Breaking Down Education in a web3 World.
An interview with Brian Flynn, Co-Founder and CEO of RabbitHole.gg
Writing this week’s post took me outside of my comfort zone, and maybe reading it will do the same for you. Usually when I’m preparing to interview someone for this newsletter, I’m fortunate to have a pretty robust knowledge of the topic we’re going to discuss before we connect.
That wasn’t completely true this time around when I interviewed Brian Flynn.
Brian is the CEO & Co-founder of RabbitHole, a learn-to-earn education company founded in the web3 space. Apologies to those whose heads just exploded, but I promise to explain how this works, as simply as I possibly can.
A little background about RabbitHole. The company was founded in May 2020 with a mission to help solve some of the pressing educational pain points in the crypto-verse like:
The lack of incentives to bootstrap new networks and test the functionality;
The overwhelming noise for a new user to filter through; and
The missing “fun” factor.
Brian and I talked about how RabbitHole is trying to address these issues as well as:
Why microtasks are the ideal approach to incentivize learning;
The importance of being able to take your reputation with you anywhere you go;
Building for a meritocratic future; and
The role of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization in education.
I acknowledge that for some of you, this conversation will make perfect sense, and for others, it will be a struggle. If you think you’ll be in the latter camp, I encourage you to stick with me, as I hope this article will serve as an on-ramp for you, driving you to consider what’s possible in the collaboration between web3 and education.
Feel free to reach out with any questions or to let me know you just want to enter down the rabbit hole with me. And, of course, feedback is always welcome!
When I connected with Brian Flynn, co-founder and CEO of RabbitHole, I felt it was important that I try not to ask questions about the way we’re used to doing things.
That’s the thing about web3 / crypto, we often try to make sense of it relative to an existing construct. How does X compare to Y? Or, How is this the current version of that? It's human nature to do so. But we shouldn’t depend on the past to understand what the future can be. We shouldn’t rely on what already exists to figure out what we should build next. This perspective is vital for creating the future of learning and education.
As I learned more about RabbitHole for this article, I began to see the company as part educator, part arbiter, and part agent. Ultimately, RabbitHole is trying to make it easier for their users to learn and then find the kind of work they’re qualified to do. They are trying to hand the keys back to labor.
In RabbitHole’s own words, they’re “building for a new type of work, where access to employment is fairly distributed and available to anyone who can meaningfully contribute... We want participation, not speculation.”
But what does that all mean? Let’s dive in.
Learning Doesn’t Need to be Work. It’s Play.
Institutions, enterprises, startups, and teachers have all tried to transform education. The existing Prussian approach to education—factory style, where everyone faces a leader at the front of the room and moves in response to the sound of a bell—has existed for well over a hundred years. So as I prepared to speak with Brian, I was excited to learn how his future-centered approach was different. What about RabbitHole’s learn-to-earn strategy would enable education’s next big leap?
Brian Flynn: We think this is a new education model, where you earn a financial and reputational outcome for each completed microtask. Very basic microtasks are a way to start building your resume, building your credentials, and diving into work right away.
But a microtask is still a task. It’s still work, isn’t it?
BF: The interesting thing about RabbitHole is that it feels like a game because the microtasks are always different and varied. It has this entertaining nature to it. Opposed to the repetitive work that other microtasks platforms have. There are always new challenges that you're learning about.
Ultimately, if something is entertaining enough, someone will be willing to go through the steps to learn. I think many people don't have the drive to constantly learn [in the traditional sense], but everyone will have the drive to play a game in order to build a reputation and earn money.
Okay, so learning can be gamified but what about the cost to learn?
RabbitHole has essentially no upfront cost to get involved—you need a computer and an internet connection. This accessibility is part of their core values as a company. And although the general trend over the last decade has shifted towards open access to education material, learning this way often fails to signal to a would-be employer about your skills. Watching videos and/or doing courses on YouTube, Khan Academy, or EdX, doesn’t provide any guarantee of earning potential. The learn-to-earn model provides a solution to this conundrum.
RabbitHole is partly responsible for pioneering this model. And although the idea of paying students to learn is not necessarily new, RabbitHole has done something innovative by connecting the dots between what a user has been paid to learn, and what job(s) they can then be paid for.
For many, the ultimate goal of any adult learning experience, whether at a traditional institution (like a university) or leveraging a new model (like a Learning DAO), is professional flexibility—the idea of gaining greater control of your own time through education.
Let’s take a quick pause so I can share a basic explanation of what a DAO is.
DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization, and is the first innovation in the corporate structure since the LLC. Typically organized around a mission, DAOs benefit from greater transparency than traditional corporate structures since all actions and funding are viewable by anyone (via the blockchain). For more on DAOs, checkout: A beginner’s guide to DAOs by Linda Xie.
Learn-to-Earn-to-Contribute + Building Your On-Chain Resume
Being in control of your own time is now more attainable than ever before with the proliferation of the Creator Economy. But to benefit from this working model, you need to be comfortable being in front of the screen. Brian believes the advancement in learn-to-earn, play-to-learn, Learning DAOs, contributing to protocols (ie. web3 initiatives), will enable everyone who wants to join the creator economy to do so in less traditional ways.
BF: The ethos of the creator economy is where everyone has a flexible workday. Maybe right now you don't have the hard skills to be in front of a camera, or you’re a non-technical person. Once these DAOs really figure out the right way to onboard people and the right way to put people to work, you'll have clear opportunities for non-technical people to jump in. What this probably looks like in practice a year or two from now, is that everyone is doing the same hundred microtasks, which can be as simple as creating content, curating an NFT collection, or running proof of work nodes that can then be measured on-chain. Everyone would have an opportunity to be involved.
This mentality is part of RabbitHole's attempt to help build a more meritocratic future. By building the infrastructure to manage a user's on-chain track record regardless of the task (in lieu of the standard resume or portfolio), and award tokens and credentials based on their transaction history, their goal is to help the right person find the right job at the right time.
Instead of replicating the traditional hiring process, RabbitHole strives to measure everyone objectively based on the work they’ve actually done, to gain access to the work they’re actually qualified for.
Borrowing from a recent meme:
web2: Here are 3 references of past colleagues who love me.
web3: Check out my work that’s been validated by 1000s of people.
Brian is not blind to the role of subjectivity in the hiring process, but he’s committed to creating (at least as the first step in the process) as much objectivity as possible. As a filter in the beginning of the hiring process, RabbitHole believes it will give labor (users) the ability to “be network owners and not just cogs in a machine.” Giving the power back to the creator, back to the people.
Replacing Education as We Know It
So, do I think the future of learning and education will be all sunshine and roses? Yes and no. I can’t help but feel like RabbitHole—if they are the ones facilitating access to the material and the accreditation—could go the way of a traditional Ivy League school. I wonder: Are platforms like RabbitHole just bound to become the modern web3 gatekeepers?
BF: I think if we don't fulfill our promise of decentralization, then we do end up becoming an arbiter. We really do pride ourselves on trying to be as decentralized as possible so that the people receiving the credentials are the ones ultimately making the decisions of whether the [credentials] are worth it.
DZ: But what about your goal to become the university for the metaverse?
BF: If we think about RabbitHole as an entryway into the web3 space, you're contributing to a university that is helping other people get into the university. You're finding your [initial] path and then go into a different DAO. We're sort of this DAO of DAOs model. It’s just one of the ways we look at RabbitHole today.
And what about the social aspect of education? Learning online offers a lot of social and community aspects, but what about the in-person learning element of the college experience? The university is much more than just a place to learn.
BF: If we can find a better model of providing that social experience while also giving some level of security, I think it can be replaced quite easily. There just hasn't been something at scale that replicates the college experience while guaranteeing job security. It will take a huge cultural shift, which I think has been happening with crypto.
People have to start saying, join one of these hundred DAOs instead of joining Greek life. It's like DAOs are the new Greek life in some capacity. There'll be a bunch of real life meetups to provide that in-person social experience, but the experience can start and live primarily online.
In retrospect, I realize in asking this question (and reprinting it here) I did the exact thing I tried not to do—“wait, we’ve done it a certain way for so long, how will we change?!”— but Brian’s take was too good not to share. It’s clear that If we truly want to make leaps and bounds from where we are to where we can be, we’ll have to unlearn a lot of existing narratives.
So it makes perfect sense to me that 80 percent of RabbitHole’s user base (students) live outside of the US. I think the reason why they’re seeing high adoption in the developing world around learn-to-earn, is that often there is not a better alternative. If an alternative even exists.
In the US, or any Western country for that matter, we take for granted that we enjoy access to an education system for all (yes it has it flaws but it exists), the possibility of finding a job is likely (maybe not the exact one you want but still), and the fact that almost anyone can open up a bank account and get paid (again maybe not ideal for many but at least it’s in the realm of possibility). That’s why, when I went down the proverbial rabbit hole with Brian, it became clear to me that building a new approach to education using the ethos of web3 is first going to require a great unlearning.
The most exciting part about building for the future of learning and education in web3, and the beauty of trying to design something that hasn’t yet been imagined, is that anything is possible.
After School Activities with Brian Flynn:
Visit RabbitHole.gg to get started.
Learn about RabbitHole’s Pathfinder program.
Follow him on Twitter
Excellent article. I continue to learn more about the ultimate shift in educational pathways. Keep the articles coming.