I used to work at a startup where I put in crazy hours. Nights, weekends, whatever it took. I believed in what we were building. I thought if the company succeeded, we'd all benefit.
Then we got acquired. The founders walked away with millions. The investors made their returns. And me? I got a modest payout that didn't come close to reflecting the years I'd put in.
That's when I realized: I was building value for someone else. I was hoping they'd share it fairly, but I had no guarantee. No control. Just hope.
It made me think about how we've always built things as a civilization. Either through coercion — slavery, exploitation — or through communities where people work together and share the benefits.
At v03, I'm betting on the second model. And I'm using tools like Harbour to make it actually work.
The pattern we keep repeating
Look at how most online communities work today. Reddit, Discord, YouTube. Millions of people contribute content, moderation, ideas. They build culture. They create value.
But they don't own any of it. The platform does. And the platform extracts that value.
It's the same structure that's existed for centuries. A few people at the top benefit from the work of many at the bottom. Whether it's a feudal system or a social media platform, the pattern is the same.
We've just gotten better at making it feel voluntary.
What Harbour does
Harbour is a DAO platform I'm building at v03 to enable communities to actually own what they build.
Instead of building on someone else's platform, you create a DAO. Your community has a shared treasury. Decisions get made by the people who contribute. When value is created, it flows to the members, not to some platform owner.
It's messy. Governance is hard. Coordination takes time. But at least it's honest.
The people doing the work actually benefit from it. The people who show up have a real stake. And the value doesn't automatically flow upward to someone who did nothing but own the platform.
Why this matters
I think every generation faces the same choice. Do we build through exploitation, or do we build through genuine collaboration?
Web3 gives us tools to actually try the second option. Not because blockchain is magic, but because it makes shared ownership enforceable. You can't quietly change the terms. You can't fake the records. The rules are visible.
At v03, I'm using Harbour and similar tools to create communities where contributors are co-owners. Where helping isn't unpaid labor — it's investing in something you have a stake in.
I don't know if it'll work. But I know the alternative — building value for platforms that don't share it — doesn't work for most people.
So we're trying something different.