The Talent Flywheel
Over the past couple of years, whenever the conversation around why Web3 has fewer mainstream applications than Web2 comes up, one response I hear repeatedly is that we simply don’t have enough quality builders or talent. From my perspective, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve seen blockchain ecosystems recruit experienced professionals from outside Web3 in an effort to “bring fresh thinking” and accelerate mainstream adoption. While there’s nothing wrong with hiring externally, it’s obvious that this alone isn’t the solution. If it were, we’d already have significantly more mainstream products. The real issue is that most ecosystems are constantly searching for talent instead of building systems that produce it. They spend more time trying to attract experienced founders, operators and companies than developing them from within their own communities. When they need developers or creators, they launch hackathons, creator programs or content bounties. When they need operators, product managers or leadership roles, they often look outside the ecosystem. Over time, this creates fragmentation because the ecosystem never develops its own pipeline of experienced people who deeply understand its culture, products and long-term vision.
Every ecosystem should have what I call a Talent Flywheel, a progression system where every stage intentionally creates the next. The objective shouldn’t simply be onboarding people. It should be maximizing progression. A learner becomes a contributor. A contributor becomes a creator or operator. An operator becomes a founder. A founder builds a company. That company hires, mentors and creates opportunities for the next generation. Whether someone starts as a developer, designer, researcher, community member or creator shouldn’t matter. Every role should have a clear path for growth. Progression is what compounds talent. Onboarding without progression eventually leads to stagnation.
Once again, @superteam is the strongest example of this principle in Web3 today. People don’t simply join Superteam as members of a community. They learn, earn, contribute, get hired, launch startups and eventually mentor newer members. More importantly, they don’t progress in isolation. Superteam’s broader ecosystem connects regional communities, opportunities, founder support, media, talent discovery and collaboration into a system where experienced participants continuously create opportunities for newer ones. And the same goes for other initiatives within the Solana ecosystem, the value isn’t any single initiative. It’s that each stage naturally feeds the next. That’s why the ecosystem compounds rather than constantly restarting from scratch.
Imagine if more ecosystems were intentionally designed this way. Instead of categorizing people broadly as “builders” or “community members,” every initiative would exist to help participants progress through the ecosystem. Hackathons would feed founder support. Creator programs would develop educators and researchers. Regional communities would become talent pipelines. Successful founders would hire within the ecosystem, mentor newcomers and reinvest their experience into the next generation. Rather than operating as isolated programs with separate KPIs, every initiative would reinforce the others. That’s what an Ecosystem Operating System should do. It should connect the Five Layers Framework; builders, capital, talent, community and users, into one continuous flywheel.
Without a Talent Flywheel, ecosystems will continue spending time and resources importing talent, replacing contributors and rebuilding momentum every cycle. With one, every successful founder and every successful company creates the conditions for the next generation to succeed. That’s how ecosystems become self-sustaining. The strongest ecosystems don’t compete for talent. They build systems that continuously produce it.