It looks dire but not all is lostI invested in the last round mostly because I liked the vision and because I sensed that people involved where serious and capable enough to launch this. The state of Synereo as I perceive it now is much worse than it appeared and certainly worse than it was advertised in September:
Synereos four-layers:
0. RChain - blockchain, Casper, PoS // Progress: 1% - planning
1. SpecialK - distributed storage and content delivery protocol (DHT based) // Progress: failed
2. Rholang - functional programming language for smart contracts // Progress: 1% - planning
3. Social Network/Apps // Progress: ?% planning/mock up
Here is what I observed: The main actors, namely Dor (CEO) and Greg (CTO) have seriously endangered the project, their respective ability appears insufficient to drive the current effort and their communication appears flawed. The basic architecture does in fact not exist, both underestimate the effort required. The idea currently floated will leave Dor in control of Synereo and proposes to spin-off a separate entity with Greg at its helm to develop RChain from scratch.
Starting with Greg. He comes from big Corp. IT projects, developing the kind of bloated enterprise software for middle and back office operation that is more recently replaced with SaaS. That's also my background. The Organization Man Greg is dangerous because he isn't on top technically and possibly ideologically implicated. This is important because people like him have a propensity to politicize and complicate matters, I have meet them and I couldn't comprehend this before I worked for Microsoft. It's said that managers there spend 50% of their time with politics. That is what Greg does.
Greg
disingenuous:
"I need to clarify. We have to make a distinction between decentralized in the sense that there is no node in charge vs decentralized meaning that you grow the network one piece at a time."
- This should not need to be 'clarified' at this point.
FYI:
http://isr.uci.edu/projects/pace/decentralization.htmlGreg on
Business Development- Unclear how he could spin-off anything.
FYI:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_developmentGreg on
governance- That's clearly what he likes to spend his time on.
As for Dor, he seems to lack the technical depth that is required in such an early stage and has shown weak judgment. Both is very visible in the fact that he let Greg got away with SpecialK for so long.
SpecialK, Java/Mongo DB/rabbitmq based software, compartmentalized and developed to fit into big-organizations data centers. This dangerous and unmanageable setup was finally folded into Docker to make it appear more manageable for anybody who has no IT-Department at his disposal to maintain the necessary infrastructure!
- This seems absolutely insufficient for any kind of bitcoin-like robustness and decentralization at the core of Synereo.
Dor is responsible. It's inconceivable that he let this go on for so long and even raised money just two month ago. Maybe he can work in a marketing/representation function, while technically inept I at least grant him that he acted in good faith.
If I had been given an honest status on the state of the development I would never have invested. Of course the lack of due diligence is my fault.Moving forward I expect a feasibility analysis of various options, e.g.:
Option A: Run the Social Network on Ethereum/IPFS // low risk
Option B: Fork Maidsafe, adapt it to the social network (considering Rholang integration) // medium Risk
Option C: Focus on Rchain // high risk
Option D: Refund - wind down and start over // Recovery ratio?
It is not an option to let the
part-time CTO Greg continue to use up more resources!
From my observation the following quick and dirty reshuffle seems appropriate:
- Greg is a liability and can maybe be kept in an advisory role. Ask Henry to step in as interim CTO.
- Look for a new CEO while Dor has to run every strategic/technical decision by Ed for the time being. Andy could act as tiebreaker.
