 Good morning everybody. Thanks for inviting me Indeed I'd love to speak with you today about the question How we can change the actual the operating system of businesses and the economy Because somehow, you know, you you probably also sometimes have this feeling, you know We hear we hear about climate crisis. We hear about global Corporations that are so powerful that even states can't really regulate them. They evade their taxes They go to Cayman Islands with some of the feelings, you know, we need more rules We need to somehow get these Psychopathic companies into cages and make sure they you know, they don't behave bad And I would like to ask the question is that actually this this approach that we've taken as a global regulatory society Is that actually the right approach? Can we tame animals that are actually like in their DNA? Built to do something that we don't want. Is it actually possible and to to build more and more regulatory cages around these companies or do we actually maybe Have to ask a question whether it's possible to change the DNA of the company itself to change the operating System of the company the core of the company and what is the core of the company? What's the core of capitalism itself? It's ownership. It's private ownership and so that's what I would love to talk with you about and To start with that I have to make a confession. I Am a capitalist myself. I'm an owner. I Started my first business when I was 16 when all my friends had girlfriends. I fell in love with my company and You know, it's it's so it's I Think there are many owners amongst you. So you know that it's so great, you know to to be owner of a company you you you can identify a hundred cent with it and this this private ownership Really empowers you we heard the power thing it empowers you you have an idea at night You can realize it the next day you can shape the environment you live in, you know You're not dependent on the state or whatever So it's it's it's like actually, you know, you feel really responsible for it You identify with it like having a child, you know, you if the if your company or your Child is ill or you know needs something you have to be there There's nobody else, you know, you are responsible and that's the great thing about private ownership Why aris total and many others are so much in favor of private ownership There's not Everybody responsible for it. Not not nobody, but you there's a clear definition Who is responsible and that's what I love so much to be honest of private ownership and I don't want to abolish it And it's kind of very strong identification. However, it also became clear to me and I think it's it's very very clear today There's a problem and we we definitely have a problem at the moment and the question is, you know What how can we how can we change it without? Without throwing away also the benefits of ownership and for me It really became apparent what the problem with ownership is when I Visited the hospital of my father. My father managed a hospital for for many years And it was always, you know, I came there as a young As a young child very often And I really enjoyed it there very warm atmosphere very nice, you know, very kind employees The patients were very very nice organic food. It's very good until one day and I Wondered what happened and the thing was the the hospital was sold once twice eventually three times to a big public stock market company and Each investor had to pay a higher price for the hospital like paying a higher price for the houses that you buy And so each time a higher price and what happened They each time they increase the pressure on my father and the hospital to increase to increase the profits in Order to pay back the high price they paid So they forced my father to outsource the kitchen to a low quality provider They forced him to fire half of the doctors and to cut and they cut the time allowed to spend with patients so Suddenly you had unhappy employees unhappy patients and this hospital was part of a big a big global gigantic corporation that manages 70,000 hospital beds over all over the globe and and Decisions were now taken 2000 kilometers away in Paris in a headquarter by people who have literally never been to the hospital They don't know what is needed there, you know, they they don't know what it means when they order from 2000 kilometers away to cut for example and to know when they order doctors to spend no more than five minutes for a first conversation with patients You know these guys in Paris they They just know one thing they have to produce better numbers Otherwise, they are fired and what and I I try to find out who these guys are and I try to meet them because it really drove Me crazy when I was young what happened there with the hospital and what drove me even more crazy I met them and you know what they're good people. They have They have organic food in their fridge, you know, it's not They're not that they don't try to ruin the world They are driven by others by anonymous shareholders by anonymous stock markets or to be more precise by algorithms and high frequency trading computers that we have That we have in the meantime Invented that do 99% of the stock market trading today and that sell and that sell Ownership in nanoseconds and so these people Cannot feel responsible for the company like a parent They control the company But they're not connected to it, you know, these people are they are not real owners I would say I would I would actually claim the kind of stock market economy that we have today abolishes The real ownership. It's not owning and it you cannot you know, I cannot say they are owning it They're just controlling it. So actually what we've done there is is Abolishing ownership itself and all the benefits and now the interesting thing is if you go and you know I wasn't satisfied with these guys who said well, you know, I'm sorry. We have to do that Otherwise we're fire and I cannot pay Pay for the rent I Said okay, but who's who is who's doing that to you? Well, you know markets funds, etc. And who is in the who's investor in the funds and then you can ask and ask And and in the end you maybe you come to a fund manager who says well I have to invest only this way otherwise I'm fired and then you and then you ask yourself who who are all the investors and the interesting thing is Here that's the graphic that I found where investment capital on the stock market lives It's 87 percent of all the money on the stock markets is and that's a scandal It's really a scandal. That's you and me That's all of us. That's pension funds and insurance companies. It's not the rich. It's not the super rich Yes, they also have 4% on the stock markets, but it is us Western half rich You know, we're also compared on the global level We are also all Belonging to the richest 10% of the world and we are the ones that own the companies We have created a system that takes our money and uses is it against us That's the scandal and you know when when When I when I realized this this this really the scales from a fail fell from my eyes and realized you can Ownership somehow has has a double face, you know ownership The legal invention this cultural technology that we as humanity invented 2000 years ago ownership ownership can create really strong responsibility, but at the same time It can destroy responsibility It can create something which I would call absentee ownership or maybe you it's not even worth to call it ownership Maybe it's just absentee control That's it's the same technology that that someone creates this responsible and destroys it And so for me really the question was For my company, but also in general, how can we? Heal the idea of ownership of of of responsibility of empowerment and The good news is there are a lot of very interesting Companies out there that have found ways to heal ownership and one of the guys who found a way is actually this guy It's Ernst Abbe he was the co-owner of Zeiss Zeiss is a big German company 70,000 employees and He lived 130 years ago They invented the microscope and today, you know no Smartphone or tablet could be produced without Zeiss laser and optic technologies. So it's yeah their world market leader in their field and This guy he was a professor and he invented a microscope and he was actually also co-owner He had all reasons to say well, this is my company, you know, and it's my success Without my invention the company wouldn't be that successful. But he said actually, you know, is this actually my success? It somehow feels wrong, you know, yes, I invented the microscope But there were generations of other researchers and scientists before me who have built a lot of Research on which I could build up and then do this this invention that was a breakthrough breakthrough for Zeiss and also all the employees in this society did That actually built this company and I the law gives me the absolute right to own everything to take everything But is that actually right? No, he said that doesn't feel right Somehow I need other ownership structure I need to make sure that the company is is Somehow self-owned or owned by the ones that actually active then so what he Back then chose as a and it was an innovative thing He didn't know how to how to decomodify his company he didn't know how to to Make the company or structured in a way that it wouldn't get absentee owners but real Identifying stewards who felt stewardship for the company. He didn't know that there were no legal forms for this But the good thing was because he was an inventor. He also invented something there He used the legal form of a foundation and to native the entire company to this foundation that was the first foundation on company in Germany and was enormously successful survived several political system the systems and if you ask the employees there and I visited them a lot They're saying well, you know, it's our company. We know We're working here not for the private pocket of somebody else But actually for the purpose of the company and we know the assets of the company are locked they cannot be taken out the company is decomodified and and We know the control of the company the steering wheel is always with people who identify with the company with with Stewards now I did a little research on whether there are other companies around in the world that are similarly structured And I found quite a lot and one is probably known here in the UK. It's John Lewis You also have Mozilla Firefox and you have many others their big automotive suppliers like Bosch and Mahler They're structured like this and all in a very different way You obviously, you know John Lewis more under the term employee ownership and that's true and at the same time It's different than usual employee ownership because all of these companies are In their DNA in their structure They are making sure that two principles are really met and I walk you through these principles One is self-governance So they're making sure the majority of the steering wheel or the majority of the voting rights Sorry, the steering wheel of the company is in hands of people who are connected to the company who are active in there maybe This doesn't mean like you know in the case of John Lewis. That means all 70,000 people or employees and our partners In other cases, it's not all the employees But it's very clear you can only be connected to the steering wheel of the company to the governance If you are connected to the company you cannot sell it like like a pair of shoes as you can with stock market companies So that's the one principle that they all Adhere to and the second principle is what I would call the purpose principle or more technically an asset lock They're all locking the assets and saying Yes, there will be some profits distributed maybe you know to investors or employees But the wealth of the company itself the assets cannot be privatized. They're locked They are there for the purpose of the company. Why because Well, the company itself Exists only for a purpose to create certain value for the society It's not an instrument anymore for Accent the owners who use it as an instrument to generate more wealth No, the company itself is as a group of people working together for a purpose And obviously that means that we that the owners are not wealth owners But steward owners stewards who are studying the company and so also in the case of John Lewis You know that if you are not working there anymore You have to give back Your your voting rights because only those that are active the stewards actually holding it in the asset lock make sure The stewards cannot just you know one day decide well, actually, let's just sell the company like You know that happens a lot with employee-owned companies in in the US That in the US, you know every year a lot of employee companies are Generated but the number of total employee-owned companies in the US is not growing Why because every year the same number of employee-owned companies are sold again because one generation of employees says well We don't feel as stewards anymore. We're not stewards. We're wealth owner Let's just sell this stuff and we become all millionaires great, you know So that's that that's what happens when you just when you just try to realize the first principle self-governance just give it to everybody without the second principle deco modification of the company if you don't use If you don't deco modify if you don't put an asset lock in place You're just replacing the I would say, you know an absentee owner driven capitalism with a capitalism That's driven by a herd of employees who see the company as an instrument to generate more profit for themselves So that's why these two principles are so important and that's what I would propose and what we propose to Name steward ownership because you are steward or Colin Meyer from Oxford He says it's it's trustee ownership because you're a trustee. Maybe that's in the UK a better word for that now Is it actually? Well, what is trustee ownership? It's I would say it's breaking with With two old counter technologies that we have that usually Decide who governs the company like the typical cultural technology This that decides who who gets the company is of course money, you know If you have seven billion on your account at the moment, it's very cheap to buy the Deutsche Bank They're they're quite cheap on the stock markets You can buy the majority and you can do whatever you want with it You can create a green bank out of it because the control is it's Biable by the high spirit very easy cultural technology how to allocate Ownership and how to allocate power. So it's a power and allocation mechanism that we have in in capitalism Money equals power very simple and the other mechanism is also known to all of us Of course, it's inheritance, you know, if you are happy enough to be born as a son or daughter of An entrepreneur. Well, you can just then blood is the other one or as Warren Buffett puts it The lottery of sperms decides who is actually Getting the power now steward ownership is breaking with both of these principles and both principles might have a certain Justification and there are definitely companies then that can work or that can that are successful also with the other Principles so the principle of blood is of course the family-owned companies family-owned companies are Have used the allocation mechanism of genetic Genetic relation or blood to ensure That always the next owner is selected and the other ones are of course the companies that are bought and sold and with steward ownership We replace this cultural technology actually With ability value alignment as well and with involvement in the company So it's just a new principle that replaces blood and money and I have to tell you I studied in New York and I studied these kinds of companies and my professors Said well, I mean, you know, it's very nice that you are studying this romantic European ideas But this cannot work, you know, this this cannot work. Why very easy very easy because what are you doing? You are decapling what always needs to be together in capitalism. You're decapling money and power You are saying there are people who are steering a company who are not at the same time Holding the wealth of the company. Why should somebody wake up get up in the morning and Work for a company if he or she is not doing that for his own wealth All these like Bosch for example, which is structured like this these guys from Bosch will you know You'll see they die very fast and You'll see that the funny thing is the reality proves them wrong because as you know the average The average lifespan of an S&P 500 company is 17 years and Bosch is 130 years and in 130 years history they had how many CEOs seven and If you look at and the good thing is in Denmark we have more than thousand companies that are steward-owned because they have a better law and We have very nice studies on them For example this one that shows, you know, this the red line is a normal owned company The blue line is foundation owned or steward-owned companies here You see the firm edge in the survival probability and you see after 40 years The steward-owned companies have a six times higher survival probability. Why? Because the steering wheel is in hands of people who are not interested in the shantung profits They cannot extract the wealth for themselves. They're steward-owners, you know They're interested in the mission of the company itself. Otherwise, they would go away. That's a good selection mechanisms You know only if you're intrinsically motivated you will stay because that's the only motor that still drives you so that's and there are many other nice studies which I cannot cite today because it's it's too much employees stay longer and Also managers stay longer there and they get more money and whatever and very important Divorce rates is lower if you work in this company So if you if you want a long-term marriage, you know work in a student on companies, that would be my advice Now I see my time is almost up. So unfortunately, I cannot go into details how you can do that today and Also without setting up very complicated foundations because we I Wanted to do this of course myself and the the problematic thing is all our legal forms like, you know the limited company They were invented 130 years 150 years ago In is in an environment where people started companies in order to get rich very simple And if you now want a steward-owned company and you use this legal form it somehow Makes you wealth owner if you want it or not and by the way also with a co-op You can the co-op doesn't have an asset lock But you can change the co-op the limited company and others with a very simple hack and maybe you allow me to quickly At least give you a glimpse into the hack and the rest I will tell in the workshop I'll give later and what I did with my company is I said okay, you know I created a share class which I call the steward chairs. They have 99% of the voting rights They control control the entire company, but they do not have dividend rights They do not have the right to extract assets from the company and I said to my employees on my colleagues Well, you know, this is how we promise that the company is actually steward-owned and now in order to make sure that We as stewards owners cannot just wake up one morning and say well actually you know the company is so much Worth we want to sell it We are we want to Commodify the company again. We said okay We need a hack We need somehow a way to promise to the entire world that this company will be a steward-owned company And we cannot just you know one day change the charter again and make it a normal company And that's why we said okay We need we just write these Principles of steward ownership into the charter and we say these principles can only be changed with a hundred percent majority and 1% we give into a foundation We started a foundation for that purpose foundation that has not that has just one goal to veto any attempt To decouple to commodify the company again so in the charter of the foundation that's the that's the goal and now this foundation has dozens of veto rights all Of the world also in the UK by the way, we have companies that are using this model in the US and Netherlands and Germany and Finland and So on and all these companies who sent representatives to the board of the foundation So in the end what this is is nothing then we call it a layer in our own jurisdiction It's our semi-state Because the state doesn't offer a legal form of steward ownership yet We create our own one and we are all citizens of the purpose foundation state and if really something changes Like blockchain will rule the world and we don't need a little legal forms anymore We can govern in the in the government in the governance of the foundation the entrepreneurs And in consensus can change it by the way investors can also invest in these companies how that is done You can see in the workshop or These are example companies. We cannot go through this so purpose What I wanted to say is here you can download a book of hundred twenty hundred twenty pages for free Around steward ownership how to do it with your own company how to take investment in what kind of tools of investment are still possible How do you convince a VC to invest in such a company and that? What other examples of companies are there? What kind of other models besides what we call the golden share model what kind of other models trust model? Or purpose trust model foundation models and other models are out there. That's all in the book You can download it for free. I have three printed copies with me first come first serve and And otherwise, maybe I can just tell you that it is What really makes me positive is that there are so many entrepreneurs out there That are saying we start a company not in order to get rich primarily, but to change the world With purpose we started to help these companies. We built an infrastructure for student companies We we do a lot of like non-profit work to like write these books We have this golden share service or video share service We do a lot of consulting and we have raised to investment funds that manage in total 50 million Euro and Which is only and primarily invested in steward owned businesses Startups and also larger companies that are saying we want to become steward owned But one of our investors blocking it. Can you buy him out or can we somehow manage something there? That's what we can do with our funds, but also in the startup sector. We are helping a lot of very interesting startups and And when we're and Yeah, and that the events that we're running now are that's just why I'm so positive about it now You know, we started in event in in Germany and Berlin we said why our self-owned companies needed to unpack the economy and We thought maybe 90 people were registered and we had 1,200 people registering and we just did it again and again and now the next one is end of November and after five days It was we had already 1,500 people registered for the event so we see there is a there's a big need or a big movement for that and and it's so inspiring to see when these entrepreneurs who could earn Millions by just selling their companies And I deciding no I'm not doing this like you know an entrepreneur with big search engine in Germany 10 million users that search engine that plant plant trees Ecosia he could sell it for hundred million He said no I make it suit on with the golden chair model and the moment he did it You know, you can look into the eyes of all the stakeholders of the employees What that makes if a person who could every single second? put a signature Below a treaty and then they would he would have hundred million on a bank account If such a person says I'll not I'll do I put one signature Below a treaty that will forever prevent me to do that again This company is cell phones not my private asset anymore that has such a magical force because suddenly we all know We're actually working for a purpose It's not just the Apple recruiting video saying come here change the world and we know we're actually working for shareholders No here We're actually working for a purpose and in a world in which 80 percent every year again and again in the Gallup Poles are saying 80 percent of people we we either we we work only nine to nine to Five without emotional attachment or we have internally quit already 80 percent You know so many people that get ill I would say because we live in an economy because they spend most time of their lives In an economy without emotional attachment without purpose That's I think a clear signal where we see okay if we change that if we can change if we can really bring Purpose into the lives of all these people then We can actually change society have a healthier society and also an economy that runs on a different operating system Thank you very much