Initiatives

There are two types of failure. One type is avoidable: perhaps the root is self-sabotage, laziness, or an unforgivable miscalculation. The other type is “productive” failure, such as taking on an important moonshot but not quite succeeding due to circumstances outside of anyone’s control. Failures such as these—failures because someone dared to take on a risk—ought to be celebrated, as they are often the stepping stone for other advancements. To recognize the pioneers who took a chance, executed it perfectly, and still came up short, OpenLab offers an annual “Failure Prize” to one researcher who exemplifies failing for the right reasons.

The OpenLab Autonomous Organizations group is best conceptualized as an incubation ground for DAOs, AI, and other networked systems. We build industry standards and public good infrastructure for DAOs and tokenized organizations, including housing the world’s largest data set of Web3 grants. Additionally, we publish and commission top-level research on DAO identity, M&A, token vesting, and other topics through our research grant program, the Cryptoeconomics Systems journal, and other experimental programs.

Beyond research and prototyping, our Autonomous Organizations group convenes regular high-impact conferences including DAO Stanford, DAO Berkeley, DAO Harvard, and the DAO Summit. We maintain an active recruitment pipeline, training students and researchers in governance, mechanism design, and decentralized operations, while connecting Stanford’s academic ecosystem with the world’s largest DAOs, foundations, and Web3 companies.