CLIENT-ENGAGEMENT DECISION: This records decisions made about a new venture Michael is advising on and co-founding with Emil Barr and Will Hinman. The venture is a separate entity from Rye Valley. Emil and Will bear the business consequences; this is not a Rye Valley operational decision except where noted.
Related meeting: Houck / Emil Weekly - Oct 2 2026 Restricted comp detail: Owner tier
Decision
Emil Barr joins the government public-records data venture at co-founder level (25% equity) with a monthly cash retainer invoiced through Rye Valley. Delaware C corp deferred until pilot success. Ohio is the first acquisition target. Direct sales to frontier AI labs (no brokers).
Context
Michael and Will were building a data brokerage around government public records requests. Emil brings CTO/data engineering capability (ex-Uber data scientist) and Silicon Valley sales relationships (OpenAI, Anthropic). The question was how to structure his involvement and validate the model before incorporation.
Options considered
- 15% equity + 10% commission on Emil-sourced deals: rejected as a double-dip; less clean alignment
- Broker channel go-to-market: rejected because brokers take a cut and Michael/Emil have direct relationships at the AI labs
- Delaware C corp immediately: deferred; overhead not worth it before pilot proves the core thesis
Consequences
- Emil’s retainer ($10K/month) flows through Rye Valley until the new entity exists (Rye Valley operational consequence)
- MOU to be drafted this weekend before any external outreach; Will’s equity stake resolves tomorrow
- Pilot target: one state (~$200-300K dataset), prove buyer appetite, then scale and incorporate
- If pilot succeeds: incorporate, stand up entity, scale to 10-state target; Emil builds data-cleaning harnesses per vendor