Jack Du Rose: Breaking Away From Traditional Structures
While most people associate diamonds with luxury, Jack Du Rose saw it as the beginning of a much deeper transformation. He was once known as a designer of intricately detailed luxury jewelry and unique collections—including “Danger,” a series of jewelry inspired by the world’s deadliest animals.
But who would have thought that the man who once collaborated with Damien Hirst on a diamond-encrusted skull project would now be a major figure in the global crypto industry.
Jack didn’t jump into blockchain because it was a trend. Instead, his move came from his boredom with managing a global supply chain in the jewelry business that he found complicated, inefficient, and overly reliant on old hierarchies. It was at this point that his desire to create a more equitable and open system of collaboration began to grow.
The Philosophy Behind Colony’s Approach
Around 2017, Jack began to immerse himself in the world of Ethereum and the concept of DAOs—decentralized autonomous organizations. To the uninitiated, DAOs may sound like a confusing technical term. But for Jack, it was a way out of the rigid organizational structures that had been holding back many potential projects.
He then founded Colony, a DAO platform designed to help teams, communities, and even altcoin startups work together without having to abide by traditional management structures. With a contribution-based reputation system, Colony allows people from all over the world to get involved in projects they care about and be rewarded based on real results, not titles or positions.
Furthermore, Colony also opens up funding opportunities that were previously difficult for small projects to access. Startups can immediately prove their ideas are viable through community contributions and get funding without having to go through the VC door that is sometimes only open to those who “have connections.”
Scaling Without Losing the Mission
Talking to Jack Du Rose is like a light philosophical discussion about the “future of work.” He believes that hierarchy is not the only way to organize people in large projects. On the other hand, he also doesn’t believe in a completely free system. He believes that the key is in balance—where real contributions are rewarded.
In his various writings on the Colony blog and interviews, Jack often discusses how the world of work could change drastically if we stopped thinking vertically. He even mentioned that DAOs, if implemented correctly, could be the “office of the future” that would allow global teams to work without being tied to a traditional location or working hours.
Just imagine: you live in New York, join a project that is being worked on by developers in Berlin and designers in Lagos, and everyone gets rewarded for their contributions. That’s the world Jack wants to build with Colony.
Although Colony was originally built on Ethereum, Jack and his team didn’t stop there. They saw the problem of transaction fees and began to move to networks like Arbitrum that were cheaper and faster. This move was not just a technical one but also a strategy to get more people on their platform without being hampered by gas fees that are a headache.
However, this change was not made in a hurry. Jack maintained Colony’s original values: open collaboration, transparency, and individual empowerment. He believes that in the future, crypto projects will be judged not only by the technology they use but also by how they give everyone the space to contribute.
Now, while no longer literally covered in diamonds, Jack seems to have found something far more valuable—the trust and contributions of a global community that chooses to work independently. And if you think about it, isn’t that a lot more glittering than mere jewelry?