Startups Need a New Option: Exit to Community | HackerNoon

Through the Exit to Community project, Schneider is exploring ways to help startups transition from investor-owned to community ownership, which could include users, customers, workers or some combination of all stakeholders.

In early 2019, for example, the founder of the Shanghai electric-car company NIO transferred 50 million shares into a “user trust.” While the founder retains voting rights over the shares, the trust enables its members to help decide how to use a portion of the company’s eventual profits. This was not an act of charity; in the disclosure documents,... See more

There’s also a category in the Silicon Valley lexicon called “zombies” — the companies that don’t quite become unicorns but aren’t failures either. They’re a dead weight on the investors’ balance sheets because, for one reason or another, nobody wants to buy them. Even if a company like that is making a profit and pleasing users, it can be worthles... See more