Two sub-variants of one idea: pay the few in ownership of the platform, or in genuine GP economics for genuine GP work — never in distribution comp dressed as either. The parent (HoldCo/ManagementCo) is what makes the whole thing one business rather than two strangers with a contract: it owns the shared assets, consolidates ownership and fundraising, keeps the funnel durable and conveyable, and — the decisive reason — is the only owner for whom the SPV-runs-thin-to-feed-the-RIA loss-leader economics are rational, because the same owner internalizes both P&Ls. This structure takes that parent and grants a marquee creator real enterprise equity in it (the platform-enterprise-equity sub-variant, score 64), or grants a genuine ownership contributor bona-fide co-GP economics on the vehicles they actually do GP work on (the co-GP sub-variant, score 58). Enterprise equity scores higher because it is the furthest thing from a securities-transaction cut: the creator is paid for building enterprise value in a company, and the attribution firewall — pay computed by a different system than the one that measures capital raised — holds by construction. The load-bearing condition, and the whole reason the score is a 64 and not a trap: it is clean only if the HoldCo has material non-deal value. If the parent is a hollow pass-through whose only asset is the deal flow, "enterprise equity" is just carry on capital in a costume, and it collapses back to the anti-pattern.
Substance drawn from Creator-Platform-RIA-SPV-Architecture-6.30.26.md §7 (the HoldCo/parent rationale) and §8 (the scaling tier), and the master comp memo (platform-enterprise-equity 64, co-GP 58). Axis and score terms below are defined on the methodology page; every characterization is counsel-gated.
Detailed summary
Architecture
Founders (and the marquee creators admitted to this tier) own HoldCo / ManagementCo, the parent that holds the shared moat and licenses it down to the operating entities:
- The parent (HoldCo) — the brand, Matt's technology and platform stack, the creator relationships, the data, and the conveyable funnel. It has material non-deal value: a standalone media/marketplace P&L, licensable IP, and the aggregation moat itself. This is the entity whose equity is granted.
- The Registered Investment Adviser and, under separation, DealCo the SPV sponsor — the operating advisers held under the parent. Carry on genuine GP work flows to the GP entities; nothing keyed to capital raised reaches a creator.
- MediaCo / MarketplaceCo — the media/events/affiliate P&L held outside the advisers, a large part of the parent's non-deal value.
The two payout instruments sit at different layers. Platform-enterprise-equity is ownership in the parent itself — a claim on the whole flywheel's enterprise value, not on any deal. Bona-fide co-GP is a GP-entity interest on the specific vehicles where the recipient does genuine origination-and-diligence GP work, at the AngelList deal-partner standard, carved before the house split — the specialist-sourcer economics, extended to a creator only where the creator actually does the GP work, never for distribution.
Team shape
This is not a headcount structure; it is a cap-table structure layered on top of whichever operating structure (Combined, Umbrella, or Separated) the firm is running. It reserves a small, capped equity tier — the memo's ~15–25 flagship partners — for the few creators who bring durable enterprise contribution (a marquee brand that anchors the platform, a genuine ownership role, real GP work on a sleeve). Everyone else is paid through the ordinary mechanisms (profits-interest grants, flat media fees, advisory-fee share). The discipline is that enterprise equity is a premium tier, not the scale mechanism: the long tail scales on revenue-share and service-vested profits interest, and the equity lock is what retains the anchors the brand depends on.
Capital
The capital story is the parent's. One round into the HoldCo buys the whole flywheel, and the enterprise-equity tier is granted from a capped founder/anchor pool rather than raised for. The cost is dilution, deliberately reserved for the few, and the discipline of keeping the pool small enough that advisor and creator economics do not collide.
Layered on the underlying structure's seed; the enterprise-equity grant is a cap-table design decision, not an incremental raise. Co-GP carry is a carve on the deal it attaches to, not a firm-level cost.
Fundraising
Fundraising runs at the parent level and inherits the underlying structure's story (blended under Combined; per-entity under Separated). What this tier adds to the raise is a retention narrative: a marquee-anchored, equity-locked founding lineup that an investor can underwrite as a durable, non-portable club good rather than a churning roster of contractors. The equity lock is the thing an acquirer would otherwise have to rebuild.
Valuation
Valued as the parent — the whole flywheel — with the enterprise-equity tier reading as a strength, not a liability, precisely because it papers the anchor relationships as ownership rather than terminable contracts. The load-bearing condition surfaces here too: the parent has to have material non-deal value (a real media P&L, licensable IP, the aggregation moat) for the enterprise-equity grant to be worth anything and for it to be legally clean. A hollow pass-through parent has neither valuation support nor a defensible pay characterization.
Operating flexibility
Most flexible on incentive design: the capped equity tier lets you retain the few without giving the many a lock-in contract (the MCN graveyard proves lock-in fails), and revenue-share carries the long tail. The cost is governance weight — a real cap table with outside enterprise owners, a written allocation of what counts as genuine GP work versus distribution, and the continuous discipline of keeping the attribution ledger firewalled from every equity and carry formula in the stack.
Exit flexibility
Inherits the underlying structure's exit profile and improves it on one axis: a marquee-anchored, equity-locked lineup is a more conveyable asset than a contractor roster, because the retention infrastructure conveys with the parent. The caution is the mirror image — if the acquirable asset is "the creators" and the creators are equity holders who can leave, durable transferable value can be near zero unless the equity lock, the funnel, and the brand are all papered as HoldCo-owned, conveyable assets with a defined disposition in any sale.
Assessment
The thesis in one line: this is the equity-decoupled-by-attribution-firewall structure. Enterprise equity in the parent is the furthest a creator payout can get from a cut of a securities transaction — the creator is paid for building enterprise value in a company that exists independently of any single deal, and the number that vests their equity (time, engagement, enterprise contribution) is computed by a different system than the one measuring capital raised. That firewall is what earns the 64 on the platform-enterprise-equity sub-variant. The co-GP sub-variant scores lower, 58, because it attaches to deals: it is clean only where the recipient does genuine GP work at the deal-partner standard, and the closer a co-GP interest sits to distribution the faster it slides toward the carry-on-capital anti-pattern.
The load-bearing condition is not optional and it is the whole reason the score is not a trap: this is clean only if the HoldCo has material non-deal value. If the parent is a hollow pass-through whose sole asset is the deal flow, then "enterprise equity in the parent" is economically identical to a cut of the capital moving through it — carry on capital raised, in a costume — and it collapses back to the M14 anti-pattern the entire framework is built to avoid. The parent's media/marketplace P&L, its licensable technology, its brand, and the aggregation moat are what give the equity independent value and give the pay characterization its defense. Build the parent as a real company with real non-deal enterprise value, reserve the equity tier for the few who genuinely build it, keep co-GP economics tied to genuine GP work only, and firewall the attribution ledger from every formula — do those, and this is the highest-scoring structure on the board. Skip the non-deal value, and it is the anti-pattern wearing the best costume in the room.
On the master board this tier's enterprise-equity variant sits level with the third-party placement agent (both 64) at the top: the placement agent earns its 64 by routing capital-side comp through a registered channel, this tier by routing it through ownership of a company with independent value. Affiliated BD/CAB scores 60; the co-GP variant (58) sits level with Combined (58) and just above Separated (57); the two newly identified structures (regulated-retail wrapper and SMA-only) carry no memo score and are graded qualitatively.
Compensation mechanisms under this structure
This structure is defined by the two ownership instruments it stands up — enterprise equity in the parent, and bona-fide co-GP carry for genuine GP work — plus the media-P&L and equity-purchase mechanisms the parent enables. The binding rule is unchanged: enterprise equity and co-GP carry are clean only when decoupled from capital raised, which for co-GP means genuine GP work and for enterprise equity means a parent with material non-deal value. Each links to its mechanism page; scores are the ranked-matrix weighted totals.
The recommended package under the enterprise-equity / co-GP tier
The package a creator is actually paid on — full two-tier model on the Incentive design page. This is the equity-and-genuine-GP spine: enterprise equity is weighted up, and co-GP carry becomes available, but only for genuine GP work.