4 ms·

Well, a foundation is basically a self-owning company that is steered by its stated goal and often outlives its creators. In addition, there are several other l

Well, a foundation is basically a self-owning company that is steered by its stated goal and often outlives its creators. In addition, there are several other legal forms that allow companies to own themselves. For example, in Germany there's the concept of a "Kein-Mann GmbH" (no man's GmbH), which is a limited liability company that owns 100 % of its own shares.

retromario 9y ago
Are there any real-world examples of this? The wikipedia article only seems to reference theoretical discussions of it. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein-Mann-GmbH https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein-Mann-GmbH
- 1ris 9y ago
  IKEA is a opaque web of companies and foundations that own each other. Mostly not german.
  - gitgud 9y ago
    I was under the impression that IKEA began as a Swedish company, right? Why would they be owned by Germany?
    - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
      He was referencing the grand-parent comment, that stated companies in Germany could own other companies. His point was that companies can do this anywhere, not just Germany.
      - gitgud 9y ago
        Ahh ok, that makes sense now
    - chris_va 9y ago
      Not German, though IKEA has a particularly complex corporate structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure ... which apparently funnels into trusts in Caribbean countries that are not required to disclose beneficiaries. Basically, it sounds like tax evasion at a grand scale.
      - volgo 9y ago
        You mean tax avoidance - structuring your finances to pay less taxes. Tax evasion is illegal under-reporting of your income, which I highly doubt Ikea does
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        chris_va 9y ago
        Point taken, but I meant evasion. What looks like mis-use of a non-profit entity, combined with funneling money into a black hole trust through "trademark licensing" has the appearance of evasion, at least to me.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  It's unclear if a kein-mann-gmbh can function. (Not necessarily of a result of that) Austria amended their own gmbh structure in 2007 to prevent such gmbhs from existing: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/Bundesnormen/NOR40091658/NOR40091658.html https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/Bundesnormen/NOR40091658...
mehrdadn 9y ago
How does this kind of entity ever sell its shares? How do you determine if it's even willing to sell any shares?
- zuzun 9y ago
  I guess it requires an elaborate company constitution, otherwise the CEO has full power over everything.
- mikeyouse 9y ago
  For Foundations and other non-profits that don't have owners, there are no shares to sell. The assets belong to the "Public" and if the organization winds down, the trustees have to designate another non-profit to receive the excess assets (less liabilities) or they just turn over everything to the government.
psergeant 9y ago
I would have thought they all requires trustees. The point is not so much ownership per-se, but about who is legally authorised to make decisions. I spent some time a while ago trying to figure out how humans can be eliminated, and couldn’t find a structure.
- ThePhysicist 9y ago
  In my (possibly naive) view, the board members of a foundation are just the executive branch of that foundation and are obliged to act according to its statutes. A good example might be the "Nobel Foundation" (https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundation/ https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundati...): It was founded in 1900,has outlived its creator(s) by a large margin, has been steered and managed by several generations of board members and continues to fulfill its mission. For me, this IS an autonomous organization in the sense that it is autonomously steered by the "smart contract" that are the statutes of the foundation and that no one except the government of Sweden would be able to dissolve it (and even they would first need to introduce changes in law to do so legally). You can of course argue that a DAO on the blockchain is not subject to the law of any state, but on the other hand a pure blockchain organization would probably not be very useful if it doesn't have any embodiments in the form of a legal organization that can operate within the law of a given country (there still could be cases where a purely virtual organization could create value by e.g. providing a commodity like Bitcoin).

retromario 9y ago

Are there any real-world examples of this? The wikipedia article only seems to reference theoretical discussions of it. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein-Mann-GmbH https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kein-Mann-GmbH

1ris 9y ago
IKEA is a opaque web of companies and foundations that own each other. Mostly not german.
- gitgud 9y ago
  I was under the impression that IKEA began as a Swedish company, right? Why would they be owned by Germany?
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    He was referencing the grand-parent comment, that stated companies in Germany could own other companies. His point was that companies can do this anywhere, not just Germany.
    - gitgud 9y ago
      Ahh ok, that makes sense now
  - chris_va 9y ago
    Not German, though IKEA has a particularly complex corporate structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Corporate_structure ... which apparently funnels into trusts in Caribbean countries that are not required to disclose beneficiaries. Basically, it sounds like tax evasion at a grand scale.
    - volgo 9y ago
      You mean tax avoidance - structuring your finances to pay less taxes. Tax evasion is illegal under-reporting of your income, which I highly doubt Ikea does
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - chris_va 9y ago
        Point taken, but I meant evasion. What looks like mis-use of a non-profit entity, combined with funneling money into a black hole trust through "trademark licensing" has the appearance of evasion, at least to me.
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
It's unclear if a kein-mann-gmbh can function. (Not necessarily of a result of that) Austria amended their own gmbh structure in 2007 to prevent such gmbhs from existing: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/Bundesnormen/NOR40091658/NOR40091658.html https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/Bundesnormen/NOR40091658...

mehrdadn 9y ago

How does this kind of entity ever sell its shares? How do you determine if it's even willing to sell any shares?

zuzun 9y ago
I guess it requires an elaborate company constitution, otherwise the CEO has full power over everything.
mikeyouse 9y ago
For Foundations and other non-profits that don't have owners, there are no shares to sell. The assets belong to the "Public" and if the organization winds down, the trustees have to designate another non-profit to receive the excess assets (less liabilities) or they just turn over everything to the government.

psergeant 9y ago

I would have thought they all requires trustees. The point is not so much ownership per-se, but about who is legally authorised to make decisions. I spent some time a while ago trying to figure out how humans can be eliminated, and couldn’t find a structure.

ThePhysicist 9y ago
In my (possibly naive) view, the board members of a foundation are just the executive branch of that foundation and are obliged to act according to its statutes. A good example might be the "Nobel Foundation" (https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundation/ https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundati...): It was founded in 1900,has outlived its creator(s) by a large margin, has been steered and managed by several generations of board members and continues to fulfill its mission. For me, this IS an autonomous organization in the sense that it is autonomously steered by the "smart contract" that are the statutes of the foundation and that no one except the government of Sweden would be able to dissolve it (and even they would first need to introduce changes in law to do so legally). You can of course argue that a DAO on the blockchain is not subject to the law of any state, but on the other hand a pure blockchain organization would probably not be very useful if it doesn't have any embodiments in the form of a legal organization that can operate within the law of a given country (there still could be cases where a purely virtual organization could create value by e.g. providing a commodity like Bitcoin).