The Long-Term Stock Exchange Comes to Life

Today, I’m thrilled to share that the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) is on track to open as a new public markets option in 2018. What began as a wild idea seven years ago — transforming the public markets paradigm to realign investors and companies around long-term value creation — is now a reality.

The journey started in 2010 when I was deep in research for The Lean Startup. As I talked to more and more CEOs and executives at public and private companies, I kept hearing the same sentiment over and over again: short-term pressures were driving their decision-making, often at the sacrifice of the long-term potential of the business.

I can’t say I was surprised.

The current incentives in the public markets stymie growth, innovation, and value creation, and the consequences can’t be denied: a roughly 50% decline in the number of public companies from 1996 to 2016, a triple digit increase in CEO compensation from 1978 to 2014, and a spike in activist investor campaigns, to name a few. Businesses suffer — and so does our economy.

We need a new approach to governance that benefits both companies and investors. And as the Wall Street Journal has just covered, that’s where the LTSE comes in.

The LTSE is designed to remove the short-term pressures that plague today’s public markets and reorient companies and investors around long-term thinking. Through brand new listing standards, software tools, and advocacy, we’re reinventing the public company experience with novel approaches to executive compensation, shareholder voting, disclosure practices, board and stakeholder policies, and community governance.

We aim to file our Form 1 with the SEC by the end of the year to register as a national securities exchange. This is a significant milestone in our mission to create healthier public markets, and I look forward to sharing more updates in the coming months. This is just the beginning.

Eric Ries