I really like this idea, and I think something similar is done with high-level managers in the private equity world. You build your career across the portfolio

I really like this idea, and I think something similar is done with high-level managers in the private equity world. You build your career across the portfolio of companies, and your interests are aligned to the portfolio itself, not the specific company. That obviously creates a risk of perverse incentives, but from the PE folks' perspective it seems to work. IIRC that's also how Berkshire Hathaway does it: builds managers for Berkshire Hathaway companies, and whether they're managing at GEICO[0] or Fruit of the Loom[1] depends on where they're needed and not whom they work for. I don't know anything about how technical employees benefit (or not) from that setup but I suspect there is some amount of informal sharing of tech talent across portfolios. It'd be really great to see something like that for tech people. Maybe YC can start and everyone else will follow. :-) [0]: https://www.geico.com/about/corporate/at-a-glance/ https://www.geico.com/about/corporate/at-a-glance/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_Loom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_Loom