On Spirit Airlines, Tucker Carlson, Freakonomics, and Ben & Jerry's

The Ownership Economy Newsletter, Vol. 144

👋 Welcome Back!

This week a dude on TikTok had an idea: What if customers owned Spirit Airlines? He put up a website and more than 500,000 people pledged at least $215 million to create a community-owned airline, reminiscent of the 2017 effort to buy Twitter.

• Folks on Instagram went even farther, asking “wait, why can’t all this other stuff be owned by us?” with just two posts getting 28k and 65k likes (h/t Claire Everhart)

• My own post this week about who should own AI companies did not do those numbers, but I liked it

Jason Wiener is right we should be skeptical about the cash value of those pledges, but my reaction was similar Aunnie Patton Power’s:

• 500,000 people were talking about shared ownership this week, many of them for the first time

• Messaging about employee ownership tends to be directed at policymakers and business owners; this week is a signal of latent demand for organizational alternatives among employees and consumers

If any of you are connected to Cortlenfixeseverything or Brant Johnson, send them to The Stakehold! - Dr. Hand

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🥃 Top Shelf News

• The ESOP Association held its annual conference this year; Jim Bonham posted his remarks on the seven forces shaping employee ownership

• The leaders of Dr. Bronner’s and Patagonia joined the fight to free Ben & Jerry’s

• This week’s unlikely potential ally for the ownership economy is Tucker Carlson. Arguing that our current economic system “is not working,” Carlson told the New York Times:

  • “People have to own things. They have to be vested in the country in order to de-radicalize them. But when people own nothing, they’ve got nothing to lose.”

• 🎧 The Freakonomics podcast hosted Judy Faulkner of purpose trust-owned Epic Systems

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👉 In This Issue

• Events + Opportunities

  • Newly announced

  • This week

  • Opportunities

• Employee Ownership

  • Employee stock ownership plans

  • Worker cooperatives

• The Ownership Economy

  • Steward ownership + purpose trusts

  • Community ownership of real estate

  • Workplace democracy

• Academic News

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📅 Events + Opportunities

To see a comprehensive list of events, go to our main Events page. Send us your conference recaps, too!

Newly announced

• May 20: Austin Cooperative Business Association is hosting Solidarity Economics: A Panel Discussion, online

• May 26: CUNY School of Law hosts Building Mutual Social Economy Bridges in Queens, New York

• Aug 8-Dec 14: Trebor Scholz’s Community Section of his Fall 2026 course, AI Without Bosses

• Sep 1-3: Project Equity’s EO Equals Summit in Chicago

• Nov 12-13: The Institute for Business in Global Society at Harvard’s TOP26: Steward Ownership Conference in Cambridge, MA

This week

• May 11: Platform Cooperativism’s Consortium on cooperative platforms and democratic infrastructure

• May 12: PathLight Law’s webinar on community wealth building

  • Also, NCEO’s Creative ESOP M&A: Innovative Structures for Growth and Ownership (NCEO Member only)

  • And Raymond James’s Business Exit Planning Workshop webinar

• May 13: MICEO’s introductory webinar on smart profit share

• May 14: NCEO’s session on Understanding and Implementing Compensation

  • Along with the UK’s EsopCentre’s webinar, Esop Sofa: John Hoffmire on Transatlantic Perspectives on Employee Share Ownership

  • And St. Mary’s Energizing the Co-operative Brand online symposium

• May 15: Rutgers NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership’s Business Exit Planning Conference in New Brunswick

  • As well as day one of the California Co-op Conference

Opportunities

• Ownership Works is on the hunt for a Managing Director for its European branch

• CFNE is hiring a Loan & Outreach Officer to help grow cooperative enterprises

• Village of Leaders Thriving in Solidarity seeks a Cooperative Business Launch Lead, in Chicago

• CDI has opened applications for its (remote) Executive Director position

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Employee Ownership

• 🌊 Daniel Goldstein on why employee ownership is emerging as a key answer to the ‘silver tsunami’

• The Rhode Island Senate will vote to establish a Center for Employee Ownership after bill S2922 advances

• Martha Bentley and Coastal Enterprises have launched a Business Legacy Lab in Maine (h/t Peter Koehler)

• Private equity-backed CoolIT Systems delivered payouts to long‑tenured employees

• Evergreen Cooperatives expands its network of employee-owned businesses by acquiring North Coast Sign and Lighting

• Angi Krueger offers key takeaways from NCEO 2026

• 📺 Employee Ownership Canada posted video of Tallgrass EO Equity Fund President Chad Friesen’s seminar on building an ownership culture

  • BLG also highlights ten key tax takeaways from the new Canadian EOT policy

• Carlisle announced its latest employee stock option grant

Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)

• ✈️ OGARAJETS of Atlanta, Georgia, announced its transition to an ESOP. Congrats!

• In Dallas, Pogue Construction’s conversion an ESOP won D Magazine’s 2026 Mergers & Acquisitions Award (h/t @TXCEO). Lazear, the advisory team on the deal, also helped Axis Neuromonitoring become employee-owned in April

• Congratulations to Christie Schuh, newly appointed member of the EO Foundation’s Board of Trustees!

• Corey Rosen reviews Bob Whalen and Jamie Dykstra’s new book on how employee ownership fueled HB Global’s 14‑year growth

• UC San-Diego is hosting a virtual course to train individuals on entering ESOPs; apply here

• 🎧 ESOP Radio talks with David Odell on the parallels between endurance running and running a business

Worker Coops

• 🕵️ Former FBI agents founded Ravenwood, a worker-owned intelligence service. Congrats!

• David Alcock reviews the UK’s progress on promoting co‑ops and identifies key areas for further action

• Connecticut theatre design firm Nextstage Design look backs on what they have learned since their transition in January

• Business Insider interviews Daniel Mondragon of The Drivers Cooperative in Denver (paywalled)

• The newly announced theme of the UN International Coop Day (July 4th) is “Cooperatives for a peaceful world;” ICA explains here

• RMEOC interviewed Minsun Ji on the struggles between co-ops and labor unions

• COWOP is looking for worker co-ops to fund in Massachusetts; apply here

• 🎧 ICYMI: Last month Stuff you Should Know explained how worker co-ops work

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The Ownership Economy

Steward ownership + purpose trusts

• Purpose Foundation recaps its interview with Eric Ries on his new book, Incorruptible

• Purpose LatAm published a state-of-the-field on steward ownership in Latin America, Repensando la Propiedad (rethinking property)

Community-owned real estate

• East Side Community Investment Cooperative of Saint Paul, Minnesota, hosts its launch party

• Tabitha Eck reflects on the CLT Practicum by Habitat for Humanity in Sisters, Oregon

• Dallas, TX is one of fifteen cities in Enterprise Community Partners’ first Ballmer-funded cohort on land use and affordable housing; whether this will involve the Dallas CLT we don’t know—yet!

Workplace democracy

• In Platoniq’s WilderJournal, Olivier Schulbaum and Cristian Palazzi interview Adrian Bua on participatory democracy, capitalism and co-optation

• Sean Geobey recaps his recent webinar with Tamarack Institute on collective decision-making

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📚 Academic News

• David Wang and Shaun Pichler argue that a CEO’s political perspectives impact the likelihood of transitioning to ESOP and worker-family benefits

• Katharina Johanna Oetken introduces steward ownership as a potential tool for co-creation in urban design

• John D Wisman published a new book, Why We Must Work, on economic freddom, fulfilling work, and workplace demcoracy

• Philipp Stehr argues that a right to strike can fight organizational degeneration in democratic corporations

• Richard C. May & Chris Mackin argue that the primary obstacle to expanding ESOPs is the lack of access to equity capital

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