As a practical matter, how would this work? My impression is that VCs are never in the dividends business.

Wouldn't there have to be a fair amount of upfront and unique legal legwork to put something like this in place, in order to not only compensate the VCs, but also to attract quality employees in lieu of stock options? Would the investors and employees be guaranteed a certain percentage of any money Carson takes out of Treehouse? Do VCs who would accept this kind of deal even exist?

I'm pretty much allergic to the idea of answering to a board, shareholders, and analysts myself. 37 Signals seems to have an interesting idea about how to compensate employees in the unlikely case of an unexpected liquidity event, but some sort of structure that would allow profit sharing, without requiring a path to IPO or acquisition, would be great:

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2987-an-alternative-to-employee-optionsequity-grants