I really dislike the idea of entrepreneurs taking personal debt, if that's what you're suggesting. I think that's horrid. And when a software company goes bankr

I really dislike the idea of entrepreneurs taking personal debt, if that's what you're suggesting. I think that's horrid. And when a software company goes bankrupt, how much is there to pay investors back with? Here's an idea, more oriented toward software but applicable to hardware as well. Every project has a hard deadline that is some multiplier (maybe 5-20x) on the expected time-to-completion (i.e. the soft deadline). That's mainly intended for work that is abandoned, not regular shit-happens lateness. If you're within the deadline, you own the IP outright. If you miss it, or abandon the project, the code is open source and the work is in the public domain, so anyone who wants to pick it up can.