5. Work Metaverse: It's not what you think

A team of anonymous, digital entities interacting with each other, working together towards a shared goal, earning points in the form of currencies - that is the birth of the Work Metaverse.

When we think about metaverse, the first thing that comes to mind is Zuck and this transition. A virtual 3D space. A simulation.

But there is an alternative line of thought—an existence of another work metaverse.

In this edition of No Office Required, we explore work metaverse and their implication on the future of work.

We briefly discussed how anonymity and privacy could lead to Work Metaverse in a previous edition.

Future employees will be faceless entities. Or even better, a virtual name and face.

The legal aspect of work hasn’t changed much in the past few decades. You are either a contractor or a full-time employee. You have to provide a set of documents and go through background checks to be employed in a company. There is no privacy.

Blockchain-based resumes can solve this. In a traditional world, the employer needs to trust whatever is written in the resume or talk to a reference to get it verified. This can also be gamed.

With blockchain-based resumes, work history and experience can be stored and validated. You won’t have to provide your personal information. Such a resume screening process will have no racial or gender bias.

People can have a digital identity separate from their real ones. The digital identity can work for them and will have its resume. Workplaces of the future will be composed of such digital entities. That would give rise to work metaverse.

Two things need to work well for this to exist.

1. Automated verification of work

2. Automated/Easy compensation mechanisms

Let us dive deep into this and see how Work Metaverse can exist.

Blockchain-based resumes

Imagine we are hiring for a job. We shortlist people based on their resumes. But before hiring, we want to verify the data in the resume. We set up an interview to do this. Verification is the reason why job interviews exist. 

Resumes are, in fact, marketing documents. People tamper with facts. We talk to them to see that they have done those things on the resume. Face-to-face conversations are a form of verification.

What if this verification could be replaced?

Blockchain-based resumes are a solution to verification. Your work experience, project experience, or education can be added to a blockchain and verified by the other party.

For example, you started working in Google. When you leave the company, you can add a new “block” to your blockchain-based resume, and the third party, in this case, Google, can verify it.

Blockchain-based resumes will be the verified proof of work - they can replace interviews for many different jobs.

This is an excellent blog post to understand how a blockchain works.

Measuring work

In this blog post, Dror Poleg points out an inherent problem with the current state of work.

Most humans are either overpaid or underpaid for their work. I am not talking about minimum wages or fair salaries. I am talking about the fact that two employees in the same company can earn the same salary even though one of them contributes much more than the other to the company's overall success. And by "contributing", I don't mean that one employee spends more time at the office than the other; I mean that she comes up with ideas that end up being used by the company — she contributes important building blocks to whatever it is the company is building.

Why do these two employees earn the same salary?

Because it is too difficult to keep track of each person's specific contributions. And even when it is possible to keep track of them, it is not practical to compensate each person for every single idea they come up with and every line of email or code they contribute.

The solution the author proposes to this is a very misunderstood buzzword. NFTs.

With NFTs and smart contracts, it is now possible to integrate all of the above with a proper compensation mechanism. It is possible to allow every contributor to get paid exactly according to their contribution — not just once the work is done, but indefinitely: Every time the code gets used anywhere, all contributors can theoretically earn "royalties"; and if the code is part of a big startup exit, the contributors can earn a commensurate piece of the acquisition price as well.

Yes, NFTs (Not NFT art) will enable better measurement and compensation of work in remote teams. We will compensate based on the quality and outcome without much human intervention.

Faceless entities aka the future employees

If the problem of verification and compensation are solved, virtual entities can replace employees. The future employees will be these faceless entities. They might have pseudo names or avatars. 

A team of anonymous, digital entities interacting with each other, working together towards a shared goal, earning points in the form of currencies - that is the birth of the Work Metaverse. 

This need not be a 3D virtual space, this can be a Discord or Slack channel. In fact, if you visit Discord for any notable DAO, you can already see a glimpse of this future.

Remote teams who leverage the power of async communication are halfway there. Gumroad is a great example.

My digital entities can work for me on my behalf and earn incentives for the contributions. I can have a separate identity from work, giving me all the privacy I need—no more sharing personal data with my employer.

The employer doesn’t need to know what kind of person sits behind the screens - which will also lead to an equal workplace without racial and gender bias.

Digital Organisation will help automate a lot of this.

Building your team like Microservices

Think of each component of a tech company as a microservice - Product Management, Engineering, Marketing and Customer support. Any faceless entities can provide these services. Such microservices can create a future workplace.

It is already the case today - the only difference is that they have a face and are personally identifiable. And there is a tedious process to add one such microservice to your team.

When faceless entities of the work microverse come into existence, you can visit a marketplace of such entities, verify the work they have done in the past and hire them within seconds.

Imagine building your startup dream team in a few seconds, instead of months.

Quoting Dror Poleg’s post:

The next decade will do to cognitive tasks what the previous decade did to physical tasks. This has implications for your career, income inequality, and social stability.

Way back in the early 2010s, every second startup was pitching itself as "Uber for X." The idea was simple: take a group of disparate humans, aggregate them into an app with a friendly UI, and deliver a delightful experience for customers looking to complete physical tasks.

Knowledge work will be commoditised in the coming decade. Company owners will be able to hire top talent, from anywhere in the world, with the click of a button, within seconds.

Rise of freelance contractors and change in employment

Investors reduce their risk by investing in multiple companies. Why are employees restricted to working in one company? Employees often join early-stage startups taking a pay cut in exchange for equity. If the company doesn’t grow, they lose the value of the equity.

The faceless entities will be able to work for multiple companies simultaneously, just like freelancers do today, in exchange for equity or other monetary incentives. As a result, the “full-time” employment will reduce. Most people will be contractors or sole proprietorship business entities - providing flexibility to work on their terms and earn more lucrative incomes.

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Does all this sound too futuristic? Fifteen years ago, if you told someone about today’s remote work world, they too would have felt the same. We are not far from this future. It is coming at us faster than we think. If you loved reading, spread the word.

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How did you like this edition of No Office Required? I put hours of research into every edition of this Newsletter. Your feedback helps me make this great.

Thanks for reading and see you soon with another exciting edition!

Sooraj

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