Wulf’s mission

Wulf is a lawyer, economist, and professor who has traveled the world and seen the problems of yesterday’s Internet economy firsthand.

“Platform Internet Companies are treating us like cattle”

Average folks are tired of toiling in front of screens all day like mooing herd animals. Sick of:

Their hard work, productivity, and data sucked up by data farmers like Facebook, Google and Amazon.
Social media cutting social threads and ruthlessly extracting value.
Being unfairly paid, and having their intellectual property stolen.

“We’ve been habitually trained to release our data, and not expect anything in return,”

“Why are we willingly accepting that they’re treating us and our data like cattle, herding us?”

After 10 years of studying the problems, testing solutions, and putting his findings into practice, there is a new way.

An evolution of humanity is possible.

Wulf’s mission is to:

Take technology into our own hands.
Re-configure the web so it benefits the human-animal, not just the machine.
Decide when, where, and how we work.

The future of human prosperity, innovation, and commerce will revolve around:

Collaboration via reputation-driven communities.
Work-to-earn solutions that turn passion into pay.
Decentralized community building using blockchains.
Democratic voting.

On the decentralized networks Wulf is building:

Folks can interact more equally than ever before.
Trade, play, build, buy, and create—and own their work.
With anonymity built-in, race, culture, and heritage play less of a role.
Socio-economic status fades. Whether you come from the Upper East Side or the East End, the Middle East or the Far East—your contributions are what matter.

Blockchain-based online communities can become true communities of trust and reciprocity, where:

Reputation is fairer. Merit can be more equally identified and rewarded through community service and community audits.
The individual can act for herself while the community benefits at the same time.
Incentives are aligned.
In well-governed communities, there’s a feeling that We’re All in This Together.

“Emerging decentralized technology transcends traditional economic notions of capitalism versus socialism and inaugurates new forms of economic exchange,” Wulf writes.

Wulf’s blueprint

Building communities isn’t easy.

Wulf is devoting his life to building decentralized online communities by researching community incentives. Proper incentives can accomplish the formation of fair, engaging, and successful online communities.

Wulf literally wrote the textbook on the subject “Decentralization: Technology’s Impact on Organizational and Societal Structure.” He teaches the book at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) school of law. His students have gone on to found decentralized online communities of their own.

As an entrepreneur, Wulf puts his insights to work for real people. He’s the co-founder of DEVxDAO, an innovative Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). DEVxDAO’s portal is handing out millions of Euros in grants to the world’s top decentralized developers. The developers come from Switzerland to South Africa. Their background doesn’t matter. Projects are judged on their merits, and money is doled out by democratic vote. New communities are forming.

Wulf co-founded Menagerie.is. Menagerie provides the tools for anyone to start their own decentralized community in a few easy steps. Then Menagerie’s democratic governance model provides a fair, prosperous place for everyone to work, play and earn. He called it Menagerie because he wants it to be a safe place for all animals to flourish. At Menagerie, Man is not Wolf to Man,” as Hobbes said. With Wulf’s decentralized tools, a predatory wolf’s reputation can be tracked and graded. The industrious field mice can be rewarded. Mice play with wolves.

Collaboration and fun. The initial promise of the Internet, restored.

Wulf’s journey

Wulf’s desire for liberation, an open society, and decentralization runs deep in his genes. He’s averse to the opposite. His German family experienced the trauma that can happen when centralized hierarchical structures overtake the human heart.

His Jewish grandfather, Friedrich Gruenberg, was an economist and lawyer who taught at Dresden University. When the Nazis stormed into power, Friedrich’s aristocratic wife could not protect him. Friedrich was executed by the SS.

This shock cast a shadow over Wulf’s childhood. By the time Wulf was 14, his parents had passed. He was an orphan, living with a state appointed guardian, in Germany which always felt overcast and gray.

An out-of-the-box thinker, he didn’t fit in at school. To Wulf, Germany’s rigid, efficient, hierarchical school structure felt dark. He felt like a rebel, with no clear way to rebel. As an awkward teenager, Wulf was a teetotaler who brought milk bottles to teenage drinking parties. He dreamed of a better, more open life.

As a kid, Wulf visited America. He saw there’s literally more sun in America. And there’s a different feeling: of liberation, possibility, brightness. Fewer people telling him what to do. At 24, Wulf immigrated to Chicago.

An economist and lawyer—just like Friedrich—Wulf worked at the top firms, including Goldman Sachs and Cravath, Swain & Moore in New York City. He taught at the University of Minnesota, Humboldt University in Berlin, European Business School in Wiesbaden, and Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

In 2010, Wulf read about Bitcoin. His heart raced. He realized decentralization could bring the bright sun of economic opportunity into a system that can feel like drudgery. Wulf wrote several important papers on Dynamical Governance that built on his PhD thesis, and he’s never looked back. As decentralized technology evolved, threads he’d been following his whole life came together and led straight to his heart.

Today, at the University of St. Thomas Law School (Minnesota), Wulf teaches Disruptive Innovation, Coding for Lawyers, Dynamic Regulation, Private Investment Funds, Federal Securities Regulation, Corporate Law, International Finance, and European Union Law School of Law.

Decentralization is where he wants to be. It’s is an opportunity to redirect the trajectory of humanity. With decentralization, if you have enough skill, you don’t need oppressive centralized structures. Decent folks can organize themselves and work with and for each other. You can think outside the box, be a rebel, and be different, all in a place where you can feel safe and follow your heart.

Expert on private investment

Wulf is also a leading expert on private investment fund regulation and compliance and private investment fund innovation in finance. His scholarship constitutes over 85% of the empirical and theoretical scholarship on private fund regulation in the United States. Using hand-selected and commercial databases that have industry-wide applications, Wulf applies empirical methods to investigate the effects of financial regulation across a wide spectrum of regulatory issues. His theoretical research focuses on the use of finance and economic theory to analyze and inform financial and regulatory policy. Wulf’s study on the effects of hedge fund registration requirements under Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Act has gained national attention and was covered in a Business Week article and other journals.

Personal life

Wulf’s wife Kimberly is his rock in life and he would not be able to think about his humanitarian efforts without her backing! Kimberly is of Italian descent and worked many years in Italy. Wulf and Kim are raising Isabella, Alexander, and Charlotte in Chicago and spend the summers in Europe.

When Wulf is not busy with his many projects, he enjoys Bikram Hot Yoga, running, and weight lifting. Wulf is an avid skier and sailor. Wulf is a firm believer in one meal a day – with the inevitable occasional lapses… – and he follows a rigorous keto/vegan diet.