Metagov is a 501c3 nonprofit that is a laboratory for digital governance. We seek to enable more diverse, creative self-governance in online spaces through research, standards-building, prototyping, and community building. To formally apply, submit this form .

Overview

The Executive Director (ED) of Metagov has operational responsibility for executing the mission of the organization, hiring and recruiting personnel for that purpose, curating related projects, advising the board on strategic direction, and ensuring the financial sustainability of the organization.

The ED is accountable directly to the Metagov board and mission, as well as indirectly to the broader Metagov community. The ED is expected to participate in board discussions, reporting on organizational activities, developing strategic plans, and generally co-coordinating the volunteer board’s activities with the board chair. The board delegates to the ED significant responsibility in the organization, within the purview of law and professional norms, that is not otherwise specified in board policy. This authority should be used in ongoing and collegial collaboration with the board.

At minimum, the board expects that the ED will, either through the ED’s own actions or by delegation:

Oversee Metagov’s vibrant community, research activities, and operations
Communicate the vision and purpose of Metagov
Initiate, design, conduct, and potentially lead projects as needed, whether software, research, advocacy, or events
Secure the sustainability and growth of the organization through fundraising, grant-writing, and other revenue development
Initiate and ideate new projects in collaboration with Metagov’s research directors and community
Work with operations lead to define accounting, ops support, fiscal sponsorship, and other avenues of support
Recruit, hire, and manage staff, or delegate such work
Sign the checks, or delegate such work
Report to the board

Up to 40% of the current ED’s time may be spent on executing research projects with a typical research output such as a publication or standards document; this time should be funded through dedicated revenue sources rather than the general operating budget.

We are open to diverse backgrounds for a potential ED. You can be an established nonprofit leader, entrepreneur, or researcher. Or you might be an ambitious graduate student or postdoc. You may come from computer science and tech, or from law, or from the social sciences. The most important thing is your vision and your capacity for contributing to what Metagov can be and for what it can do.

Details

Compensation: $60 USD / hour, or per specific grants

Duration: expected 3+ years

The ED role is a demanding but high-reward role. The expectation is that on average 20-25 hours per week will be spent on “executive director” duties (see above), with remaining time leading or contributing to particular grant-funded activities. While the role can be and has been held simultaneously with other fellowships and research roles whose work substantially overlaps with Metagov’s mission, the ED role should be considered a full-time job in terms of responsibility.

We encourage prospective applicants to reach out via email to or on the Metagov Slack with any questions.

About Metagov

Metagov is a laboratory for digital governance. The mission of Metagov is to cultivate tools, practices, and communities that enable self-governance in the digital age. Metagov works toward a governance layer for the internet that is empowering, creative, interconnected, and accountable.

Metagov’s activities occur through three mutually supporting functions:

Community : The dynamic interplay among all participants, who develop vibrant and evolving collaborations through our shared spaces. At the base of this pillar is the Metagov Membership.
Research : The cutting-edge research that advances knowledge in support of our shared goals. At the base of this pillar are the Research Directors and their grant-funded projects.
Operations : A participatory approach to organizational infrastructure. At the base of this pillar is a commitment to transparency, accessibility, and to honoring the care work that goes into making the organization function.

History and Founding

Metagov was founded in 2019, out of a seminar at Harvard Law School called “Governing Virtual Worlds”. Joshua Tan (who TA’ed the class) and Louis Kang (one of the guest lecturers) got together and presented the original idea for Metagov to Lawrence Lessig (who taught the class) and Primavera De Filippi (one of the other guest lecturers). Originally intended as a collaboration between Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and the MIT Media Lab, we officially incorporated as an independent nonprofit in January 2020, with Josh, Louis, Prima, and Larry serving as the initial board and Josh as the founding executive director.

Almost immediately upon starting, we brought Nathan Schneider, Amy Zhang, and Seth Frey into a “core group” of co-authors working on what eventually became modular politics, the paper . Later in the year, this core group—the precursor to Metagov’s research directors—expanded to include Divya Siddarth, Michael Zargham (who also joined our board as treasurer), Shauna Gordon-McKeon, and Federica Carugati.

We received our first grant near the end of 2020, from the Grant for the Web, to implement the Metagov Gateway . Since then, Metagov has grown to receive over $1 million in grants and over $1 million in grants for our fiscally sponsored projects, recruited 14 Research Directors, amassed a community of over 1,000 people in our Slack, and transitioned ED’s from Joshua Tan to Eugene Leventhal. We are now seeking the leader who will drive the organization forward in the coming years.

Support from the Board

B Cavello is secretary of the board at Metagov, which means they lead on taking notes during board meetings and communicate minutes to the community. They tend to focus on promoting the community and the work of Metagov externally. They are actively engaged in the Public AI project.

Primavera De Filippi is a legal scholar whose work focuses on the legal implications of emergent technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. In her role of Research Director at Metagov, she is involved in a variety of projects related to the analysis and design of new governance models leveraging blockchain and AI. Primavera currently serves as the PI of the ERC-funded research project “BlockchainGov”, investigating the concept of ‘distributed governance’ in blockchain communities and beyond.

Nathan Schneider is the current board chair, which means he works closely with the ED and other board members to set the agenda for each meeting. He thinks of himself as a facilitator in this role. One thing he thinks about a lot is finding the balance between enabling Metagov to be a space of experimentation and play in governance while also leaning on time-tested, responsible practices.

Joshua Tan is a board member, co-founder, and research director at Metagov, a laboratory for digital governance, and a computer scientist at Oxford. His work explores the intersection between artificial and collective intelligence. He has previously held fellowships at Stanford (at the Digital Civil Society Lab), Princeton (in the CS department), and MIT (in the math department) and taught at Harvard (in the law school) and Carnegie Mellon (in the policy school). His work has been funded by the NSF, Ford Foundation, EPSRC, EU Next Generation Internet, Henry Luce Foundation, One Project, NIST, Ethereum Foundation, Optimism Foundation, and others. He currently serves as PI or helps lead projects at Metagov including DAOstar, Public AI, To Community, and the Interoperable Institutions Initiative.

Dr. Michael Zargham is an entrepreneur and systems engineer. As a board member, he contributes to the ongoing operations of Metagov, serving as the Treasurer. In the role of Research Director, his focus is on how data is captured, organized, and put to use -- with emphasis on the interplay between human and machine decision making. This work has included work on Govbase, Telescope bot and Attention Economies. Currently, he serves as the Co-PI on the KOI-Pond Project with Ellie Rennie. He has also contributed to standards building with DAOstar and Calm Tech Institute.

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