[japhyr]

This is a wonderful idea, and I will be quite curious to see where it goes. I really, really like the idea of funding individuals we believe in, rather than specific projects.

It reminds me of Gittip from a decade ago, which morphed into Gratipay. That original idea of "distributed genius grants", which is reminiscent of MacArthur fellowships, was great.

Anyone digging into this space has to be willing to wade deep into fighting fraud. Any platform that allows people to funnel money their way is going to draw abusers and desperate people. I appreciate people who are willing to face this head on.

[hyperpallium2]

The article (and title) is about funding work, not people.

Postgraduate scholarships are closer to "funding people", since you can propose any project you like (in my experience, anyway). Academic performance is the credential - not a terrible predictor but of course far from perfect.

And in academia, there are a lot of "moths", who use their position to do their own thing, outside the entire academial-publishing complex. A personal skunkworks.