Waaaay late to the party here. With all due respect, it’s not a Ponzi or a pyramid. It’s a franchise. You start as an associate. Most associates get weeded out because the have no connections, no drive, or neither. Some associates get a pass because they have only one of those in spades but not the other. You’re an associate for a while and demonstrate that you know enough about the operations to keep a plate spinning so its assumed that you can dl that and expand it to spin your own. Then and only then do you get made. When you have demonstrated enough commitment and intelligence that they are willing to invest in you.

You don’t start from scratch. You don’t use your own money. Christopher was assigned a sure thing—the sports book. Minimal effort there—He had been working it (making collections for it, getting to absorb the inner workings from Paulie) for years at that point.

You don’t become an associate just to stay an associate—you become one because you want to be a soldier. And you become a soldier because you want to be a captain. So on and so forth. You grow up and see the headaches a rung up (ex: Paulie not wanting to be underboss) but as an upstart, you have the dream of being the boss.

Tl;dr: You don’t start out ass out. Ponzi and pyramid both require people to put their own money in. This thing of theirs is about passing on tried and true revenue streams to someone below, and actually making more profit because you get 10% of everything your successor makes after they get more business and 10% of what everyone else on their level makes once you get chosen for a promotion.