The Ownership Economy

This week, Jahed Momand has an insightful conversation with Atticus LeBlanc, founder and CEO of PadSplit , a public benefit corporation that’s flipping the script on affordable housing. Atticus shares his personal journey from renting a room in Atlanta and navigating early entrepreneurial challenges to his "aha moment"—realizing the profound need for respectable, affordable housing for t...

This week we sit down with Allison Lingane, founder of Ownership Capital Lab , a nonprofit singularly focused on growing investment capital for employee ownership. Allison, with nearly 15 years in the employee ownership space, including co-founding Project Equity, shares her journey from creating scalable paths to opportunity through education to realizing the critical need for a robust capital ma...

This week, Rene Reinsberg, co-founder and CEO of Celo and Self joins us. Rene's early journey was shaped by his small business owner parents, helping him establish an early entrepreneurial drive consistently focused on empowering individuals and "the small guy" . This led to founding an early machine learning/AI company sold to GoDaddy that helped small businesses compete online. Ren...

This week, we welcome back Jason Wiener, founder of Jason Wiener PC, for an insightful episode on alternative ownership structures. Jason’s boutique law firm specializes in alternative ownership design , including co-ops, various forms of employee ownership, and non-extractive financing. He guides shared ownership-minded founders through the entire lifecycle: Starting: Jason champions "full s...

In this episode of The Ownership Economy podcast, a discussion is held with Dr. Bill Castellano, Director of the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing . Dr. Castellano's extensive background, including over two decades on Wall Street in strategic HR management and his academic role, is explored, noting his early exposure to employee ownership through an ESOP...

This week, we chat with Rowland Hobbes, Founder and CEO of Stake . Rowland , who will be speaking on the housing track at the upcoming Ownership Economy Summit 2025, offers insights into how to use modern fintech to accelerate renter wealth building and give more people upside in ownership through renting. In this episode, we cover: The pivotal moment Stake's strategy was shifted from offering...

This week, we're joined by Gigi Danziger (Eutopia Holdings) and Albert Wenger (Union Square Ventures) to discuss their mission to create a world where everyone can thrive by reversing the trend of extractive capital through innovative steward ownership models . Our conversation delves into their application of steward ownership to diverse initiatives in the Hudson Valley, including a basic inc...

This week, we welcome Ben Fielding, Founder and CEO at Gensyn . Gensyn is a proud sponsor of this year's summit . Ben recounts his journey from deep learning research to addressing the critical issue of compute resource monopolization in AI, leading Gensyn's pioneering decentralized approach . Ben explains how they're solving the fundamental problem of trust in distributed compute netw...

In Episode 081 of The Ownership Economy Podcast, we welcome John Abrams , pioneering founder of South Mountain Company , a 40-person architecture and building worker co-op. John shares his journey from inadvertently starting his business in 1973 to converting it into a worker co-op in 1987, where every member-owner has one share and one vote after a unique 5-year tenure. He discusses how this mode...

Is Crypto Finally Becoming... "Boring"? A Deep Dive into Mainstream Adoption with Coin Fund's David Join us for a captivating conversation with David, Managing Partner and Head of Investments at Coin Fund , as he shares his unique journey from Venrock and consumer internet startups to the forefront of the crypto space. With nearly a decade in the industry, David believes we're on...

Building a purpose-driven business isn't for the faint of heart. In this episode, Christian Kroll, founder of Ecosia, provides a candid account of the challenges he faced in transforming his company into a steward-owned entity. We'll hear about the unexpected legal hurdles he encountered in Germany, the complexities of finding a structure that balanced impact with operational flexibility, and the...

What if there was a better way to do business — one that prioritizes people and planet while delivering profits? Join us as we talk to Julie Menter, Program Director at Transform Finance, about alternative ownership enterprises (AOEs). Julie breaks down complex concepts like ESOPs, worker cooperatives, and golden shares with real-world examples like New Belgium Brewing and Tony’s Chocolonely. We’l...

In 2008, Juho Makkonen and his co-founder built what was essentially Facebook Marketplace before Facebook Marketplace. Their student-focused platform at Aalto University in Helsinki quickly morphed into ShareTribe, a company that empowers entrepreneurs to create their own online marketplaces. ShareTribe offers a powerful yet user-friendly software solution that allows entrepreneurs to launch marke...

Nathan Schneider returns to the Ownership Economy Podcast to discuss strategies for building a more equitable economy through shared ownership. He argues that we need to create new "destinations" for cooperative businesses to thrive. While there's a lot of energy focused on supporting co-ops in their early stages, he believes we need to think more strategically about how to enable these businesses...

Can you build wealth without owning a home? Dr. Michael Barnes, founder of Viva Benefits, believes you can. In this episode, we trace Michael's journey from teaching in under-resourced communities to starting a tech company that's tackling the housing crisis head-on. Discover how Viva Benefits is providing renters with access to financial tools, benefits, and even cash back on rent , all while imp...

In this episode, we sit down with Adam Silver, CEO and co-founder of Plural, a company that's revolutionizing the way we invest in renewable energy. Adam explains how Plural is using blockchain technology to make these investments more accessible and efficient, allowing anyone to own a piece of the clean energy future. We explore the benefits and challenges of this innovative approach, and Adam gi...

In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we're joined by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who dives into crypto regulation in the EU vs. the US, how she is thinking about regulation for entrepreneurs building in crypto, and what 2024 might bring. Note: This episode was recorded in January 2024.

How do the worlds of cryptography, privacy, and AI relate? What is the promise of NFTs for building a user- and creator-owned economy? We dive into these topics and more with Ownership Economy Summit speaker David Pakman. David started his career in tech at Apple, and has been in venture capital for 20+ years at prominent funds Venrock and Coinfund, and was among the first VCs to realize what was...

In this episode, we are joined by Maryam Mazraei (“Maz”) and Eiman Soliman of Crowdmuse, a web3 protocol that brings together creators, fashion designers, suppliers, brands, and consumers, while redefining the incentives within the fashion industry to address its externalities. What sets Crowdmuse apart is its unique approach—it doesn't merely position itself as the "ethical choice";...

Over the last 120 hours, a governance crisis the likes of which we may never see repeated happened at world-leading artificial intelligence company OpenAI, culminating in the firing (and rehiring!) of Sam Altman, with a tectonic shift in their governance in the space of a few days. In this episode we explore what led to this situation, how it could have been simulated ahead of time, and what you s...

In episode 069, Jahed sits down with Dr. Astrid Scholz, ecological economist and social entrepreneur, to discuss how her career arc has cut across governance and ownership, and the resulting innovations she and her teams have delivered. Along the way, we cover ecological economics and how it values ecosystems and people in addition to profits, why the current org structures were not a fit for her...

In this episode, Martin and Jahed chat with Sarah Drinkwater, Founder and General Partner at Common Magic. Common Magic invests in European and US start-ups at the pre-seed and seed stage. In the conversation, Sarah walks us through her experience working with early stage founders who are using community engagement and incentive design as a core pillar of their growth. She makes a strong case for...

In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Martin and Jahed sit down with Dr. Ellen Frank-Miller, the Founder and CEO of WORC. A social scientist by training, Dr. Frank-Miller details her research on how investing in people as assets is proven to build more profitable, competitive companies. This episode will be of particular interest to private equity investors, managers, and anyone who is trying...

In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Martin and Jahed connect with Anthony Cimino Head of Policy at Carta. The conversation discusses challenges and opportunities in the US policy arena to advance broad-based ownership. Anthony walks us through the history of current rules on the books at the SEC and IRS, why they need updating for the world today, and how his past as an operator in Washingto...

In episode 065, Martin and Jahed chat with Drs. Jenn and Ilia Murtazashvili, from the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets, and dive into the details of their new book, Towards a Political Economy of the Commons: Simple Rules for Sustainability. In the conversation, they cover the basics of what a commons is, what polycentrism is, and how property regimes and governmental i...