DAOs Were Never Meant to Run Companies

The original vision for DAOs was coordination without corporations—not corporations without headquarters.

Somewhere along the way, we confused "decentralized" with "democratic" and "autonomous" with "automated." The result is a generation of organizations trying to run traditional business operations through governance mechanisms designed for something else entirely.

DAOs excel at certain things: managing shared treasuries, coordinating around public goods, governing protocol parameters. They fail spectacularly at others: hiring decisions, strategic pivots, anything requiring speed or confidentiality.

The mistake isn't using DAOs. It's using them for everything. A protocol's fee switch doesn't need the same governance structure as its marketing budget. Conflating these leads to either paralysis or capture.

The next evolution isn't better voting mechanisms. It's clearer separation of concerns—understanding which decisions benefit from decentralization and which are better delegated to trusted actors with clear mandates and accountability.