Here's how we create 120 million equity-owners in one generation.

That's why we need to build better ones.

Not true, 90% of employees with an ESOP account also have a 401k or other retirement account. The ESOP account is not instead of a retirement account, it's in addition to it.

90% of employee owners also have a 401k or retirement account. An ESOP account is in addition to their retirement account, not instead of it. So it's actually more of an upside without any downside.

My comment was on holding them, not receiving.

That is, you should treat them like receiving cash and convert them into whatever you would normally do wisely with extra cash you received.

Usually businesses become an ESOP because the founder sells it to the employees. To even qualify to become an ESOP, the company has to be successful, so by default most ESOPS are. I advocate for incentivizing the model, not requiring it. But I have a follow up piece coming out soon with more detail.

I'm a big fan of the library, but that doesn't mean I can get access to every film that exists on Netflix.

I check out a lot of books at the library, but I can't get access to all of the books I would like to access.

Should a tech solution replace the library? No. But there should be another option than buying it from Amazon.

An alternative to the internet making us stupid.

Yes exactly. There's this red thread you can follow through the platform. My favorite kind of discovery!

Honestly, I hope this doesn't change. As an author, I think the reason why the comments section of my newsletter is such a positive place is because all of the commenters are doxed and have a profile. In addition, that's how I find other writers to follow—you can see who follows what and follow that thread which is nice.

I don't think people being "doxed" is the secret to creating positive interactions. See Facebook, for example. Even LinkedIn has a surprising amount of toxic threads, considering people's professional reputations are at stake.

The issue I have with Substack in particular is that it was essentially founded around political newsletters. I'm not sure, but I think Bill Bishop might've been their very first newsletter... and he writes about Chinese politics. Of all topics, that is one where people might have good reason to want to be able to preserve their anonymity. Of course, you could get around this by signing up for different newsletters with different email addresses, but that makes it unnecessarily difficult to read paid subscriber-only posts. I feel like the company took a wrong turn in adding social network features instead of keeping the focus on individual writers and their individual audiences.

I think it's a helpful but not sufficient condition

I would suggest that, as an example, letting people be able to have separate 'technical subscriptions' and 'political subscriptions' identities might still have the positive effects you describe and if anything more so.

Also consider somebody who wants to engage honestly and openly with mental health related content without risking that being dragged in to conversations elsewhere via somebody reading a unified profile.

Are commenters doxed? You can signup with a throwaway email.

I am EXACTLY the same way. I write each of my novels in a different font depending on the aesthetic of the novel. The font helps me stay in character as I write it.