The paycheck is breaking.
For most of the last century, work paid by the hour, through one employer. More and more of it now pays through a share of what people build. HYVV is the foundation for the companies built that way.
Two ways to earn.
Large companies keep replacing layers of people with software, and AI is speeding that up. The work doesn’t disappear — it moves to small teams of founders, partners and contractors.
Two formulas, no projections
| Paid by the hour | Paid by ownership | |
|---|---|---|
| The formula | ||
| The formula | E equals W times T | E equals the sum, for i from 1 to N, of s i times V i |
| What caps it | ||
| What caps it | Your hours. T can’t grow much past a full-time year — about 2,080 hours. | Each stake’s own cap or end date — not your hours. |
| What grows it | ||
| What grows it | A higher rate. W is set by the labor market. | More stakes (N), and more revenue (Vi) at the companies you hold them in. |
| What AI does to it | ||
| What AI does to it | Takes on more of the work, which puts W under pressure. | Lets small teams ship what large ones used to, so there are more companies to hold a stake in. |
E what you earnW hourly rateT hours workedN companies you hold a stake insi your share of company iVi the revenue company i brings in
What a year of small stakes can look like.
Priya Raman is a senior product designer who keeps her day job. A few evenings a month she does short projects for small, AI-heavy teams — design system audits, onboarding reviews, template packs — and takes a small stake as her pay, each with its own cap or end date. Some pay nothing. The ones that work keep paying until they hit that limit.
Why hasn’t this happened already?
Two frictions made small deals too expensive to bother with. AI is removing the first. HYVV is built to remove the second.
What kept small deals from paying
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| TimeExpert work took too long to deliver. | ||
| TimeExpert work took too long to deliver. | A design-system audit could take 40 hours, and a contract review 12. At that cost, a small stake in someone else’s company could never pay back the work. | AI now does much of the first pass. The same audit can take a few hours, so a specialist can take on many more small deals in a year — and each one can be worth doing. |
| TrustOnce money flowed, the deal got renegotiated. | ||
| TrustOnce money flowed, the deal got renegotiated. | Handshake deals and email agreements broke down once revenue arrived. Whoever delivered early got squeezed later, and had to stay involved just to defend their share. | The terms are written down and signed before any money moves, and each share is paid by rule as revenue comes in — so the expert can move on to the next deal while earlier work keeps paying under its terms. |
A HYVV Structured Company doesn’t just make money. It distributes it.
Many small stakes across many companies only work if every one of them is run the same clear way: ownership written down, agreements that match it, and revenue shared by rule — so nobody has to chase what they’re owed.
A small team building the foundation for new companies.
Rob Schachte
Rob Schachte is the founder of HYVV. He previously founded Pennybuilt, an early round-up savings concept.
“AI is dissolving the link between time and money. The replacement is ownership — small, structured stakes in many ventures, paid out automatically. HYVV is the rails for that shift.”
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Start with who owns what.
Foundation is free. When you’re ready, HYVV forms the company and sets up the revenue split.