Post Growth Entrepreneurship with Melanie Rieback

Denizen

Melanie Rieback is a cybersecurity entrepreneur and the founder of Nonprofit Ventures, an organization dedicated to supporting post growth entrepreneurs. She runs an incubator to support post growth entrepreneurs and teaches a course at the University of Amsterdam on post growth entrepreneurship. Her lectures are available on YouTube, linked below.

This episode builds on a long series of conversations on this podcast exploring economic reform: stakeholder capitalism, steward ownership, co-ops, post-growth economics, to name a few. While it's called pot growth entrepreneurship, really this conversation is about non-extractive entrepreneurship. PGE rejects the typical silicon valley model of capital, scale, exit, in favor of bootstrapping, flat growth, and non-extraction.

In this conversation Jenny and Melanie discuss:

• Melanie's path from cybersecurity entrepreneur to post growth entrepreneurship
• Why not all forms of steward ownership ensure profit serves purpose
• Why Melanie believes business is one of the most effective forms of activism
• Defining post growth entrepreneurship (PGE)
• Why PGE is a leverage point for systemic change
• Issues with the Silicon Valley model of capital, scale, exit
• Issues with status quo social enterprise and impact investing
• Principles of PGE: bootstrapping, flat growth, non-extraction
• Asset locks and stable steward ownership implementation
• Policy initiatives in Europe to create a steward owned business entity
• How to think about fair compensation when implementing PGE
• Thoughts on the cultural component of this work
• Business as spirituality

Resources:

• Nonprofit Ventures website: https://nonprofit.ventures/
• Post Growth Entrepreneurship: three minute explainer video
• "Putting Post Growth Theory Into Practice" Medium post
• Melanie's post growth entrepreneurship course at the University of Amsterdam; 8 YouTube lectures

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