Teachers can still realize returns through secondary sales (with the student’s approval). In that case, the student gives up nothing (their life isn’t affected) while the teacher profits. That’s why I framed “giving up” only around equity sales by the student because only that results in the student "giving up" something. But from a teacher’s perspective they can clearly profit without requiring the student to give something up.
> They nearly always cave to pressure to produce more profit, so the investor can make their money back, even at the expense of the vision for the company or the long term health of the business
That happens in companies because investors hold voting rights and can push out founder(s) or make decisions about the company. With personal tokens, shareholders have no control: they can’t fire you, push you toward an exit, or override your vision. If someone becomes toxic, you could buy back their shares at market price and even cut off contact. Personal tokens are designed to keep individuals in full control. Unlike company shareholders, personal token shareholders don’t “own” you.
> If they are cut off as deadweight, it undermines the whole concept, as they were still a building block to get you to where you are.
Agreed. Unfair ejections would kill trust. That’s why all actions would be transparent. If a student ejects a teacher without clear justification, they’d damage their reputation and likely struggle to raise in the future. Transparency is what keeps the system honest. But even in an unfair rejection, the student would have to pay market price for that equity (or get a new investor that buys from the investor they are ejecting). Assuming the student’s value has gone up, then the ejected investor would still profit.
> For teachers, it just feels like a perverse lottery. Go for volume and hope one pays off.
In the same way the best investors don’t see startup investing as a lottery but as a skill: where you won’t bat 100%, but you can be orders of magnitude better than average. Great teachers would have a knack for identifying and developing talent and won’t view this as a lottery. And for teachers who don’t want to play this game, nothing changes: they can keep teaching in the current system. This is about adding another option.
