Retrospective Funding
Due to the absence of incentives in our dominant public goods funding framework
we often overlook high-uncertainty
high-upside endeavors. Even milestone-based bounty frameworks are relatively uncommon and tend to focus on activities (which can be easy to game) rather than outcomes.
We need to pursue more moonshots when the expected positive value is very high.
One new impact funding mechanism is retrospective funding
which rewards projects on the impact they create after the impact is observable. Retrospective funding would provide incentives for creators to take on public goods projects with a potentially high
but uncertain impact; enable feedback loops to learn from successes and failures; and attract more talent to the public goods sector by improving performance-based compensation. We believe we can do better.