
The Ownership Economy
Welcome to the Ownership Economy podcast, the podcast that explores the people and ideas that are utilizing technology, economics, and the law to reimagine how the economy can work for everyone. Here we connect with the entrepreneurs, investors, thought-leaders, academics, and politicians that are constructing a better economy, one based on broad-based ownership and democratic governance. Hosted by Martin Smith and Jahed Momand, two investors and operators that aim to use this platform to showcase the people and ideas that will shape more inclusive economies.
Latest episodes

Oct 28, 2022 • 1h 3min
Episode 038 - Building Local Communities Amidst Global Token Flows, Optimizing for Presence with Charlie Fisher from OASA
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we talk with Charlie Fisher, a researcher and entrepreneur that is working to build regenerative communities through an interesting new model based on the concept of “proof of presence”. Charlie walks us through the history of community land trusts and how this legal and economic structure is being reimagined through shared governance and ownership. The discussion then turns practical with an overview of a recent case study on a community project in Portugal. In the discussion, we explore how to optimize for active vs passive stakeholders and shareholders when creating local ecosystems. We hope you enjoy the episode.
Here are the show notes:
Small Change (Nabeel Hamdi)
Wikihouse (open source kit of parts)
Transition by Design (architecture co-operative)
Stonesfield Community Trust, Oxfordshire
DisCO.coop
Sociocracy 3.0
OASA
Traditional Dream Factory
6wk course on web3/CLTs

Oct 21, 2022 • 1h 16min
Episode 037 - What a Molecular Gastronomist Can Teach You About Building Empowered Communities and Organizations, with Daniel Ospina of RnDAO
In this week’s episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin connect with Daniel Ospina from RnDAO. RnDAO is an innovation center funded by DAOs to serve DAOs, with a mission to empower humane collaboration. The organization works with projects to deeply understand DAOs and user challenges, so they can build tools that make decentralization fluid and natural, thus facilitating mainstream DAO adoption. Listeners who are trying to figure out what decentralization can actually look like on day to day should listen to this episode.
Here are the show notes:
Molecular gastronomy - Wikipedia
How the Best Restaurants in the World Balance Innovation and Consistency
There's Now an App for Bribing Curve Token Holders - The Defiant
RnDAO
Exploring DAO2DAO Collaboration Mechanisms | by BlockScience | PrimeDAO | Medium
Metagov | Gateway
Social Physics by Alex Pentland: 9780143126331 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
Daniel Ospina (@_Daniel_Ospina) / Twitter
RnDAO (🔍,✏️) (@RnDAO__) / Twitter
Haier: A Company Worth Studying!
Bertlesmann - modernizing the systems of social organization

Oct 14, 2022 • 52min
Episode 036 - Creating Global Demand for Plastic Waste Reduction: The Plastiks Token and Business Model with Andre Vanyi-Robin
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, we catch up with Andre Vanyi-Robin from Plastiks. Andre is working on a fascinating business model that aims to reduce plastic pollution around the world. Through a unique normalization of invoice data combined with smart contract technology, Andre is building a new market for plastic recovery guarantees. In the process, the venture is building new revenue streams for plastic collecting communities around the world. We dive into the business model, how the token that underpins the model works, and why smart contract technology is a critical feature in making the ecosystem function. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Oct 7, 2022 • 1h 3min
Episode 035 - Web3, Operator-Investors, Venture-Contributors and the World of Web3 VC with Jake Lynch from L1 Digital
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin speak with Jake Lynch from L1 Digital. Jake is a rare breed of researcher, operator, and investor and is working in the heart of the web3 ecosystem. L1 Digital invested in Molecule, a decentralized biotech protocol porting intellectual property into web3 and launching biotech DAOs. It is a deal that Jahed and Martin followed L1 Digital into and in this episode, we dig in to better understand Jake’s thought process on investing, how he stays current as both a DAO contributor and investor, and get insights generally on the ownership economy. We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did.

Sep 30, 2022 • 57min
Episode 034 - Optimal Timing for Launching a User-Aligned Ownership Program with Sascha Kellert from Rekursive Labs
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin speak with Sascha Kellert from Rekursive Labs. Sascha is an entrepreneur with experience building multi-sided digital marketplaces. The experience of building a home-services marketplace and his unsuccessful attempt to convince his existing venture capital investors in that business to allocate ownership rights to vendors set him on the journey towards web3. He is now exploring a business model that allocates ownership rights to users based on key contributory events that help a business scale. This episode is a great listen for entrepreneurs that are thinking about the right time to add ownership rights for stakeholders. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Sep 24, 2022 • 1h 6min
Episode 033 - Making the Transition from Web2 to Web3 as a Engineer and Operator with Golda Velez, Co-founder of What’s Cookin and Former Uber and Postmates Senior Engineer
In this episode of the Ownership Economy, Jahed and Martin connect with Golda Velez, the Co-founder of WhatsCookin, an activity planning startup working to strengthen communities, create opportunities and democratize corporations. Golda comes from a background working as a senior software engineer in some of the largest web2 digital platforms. She worked on data at Uber, risk at Postmates, and held a variety of other roles leading teams in building complex, scalable platforms. She is now taking that experience and applying it to building a stakeholder owned and governed platform for community engagement. We dig into the business model, how she started, tools she’s using for ownership and governance, and other aspects of team building in this early stage venture. For engineers interested in transitioning from web2 to web3, we also recommend episode 5 with Kevin Owocki from Gitcoin and Episode 8 with James Young from Abridged. We hope you enjoy the episode.
Show Notes:
Mike Moyer – Slicing Pie – Equity Splits for Startups
What’s Cookin’ does equity their way | by Fairmint
A Minimal Approach to Linked Trust With Uncertainty
Cooperation
Episode 027 - Empowering Local Providers with Efficient Development Finance Facilitated through Web3 with Dr. Melyn McKay by The Ownership Economy
Bloomberg Beta
Episode 005 - Building and Funding the Digital Commons Together with Kevin Owocki of Gitcoin by The Ownership Economy
Episode 008 - The Future of Work, DAOs, and Verifiable Credentials with James Young of Abridged by The Ownership Economy

Sep 16, 2022 • 1h 10min
Episode 032 - Building a Natural Asset Economy with Regenerative Finance, with Gregory Landua of Regen Network
In episode 032, Martin and Jahed chat with Gregory Landua, CEO of Regen Network. Gregory has a long history in regenerative finance before it became the web3 incarnation of #ReFi. He covers the roots of regenerative finance in the permaculture movement, traces its intellectual history, introduces key concepts necessary to understand the new economy being built in natural assets, and introduces us to what Regen Network is enabling communities to do with their natural asset resources and commons management. This episode will be of interest to companies and protocols in the regenerative finance space, and those seeking to understand how the emerging ecosystem services economy.
Show Notes:
Enclosing the fishery commons (Alaskan commons management)
Terra Genesis International
Bioregionalism
Permaculture
Rafter Sass Ferguson
Bill Mollison
David Holmgren
Allan Savory
Holistic management
8 forms of capital (regenerative enterprise)
Legibility (seeing like a state)
Doughnut economics
Gregory Bateson
Sacred Economics
Natural Capitalism
World Economic Forum - natural capital assets and ecosystem services

Sep 14, 2022 • 1h 2min
Episode 031 - Tokenized Communities and Creator Ownership, with Jihad Esmail of ForefrontDAO
The previous wave of internet innovation created a new economy, but left many creators out of it. Tokenized communities, some of which are organized as DAOs, are the next attempt at trying to broadly distribute and own the wealth generated by communities of creators. Jihad Esmail of ForefrontDAO is at the forefront of trying to figure out how to build new, sustainable organizational structures for and with creators. In this conversation, we dig into the learnings behind his last couple of years at Forefront, and how he’s pushing tokenized communities forward with learnings from other DAOs such as NounsDAO. This episode will be of interest to founders building new creator and social DAOs in particular.

Sep 2, 2022 • 43min
Episode 030 - How to Unleash a Culture of Innovation in Your DAO with Liberating Structures, with Jeremy Akers of Regens Unite
In the middle of the current bear market, DAOs are still surviving and sometimes thriving. One of the keys is social, emotional, and operational support, and in this week’s episode, Jahed sat down with Jeremy akers of Regens Unite, GravityDAO, Commons Stack, and LS DAO to discuss how the framework for unleashing team innovation, Liberating Structures, can be used by DAOs to get themselves through this rough patch. Along the way, Jeremy touches on patterns from LS that can be useful to new DAOs, how DAOs can manage conflicts inter- and intra-DAO, we touch on Gnosis Guild’s new pattern library for DAO organizational structures, and what new data in complexity science suggest for hierarchies and organizations.
Show notes:
liberating structures
The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures (book)
Diagram we discussed
GravityDAO
The Inherent Instability of Disordered Systems (academic paper)

Aug 26, 2022 • 43min
Episode 029 - Ownership, Individuality, and Sybil Attacks: A Conversation with Octopus, GitcoinDAO Contributor
It’s summer for us at the Ownership Economy Podcast, so we’re bringing you a short series of wide-ranging episodes, which are more conversational in nature. We start this week with anonymous GitcoinDAO contributor @8octopuso, who is a mathematics PhD and worked on the systems for public funding distribution and governance at Gitcoin. In the conversation, we cover sybil attacks, how they can be a threat to democratic systems and why they’re important, systems that can prove individuality, and how this fits into measuring DAO contributions and broadly distributing the wealth generated by ventures. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that will get into the meat of Gitcoin and other DAOs governance best practices and pitfalls, as well as pedagogy, psychology, and behavioral science, from an operator’s point-of-view.
Show Notes:
What is a public good?
Alfie Kohn
Punished by Rewards
Taylorism
Longtail Financial
Token Engineering Academy
Youtube channel on math videos show notes
@8ctopuso - twitter
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