Thanks Aggy, this was great! I didn't actually realise Johan was an ex-employee, I just thought he was the genius behind the super excellent dSteem.

Not enough interviews/conversations have the phrase "calm your tits" in them... so good! I think if a regular forum with Ned or proxy were to happen, I'd probably be happier to have just one host who asked questions... having a number of voices pipe in was distracting, especially when we really wanted to hear Ned's answer, not necessarily another person's opinion on why the question is important to be answered. I thought Aggy, that you hit the right tone. I would never want Ned to feel attacked or frustrated, but you also didn't necessarily let him get away with not answering questions.

The Steem Council is a brilliant idea and I really think it'll help the entire ecosystem... at the very least by filtering the best ideas upwards, but obviously providing direction, and herding the cats into the same direction would improve literally everything.

I would hope that the Steem Council could operate regardless of a Steemit SP donation - I imagine a lot of people would be happy to donate their time to help form the direction of the group. Lots of committees work on an elected yet voluntary basis, which is good because I'm not super confident Steemit would part with it's SP if it's required to pay for some of the costs... but the Steem committee should be able to operate as an equal partner to Steemit, not because of it.

I like Ned, but I do think he feels that the community is his customer-base, not his co-investors... and in his defense, there are pockets of the overall community that is a little nuts... but honestly I'd be happy with an AGM or a shareholder quarterly meeting to get an idea of where Steemit is heading, and then for us all to go back to building.

Thanks again Ags.