Despite being one of the three founders, I was never an owner of Clearleft.
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But now, after fifteen years, I am also an owner of Clearleft.
So is Trys. And Cassie. And Benjamin. And everyone else at Clearleft.
Clearleft is now owned by an employee ownership trust. This isn’t like owning shares in a company—a common Silicon Valley honeypot. This is literally owning the company. Shares are transferable—this isn’t. As long as I’m an employee at Clearleft, I’m a part owner.
On a day-to-day basis, none of this makes much difference. Everyone continues to do great work, the same as before. The difference is in what happens to any profit produced as a result of that work. The owners decide what to do with that profit. The owners are us.
In most companies you’ve got a tension between a board representing the stakeholders and a union representing the workers. In the case of an employee ownership trust, the interests are one and the same. The stakeholders are the workers.