In crazy and uncertain times like these, it's easy to feel lost, discouraged, and disconnected in both personal and business life. Join us this week as we talk with Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation, to learn how she's navigating through COVID-19 both from the remote office and from the dining room table.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DenelleDixon
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denelle-dixon-967a236
Denelle (00:00):
What we've learned through this global pandemic is that global is actually meaningful and that there's nothing that doesn't actually transcend borders.
Tyler (00:20):
Hello Stellar community. Welcome to episode 12 of the Stellar podcast. We have a very special guest on the line today, our very own, Denelle, the CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation. Very excited to have her on the show. She put out an article last week around open source in blockchain, particularly in the recent events with COVID-19, and a lot of our work going remote and what that means for us as blockchain developers or Stellar developers, the role that we can play, but also just taking a serious and much needed big picture view of where we are and what this means for us now and how it could shape our future. So Denelle, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I'm excited. I have been working with you for a while, but I don't actually know that much about you. So this should be fun.
Denelle (01:29):
I am thrilled to be here. Thanks Tyler.
Tyler (01:33):
So we'll just jump right in. So when you have like this serious moment, this big change, none of us had this on our calendar thing to expect. When you look at something that changes the world as much as this has and will, particularly from a global perspective, right, this doesn't just affect a small city, a big city, just a state or even a country. This affects the entire world. You as a leader of stellar, this blockchain technology that we have, what are your plans? What's your thought process for leading stellar through something like this? How do your plans change? How do you adapt when things like this happen?
Denelle (02:20):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, first of all, I don't know that anyone has a rule book or a playbook about how these things. I think for me, just because of what I care most about, the most important thing is for us to take stock of the humanity and the people and the human assets that we spend time with every day. Not just within the Stellar Development Foundation, but also just within our community. And so one of the things that I think is the most important, and I try to do it every day, is to check in with different people and to make sure that there are other folks who are checking in with projects that are working and building on stellar. And so I don't want to lose sight that in order to, I can't say that I can lead the community through. I can lead the Stellar Development Foundation, which is just one small component of this larger growing community that we have.
Denelle (03:06):
But the way that I recommend that we all do this, it's by just taking stock of one another. And so that's the first thing I think. And for me, that's what gives me the ability and the compassion and the understanding to get up every day and to continue to do all of this in the face of just like really awful, horrific events that are happening all around the world. So that's the first thing I'd say. And then the second thing for me that I think is really important and I mentioned this last week, is that we at SDF and just as part of the stellar community, that we try very hard to not just go inward. And it's really easy when you have something that is as terrible as what we're seeing around the whole globe is to just start taking stock of what you need to do to protect the entity, the Stellar Development Foundation for example for which you are engaged.
Denelle (04:01):
And I think for us just because we are so dependent on the community for success and dependent on, and stellar itself is dependent on the community for success and all of you out there who are developing on stellar, it's really important for us to not stop doing investments in the enterprise fund. It's really important for us to not stop doing infrastructure grants. It's really important for us to engage as much as we can with those of you who are out there building on stellar and just understanding what's happening in the world for you.
Denelle (04:35):
And I think that one of the things you mentioned that I think is just deeply, deeply important is this notion of what we do at SDF and just like the stellar, this open source project is to focus on transparency and openness and deep collaboration. And so what I would like to think that we're going to be able to continue to do is to do all of those things and to, I will continue to push and lead SDF in this way and then take cues from the community as to how we're doing and how the community itself is doing.
Tyler (05:07):
So shifting just a little bit or maybe a continuation of some of these thoughts. When we're talking about this, the danger of an inward focus or kind of turtling ourselves and we see the opposite of that being outward focused, what are some practical ways that we can be outward focus both in our work as developers or entrepreneurs or even just community members looking at this thing and trying to maybe heed those warnings of not being inward focus. How do we do that in work? But also how do we do that at home with our families, with our friends? And then how are we doing that as SDF?
Denelle (05:50):
Yeah. So I'll start with the family and friends. I think that, you know what we've done, we have actually we have boys and we're all home in our house together. So there's seven of us here and because our two college boys are home now. And so we actually try to spend, we eat lunch together every day now. And then we also have dinner together and then we try to do, Harvey and I, my partner, we've started to do smash with the boys on-
Tyler (06:18):
That's awesome.
Denelle (06:19):
Afterwards, it's still like engage with them. They're all between the ages of 10 and 19. And so they have various different ways that we can engage. But we've tried to just like do something as a family that is not the norm that we would normally do. We also, I spend a lot of time talking to my friends when I go on walks, I call them and we have communication that way. So I think making sure that you're putting yourself in contact with friends in your community and with your family in unique ways, it's I think really important. What we've also tried to do is to get our kids and us focused on ways that we can help because I just marvel at the folks out there that are fighting on the front lines to do all of this really hard and compassionate work. And I feel sometimes small as a result of it, that I'm not out there doing the same thing. I don't have the skills to do it and I don't think anybody would want me in those rooms.
Denelle (07:15):
So we think about ways that we can do it. Making flower arrangements and dropping them at different places so that people can just have something to brighten their day. We've done that, or thinking about ways to like contribute to bring food to those organizations that are deeply in need of support. And so these are just some small, like nothing compared to what other people are doing out there in the world. But just really looking outward and not just staying focused on what needs to happen in our home. That's what we've tried to do. And we're not excelling on it, but we're doing the best I think that we can given the circumstances. And I'd like to even push us to be better here. So on a personal level, I just encourage everyone to try to remember that as hard as this is for us because you know, sometimes I wake up and I'm like, "Oh, another day", it's like Groundhog day every day, right. Another day, another same thing.
Denelle (08:09):
And then I just realize that there are people out there who are doing so much more and all I can do, I can get out of bed, I can go on my run, I can come back and I can just get engaged in what we have in front of us to get done and support the family through that too. So that's the personal part. In terms of SDF, I think that we just need to be even better at what it is that we do than we've had to before. And what I mean by that is, and this is where I think the open source part becomes a really important challenge and opportunity. I think focusing on documentation and transparency and just really making it so that there's one to many in terms of communications as much as we can. I think that that allows people to be in their world doing whatever it is that they're doing, but they can actually access the information that's necessary for them to be able to engage and build with stellar.
Denelle (09:04):
And so, you know, I came to open source about nine years ago. I didn't understand the value and the true strength of it and that is the true strength. It is the notion that you can cross borders, you don't actually have to be in the same geography. And in fact, the strength of open source is that you get the benefit of being multinational even if it's not mostly national in terms of the organization that you're working in. Like you might not have everybody that represents the world in your organization, but because it's a project that invites everyone to contribute and collaborate and you can access it from anywhere in the world, you have the diversity of opinions and ideas in ways that are real. And that's what I want us to do even more of at SDF, is that we promote those notions of transparency and collaboration.
Denelle (09:56):
And that we stay very clear on what our roadmap is. You know, we put the 2020 plan together for a reason because we wanted to make sure that the world, and we published it so that anybody who cares about what it is that we do can see it and that we are going to stay trained on that. And that's what we're going to continue to do for SDF. And for the community, I just encourage the community to be thinking in the same way. They can be reliant on one another in ways that maybe historically, they didn't realize. But one of the things that we learned when we had Meridian and when we brought over 400 different enterprises together is that we, the connections are what build a network.
Denelle (10:37):
Network effects don't happen without many different folks in the community coming together. And so that's what I encourage the community to do. Rely on one another, learn from one another. We can be there to backstop if folks need help for understanding what our developers are saying, those kinds of things. But I actually think if we do our part and we're transparent and open, then the community can do its part by not looking inward and by looking out to others and seeing how those connections can help.
Tyler (11:05):
When you define transparency, particularly from your background at Mozilla, what is your definition and outworkings of transparency?
Denelle (11:16):
Yeah, so for me, I mean so many different things in different contexts from, but the most important I think the way to articulate it and what I've learned just in having now, I feel like grown up a bit in open source for the last nine years, is that you actually get to audit all the different things that we do. You can audit our code, but we're also going to tell you what we're doing in the world. Look at our mandate. The mandate page on our website is the epitome of what I considered to be transparency. The thing that we put out there so that you can see what's happening in all of the accounts that SDF holds with respect to the lumens that we hold and what we have told you we're going to do with them and then you need to be able to audit that we did what we said.
Denelle (12:01):
So that when we make an investment from the enterprise fund, you can see that we made the investment from the enterprise fund. When we're saying that we're locking up the direct development at a certain amount each year that you're going to see that. You don't get to change your mind and make a different statement that later, that it wasn't written down so you don't have to hold yourself accountable to it. I'm not saying that you can't like change direction, but you have to explain why you did so that you don't get to just be spontaneous without thought and without reflection about what you've said and done in the past. And so transparency for me, it's so many things. In privacy, transparency is that users have the opportunity to be able to know what's happening with their data.
Denelle (12:48):
And if you think about that layer of transparency, like they might not care and they might not drill down to figure it out, but it needs to all be there. And so I have a very firm opinion that transparency is the key to success because it doesn't mean you can't go a different direction. It just means that you have to know why you're doing that. And tell people why you're doing that. And it actually makes, in my opinion, it makes my job and I frankly think everyone else's jobs so much easier when you actually have a thing you can point to. And then if you change later to say, "But you know what, that's not the direction we should be going in. But here's the four reasons why we're shifting.", and again, that just makes things so much easier because then you know what the reasons are, you understand the background and you know where you came from.
Denelle (13:30):
And you know Mitchell Baker, who is one of the founders of Mozilla, she used to always say, "We need a written record.", we need a written record of where we came from so that we can always reflect back. And it's so true and it's just so important. And every time in my work at Mozilla and my work here today, I love to be able to point back to that written record so that we can all just hold ourselves accountable. So that's my opinion of what the importance of transparency and how we would do it here.
Tyler (13:59):
That's interesting because a lot of those descriptions to me embody what blockchain itself is, where you have this paper trail of information that is auditable and it's immutable. So in many ways, it's making that flow out into the way you also run your business.
Denelle (14:15):
I agree 100%. I mean that was part of the reason why I felt like the shift for me into this, nascent or somewhat nascent technology was so it was aligned with what I had been doing for so long because I think that the fact that you can actually create this record that exists for always, and that you can also remove the borders and create opportunity for so many other humans out there in the world, those are the things that I think the web did years and years ago when the web was first created. And I think that this is even has more impact because the content side of the web is crucial and it's one of the things that allows us to be able to communicate with the world in different ways. But financial success for each individual and financial opportunity for each individual is that next layer of high performance that we would love to be able to deliver to everyone. And that's what blockchain can do. That's what our blockchain can do, the stellar blockchain.
Tyler (15:16):
So spinning off a little bit on that, just talking about blockchain and the stellar blockchain, what roles do you see blockchain playing specifically in this crazy new world we find ourselves in right now, and the ripple effects of change that we may see in the coming years? Do you feel like that's maybe too much of a hyper focus, that it's not so much blockchain, but how you use blockchain that has a role to play? Do you see any changes or opportunities, maybe unique opportunities that blockchain has right now with the world and the state that it's in?
Denelle (15:52):
So I think that blockchain, there's lots of different definitions for what blockchains can do. I'll just start with the one I know well, which is ours because I think that it's harder for me to make that sort of statement about everyone, and we actually try very hard at SDF to talk about stellar, and not try to fit like every square peg into a round hole. What stellar does well is payments and cross border payments. That's what stellar should be used for. There are lots of other blockchains that do a lot of other things exceptionally well and could actually probably help us supply chain and could help with lots of other challenges that the world actually faces today. But I'll talk about the one that I know well, which is stellar and the idea that, and I'll just start with this very basic premise, that what we've learned through this global pandemic is that global is actually meaningful and that there's nothing that doesn't actually transcend borders and that we all have a ripple effect and create impacts on one another.
Denelle (16:51):
Even if we have this imaginary line that we've drawn on the globes and in maps, that we all have impact on one another. It's one of the things that I think, it is the most dramatic and important lesson that we can learn from all of this is that it's the basic thing that we learn when we're kids, that every action causes a reaction or another action. And I think that's what we see in very unprecedented ways when you have like a global pandemic of this sort that faces all of us. And so what I think that the stellar blockchain has to offer is this notion that we don't actually see borders and that we actually just see opportunity. And sometimes like the entities, the inkers that come to the network, they actually live with any border. And so they actually have the regulatory environment that they have to look at, but the network itself doesn't.
Denelle (17:45):
And so you actually can create these really remarkable opportunities for entities that might never have touched entities in Nigeria and entities in Mexico that may never have come together, but stellar allows them the opportunity to cross those borders in a seamless way and to be able to transact business without having to have spent a ton of time negotiating contracts and doing all these crazy things that we would have to do outside of blockchain. And so I feel that, you know, again there's so much opportunity and growth on stellar, even outside the face of this really awful, horrific event that's happening today. But I think that what it tell, what it shows us, what stellar today can look at and we can see is that we can actually make this work and we can help to stem a lot of the harm that we see.
Denelle (18:39):
You know, people are talking today about money and how money carries virus and bacteria and all of these different pieces. And well, the truth is that might or might not be true. I think it is. But the idea is that if we can make blockchain, the stellar blockchain, if we can crack it and so that we can crack this network effect and make the whole network blossom, you can actually solve that problem too. And folks could just very much do their daily tasks using either their mobile device or their computers to make all of these things happen. And they never would have to touch money, in a day, in a time like this when getting just, if you wanted to get money to your family in India because there's so much suffering that's happening as a result of restrictions and you could do it using blockchain because it gets there so much faster and you don't have to wait the seven days or the three days or whatever amount of time you have to wait to make the banks connect and to get through that system.
Denelle (19:37):
I think that it's just a remarkable difference that the impact on humanity. So I do feel like what this pandemic has shown us is the effects that we all have on one another globally, and yet that borders don't exist and we already knew that in blockchain. And blockchain can actually help to solve so many of the problems that we're envisioning are going to happen or that already are happening and can be a solution set for lots of enterprises. And so that's what I would like us to be able to look towards. It's not that we're taking advantage of this awful event, we're just recognizing that there's some really positive impacts that blockchain can have on the global economy.
Tyler (20:15):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's things that we've talked about a lot here that may have seen to be, you know, well that'd be nice or that's interesting, but there wasn't this pressure that this needs to exist, this has to exist. This really does solve problems and makes people's lives simpler, easier, actually possible. But when you have this kind of a pandemic or this kind of an issue or the whole world is suffering under something, it just becomes so clear that a lot of what we have has holes that need to be patched, that need to be fixed, there's massive room for improvement. And just seeing the potential that's there and having the audience to be able to talk about it, not as like a isn't this fancy, but this really does change the world. This really does make improvements and make things possible that weren't possible before, they aren't possible now under traditional financial architecture, but that the tools that we've been building that we have said for so long, make things better. They actually do. And they make things possible that aren't and that's not just neat, that's essential.
Denelle (21:26):
That's right. And I think also what's really important is that we are not trying to supplant any of the existing financial infrastructure. I think that's the thing that's key. We're trying to enhance it and to make it so that it's more common for everyone and that it's usable for everyone. And I think that's what I find remarkable on the one hand and frustrating on the other is because to me it's actually so simple that if you connect all of these things that weren't historically connected, you bring them together. You allow folks all over the world that don't have traditional bank accounts to be able to have a way to garner wealth and to create opportunity for themselves and then they can actually participate in this global financial system that we have. It just makes so much sense logically. So as frustrating to me on the one hand as it is, it creates just really, I'm just very optimistic on the other that we can actually make this all come together.
Tyler (22:24):
Yeah, that's a great point. What are some positive? So we tend to, as people I think sometimes focus on negatives because that's what we have to do to prepare for things and make plans. But I think it's also equally important for our own sanity and quality of life to focus on positives. So what are some of the positives, the good things that you've seen come out of this specific examples as well as just in general?
Denelle (22:50):
So I'll start with what I know best, which is my family. And I'll talk about the fact that I see now, we have all of our boys home and with my oldest who is at UCLA and he is now online, so he's home. He is now teaching my 10 year old Spanish for half an hour a day and algebra for half an hour a day. And the way that that just makes me feel to know that that connection that they're building, and that it wouldn't be happening but for this, because they wouldn't be in the same house, Dylan at age 19 and Jack's at 10, they wouldn't be here together if not for this. And so I feel like that is like just one of those things that sort of warms me and makes me feel like, you know, there's awful things in the world and yet there are these moments that I have to look at and just be so grateful for.
Denelle (23:40):
There are these times that as a family, we wouldn't sit down together on every Friday night and watch a movie because it's supposed that the boys would be out with their friends and the fact that we actually have this time to sit and sometimes just talk about things that aren't at all important in life, but just because we're having that connection. So I feel like those moments are priceless and I feel great about that. I also just look out and again, like I just can't, the people who are out there every day taking care of those who are sick, I just think that there is no better thing to be excited and optimistic about than to see that humanity because if we lose sight of the humanity in the world, then I think we've pretty much lost sight of everything. And so I want us just to remember that the connections that we're also making in real ways, like the simplicity of not having to travel all around the world and yet we're still able to connect with one another, and for us to remember that.
Denelle (24:40):
The connection to someone isn't an airplane flight away, it's actually just a video call or a phone call away. And so it's just a good reminder for us to know that we can still have impacts on one another even if we are 10,000 miles away and we can make positive improvements in someone's life just by calling them, I think is something that I see and I watch happen. And you know, we got home yesterday from going on a walk in our front yard. There was a note in chalk to my youngest son from one of his friends that just said hi, and I just felt like being creative about how to make those connections, it was just this, it actually made me tear up. I was like, oh, this is just like people again, humanity just trying really hard to connect and to be together. And so all of these things are maybe small when you look at them in the larger scale, but they're happening all over the world and I think that we need to celebrate a little bit of that sometimes.
Tyler (25:39):
Yeah. Yup. I mean, I've definitely noticed it myself, even in reconnecting with family that I might've been close to before or even folks from church that you see all the time and you kind of just exchange pleasantries. But when you have that focus like face to face, a Zoom meeting, it becomes a little bit more real and you're like, you have something to gather around that's a crisis. And that just generally brings out more real talk I guess. And it's things I think you just took for granted, like you'd never know what you have until it's gone sort of thing.
Tyler (26:16):
And as you talk to people and get a little bit deeper into their lives, I feel like a lot of my relationships with folks have grown stronger during this time of isolation, which is neat and something that I want to reflect on and carry out, continue to do that and build those relationships even as this thing, hopefully will start to settle back out and we get maybe back to some sort of normal life, to not lose sight of, let's appreciate the things we have and make efforts to stay connected and more than just tertiary or pleasantry sort of ways, but actually get deeply into people's lives and connect on levels that maybe we hadn't been.
Denelle (26:57):
I think that's right. I think you get distracted by so much of what we do on our normal days when we're outside in the world and we're rushing from meeting to meeting and we have so many other things on our plate that we lose sight of the things that again, that human connection, which I think you can feel. And again, that's the thing that crosses every border and creates impacts on the world. And so hopefully we can remember that and we can continue to implement those new ideas that we've brought to our lives through this process. Even when we get back to, I'm going to put it in air quotes, what normal is like, but I'm really grateful for all the folks who are continuing to do the work that needs to be done for the network.
Denelle (27:42):
And that to me also is phenomenal to see all the people out there that are continuing to build and to focus their energy and attention on making the world a better place for the rest of us because they've had these creative and ingenious ideas about different opportunities and skill sets that they can bring to stellar. There's just so much to be grateful for and I try to remember that every day.
Tyler (28:03):
Fantastic. Well, thanks once again so much for jumping on and chatting for a bit. It was very nice. I appreciate it.
Denelle (28:11):
I appreciate the time. Thank you so much.
Tyler (28:13):
You have a great rest of your day and we will talk with you later. For more information about stellar and the future of decentralized finance, visit stellar.org. And get involved in the discussion in one of our active communities on Keybase at stellar.public or stellar Stack Exchange. Until next time, I'm your host Tyler van der Hoeven, catch you all later.