Research & Insights

Present value, ownership and governance

Public companies implicitly carry two income streams — one belonging to capital (reflected in share prices) and one belonging to labor (embedded in wages and employment) — but these are valued and protected asymmetrically. Capital can diversify risk, trade its claims, and benefit from corporate governance oriented toward its interests, while labor cannot diversify, holds non-fungible skills, and lacks board representation or meaningful equity participation. Critically, reductions in labor's income stream (through job cuts, automation, or reclassification of workers) often directly increase the present value of capital's interest, meaning the system is structurally designed to transfer value from labor to capital — especially in sectors facing technological or policy-driven disruption. This makes the case for enhanced worker participation rights, both in governance and through equity ownership, particularly urgent in industries like rideshare and autonomous vehicles where the elimination of human labor is not incidental but central to the business model, and where the gains from that elimination will flow entirely to capital unless the model is changed.