Incubators are looking for ways to differentiate themselves. The newly launched AngelPad (an incubator created by 7 ex-googlers), for instance, bets on recreating a google-like atmosphere to foster innovation.
A recent post from Mark Shuttleworth seems to show that some foundations also have interesting ideas when it comes to financing projects :
“The model of the Foundation is unusual: we identify interesting change agents, like Mark, who are articulating powerful ideas that seem like the offer a hint of the future, and we fund them to work on those for a year. We also offer them an investment multiplier: if they put their personal money into a project, we multiply that by 10x or more, up to a maximum amount. In short, find good people, back them when they put skin in the game.”
Now, I am wondering about something : could incubators be a model for managing companies ?
- What would happen if you created a company that was merely a kind of aggregate of smaller companies sharing a common vision but running mostly independantly ?
- Could the Politics of Switzerland be an inspiration for creating such an ecosystem ?
- How much federal government do you need to have inside a company to have the perfect balance between “feeling like a single company” and “feeling empowered enough to do things without any bureaucracy” ? (do-ers hate bureaucracy, so if you want doers in your company, you’d better find a way to systematically fight it if you want to keep these people)
- Is is possible for people to feel part of their community without neglecting the rest of the ecosystem, the same way Texas inhabitants feel both texan and american ? (Have you noticed that people have both the texan flag and the american one in their garden over there ?)
