Idea: “Calendly jobs” where you’re hired by a consortium of companies for first-come/first-serve 40h/week anywhere within them you like. Somewhere between gig and paycheck, more meaningful than than both, elements of UBI.
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Many cost-recovery service orgs within large companies work like this, like internal consulting units in a functional area. But I know very few individuals with that kind of at-large job chartered to just wander around the org chart without a title, available to anyone.
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PE firms with a lot of operational involvement often have a few bagman-executive types who do this — parachute into portfolio companies to fix things, but again rare, and in this pattern they work for the principal mafiosos, and are viewed as enforcers not Angels on Calendly.
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The Calendly pattern is very powerful if you view it not as a bullshit status signaling thing but as an information/skills on-demand service matching thing. I have information on a particular problem, you have oversubscribed skills to help. I get in line and book your time.
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You can also de facto price discriminate. You may be paid $200/hr but that doesn’t mean you only support high paid roles. You’re available to minimum wage too. You budget/prioritize by role. Say up to X hours/week available to C-suite as first priority, but at least Y to min wage
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I’ve actually been in approximations of this situation a few times (including 1 gig right now), where I’m sort of available to a largish group of people in sone priority order for unspecified coaching/sparring support, but the load pattern is pretty predictable.
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Tends to be a very meaningful kind of work because you’re connected to all parts of a large mission. You’re not in a box on an org chart, but also not wandering entirely purposelessly like a pure mercenary. You’re a free agent within a larger mission, able to drop in where needed
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Basically a sort of genie or guardian angel if you’re older, and a sort of diy training rotation walkabout if you’re younger
DAOs will be very friendly to this kind of thing I suspect if set up right
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Key is to allow *individuals* to do this. Units/cells can form but by opt-in and should be secondary. Once a reified thing like an internal “data science team” forms and turns itself into a prestigious guild that monopolizes a function, it’s a different beast.
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Idea actually inspired by the intriguing way DAOtech seems set up for permissionless work around automated cores, where you’re free to do whatever needs doing that you spot because in a genuine sense, there are no bosses.
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A physical embodiment would be business cards/email signs/internal bios with Calendly links. You’re on-demand and reactive procedurally, but you can proactively wander and try to be helpful and signal availability. But like a vampire you have to be invited to cross a doorstep 🧛♂️
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