IMPACT
FOCUSED
ENTREPRENEUR
About
me
I look for ways to solve problems that lift the people with the least, sustained by everyone acting in their own interest. I build some of those solutions, back others, and write up the rest for anyone who wants to take them on. Every one of them started as an idea on a napkin, so that's what I call them.
I've spent 18 years in member-owned finance, first at Callahan & Associates and then as founder of CUCollaborate, which sells consulting, data, and software to credit unions. They taught me that ownership decides what a business will do in the long run, and that when you get the ownership and the incentives right, ordinary self-interest ends up serving everyone involved. I now apply that lesson more widely: I back founders like Credit Mountain and Starlight, I'm forming a loan fund to help charter new credit unions, I'm developing a consumer data cooperative, and I design strategy games because they make incentives easy to see.
Selected
Napkins
What I
Write
Rawlsian mechanism design
Rawlsian mechanism design
If you had to write the rules of a society without knowing which seat you'd get, you'd judge every rule by how much it lifts the worst seat, and you'd welcome growth, risk, and unequal rewards whenever they do. I write about the philosophy and economics behind that idea.
Ownership and governance
Ownership and governance
A company's mission lasts only as long as its owners want it to. I write about ownership, capital, and governance structures that keep a business true to the people it serves after the founder leaves, the investors turn over, or a buyer comes calling.
Product
Product
I design products the same way: set the rules so that when each party acts in its own interest, every party involved ends up better off. I write about turning that principle into real products and services, with examples from my own work.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
The last step is building the company. I write about starting and funding ventures that put these ideas into practice, including how to raise money without giving up the ownership that keeps them honest.