It’s not groundbreaking news that technologies developed over the past quarter-century have dramatically reshaped how businesses operate and how they interact with customers. These technologies — ranging from the internet and smartphone apps to cloud computing and blockchain — have enabled new business models, such as peer-to-peer lending (Lending Club and Prosper) and sharing-economy platforms (Airbnb and Lyft).
As these models have evolved, high profile investors have lamented the growing inadequacies of the investment vehicles that have underpinned the economy since the industrial revolution. While these vehicles have undoubtedly helped drive centuries of growth and innovation, they tend to serve the interests of a privileged few — wealthy shareholders over stakeholders.
Companies wanted to reward or incentivize their stakeholders by offering a stake in their future success. But there currently exists no vehicle for them to do so. Pre-IPO companies frequently sell shares to their employees as a retention perk, but securities regulations prevent them from offering shares to many outside stakeholders. By the time a company launches its initial public stock offerings (IPO), it’s too late for these early stakeholders — who frequently believed in the company enough to alter their careers and make investments (cars, apartments) — to cash in on the substantial value that they helped create in the high growth stages of development.
Moreover, even IPOs are increasingly out of the reach of stakeholders. Companies are waiting longer to go public, and many more are choosing to remain private, largely due to the growing administrative and regulatory burden. There are about half as many public companies today (3,671) as in 1996 (7,322). If a company doesn’t go public, sell itself, or distribute dividends, its financial value remains perpetually in the hands of a few. Stakeholders never get their fair share.
