I always thought a co-op would be an interesting model but I don’t really know how to synthesize that with raising venture capital
Most VCs are herd animals that gamble: they follow others and are afraid to lose out. But they never have the guts to bite first.
Conducting VC investment as a scientific/engineering discipline means thinking about systematically constructing 10x, 100x, 1000x wealth from the capital given, in a systematic way, and while minimizing risk. So your thoughts about rewarding everyone that is included in making a startup a success is a very good idea.
Co-cops sound leftist, but actually mean sharing risk and reward, so economically that makes sense. I had a related idea: imagine 10 entrepreneurs that trust each other, all involved in independent startups that do not compete with each other. They take a 5% stake in each other's business. Suddenly your assets as a founder include 10 stakes in 10 companies, which means you have an interest in the fact that not just you, but also your 9 trusted friends make it, and you will happily make your network available to them accordingly. Given that 9/10 startups fail (a cruel but true descriptive statistic), you will not even necessarily lose if your own startup does not make it. If most would not give 5% of their own startup for another particular startup's 5% stake, this may also be a pretty good litmus test that the idea may be flawed.
Pooling risk is what insurances do as their business model. Startup entrepreneurs have not yet embraced this idea to self-organize in this way.
If a rational founder thinks they can gain more by working on their friends startup, it might be better for the collective to have more people working on the more promising project.