Comment by Xixi
2 days ago
Steward-ownership is a philosophy more than an actual structure, my understanding is that each such company is in practice structured somewhat differently.
This article explains roughly how Patagonia is structured: https://medium.com/@purpose_network/the-patagonia-structure-...
For Patagonia a trust owns 100% of the voting rights, while a charity collects 100% of the dividends. I don't doubt that there are ways the structure could be subverted, but it's a far cry from "money without oversight".
Do you have examples of Steward-owned companies that ended up with "well, we might as well spend the extra profits on executive benefits"-issues?
(I personally think Steam should go in that direction, otherwise I'm afraid enshittification is unavoidable once Gabe Newell is no longer at the helm)
Huh, fascinating. The Patagonia structure is actually strikingly similar to the Bosch model - non-profit owning the shares, but no voting rights, trust having voting rights but no shares - just taking it to the logical 100% conclusion without the residual influence of the Bosch family (having retained a few percent in both).
The model has worked well for many decades for a 100 billion$ revenue company like Bosch, good to see others taking a cue from them.
(Also goes to show that even constructs like these are not safe from corporate fuckups - see the emissions scandal...)