“Incentives are aligned” is the adult version of “don’t worry about it.”

It’s what people say when they haven’t done the hard part, which is deciding who actually owns the outcome, what “good” looks like, and what happens when it doesn’t show up.

This is the incentives problem in four squares.

Top right is grown up capitalism. Clear targets. Clear owners. Clear scorecard. Upside that’s meaningful, but only if value is actually created. Not vibes. Not activity. Not “we launched a thing”.

Top left is where most deals accidentally live. Everyone feels aligned. Everyone’s excited. The deck says “shared ambition”. And then nothing ships because nobody’s accountable for the messy middle: the trade offs, the prioritisation, the uncomfortable conversations, the “stop doing that” moments. Great culture. Terrible delivery.

Bottom left is the classic. Everyone gets rich anyhow. The plan misses. The market bails you out. The multiple expands. The equity cheque still clears. Then everyone writes a LinkedIn post about discipline.

Bottom right is what happens when accountability is just pressure. Targets exist, but they’re the wrong ones, owned by the wrong people, measured the wrong way. You end up whipping the operators for macro, product, or strategy choices they didn’t make. Everyone becomes defensive, sandbags the forecast, and manages optics instead of performance.

Most incentive plans aren’t too generous. They’re too vague.

Alignment isn’t a sentence in the IC memo.
It’s a system. And systems have inputs, owners, measurement, and consequences.

Otherwise you’ve just built a very expensive feelings workshop.