ORI
How We Work

Creative and Generous Ownership Structures

Description

Perhaps the most powerful element of entrepreneurship is the ability to put together a pitch deck and incorporation papers—and immediately own 100% of something new. The rewards to a successful founding team can be orders of magnitude greater than those offered to the next few people on the payroll. While this norm is often justified as being commensurate with risk, more founders should see their equity as a generative opportunity to bless others who have labored with or will join the founding team, as well as those inside and outside the venture whose communities have been historically excluded from such opportunity.

We're interested in ventures that—often from their founding—have a different vision for their cap tables. Such a generous rethinking of ownership could deescalate some of the larger tensions in our society today, from class inequality to entrenched racial conflict.

We see particular opportunities to use new models and old alike, from co-ops and ESOPs to DAFs, DAOs and NFTs; and believe there is opportunity for “traditioned innovation,” reclaiming patterns and structures from the past and taking advantage of new technology’s ability to simplify them and increase their scale. For example, worker- or consumer-driven co-ops (earlier examples of which include the industrial collectives of Mondragon, Spain, and grocery and health care co-operatives) have the potential to check and balance power, ownership, and outcomes.

Share

Praxis Ventures

Ventures within the Praxis community working on this ORI.

all ventures
Wise Rock

is majority-owned by a donor-advised fund (DAF) structure that allows for external investors while creating a highly aligned, long-term philanthropic and missional intent (Brock Meyer, Business 2021).

Learn More

Whiteboard

employs a generous profit-sharing model to allow team members to participate in the company’s success (Taylor Jones & Eric Brown, Business 2020).

Learn More

Partner with Praxis to strengthen our ORIs

Inform and refine our thinking, alert us of ventures working on this ORI, submit your own venture ideas, or send us resources to review.

more ori Content

Stories from the Praxis community.

all content
No items found.

Subscribe for Updates

We will send you announcements, stories, and updates to the ORI list.