What’s the good thing that happens if Ozzie first builds a profitable company and only later works in a research arm of that company, that wouldn’t happen if he just became “the research arm of that company” right now?
More social capital & prestige
More robust revenue situation
More freedom to act opportunistically to support other projects that you care about (as a small-scale angel funder; as a mentor)
(probably) More learning about how organizations work from setting up an org with diverse stakeholders
Case study: Matt Fallshaw & how Bellroy enabled TrikeApps, which supported a lot of good stuff (e.g. LessWrong 1.0). But Bellroy just sells (nice) wallets.
More social capital & prestige
More robust revenue situation
More freedom to act opportunistically to support other projects that you care about (as a small-scale angel funder; as a mentor)
(probably) More learning about how organizations work from setting up an org with diverse stakeholders
Case study: Matt Fallshaw & how Bellroy enabled TrikeApps, which supported a lot of good stuff (e.g. LessWrong 1.0). But Bellroy just sells (nice) wallets.