Waku Vision & Mission - Feedback Request

General
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Hi everyone,

At the 2025 all hands, we presented our proposal for Waku Mission & Vision statements. Vision and mission statements help express:

  • what are we doing now, our core propose.
  • Where we are going, and how does the end goal look like

Waku originated from Status, and hence inherented Status’ set of principes.
Waku falls now under the Logos technology stack umbress, which has its own manifesto.

The intent of having Vision and missions statements for Waku, is not to diverge from the original intent; But instead, to express and reinforce Waku’s position in this overarching goal.

As part of the Waku virtual offsite happening this month, we are revisiting the mission and vision drafts, to then officiate them (aka publish on the website).

This was a long-winded introduction to ask for your feedback on the draft statements:

  • what are your first thoughts when you read those statements?
  • do they resonate with you? Why yes, why no?
  • are they clear? can you picture the output and work we are doing based on those statements?
  • does it match your previous opinion of Waku’s purpose? Why yes, why no?
  • does it give a you good idea of how Waku fits in the Logos technology stack? Again, why y/n?
  • Does it motivate you to build with Waku, contribute to it or be an advocate? Why y/n?

The statements:

Waku’s Vision: Software enabling private, censorship-resistant communication that integrate by only writing code, with infrastructure provisioned via tokenomics—eliminating the need for out-of-band agreements.

Waku’s Mission: Enable developers to build private, censorship-resistant applications that run on everyday devices, by creating communication protocols, software and networks that are open, reliable, scalable and self-sustaining.

5 Likes
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Too many words, just start with “Software library…” or just remove them.
Do we even have to mention software?

I really like that part!

Ppl will assume Waku is a blockchain no?
What about this?

… with a network of service providers forming a decentralized infrastructure

As for Waku mission :cook: :kissing:

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Good point, the intent was to emphasis that in the end goal, you should not need to do any devops, meaning no need to “run software” for your infra, only your users can run the software you build.

Good point

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I feel like these should maybe be more approachable, but also I acknowledge that what is good for Waku is not the same as what is good for Logos in the Waku context is itself not the same as what is good for societies built on the Logos stack. Logos and to an even greater extent Waku should want to attract builders more than the average person, but still, I’m a sucker for a vision and mission that someone could tell their grandmother. I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, I think you all would be better with the words, but as examples I think “tokenomics” and “out-of-band agreements” are very on the nose, but might be less approachable than more general phrases like permissionless coordination or incentivizing each other without intermediaries (not to say you should replace the first with the second, just examples). Some example rephrases below only provided to try and illustrate the style; I can’t emphasize enough that I’m the last person who should be articulating any specifics:

Vision example:

A future where private, censorship-resistant communication is built into the internet’s foundation—freely sustained with code and peer incentives, and never requiring permission.

Mission example:

We build open communication protocols and networks that let developers create private, resilient apps for everyone, running on everyday devices—with no reliance on centralized services.

These definitely lack the clear direction and “guard rails” I think you built really well in to the statements you proposed and totally fall in to the confusion trap discussed above. Thanks for taking this on, I totally agree that a clear vision and mission can be invaluable assets in getting the right people doing the right things :slight_smile:

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I agree with your feedback. I am keen to make the “vision” something that anyone can understand and the mission being “the guard rails” and hence a bit more technical as it does need to describe what we do to get towards the vision (aka produce infra and libraries)

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Here are some extract of the progress on this:

What are the differences between Mission, Vision and Methology?

  1. The vision is the world we are longing for, beyond technology, think impact on humanity.
  2. The mission is what Waku does to move us towards the vision. There may be many ways to achieve this vision, and the mission is the specific manner Waku goes about it.
  3. Methodology is how Waku execute the mission, concrete initiatives that applies the Logos governing principles (more abstract) as well as good practices. Methodology described actionable items to drive day-to-day micro-decision from contributors, it set the practical side of the culture.

Vision

Vision should talk to anyone, and need for privacy and censorship-resistance should be mean to see this vision, aka, not needed to be explicitely stated.

Also, Waku is part of the Logos technology stack, so there it would make sense for the vision to be the one described in the Logos Manifesto

Note: LLM was used here to extract a vision from the Logos Manifesto, and I am doing a manual review of the proposed statements.

We dream of a digital future where human agency flourishes beyond the reach of surveillance and coercion. In this world, individuals and communities exist as true digital citizens—not subjects of corporate platforms or state monitoring systems, but sovereign beings who choose their own paths in cyberspace.

We can also slightly reword the vision to focus it on Waku’s specific domain of communications (aka interactions), and shorten it for brevity:

A digital future where human agency flourishes beyond the reach of surveillance and coercion.

A world where users can interact digitally freely and securely without the fear of surveillance or coercion

Mission

Logos’ mission also applies here in terms of how Waku goes above pushing the world towards this vision, as Logos is a technology stack, and Waku one component in the stack.

So here, we can now draft a statement that describes what Waku is doing, and simplify as well to ensure it’s easy to understand and reachable, we want people to rally to it and contribute, use and advocate:

Create self-sustaining communication protocols, software, and networks for building private, censorship-resistant applications that run on everyday devices.

keywords such as open, secure, reliable, scalable are inferred because building such technology being that, would not lead to the vision.

Yet, this mission statement is also about communicating clearly what we do, so it may be worth adding them at the price of lengthening the statement:

Create open, reliable, scalable, and self-sustaining communication protocols, software, and networks for building private, censorship-resistant applications that run on everyday devices.

This statement describes how Waku participate to the overall Logos vision:

  • we enable human agency via communication, enabling coordination and interaction.
  • and we ensure it is secure, prone to surveillance and coercion by making it private, censorship resistant but also self-sustaining.

Methodology

The aim here is to synthetise every day practice, and help reinforce the working/engineering culture in Waku. As a reminder for contributors, as well as an open contract to the audience and users.

We are building FOSS software and public goods, and hence the methodology should be derived from best practices in software and FOSS domain, our commitment to building public goods in public, with some specifics applied (e.g. we design protocols and use Nim):

  • Release early, release often, and dogfood.
  • Start with narrow scopes, and increment on them.
  • Deliver protocol specification and implementation together.
  • Discuss, design, and code in public.
  • Single-purpose components to have re-usable code.
  • Languages of choice are TypeScript for the Browser, Nim for the rest.
  • Working examples over Documentation.

Feedback and opinions are still welcome. We will present a refined version of the reasoning above and a recommendation next week. The call will be streamed. Details in Waku Discord (or just follow our socials) https://discord.waku.org/

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These are a great starting point Franck, thanks for sharing.

Vision statements usually deal with why we exist and where we want to be in the future. I am missing the actual vision part, which is the future. Seems a bit too precise and technical, and reads more like “these are the steps needed to fulfill the vision”. The classic example is Nike’s “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” - while making shoes haha. This is obviously very different and requires more detail but the point still stands imo.

The mission would be what needs to be done every day to achieve the vision. In this way the two are seamlessly connected, mantra-like, and can be translated into a culture for anybody working on them.

In general shorter and evocative mission and vision statements work well because people working on them can remember them more as mantras, acting as guidance points for individual decision making and creating a kind of “Schelling point” for decentralised coordination.

You can have the details written down elsewhere.

Hope this helps!

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Thank you @drgoemon

We reached similar conclusions to yours in terms of definition in our first round. I’ll be posting a follow-up soon.

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Good examples:

TED:

Vision: Change attitudes, lives, and the world
Mission: Spread ideas worth spreading

LinkedIn:

Vision: Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce
Mission: Connect the world’s professionals

Google:
Vision: Make the world’s information universally accessible and useful (lol)
Mission: Providing the information you need in just one click

Dr Goeman’s point about translation and mantras is a good one, hadn’t thought about it and forced me to rethink my own assumptions about where we might land here. This output above helps a lot as well. What do y’all think about the below? I wanted something that will fit well with Codex as the storage arm of the same:

Vision:
A world where communication is an extension of individual sovereignty—unseen, unowned, and unconstrained by default.

Mission:
To build resilient, permissionless protocols that let people communicate on their terms—free from gatekeepers, and governed only by consent.

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I personally love the vision you constructed here @JosiahWarren , although I can’t speak for the Waku team themselves. <3

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Here is the proposal: Virtual offsite recommendations: Vision, Mission and principles - Waku - Vac