The Ownership Economy

When Bandcamp was sold to Epic Games and then, less than a year later, to the licensing company Songtradr, the independent music world learned what it actually owned: nothing. Bandcamp was the good actor, with artist-friendly terms, Bandcamp Fridays through COVID, sixteen years of community trust, and it still changed hands twice over its users' heads.Austin Robey's answer is Subvert, a multi-stakeholder cooperative that now has roughly 30,000 co-owners across four membership classes and a nine-seat elected board: three artists, two labels, two workers, two supporters. One member, one vote, whether you are Taylor Swift or you released your first record last year. Berlin, where we caught him, has around 1,050 members — by his math, one in every 3,000 people in the city.This is his second attempt. Ampled, the artist-owned Patreon-for-music he co-founded, was culturally successful but financially difficult, and it wound down in 2023. He did a formal post-mortem, turned it into a thesis about which incumbents are vulnerable to collectively owned challengers, and when Bandcamp sold he decided the window was open.We get into the economics, which are the surprising part. Subvert charges artists a 0% platform fee against an industry norm of 10–15%, and replaces it with an optional contribution at checkout — a tip window, like GoFundMe or ActBlue. Across the first 4,000 transactions the average contribution has been 27.7%. We also cover the dual-entity structure that lets the co-op raise real capital while keeping governance intact, why investors get no board seats and no governance rights, what he learned about directing lawyers rather than asking them, and why he thinks the win-win mantras of tech culture are wrong — that power is zero-sum, and for users to have more, founders and investors must have less.Austin speaks on "Ownership and Investment Innovation as a Solve for Market Failure" at the 4th Ownership Economy Summit, October 1 in New York: summit2026.ownershipeconomy.comAustin speaks on "Ownership and Investment Innovation as a Solve for Market Failure" at the Ownership Economy Summit, October 1, 140 Broadway NYC.Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/4th-annual-ownership-economy-summit-registration-1991957749250 — code PODCAST30 for 30% offAgenda: https://summit2026.ownershipeconomy.com/2026agendaEverything mentioned in this episode:Subvert — join the co-op, or just browse — https://www.subvert.fmWho runs Subvert, and how it's structured — https://www.subvert.fm/blog/who-we-areSubvert's Wikipedia entry, for the short version — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvert_(music_marketplace)Music Ally's launch piece, "a collectively owned Bandcamp successor" — https://musically.com/2024/08/09/subvert-wants-to-be-a-collectively-owned-bandcamp-successor/The FADER's interview on building the alternative — https://www.thefader.com/2025/10/14/subvert-fm-bandcamp-interviewBillboard on Ampled's closure, the co-op he ran first — https://ca.billboard.com/ampled-music-platformAustin's own thread on what he was proud of when Ampled wound down — https://x.com/austinrobey_/status/1716801345619923394"Lessons from Failed Platform Co-ops" — the post-mortem he describes giving at The New School — https://platform.coop/blog/lessons-from-failed-platform-co-ops/Austin's site — https://austinrobey.xyzOurs to Hack and to Own, the essay collection that started him off, edited by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider — https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/ours-to-hack-and-to-own/Mondragón, the Basque cooperative federation — https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/Resonate, the earlier music co-op — https://resonate.coopKevin Kelly's "1,000 True Fans," the idea behind selling the business plan as a $100 zine — https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/Bandcamp United, the union that formed before the sale — https://bandcampunited.orgFind Austin: https://www.subvert.fm · https://austinrobey.xyz · Bluesky

Bill Castellano has spent forty-five years in human resources — much of it on Wall Street, at Merrill Lynch and Manufacturers Hanover — and the last stretch of it at Rutgers, where he is a professor of strategic HR at the School of Management and Labor Relations. He returns a year after Episode 085, and the thing that changed in that year is that his two research streams collapsed into one.For two decades he studied the future of work and employee ownership separately. Now he argues they are the same problem. Everything a company must do to survive AI and robotics — redesign work, share information, push decisions down, upskill relentlessly, engage the people who remain — is the same list of practices that researchers have spent decades calling an ownership culture.We get into what the evidence actually supports and where the field over-claims; the new US Census study he co-authored that finds ESOP adoption raises workplace labour productivity by 5.6 to 6.7 percent; why the honest answer to "does more equity mean better outcomes" is no, not on its own; what a state employee-ownership centre does all day and why the real bottleneck is the adviser who steers an owner to a strategic sale; the two policy levers he says would actually move the needle; the forty-year decoupling of pay from productivity and where that value went; and the uncomfortable question underneath all of it — if AI shrinks headcount, what happens to a claim that only employees can hold.He also does something few forecasters will: he says plainly that he can no longer make a five-year forecast.Bill moderates State of the Field and presents Managing the Future of Work at the 4th Ownership Economy Summit, October 1 in New York: summit2026.ownershipeconomy.comShow NotesCome join the summit. Bill presents "Managing the Future of Work" (11:35, Room B) and moderates "State of the Field: What the Latest Research Tells Us About Employee Ownership" (3:40, Room B) at the 4th Annual Ownership Economy Summit, October 1 at 140 Broadway, NYC.🎟️ Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/4th-annual-ownership-economy-summit-registration-1991957749250 — code PODCAST30 for 30% offFull agenda: https://summit2026.ownershipeconomy.com/2026agendaThe Census productivity study — "Employee Share Ownership, Management Practices, and Labor Productivity: An Analysis Using Establishment-Level Micro-Data from the U.S. Census" (March 2026). Kurtulus, Hoyt, Ouimet, Blasi, Kruse, Freeman and Castellano — Bill is a co-author, which he was too modest to mention on tape. Headline finding: ESOP adoption increases workplace labour productivity by 5.6–6.7%, controlling for management practices, headcount, capital and materials inputs, union status and geography. Built on the Census Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS).Managing the Future of Work — his new book, published August 2026, and the title of his summit session: https://drwilliamgcastellano.comownership.rutgers.edu — the NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership and the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, both reachable from there. This is the link he gives on air.California Executive Order N-6-26, signed 21 May 2026 — the AI workforce order Jahed reads from. It directs GO-Biz and CalOSBA to "evaluate and, where appropriate, support opportunities to expand and enhance worker ownership models to support broad-based capital growth and build wealth from productivity gain among workers." It also covers severance standards and universal basic capital. Full signed text (PDF): https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/5.21.26-AI-Workforce-EO-FINAL-SIGNED.pdf

Delilah Rothenberg went into finance to fight inequality and came out the other side with a sharper claim: the way capital is structured produces it. She spent nearly two decades across sell-side equities (Bear Stearns, through the crisis) and private equity infrastructure in Africa and the US, and this showed her the pattern nobody named at conferences: returns leaving the communities that host the projects, SDG 10 on the wall and in the deck but never actually in the world, and pay ratios between mega-fund executives and portfolio-company workers that can pass a thousand to one, even in deals with employee ownership attached.So she co-founded the Predistribution Initiative, which works with pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds and asset managers on economic inequality as a macrofinancial risk. We unpack predistribution versus redistribution, why a pension fund that effectively owns the whole economy cannot diversify away from inequality, ESG 2.0 (turning the ESG lens on investors themselves), the limits of employee ownership and what context-specific solutions look like, communities taking equity in the infrastructure built next to them, the AI buildout, data centers, consumer demand, and the fiduciary-duty counterargument. She closes with what makes her optimistic: worker voice arriving in corporate governance, backed by some of the largest pension capital in the world.Delilah speaks at the 4th Ownership Economy Summit, October 1 in New York, get 30% with the code PODCAST30 right here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/4th-annual-ownership-economy-summit-registration-1991957749250Full agenda: https://summit2026.ownershipeconomy.com/2026agendaEverything mentioned in this episode:- The Predistribution Initiative — https://www.predistributioninitiative.org- PDI's research library, including the ESG 2.0 paper and the AI discussion paper series (the Predistribution AI Lab) — https://www.predistributioninitiative.org/research- Perspectives on Workforce Directors (PDI) — the worker-voice-on-boards work she cites, now carried by the Workforce Engagement Coalition backed by Railpen with Federated Hermes as a member — https://www.predistributioninitiative.org/research/perspectives-on-workforce-directors-opportunities-challenges/- Apis & Heritage Capital Partners — the employee-ownership fund manager pairing EO with living wages — https://apisandheritage.com- IFC Performance Standards — https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2012/ifc-performance-standards — and the Equator Principles — https://equator-principles.com- Columbus, Ohio's "Our Voice, Our Choice" participatory budget https://common.oneproject.org/en/columbus- Bill Easterly's trade-versus-aid argument, where her road began — The White Man's Burden- UN Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities — https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10Find Delilah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delilah-rothenberg · https://www.predistributioninitiative.org

This week, Jahed Momand has an insightful conversation with Atticus LeBlanc, founder and CEO of PadSplit, a public benefit corporation that’s flipping the script on affordable housing.Atticus shares his personal journey from renting a room in Atlanta and navigating early entrepreneurial challenges to his "aha moment"—realizing the profound need for respectable, affordable housing for those often overlooked by traditional landlords. Discover how PadSplit challenges long-held assumptions in the rental market, such as arbitrary monthly rent payments, high deposits, and reliance on credit scores that often don't include rental history.Learn about PadSplit's innovative approach: offering all-inclusive, furnished private rooms with flexible, weekly payments aligned with residents' paydays. This model not only makes housing significantly more affordable and accessible for individuals earning below $50,000, including service workers and those on Social Security income, but also proves more profitable for property owners by fractionalizing space and reducing vacancy costs.Atticus explains how PadSplit focuses on resident management, handling payments and fostering community, thereby providing crucial stability and peace of mind for its members—many of whom are transitioning from homelessness or unstable living situations. Tune in to explore how reimagining basic housing assumptions can create immense opportunities for both renters seeking a new start and landlords looking to make a greater impact while achieving better returns.See Cliff Johnson from PadSplit speak to their model's viability and growth at the Ownership Economy Summit this year in NYC on October 7th. Grab your ticket here: https://www.ownershipeconomy.com/registrationuse the discount code OE2025VIP! for 40% off

This week we sit down with Allison Lingane, founder of Ownership Capital Lab, a nonprofit singularly focused on growing investment capital for employee ownership. Allison, with nearly 15 years in the employee ownership space, including co-founding Project Equity, shares her journey from creating scalable paths to opportunity through education to realizing the critical need for a robust capital market for shared ownership.This episode dives into how employee ownership, often considered the "best kept secret," can move beyond its current silos and into the mainstream. Allison discusses the core thesis of Project Equity—making employee ownership normal and self-generating—and how this led her to establish Ownership Capital Lab to specifically address the challenge of attracting capital. With a goal to inject an additional billion dollars of capital into the space, Allison explains the current landscape where dedicated employee ownership funds, totaling around 27-30 with $500 million in assets under management, are still largely "emerging managers".Listeners will gain insight into:The innovative approach of newer funds that attract mainstream business owners with acquisition offers rather than solely employee ownership proposals, making employee ownership competitive with private equity buyouts.The impressive 12-15% IRR return profiles of private credit employee ownership funds, which are designed to outperform mainstream private credit with lower default rates.The critical need for senior debt that can match the speed of private credit to ensure employee ownership funds can compete effectively.The importance of the proposed American Ownership and Resilience Act, which aims to provide specialized employee ownership funds with access to matching low-cost government capital, positioning employee ownership as a vital tool for retaining American commerce.Ownership Capital Lab's work in developing the first-ever roadmap for employee ownership capital growth and fostering connections and education among investors and funds.The pervasive misconception among institutional investors, like some foundation endowment committees, that companies opting for employee ownership are "duds," highlighting the ongoing need for broad education.Allison will be elaborating on these crucial topics for scaling employee ownership at a summit in New York on October 7th. Don't miss this insightful conversation on how to unlock the full potential of employee ownership through strategic capital investment and education. You can learn more about Allison's work at ownershipcapital.capital.Get your ticket to the summit to see Alison speak here: https://www.ownershipeconomy.com/registration