This is how careers go.
When one talked about career paths, it used to mean how to navigate being an employee up a megacorp, and eventually the sheisty ways of being a C-suite-er.
I see this path more often, and it still overlaps with the traditional notion of “career path”, just with more optional steps.
- Time
- Equity
- Distribution
- Networks
There may be a step 5, but it’s too far away for me to see from down here.
Time
Trading time for money. This is simplest, but it doesn’t mean “poor.” Some consultants charge $500/hour, and some people charge in the thousands, and get it. It’s still the lowest form in terms of what kind of deal it is.
Equity
Equity is higher up the chain. This is when time starts to detach.
If you own 10% of a business, and someone sells it, you get 10% of the sale regardless of the work you put in. You probably will not be able to get that 10% unless you traded time at some point, probably when the time was overvalued compared to the worth of the business—e.g., the business has no clients, so it’s literally worth nothing, but you put in time anyway earning $0 to find clients for it.
Distribution
Distribution still involves equity, since you own the distribution, but the main channel is not your own product, but often someone else’s (it can still be your own though if you’re trying to be vertically integrated).
E.g. if you’re a social media influencer, you own your name, brand, and audience—but the platform can change the algorithm tomorrow if it wants and you’re beholden to it. Maybe you diversify to other platforms to mitigate your risk, but you still don’t own any of them. Even email can be a challenge if the main receiving email servers (i.e. Gmail) decide messages from your domain are spam.
Networks
If you wanted to make a $1 off of everyone in your city, how would you do it? Probably some kind of monopoly. Maybe you own every gas station in a 10 mile radius. Or you work for the government. Or you run the local sports team, or their major facility.
Whatever there is only one of, or you could get the majority of the nodes of, is the network. In some ways, this isn’t that different from distribution, just another form of distribution one layer down the stack.
Your Career
If you want to move along the scale of time → money, this is the path you’ll follow.
Like an electron moving up energy levels, it takes a tremendous amount of energy input to move up a level. People usually borrow money, import a unique approach, create a new technology, or use some other “edge” to do so.
Note that the further away from time input you move, the less control you have.
If you’re working an hourly role, the work is entirely up to you. You are the mover.
If you’re running all the gas stations in the city, you have no say day-to-day in 99% of them. You have to rely on others to do the work and enforce the standards. All you can do is enforce on them, or make an example of something in a good or bad way, etc.
It’s a funny inverse relationship. The more general power you have, the less direct control you keep. Chew on that.
These steps are in permanent order. You cannot own part of distribution without being an owner, just like how you can’t be 7 feet tall without being at least 6 feet tall.
The only semi-exceptions I can muster are stuff like revenue sharing agreements, like without owning a business, you own 10% of profits for five years. Even then, that’s still equity, just on a more temporary basis. Yes, it’s still equity, even if the payout structure is different, because you have a claim independent of time invested.
Those interested in moving up a level would benefit to understand where they sit in the chain.
