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What if every business owner played a different game? Mark Hand has spent his career asking that question, first in community development in Latin America, then as an impact investor, and now as a scholar mapping the ownership economy.
His weekly newsletter, The Stakehold, tracks everything from ESOPs to worker co-ops to purpose trusts, revealing an ecosystem most people don't realise exists.
In this conversation, Mark breaks down the three dimensions of alternative ownership (purpose, profit distribution, and power), explains why 'fat wallets and broken hearts' is the real cost of traditional exits, and challenges us to help business owners surface what actually matters to them beyond maximising financial returns.
Key Takeaways:
💡 Three dimensions of ownership transformation — companies are experimenting with purpose (why we exist), profit distribution (who benefits), and power (who decides), and these dimensions can be approached independently or together
✅ Structure makes purpose real — benefit corporations, purpose trusts, and employee ownership lock in commitments that signal to stakeholders this isn't lip service, it's irrevocable
🌟 As many employee owners as union members — in the US, employee ownership already touches as many workers as labour unions, but most employee owners don't see themselves as part of a movement
🎧 Owners are playing multiple games — business owners aren't just profit-maximisers, they're parents, community members, congregation members with different identities that get triggered by how you approach the conversation
📈 Fat wallets and broken hearts — many owners who sell to private equity leave wealthy but regretful, watching their companies dismantled and their employees laid off
💼 Democracy works in complex systems — if countries can operate democratically without dictators, companies (which are simpler than nations) can too
Notable Quotes:
"I saw friends of his sell to private equity companies and they left with fat wallets and broken hearts. Humans have wallets and we also have hearts."
"Our commitment to shareholder value maximisation has actually blinded us to the ways that humans interact with each other and what is possible."
"If you can figure out how to run a country democratically, why wouldn't we be able to do that in a company, which is actually a much simpler structure?"
Links & Resources:
🔗 Guest: Mark Hand — https://www.linkedin.com/in/markchand
🔗 The Stakehold (weekly newsletter): https://www.thestakehold.com
🔗 PTON (Purpose Trust Ownership Network): https://trustownership.org/
🔗 Mark's website: https://markclaytonhand.com/
📖 Recommended: Rutgers CLEO website (compilation of academic learning on employee ownership)
🔗 Host: Andy Farquharson — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
🔗 a better monday: https://abettermonday.me
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