I know they are organized as partnerships, but the managers don't really have any equity rights to the committed capital, only the profits. But I guess that's really no different than an investor with preference rights in a startup.

In any case, thanks very much for your explanations, really helped me think about the issue in a different way.

Happy to help out!

In any case, as I stated elsewhere(1), I'm actually not sure what I believe on this topic. I can really see it both ways.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17276214