Stichting het Algemeen Belang
The system embarked on a necessary but complex update.
Traditional ownership and governance structures no longer suffice.
The transition to more complex models comes with new challenges.
A persistent inefficiency has crept into traditional 'simple' corporate structures: the interests of owners can conflict with the interests of customers. More value is extracted from companies than necessary, resulting in suboptimal products and services. What happened to 'the customer is king'???
This structural mismatch of interests makes customers suspicious ('Am I being screwed?'), employees indifferent ('Who am I doing this for?'), and companies pretentious ('But look, we plant trees too!'). Society and Mother Earth are left behind.
Fortunately, change is already underway. Short-term thinkers are making way for a new breed of investor and entrepreneur. Capitalism is evolving. Value extraction is being limited, ownership is valued differently, and control is distributed in new ways.
Belang builds infrastructure and tools to help organizations take a conscious approach to ownership and governance. Our personal take: Do not limit what a company can earn, but what an individual can extract from it.