation and NEM Labs solve specific problems for the NEM ecosystem in a unified approach.
We appreciate that the community review the proposals and vote in an informed manner:
Link to NEM Foundation proposal:
https://forum.nem.io/t/nem-foundation-funding-proposal-2019/
Link to NEM Labs proposal:
https://forum.nem.io/t/nem-labs-community-proposal-poi/
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I apologize. I’m not following. And I assume you mean a specific case. A friend of mine works in a google data center not 25 km from here. He would quit his job and sacrifice a metaphorical virgin for $50K/mo.
I did not say that. Nor can we afford to spend indefinitely. USD 8 million is what, 10% of the community fund? Just because last year’s team found a way to sauté themselves in funding doesn’t mean no one is allowed to be realistic here.
This is unrelated to my actions or opinions put forth in this topic. But either it was democratically decided, or it is apparently easy for a few people to come together and make a yes vote, as long as you don’t tell anyone to vote so there won’t be a no vote. I’m assuming there is a certain minimal electoral threshold of importance that needs to be reached before a yes vote is valid. If not, I didn’t write the broken system.
Interesting question. Definitely not entirely, but way more than 5 years ago. I cannot pay mortgage, insurance or utility bill. But if you take some effort to take care where you go, you can come a long way. Clothing shops, barbers, restaurants, bars, hotels. I even saw that you can pay with Bitcoin in the small “Spar” supermarket at the trainstation. However if I want to fuel my car in bitcoins I need to drive 100km. There are some dozens of bitcoin ATMs though.
The thing is, although mostly bitcoin, I’ve seen some “shitcoins” being accepted, but never NEM/XEM. They have the biggest money burn, biggest team, biggest marketing, and zero visibility out here to show for.
I don’t understand the argument in literally dramatizing by 10000%. Move the decimal point “your” way by saying “WHY NOT $100,000,000” and my argument would be equally meaningless.
I respect your opinion and it is a clear one. All you have done however is refute arguments that I did not make. I remain unchallenged in my view and would prefer to employ people that feel comfortable partially earning a stake in the New Economy Movement rather than FIAT that is not immediately liquidable, as opposed to people that have so little trust in NEM that the mere thought having a partial pay in XEM deferred would chase them away. Otherwise we end up with a bunch of Yoshitaka Sakurada’s. If I can’t see even a hint of actionable sympathy for this viewpoint by people who matter, it’s only fair that I allocate my vote in this new PoI-based democracy accordingly. I’m begging for someone to address this concern in a meaningful way.
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Well .I think everyone will disagree with your comments because it doesn’t make sense. Good luck 
The foundation have made it clear that they are not negotiating on money.
Also, many don’t seem to appreciate that you can’t just throw money at a problem to fix it.
What you are suggesting is actually standard practice in crypto and outside. I’m not sure why Lionheart is even fighting you on it. It’s a basic way to ensure that incentives are aligned.
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I was not initially convinced that was so, but I’m underwhelmed by the foundation’s participation in their own thread thus far. It’s only 10 days (3 left) before the vote, and they are literally asking for money. They need 65% of the votes. They have made a tremendous effort negotiating for our vote, but it’s more of a take it or leave it deal. Perhaps they are convinced of the result already, just like Cameron was when he initiated the Brexit referendum.
Seen as I’m not asking for approval, I don’t need luck. Therefore your friendly “good luck” is the semantical equivalent of communicating a welcome loss or departure. Just like your “thank you” in your initial response to me already indicated that you were not going to have anything constructive to add.
If your demeanor and fake lack of intellectual empathy is designed to manipulate people like me into voting no, then it’s really quite clever what you are doing.
Very similar to my thoughts.
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This grace period is a gesture. Time to ponder the deal on the table.
Let me try to explain a little bit about the grace period and the freeze to changes. In the past with some proposals to the community were given feedback and changes were made on the fly. In some cases changes were made right up until the vote, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but often times also flying under the radar.
People having read the proposal a few days before and went to vote were now voting on a very different proposal. The freeze in changes is to give the community enough time to absorb proposal and decide how to the vote and know there will be no last minute shenanigans and unfavorable edits in this proposal right before voting.
And so complaints that were commonly brought up by the community have now led to collection of edits in the proposal as outlined here. NEM Foundation Update - February 2019
What NEM needs is competent leadership and competent management. In 1.5 months the new NF team was able to complete an audit, identify problems, handle layoffs, respond to feedback in a professional manner, and communicate a detailed solution. What is more impressive is that when facing bankruptcy they chose to pay their debts first and themselves second. How often does that happen in crypto? Regardless of details of the plan, I sure as hell want this team to keep going.
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Hi all,
Please see up date on response to Core Devs Questions from NEM Foundation
We also have a technology update - Catapult Mobile Wallet walkthrough
We are committed to becoming a product-focused, revenue-driven organization and we hope this update showcases what NEM Foundation can do to serve the community better.
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Thanks for summing up pretty much the main focus of what the new council has been doing. It has not been an easy task and we value the community’s feedback.
I would like to emphasise that this is our ‘last shot’ as a community, as NEM Foundation, to support NEM and the path to the launch of Catapult. I believe that this is the first time you have seen the council responding more than before (even though we still have much to improve on) and it would be the last time the community would be left in the dark on the Foundation’s KPIs, roadmaps, activities and movements.
This is a post that was shared as a response to the Core Devs and I emphasize that we will continue to be guided by the community.
Reference: Core Devs Questions for Active Proposals
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Hi, I’m reaching out to find out why the vote is required for the NEM Foundation to receive funding. If the wallets (unconventional marketing, operations 1 and 2, marketing) that you guys will use funds from are all controlled by a multi-sig of foundation members, can’t you just take the funds out yourself without asking permission from the community? Or are they locked up and bound by time period withdrawals?