The evidence of the bolibourgeois (the new rich of the bolivarian revolution headed by Hugo Chávez) reveals an uncoordinated dual institutional structure generating mixed-incentives. This type of institutional structure is prevalent in oil countries and states suck in the middle-income trap. In these countries, where industrial policy is a political necessity, an uncoordinated state is usually the norm. In these states, the strategies of the business elites follow the incentives generated by this theorized institutional structure. The strategies of the business elites match the state’s – at first glance, schizophrenic, – mixed-incentives strategy. A first group of agents sells technological goods to the state through direct contracts signed in hard currency (major infrastructure deals, equipment for the energy sector, joint ventures, etc.). A second group sells a basket of regulated products and unregulated products: covering the loss of the former with the revenues of the latter. These business elites’ strategy consisted in surviving and expanding their markets shares as the tight controls swept the less performant – usually smaller – companies in their sectors. Finally, in between these two ways of using the state, a third group of economic corsairs, had a niche strategy, building their companies on the “cracks” of the Venezuelan economy. In our set, the agents from the correct social milieu filled the niches in the private sector. Those with less prestigious upbringing sold to the state. The latter fit the social description of a bolibourgeois. Finally, we show that, these institutional incentives, do not affect the economic structure homogeneously.