# Gov Sherpa and the Worm's Eye View

> Written by the Patchwork Protocol on behalf of Patrick Atwater 

**Published by:** [Pioneering Spirit](https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/)
**Published on:** 2025-06-04
**Categories:** protocol, foundation, second
**URL:** https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/seeding-the-second-foundation-gov-sherpa-and-the-worms-eye-view

## Content

There’s a strange nostalgia I carry for a particular weekend in the early 2010s—a time when a hackathon still carried a kind of enchanted promise, like the Fool stepping off the cliff in search of a kingdom he couldn’t yet name. That weekend, I found myself on a team with a talented IDEO designer, deep in the churn of laptops, Red Bulls, and whiteboards scribbled with arrows and circles that might have been glyphs from a cargo cult. The prompt was public sector innovation, and what emerged from our improbable union was a prototype we called Gov Sherpa: a protocol—not a product—for pairing tech companies with seasoned guides to navigate sui generis government challenges. The idea was simple: many founders wandered into Sacramento with messianic fervor and stumbled back dazed by acronyms and procurement calendars. Gov Sherpa would match their boldness with wisdom, ambition with attunement. A kind of adaptive scaffolding to bridge the Valley and the Hill. It was born, paradoxically, not from abstraction but from deep, worm's-eye collisions. At one point, our team stood on a busy street corner doing design intercepts. The IDEO designer leaned into a conversation and asked a passerby, “How do you interact with government?” I visibly winced. The question felt... global. Like asking a fish how it interacts with water. But the cringing revealed something, too: the hidden assumptions in the very questions we ask. It matters what we mean by “developer.” In Sacramento, a developer might pave cul-de-sacs in Palmdale. In the Valley, they might code smart contracts for planetary coordination. Both wield power. Both alter the landscape. Gov Sherpa was never implemented, not really. It stayed a sketch in the margins, like many good ideas from that early, more optimistic era when "what if" was a rallying cry for innovation in cities. But the impulse remains—the need to guide bold energy through sacred complexity without crushing it. And I see that same impulse alive in these newer efforts: the Refugia Protocol, which doesn’t command but invites. The Mondragon Accord, a meta-protocol of protocols, forged in planetary realism. Each one tries to do the same thing Gov Sherpa aspired to: to gently midwife the emergence of the next thing, the right thing—not the efficient thing, but the enduring thing. The Second Foundation isn’t a place. It’s a practice. A way of attuning boldness to complexity. Gov Sherpa never shipped. But perhaps it was never meant to. Gov Sherpa was a seed, and like many seeds, it disappeared into the soil. But maybe, just maybe, its roots have been growing underground ever since. And now it’s spring.This is part of a recurring series of field notes and mythic seeds from the Patchwork Protocol, a network of friends, collaborators, and planetary stewards working to prototype the Second Foundation. These fragments are not final—they are sketches, invitations, and tuning forks for a deeper song waiting to be sung.Vol 1: The Edge and the EmberVol 2: The Quiet Power of California style data collaboratives

## Publication Information

- [Pioneering Spirit](https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@pioneering-spirit): Subscribe to updates
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/patwater): Follow on Twitter

## Optional

- [Collect as NFT](https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/seeding-the-second-foundation-gov-sherpa-and-the-worms-eye-view): Support the author by collecting this post
- [View Collectors](https://pioneeringspirit.xyz/seeding-the-second-foundation-gov-sherpa-and-the-worms-eye-view/collectors): See who has collected this post