A flat hierarchy is my ideal — but even flat systems require layers of access. As an engineer, my mental model for this comes from CPU privilege rings. They map surprisingly well to leadership inside a modern, decentralized guild.
🔸 Ring 0 — Full Context (just me)
I hold complete architectural visibility — the long-game direction, the structural blueprint, the continuity of vision. Ring 0 isn’t about control. It’s about stewardship.
🔸 Ring 1 — The Inner Circle
A handful of deeply aligned collaborators.
People who don’t just understand the mission — they carry it.
These are the individuals who help translate vision into systems, culture, and early traction.
🔸 Ring 2 — The Guild Members
Most contributors operate here: autonomous, trusted, skilled.
This layer is about:
- mastery of craft,
- minimal bureaucracy,
- high ownership,
- independence without isolation.
Ring 2 is where the guild becomes real.
🔸 Ring 3 — The Public Interface (“The API Layer”)
My inner engineer can’t resist this metaphor:
Ring 3 is the public API of the guild.
It has two clear functions:
1️⃣ Customers
People who will attend our conferences, buy our products, or interact with our ecosystem.
2️⃣ Other Founders — the Business API
This is where scale happens.
If I want my organizational model to spread, it cannot be limited to one company. It needs to be adopted. And the most efficient way to spread a leadership model is not through bureaucracy — but through aligned founders.
Mentor the CEOs, not the entire org chart.
One strong founder influences dozens.
Ten strong founders can influence thousands.
The First Founder Is Already Inside the Circle
I’ve already begun this process: mentoring one early-stage founder.
My financial investment is symbolic compared to traditional angel funds, but the alignment is what matters.
This prototype will tell me everything I need to know.
If the model works, Ring 3 may one day include dozens of founders operating on:
- autonomy,
- micro-teams,
- sustainable pace,
- mastery over grind,
- long-game thinking.
This is impact without building a corporation of 10,000 people.
Closing Thought
I won’t unpack the entire vision today, but the trajectory is clear:
I am quietly building a distributed, founder-aligned ecosystem —
not a physical “valley,” but a network of modern guilds.
And the first node is already online.
