The lack of access to quality education is a major contributor trapping struggling populations, cutting them off from good jobs and opportunities to build their own businesses. This creates a cycle where families without access to proper education cannot provide it to their children, deepening inequality with each generation.

While technology and society move forward at full speed, traditional education systems move at a crawl. This, combined with the high cost of education, has resulted in a growing gap between the skills the world needs and the skills the population actually has.

• Trampled Students: The system marches forward even when some fall behind, leaving lasting psychological scars.
• Missing Essentials: Many critical skills are missing, and much of the content and methodologies are outdated, leaving graduates unprepared for work and life.
• Wastefulness: Courses are cluttered with outdated content and methods, kept alive by tradition or decisions by committee rather than relevance.
• Misleading Information on Prospects: Students are often misled about salaries, career paths and job realities.
• Untimely Learning: Even valuable lessons arrive too early or too late—like teaching management to those who have never held a job.
• Inadequate Assessment Methods: Tests and grades rarely reflect the skills needed in real life or the job market.

Other problems—such as high tuition fees and student debt—are in part symptoms of these deeper flaws. Wasteful programs and false promises make inflated prices easier to justify, while curriculums that omit essential skills lead to poor job prospects, leaving graduates unable to repay the cost of their Education.

When graduates struggle, educators face no penalty. When they succeed—even becoming billionaires—educators gain upside is little, unpredictable or nothing. With no stake in their students’ long-term outcomes, institutions have little motivation to deliver Education that truly works.

By the time graduates face real-world challenges, traditional institutions have already been paid — whether through tuition or taxpayer funding. They have no skin in the game.

One of the root problems is simple: misaligned incentives between educators and students.

However, even if education worked perfectly, many people would still be unable to afford it—or to pause work long enough to study. Education is costly not only in tuition, loans or taxes but also in lost time and opportunity.

In essence, the traditional education system suffers from two core problems:

• Low Quality: Caused by misaligned incentives between educators and students; resulting in Trampled Students, Missing Essentials, Wastefulness, Misleading Information on Prospects, Untimely Learning and Inadequate Assessment Methods.
• High Cost: For learners, in both direct and indirect expenses.

These issues affect both public and private institutions, whether funded directly through tuition and loans or indirectly through taxpayers.

MentorGuilds are our proposed novel/unique/single-purpose legal organization, designed to solve these problems. MentorGuild objectives are:

• MUST are core objectives that every MentorGuild must achieve:
  • Quality and Ongoing Education and Support: Deliver real-world work and life skills through high — quality education and personalized mentorship—either by providing skills directly or funding access to top external courses—while ensuring continued guidance that helps individuals thrive.
  • Flexibility and Adaptability: Promote rapid feedback loops for adaptation to changing industries, economies, and individual needs through diverse structures and approaches.
  • Sustainability: At minimum, operate through a self-sustaining business model that does not rely largely on ongoing donations, grants, or government funding. Whether structured as for-profit or non-profit, MentorGuilds should aim to generate enough value to cover their costs, grow their impact, and attract long-term talent, capital, and commitment.
• SHOULD be achieved, but not at the expense of MUST objectives:
  • Fund tuition: Enable students to access education at little or no upfront cost, especially for those unable to pay in the short term.
  • Fund stipends: Provide financial support so mentees can sustain themselves and their families while focusing on education and early career growth.
  • Transparency: Offer a clear, open view of which skills and industries are growing or declining, enabling smarter decisions by individuals, businesses, and policymakers.
  • Decrease Inequality: Create incentives for the more advantaged — whether wealthy investors, successful professionals, accomplished retirees looking to stay engaged, or developed countries/regions — to help those who are struggling, through mentorship or investments.

Core features of MentorGuilds to fulfill these objectives are:

1) Funding Model

MentorGuilds will operate under strict rules unlike any other type of organization. One of them, is that they can earn income only from their mentees, and only in two ways:

• Primary income: A share of their mentees’ after-tax future income (above an income floor), paid only for hours worked in jobs that largely use the specialized skills the MentorGuild provided. Example: a mentee contributes 5.1% of their income for the next 9,200 relevant work hours.
• Secondary income: A smaller portion may come from optional tuition paid directly by mentees.

There are no loans, interest rates, hidden clauses, or penalties. No compounding balances, fixed repayment schedules, third-party collections, or credit reporting. Mentees never owe money unless they earn it. If they do not find a job or choose to leave the field they trained for, they owe nothing.

This may look similar to Income Share Agreements (ISAs) or Income Contingent Loans (ICLs), but later we will compare the fundamental differences.

When mentees succeed, MentorGuilds succeed. When mentees struggle, both share the loss. This shared fate builds accountability and keeps MentorGuilds focused on real outcomes, not empty promises or outdated practices. It also gives them a powerful incentive to select and train mentees carefully, ensuring that each person is well-suited to their chosen industry and capable of thriving there for the long term.

Repayment is tied to hours worked, not fixed time limits or total financial amounts. A mentee may fulfill their commitment quickly or gradually over a lifetime. This structure encourages sustainable productivity, protecting mentees from burnout, depression, unpaid labor, or toxic workplaces.

Hours worked in relevant jobs count toward the contract total even when income falls below the payment floor. This punishes MentorGuilds when mentees end up in low-paid roles and creates a strong incentive for them to help mentees secure better wages.

MentorGuilds are motivated to promote balance—encouraging rest, continued learning, and even sabbaticals that reignite motivation and performance. Their mission is simple: help mentees work at their best, not work the most. This transforms education from a one-time transaction into a lifelong partnership built on growth, sustainability, and mutual success.

2) Open Data

MentorGuilds will regularly publish and update key data that will stay permanently available to the public online. This information includes:

• A list of every mentee contract ever offered (example)
• The full text of each contract, including mentee feedback on their experience and any legal changes made by court rulings (example)
• A list of all updates made to a contract (example)
• Cohort-level historical performance data, such as income and work hours, while respecting privacy laws (example)

This data will not only be published on the MentorGuild website, but also automatically sent to central repositories mandated by governments. These could be government agencies or non-profit organizations that display the data in user-friendly dashboards and visualizations comparing all MentorGuilds. The data will also be available in machine-readable formats for easy access and integration by anyone.

This level of transparency will give journalists, researchers, potential mentees, governments, investors, entrepreneurs, competitors, industry participants and the general population a clear view of which skills, industries, and MentorGuilds are thriving and which are falling behind. It will send strong signals that drive smarter, more efficient economic choices.

It will also make many types of abuse hard to hide. Exploitative workloads or suspiciously inflated incomes will stand out in plain sight. The goal is simple: to make MentorGuilds the most transparent and publicly scrutinized institutions in society.

All mentee data will be anonymized, and the best practices of privacy research will be applied. Re-identifying individual mentees will be highly unlikely, especially since no geographic data will be included. Most MentorGuild operations will function online. Even when a MentorGuild has a physical location, mentees can receive training on site and then return to their own — often distant — locations, further reducing the chance of identification.

3) Freedom

MentorGuilds can take many different forms, adapting to their mission, context, and the needs of their mentees:

• They can operate as non-profits, cooperatives, or for-profit entities.
• They may be small, specialized groups focused on niche skills or industries, or broad organizations delivering skills such as coding, design, or marketing—useful across many fields.
• They can range from large organizations with thousands of mentors across multiple disciplines to a single mentor guiding just a few mentees.
• They may be local, community-based groups or global networks using digital tools to connect mentors and mentees across borders.
• They can focus on traditional trades like carpentry, plumbing, or electrical work, or emerging fields such as AI development, renewable energy, or biotechnology.
• They can target specific demographics—such as underrepresented groups, career changers, or lifelong learners—or remain open to anyone interested in their area of expertise.
• They may offer flexible, modular learning paths tailored to each mentee’s goals, or provide structured, long-form programs similar to traditional education when appropriate.
• They can embrace modern technologies like AI, VR, and e-learning platforms, or adopt a fully offline approach built on in-person mentorship and hands-on training.
• They can outsource the teaching to outside specialists, or develop their own in-house training programs.

The freedom to adapt quickly—to shifting industries, economic realities, and the evolving needs of each mentee throughout different stages of life and career—is one of the MentorGuild model’s greatest strengths.

The name MentorGuild was chosen to reflect two key roles they will likely play:

• Mentor: Emphasizing the personalized guidance and support offered to each mentee, tailored to their unique needs and goals. The goal is to help mentees become as self-reliant as possible. Unlike teachers, who deliver skills directly, mentors will probably curate the best available education and fund their mentees’ access to top external instructors, complementing those with their own materials when needed. Mentoring has many documented benefits ^{1 2}, for example:
  • A study involving Big Brothers Big Sisters of America found that mentees earned 15% more over their lifetime, and that adult income of mentored youth aligned more with their mentor than their family — helping reduce the socioeconomic gap by about two-thirds.
  • A study of Sun Microsystems employees reported that mentors were promoted six times more often than non-participants, and mentees five times more often.
• Guild: Capturing the community spirit of collaboration and shared growth, where members exchange knowledge, support one another, and remain connected through both successes and challenges.

Preliminary calculations suggest that MentorGuilds could be highly profitable. A contribution of roughly 5% of income over 9,200 relevant work hours — about five years of full-time employment—could yield profitability similar to that of many vocational trade schools and technology bootcamps.

Beyond this baseline, several unique advantages can further enhance sustainability and profitability:

• Efficient Mentoring: Mentoring is far less time-consuming than traditional teaching. MentorGuilds focus on curating the best available education and funding their mentees’ access to top external instructors, while supplementing those resources with their own internal materials when needed.
• Minimal Overhead: MentorGuilds do not require physical locations. They can operate entirely online, meeting mentees in person only when necessary and in public spaces.
• Economies of Scale:
  • Shared tools, platforms, and learning resources that benefit all mentees.
  • Community networks where mentees support each other within small pods or entire community.
  • A centralized and growing online platform, where communication can happen asynchronously, allowing mentees/mentors to connect and collaborate on their own schedules, having common questions answered, and opportunities for AI to assist.

We also strongly encourage two policy measures that would drastically reduce administrative and compliance costs, making MentorGuilds fairer, more sustainable, and more scalable:

• Tax exemption: from corporate tax (and GST/VAT) would prevent double taxation — since the mentee’s income is already taxed — and would position education and high-quality economic data as national priorities. It would also offset the strict transparency and operational requirements that MentorGuilds must follow. Governments already spend large sums on education with limited visibility into real outcomes. MentorGuilds offer both education and free, real-time data on workforce and training results, making tax exemption a net gain for policymaking.
• Mentors as legal partners: Recognizing mentors as partners would align incentives and reflect their role as part-time professionals who remain active in their industries. These mentors would operate independently, share in repayments rather than receive fixed salaries, and avoid traditional employment costs.

Beyond financial returns, MentorGuilds will also have many intangible benefits, including:

• Early access to emerging trends in technology, markets, and culture through exposure to mentees
• Building strong professional networks
• Gathering high-quality industry data
• Gaining reputation and media exposure
• The opportunity to advise governments and participate in public debate
• Experiencing the deep satisfaction of helping others succeed

With low operating costs, scalable online delivery, and incentives tied directly to mentee success, MentorGuilds have the potential to generate significant long-term returns for founders, investors, and mentors alike.

For example, a US software developer mentor working part time — about five hours per week — could support five to ten mentees. With a 5% income share, this could produce between USD $15,000 and $50,000 in yearly revenue per mentor, depending on each mentee’s career stage.

MentorGuilds are designed for most professions—from nannies, hairdressers, plumbers and electricians to software developers, doctors, and executives. In their early stages, they will likely focus on careers with fast, high returns on investment. Over time, however, they can expand to include nearly every field—even those traditionally seen as low-paying. With the help of specialized mentors who combine unique skills and tailored guidance, MentorGuilds could make these professions more sustainable and better rewarded.

Critics may say:

• Are you exaggerating the problems with traditional education? Some institutions are really good!
• Must we really sell part of our future income to receive an education? Education is a human right. Should governments not provide it for free or heavily subsidize it?
• Can’t we just fix traditional education instead of creating something entirely new?

Some traditional education institutions are indeed better than others. Many vocational schools deliver skills that are immediately useful in the marketplace. Many educational philosophies (like Montessori, Waldorf-Steiner, or Sudbury) allow students to be more self-paced, avoiding trampled students.

However, while some traditional institutions address some core flaws, they often leave others untouched. And none are long-term partnerships with their students. None provide meaningful continuous education and support during careers. None are so thoroughly rewarded or punished based on how well graduates perform in the marketplace, as MentorGuilds will be.

MentorGuilds are necessary because they are uniquely incentivized to address every core flaw in traditional education, copy the parts that traditional education does well, and be a long-term partnership on top of that. And then scale this solution massively, in a publicly visible way through open data.

That is why we present traditional education versus MentorGuilds as an easy contrast. In truth, this simplifies how different traditional institutions can be from each other. But the simplification is warranted to avoid details that do not impact next steps. The average traditional education institution does have all the core flaws we mentioned. Most fall somewhere on the spectrum - some have more flaws than others.

Improving traditional education is a noble goal, but in practice it faces enormous obstacles. Both public and private institutions struggle with limited budgets, heavy bureaucracy, entrenched interests, and deep resistance to change. Reform efforts are often slow, superficial, fragmented, and easily disrupted by political cycles or funding cuts.

Even if governments and traditional institutions had unlimited time and money, they would still struggle to align education with the real needs of the job market and daily life. Free or subsidized education has little value if graduates remain unprepared to survive and thrive in the real world. Without aligned incentives, educators and learners stay disconnected.

MentorGuilds close this gap by directly aligning the interests of educators and learners, creating a self-sustaining system that rewards real-world success.

Over time, once MentorGuilds are well established and have a proven track record, governments may choose to integrate with them - by funding tuition for high-risk students (such as ex-convicts) or allowing students to redirect existing public education budgets toward the MentorGuild of their choice, continuing to provide education as a human right or strategic investment. These contributions would reduce the risks MentorGuilds take, enabling them to lower repayment factors (income percentage and total work hours) while keeping incentives properly aligned.

The open data required of MentorGuilds will also help policymakers design smarter education, workforce, and investment strategies - guided by real, transparent results.

MentorGuilds are designed to deliver high-quality education and personalized support, tailored to the specific needs and abilities of each mentee. Their goal is not only to provide better education than traditional systems but also to offer continuous and real-world guidance that connects both work and life. In a fast-changing world, where professional and personal challenges often overlap, this holistic approach is essential. Over time, it has the potential to transform not only individual lives but entire societies.

The reason for this broad range of support is simple: anything that harms a mentee’s work quality or productivity will also harm the MentorGuild’s income and reputation — especially under the open data requirement. That is why successful MentorGuilds will adopt a holistic approach to their mentees’ well-being, offering guidance and resources that extend far beyond traditional job training. In essence, the most effective MentorGuilds will teach not only work skills, but life skills.

However, all this guidance remains optional. Mentees are free to make their own choices. MentorGuilds can advise — but never control.

• Work Education and Support:
  • Help mentees find job opportunities that match their skills, goals, and personal circumstances — including location, caregiving duties, or preferred industries.
  • Guide mentees through workplace dynamics, communication, and management styles.
  • Assist with salary, promotion, and contract negotiations, and help mentees choose locations with strong job demand, reasonable living costs, and fair taxes.
  • Advising mentees on the best location where their profession is in demand, and taxes are favorable.
  • Encourage ongoing development of both technical and interpersonal skills to stay competitive in a market reshaped by AI, automation, and global change.
  • Protect mentees from exploitative practices such as unpaid work, excessive hours, false promises, coercive NDAs, or illegal job conditions.
  • Promote smart career moves — such as industry shifts, upskilling, or strategic lateral roles that build long-term value.
  • Support mentees who wish to start their own businesses by helping them secure funding, attract customers, and grow their ventures.
  • Offer stipend to those in need, allowing mentees to focus on study or work, in exchange for a higher income share or worked hours.
• Life Education and Support:
  • Work-life balance: Help mentees make thoughtful tradeoffs — such as income versus flexibility — manage competing priorities, and set healthy boundaries.
  • Financial literacy: Teach budgeting, investing, understanding taxes, and avoiding scams or debt traps.
  • Major life transitions: Offer guidance through major changes — moving cities, switching careers, starting a family, or managing health challenges.
  • Mental health: Provide coping strategies, help mentees recognize early signs of burnout, and connect them with professional support when needed.
  • Physical health: Encourage routines that support sleep, posture, diet, and exercise — especially for high-stress or sedentary jobs.
  • Relationships: Help mentees build and maintain respectful friendships, partnerships, and professional networks — both online and offline.

At first glance, MentorGuilds may appear to be just another way to finance tuition — an alternative to free or subsidized programs, student loans, or income-based repayment models.

But funding tuition is only one of the MentorGuild's objectives.

MentorGuilds can play complementary roles. In regulated fields such as medicine or law, they can finance university tuition when a formal diploma or certification is required. Their support does not stop there. They can “wrap around” traditional education — providing stipends so students can study without the strain of part-time work, filling major gaps left by traditional programs, and continuing support after graduation by helping mentees find work, negotiate contracts, and navigate early career challenges.

Although MentorGuilds may seem similar to Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs) or Income Contingent Loans (ICLs) — since all involve sharing a portion of future income in exchange for education — the resemblance is only superficial.

Let us now examine the key differences between MentorGuilds and Education funding models. There are always exceptions, but in general:

Free or Subsidized Education, Student Loans	ISAs and ICLs	MentorGuilds
Funds tuition for work Education before a career begins		Funds tuition and stipends for work and life Education and support before and throughout a career
A way to finance traditional Education: Without addressing its core flaws Delegates accountability for student outcomes Limits the learner to a single Education provider No feedback loop to improve Education quality over time		A way to create new forms of Education: Directly addressing those traditional Education core flaws Retains accountability for mentee outcomes Curates multiple Education providers to deliver the best possible learning Continuously and quickly learn from outcomes to improve Education and support for current and future mentees
Often cannot be discharged through bankruptcy		Discharged in bankruptcy
If a student loan exists: Interest compounds over time Repayments are required even if the student fails to find a job or works in a field unrelated to their studies If free or subsidized: Repayment happens through higher taxes or inflation	Repayments: Based on before tax income Occurs even if the job is unrelated to the Education provided (provider has no skin in the game) Total amount is fixed, often with a significant profit margin and maybe interest	Repayments: Based on after tax income Occurs only when mentee earns above the income floor, from jobs that significantly use the specialized skills delivered (provider has skin in the game) No interest, and repayment grows with mentee success, providing long-term alignment without a repayment cap
Outcomes are rarely made public Relationship is short-term and impersonal	Outcomes are rarely made public Contract terms are often complex and hard to compare across providers Relationship is short-term, impersonal and transactional	Outcomes (income, work hours) are open data Standardized contract terms that are simple and public Relationship is a personal partnership, long-term, and community-oriented

In essence, if a potential student finds a traditional education provider that fully meets their needs — free of major flaws—and does not need support or guidance beyond the classroom, then free or subsidized education, student loans, ISAs, or ICLs may be all that is needed.

For everyone else, MentorGuilds provide added value: Education and repayments built on shared incentives, curated learning paths, and mentorship that continues long after graduation.

Some earlier models made claims similar to MentorGuilds. One well-known example is Bloom Institute of Technology, which offered IT education financed through Income Share Agreements (ISAs). Students repaid a percentage of their future salaries instead of paying tuition upfront. The model aimed to tie the school’s success to student outcomes and promised long-term support.

However, Bloom faced serious criticism. It was accused of inflating job placement rates, overstating graduate salaries, using complex contracts that students struggled to understand, and pushing graduates into low-quality jobs to meet placement quotas. As the company grew, many students reported that educational quality declined.

MentorGuilds were deliberately designed to avoid these pitfalls through several key safeguards:

• Accountability: Bloom sold parts of its ISA contracts to third parties, breaking the link between education quality and financial outcomes. MentorGuilds are forbidden from transferring or selling mentee contracts, except under very specific conditions and only with the mentee’s consent. This ensures accountability from start to finish.
• Simple contracts: Mentee contracts will be standardized and, ideally, codified in law after public review. A fallback could be a public master contract similar to Creative Commons Licenses. Each mentee contract remains simple (example), filling in key variables such as income percentage, total work hours, and list of covered skills. This structure allows every mentee to inherit legal safeguards and makes contracts easy to compare. Public education efforts will also explain how MentorGuilds operate and what rights and duties mentees have.
• Open Data: Publicly visible contracts discourage unfair terms through reputational pressure. The open performance data (ideally automatically published without going through the MentorGuild), with its income and work hours (example), making it difficult to falsify results or cherry-pick success stories. Declines in educational quality will appear in cohort data, alerting the public and potential mentees. These records can also reveal broader insights such as job placement timelines and income growth.

In short, the gaps and problems seen in earlier education and funding models have been studied and built into the MentorGuild framework as safeguards. New challenges will undoubtedly emerge over time, but the model can evolve through amendment and refinement — remaining a living institution, like any other, that adapts while preserving its objectives and core features.

While MentorGuilds promise major benefits, they also carry real risks, including:

• Contract scope could generate litigation. Who decides if a job largely uses the specialized skills delivered? What if the mentee moves jurisdictions?
• MentorGuilds could drift toward exploitation — becoming predatory, manipulative, or overly controlling.
• The relationship could degenerate into a new kind of indentured servitude.

To reduce these risks, MentorGuild operations must be transparent, including:

• A lengthy signing process with contracts posted online for public scrutiny
• Cohort performance reports showing income and work hours — revealing overwork or abnormal earnings
• Government audit rights — triggered by complaints, abnormal data, or random checks

A unique feature of MentorGuilds further discourages abuse: the value curve between mentor and mentee moves in opposite directions. Early on, the MentorGuild provides most of the value through education and support, and this value declines as the mentee becomes independent. At the same time, the mentee’s value to the MentorGuild increases as their income grows and their skills strengthen the broader community. This creates a strong check on misbehavior. If a MentorGuild acts unfairly, the mentee can seek legal help, and courts can reduce repayment factors or terminate the contract entirely. This outcome will often benefit the mentee, who has already gained value from the relationship.

MentorGuilds have no authority over mentees' personal or professional decisions. They can only advise, not command. Their influence relies entirely on trust, credibility, and earned respect.

If the mentee declares bankruptcy, the contract is terminated. If the MentorGuild declares bankruptcy, the contract may be sold to another MentorGuild only with the mentee’s approval — otherwise, the contract is terminated.

Additional protections include extensive mentee rights, government oversight, strict operational limits, instructions for judges to interpret unclear terms in favor of mentees, firm penalties for misconduct, and fixed contract expiry dates to ensure no agreement lasts indefinitely.

Matching Skills and Jobs

Requiring "income from jobs that largely use the specialized skills provided" might seem unnecessarily complex. Counting income from any job would be easier. However, that would weaken the model by removing accountability for education provided, diluting transparency about which skills actually help people succeed, and creating ethical problems if MentorGuilds profit from unrelated work after training fails.

When a student starts a new job, both sides assess whether it qualifies, and that decision stands unless the role changes significantly. Factors to consider:

• Primary: At least 50% of core duties — excluding general admin — must use the contracted specialized skills.
• Secondary: The contract also lists qualifying job titles and occupational codes to speed decisions and enrich public data. If a title matches but the skills are not used (or vice versa), the primary determinant overrides the title list.

Several tools prevent endless disputes:

• Mutual interest: Both parties benefit from honest assessment. Students who accurately report employment receive full support; MentorGuilds that deliver value earn loyalty, reputation and referrals. Dishonesty harms both: students get reduced support (bonus resources, event invitations), MentorGuilds get poor public data. This partnership incentivizes good faith.
• Contract updates: MentorGuilds and students can add or remove skills as careers evolve, ensuring education matches changing needs while creating valuable public data on skill relevance (example).
• Relinquished contracts: If parties cannot find common ground, MentorGuilds can unilaterally end the contract, benefiting the student (who keeps skills without repayment) while preventing strained relationships that damage reputation.
• Rolled-over contracts: When careers specialize beyond a MentorGuild's expertise, three-way contracts with new specialised MentorGuilds allow smooth transitions (example). Limited to two MentorGuilds maximum to prevent abuse.

Aligned incentives encourage both sides to resolve disagreements without arbitration. If that fails, a third-party Arbiter (ombudsman) can bring both parties together to reach an agreement. If resolution still proves difficult, judges can apply these tools and refer to similar contracts to establish industry standards.

Like venture capital — which thrives despite founders sometimes wasting investments — MentorGuilds will manage risk through diversification and alignment.

Attaching payment to skill use introduces complexity, but the benefits to students and society justify it. Rules favor student protection but can be revised if they become unfair to MentorGuilds.

Increase Inequality?

Could MentorGuilds worsen inequality by serving only low-risk, high-potential applicants? Early MentorGuilds will likely focus on easier cases — and this is reasonable. They need to prove the model works, build track records, refine operations, and attract investment. Just as startups begin with winnable markets before expanding, early success enables serving harder cases later.

Long-term, several forces prevent MentorGuilds from staying low-hanging fruits only:

• Income from transformation: Affluent students unlikely to accept high income shares. Real profit comes from turning low-income, high-potential individuals into high earners. This delta naturally incentivizes developing overlooked talent. Also, profit depends on the gap between income and training cost — hairdressers (cheap training, solid income) may be more profitable than engineers (expensive training despite higher income).
• Untapped markets: If all MentorGuilds target elites, competition drives down rates. Serving underserved groups justifies higher shares, making it economically viable.
• Credential-free access: MentorGuilds bypass degree requirements, opening well-paid trades and tech roles to capable people who cannot afford traditional education.
• Diverse individuals: Varied backgrounds strengthen social capital, problem-solving, and learning from peers' experiences.

Governments can amplify this by partially funding high-risk mentees in proven MentorGuilds, awarding benefits for serving MentorGuilds who focus on underserved groups, and publishing upward mobility statistics.

If designed wisely, MentorGuilds can grow from serving easy cases into powerful engines for equality.

MentorGuilds are organizations built to align the interests of students and educators. Their mission is to help people develop the skills needed to thrive — both in their careers and in their personal lives.

Unlike rigid, centrally planned systems bound by fixed teaching methods, MentorGuilds serve as launchpads for innovation and fast learning. They evolve alongside their students, using quick feedback loops to adapt to an ever-changing world.

By combining aligned incentives, transparency, and strict organizational rules, MentorGuilds aim to narrow the widening gap between the skills society demands and the skills people possess. They achieve this not only by providing high-quality education, but also by helping students manage its financial cost.

Still, MentorGuilds face real challenges, like an unproven track record and legal / regulatory uncertainty. The key question is not whether they are flawless — no system is — but whether they can deliver better outcomes than current alternatives for enough people to justify the risks, effort, and experimentation required for this model to grow naturally.

The next step is clear: MentorGuilds should begin as pilot programs. If results are strong, they should scale quickly. Their open-data approach will make progress transparent and easy for everyone to monitor.

Early versions can also launch within existing legal frameworks in many countries. For example, a MentorGuild could operate as a consultancy, hiring out its employees / mentees for external work. This carries added costs — such as workers’ insurance and compliance — but may work in high-income fields. Ultimately, MentorGuilds are an idea that can be implemented through several intermediate forms before reaching a dedicated legal status.

MentorGuilds have many nuances and complexities. To explore them in depth, you can read the full book, which covers a wide range of important topics — including what makes a great mentor and how to attract and retain them, how guilds can be organized and sustained, the platform and infrastructure they require, the many roles they can play for mentees and society, practical advice for both mentors and mentees, and several unintuitive effects that MentorGuilds may have on the wider world.