Editing Openai/69636561-a85c-8009-a6d2-38643aad9e40 (section)

=== User: Research historical and modern precedents where an accomplished investor, advisor, or operator fully funded a company a… ===
Research historical and modern precedents where an accomplished investor, advisor, or operator fully funded a company and paid the salary of a founder-operator, while retaining majority equity, board control, and ultimate authority, and where the founder-operator functioned day-to-day as the CEO or primary builder.

Focus on models where:

The founder-operator behaved like a true founder (long-term commitment, identity-level ownership, team-building responsibility)

The investor/advisor retained majority ownership and control

The company was designed to scale beyond any single individual

The structure aimed to minimize key-person risk over time

Specifically analyze:

Documented precedents (e.g. venture studios, search funds, operator-in-residence models, incubators, or bespoke arrangements)

Equity and compensation structures used (salary, vesting, cliffs, option pools, performance-based equity, earn-ins)

Governance models (board composition, control mechanisms, IP ownership)

Outcomes:

Which examples scaled successfully (>$100M, $1B+ if any)

Which failed and why

Founder-operator retention dynamics:

What prevented early departure?

What caused departures when they happened?

Knowledge-leakage risk:

How IP, playbooks, and strategy were protected

Lessons learned:

Structural patterns that consistently worked

Structural patterns that consistently broke at scale

Conclude with:

A synthesized best-practice structural model for creating a single, long-term, multi-billion-dollar company using this approach

Clear warnings about misalignment traps and failure modes

A short list of design principles that matter more than legal mechanics