IIP-59-Final: Data Economy Index (DATA)

[jdcook]

@Thomas_Hepner thanks for the reply and your thoughts. I recognize you have done a lot of work to push forward that conversation around Methodologists renumeration, but the Accelerator Program that you proposed just does not seem to be a realistic expectation - and that is what leads me to be afraid at the probability of the clawback clause being enforced by you and Kiba.

You’re proposal requests that methodologists be paid on the order of millions once the product reaches $20m AUM. I tend to side more with what @Matthew_Graham said in response to that proposal:

@Matthew_Graham

If I am perfectly honest here, the streaming fees alone should be a sufficient incentive to partner with the Index Coop community. The Index Coop community is the moat that can not be forked. Products are more successful with Index Coop as a partner because of the community that is Index Coop. DATA will be more successful with Index Coop and I believe Index Coop can grow the pie significantly larger than other partners could. This means the streaming fees nominal USD value going to the methodologist is larger than it otherwise would. If the streaming fees are enough, then please see the methodologist program as cream with a cherry on top.

But I also proposed adding a revenue-based AUM bonus structure to the fee split as signal for the Coop’s desire to work with great partners. In our conversations, you have told me this is not sufficient.

So I am left to believe that the Coop will not be able to deliver on the kind of renumeration that you are seeking within the next 3-4 months - leading you and Kiba to exercise your clawback. As I said earlier, it is simply a case of the probability of that being too high for me to be comfortable with, and that I think this sets a bad precedent for future product releases.