What does history, and decades of data, tell us about employee share ownership? And what will it take to expand it? In this keynote from the TOP25 Worker Ownership Conference at Harvard Business School, Rutgers University professor Joseph Blasi presents the deep American roots of worker ownership, the current state of ESOPs and equity compensation, and a bold agenda for what business schools and corporate leaders should do next. Discussants Maureen Conway (Aspen Institute) and Corey Rosen (National Center for Employee Ownership) respond with perspectives from policy and practice. Moderated by Nien-hê Hsieh (HBS). Key themes: • George Washington signed the first US profit-sharing legislation in 1792, for cod fishermen • More than half of American workers report some form of shared ownership or profit sharing • Three years of equity grants at Microsoft and Amazon equal a third of the value of all closely held ESOPs in the US • Boards delegate equity compensation decisions for most workers to CEOs, a conflict of interest • If workers own the robots, they won't oppose AI, they'll benefit from it Highlights: • 4:14 Joseph Blasi keynote begins • 4:51 The cod fishing story: America's first profit-sharing law • 15:02 National statistics: how many workers have shares today • 20:53 ESOPs vs. equity compensation: two halves of the picture • 22:15 Harvard Business School's own history with employee ownership • 38:28 The agenda for academia and policymakers Learn more about the conference and The Ownership Project at HBS: https://www.hbs.edu/bigs/about/research/the-ownership-project/top25-conference #EmployeeOwnership #ESOP #SharedCapitalism #WorkerOwnership #HarvardBusinessSchool #BiGS #ProfitSharing #JosephBlasi