Acknowledgments

LYNN AND I CONCEIVED THE IDEA of a Universal Fund while we were drafting a short law review article, “Corporate Governance as Privately-Ordered Public Policy: A Proposal.” Every time we presented the article, we received comments and suggestions to improve our proposal, and we presented it multiple times on three different continents.

A number of colleagues and friends helped us think our Universal Fund idea through: from Sid Tarrow to David Ciepley, from Jennifer Hill to Andrea Tina, from Hanoch Dagan to Gerald Torres, from Greg Alexander to Robert Green, and many more.

It felt natural to invite Tamara to join us for the transformation of “Corporate Governance as Privately-Ordered Public Policy: A Proposal” into a book. The book is the result of good teamwork. We set this project as our first priority. Lynn, in particular, put in an incredible effort to be able to finish the book with us. She succeeded, but she left us too early to see the project bear fruit.

I want to thank my coauthors; the whole team who participated in this project, from our publisher, to Matt Morrison, to Andrew McDowell, to Theodore Joseph James; Cornell Law School; and the universities that hosted workshops on “Corporate Governance as Privately-Ordered Public Policy: A Proposal” and on Citizen Capitalism—the Simón Bolívar Andean University, the University of Canterbury, the University of Milan, the University of Otago, and Victoria University of Wellington, just to name a few.

I could not have undertaken this ambitious project without Lynn. And I could not have finished this book without the support of my girlfriend, my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, and, in particular, my mother.

Sergio Gramitto

• • • • •

This book began as a conversation in summer 2017. Lynn and I had just completed a research paper that offered an alternative way for understanding the nature of corporations, and Lynn and Sergio were working on a law review essay, which at the time was called “Blueprint for a More Democratic Capitalism.” Over dinner, Lynn and I spoke about the potential for “Blueprint” to be of interest to a broader audience, and as I pointed out to her the various ways in which the work had implications for broader societal concerns, her eyes lit up. “Oh my goodness, I think we have a book!” she exclaimed. “Will you be one of the authors?” The answer to this question was not an obvious yes. Why? Well, Lynn and I had only recently founded a nonprofit, the Ethical Shareholder Initiative, which we were trying to get off the ground, and a few months earlier Lynn had been diagnosed with cancer. We already had our work cut out for us so to speak, and writing a book was an additional commitment that I was not sure we had the capacity to take on.

But we did. We took it on because we believed in the idea, and we believed this was an idea that could help so many people, both in terms of having a voice in corporate behavior and in getting a supplemental income. For some people, a supplemental income makes no difference in their life choices or outcome, but once we dug into the data we quickly realized that having a supplemental income, whether it be $300, $3,000, or $6,000, could make a meaningful difference in the lives of many people. In addition, as much as our plan is about supplemental incomes, it is also about civic engagement in the corporate sector. As we explain in the book, we view this as a key part of having a fair and open society.

I am grateful to Lynn for having the vision and tenacity to make this book a reality. I first met Lynn eighteen years ago when I was a student in her corporate law class at Harvard Law School. I was pretty sure then that I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer, but somehow Lynn convinced me that corporate law, with all its interconnectedness, networks, and hidden dynamics, was much more fun. And to a large extent, she was right.

I am also not sure that this book could have been written without the incredible support of my family and friends. Thanks to my husband, Greg, for helping me refine my thinking on shareholder value and for always encouraging me to not “only see the sky above [my] well.” Thanks to my mother, Edris, for lending her editing skills and grammarian prowess. Thanks to my children, Eleanor, Julian, and Gabby, who gave me the space to write this book and who constantly offered fresh perspectives. As Eleanor announced when she was two years old while making up a story about a pencil: “Well, it all began with the corporation.” To this day, I don’t know whether this is something I should be proud of. I guess it does depend on one’s perspective.

Thank you to my colleagues who read drafts and offered support in numerous ways. Special thanks to my New York Law School family for supporting my work on this book.

Thank you to our publishers at Berrett-Koehler and the entire B-K team, who saw the promise of this book and have worked with us at every step of the way to bring it to fruition. And thank you to Andrew MacDowell and our Brooklyn Strategic LLC team, who immediately got the concept and have worked tirelessly to get the word out.

Unfortunately, Lynn did not live to see this book get published. Instead, she left us with a rich body of work from which we can pay it forward. During my last conversation with Lynn a week before she passed, she simply remarked: “It’s about caring, dammit! How hard can that be?”

Hopefully this book offers a road map for how we can take care of the present while paying it forward.

With gratitude,

Tamara Belinfanti