The Long-Term Stock Exchange Opens for Business - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ltse.com/the-long-term-stock-exchange-opens-for-business-38b13f51e87b <comment><USER4> Hey everyone, Eric Ries here. Happy to answer questions if you'd like to learn more about what we are building at LTSE

</comment><comment><USER5> Let me try to summarize everyone's same question:

\- The idea of a stock exchange that allows companies and investors to focus on 5, 10, 25 year horizons sounds great!

\- However companies on normal stock exchanges now already try to do this, but it's hard because of quarterly earnings, pressure for quarterly growth, etc

\- How is LTSE different? Seems like: Companies and investors "promise" to have a longer term focus via planning

\- seems like that wouldn't be enough and the same financial pressures would result in the same focus

\- We were expecting something like: "investors must hold positions for 10 years", or, "earnings only reported every 2 years", etc etc. but there's nothing like that.

\- So, what is the big idea, the teeth, the new rule, that makes long term focus enforceable?

<comment><USER6> I used to be part of the system that built machines that auto traded on arbitrage opportunities due to millsec/nanosec differences in reported prices in different exchanges.

Although probably not popular I would suggest that long term stocks needs to incorporate features that actively block certain trading patterns: limit price changes, limit buy/ sell frequency, & disallow shorting.

I have been heavily involved in the gamification of the stock market and the above are used to maximise immediate returns to day traders and auto-trading machines. By fixing a price for the day, then there is less incentive to 'rush' to get to the price. Also, limit how quickly someone can buy and then sell a trade, rather than milliseconds (or smaller). I would strongly urge disallowing the buying of a stock by the same person, if they'd sold in the previous week. Shorting is never a long-term game and should be banned, as it never does the company any favours.

But what I see on this LTSE is nothing of what would actually constitute long term ownership of stocks. What I actually see with this LTSE.com is the opposite of value for a stock, as it is only driving increased gamification of the metrics mentioned above.

That is, if I were an automated machine trader, I would add LTSE and their slow price changes and compare them to NYSE and make zillions.

I don't see how this encourages any kind of long term investment, nor stability for a stock.

<comment><USER7> > & disallow shorting.

Why would you completely disallow shorting ?

I'd think that in such a framework, shorting would just need to become a longer term bet. So one could offer something like 2,5,10 year LEAPs, but restrict their trading to a window of 1 week per year (e.g. one can trade derivatives as much as one wants, but only during week X, which is the week when all derivatives expire, and all derivatives are long term).

Also for options, one would need to always require traders to be covered with the actual stock.

<comment><USER8> If traders have to be covered with the actual stock, would that mean they can only short Foo shares up to the amount they own? Surely that's equivalent to just selling your holdings?

Or are there people who'll loan out their stocks for 10 years, trusting the borrower has enough cash not to go bankrupt in 10 years no matter what happens?

<comment><USER7> > If traders have to be covered with the actual stock, would that mean they > can only short Foo shares up to the amount they own? Surely that's > equivalent to just selling your holdings?

I had selling a call option in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congratulations.

"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." \-- Winston Churchill

Though I barely understand such things, I'm very excited by your LTSE and Katsuyama's Investors Exchange (IEX).

Listening to your interviews about LTSE, my takeaway is that your goal is to allow companies to be judged on their own merits, instead of someone else's.

So one side effect may be to help migrate private equity funded companies back into the light. Terrific, right?

I hope others see that our markets are designed. They are human artifacts. They are not natural laws to be accepted as-is. That we can shape and nurture markets as we see fit. That the rules matter.

You and Katsuyama identified opportunities for improvement and engineered solutions. You're meta-geeks. Like programmers who make programming languages, so that others might benefit.

Happy hunting.

<comment><USER10> > I hope others see that our markets are designed. They are human artifacts. > They are not natural laws to be accepted as-is.

"Markets" are not the same thing as "the market". Markets are human artifacts; the market is an emergent behavior. It's governed by laws beyond our control as surely as the behavior of materials are governed by thermodynamics.

If the behavior of your markets fails to match the reality of the market, the best you can hope for is to only introduce a small amount of inefficiency. Of course, utopians who ignore the real nature of the market usually find themselves lethally encumbered by deadweight loss.

> your goal is to allow companies to be judged on their own merits, instead of > someone else's.

What is this supposed to mean? Why would a company's subjective evaluation of themselves be a better basis for market valuation than the evaluation of the people who actually buy and sell interest in that company?

<comment><USER11> The way you've put this bears more resemblance to religion than anything else.

"Markets" are real things. I can walk to them, or navigate to their website, or call them up.

You are claiming that there is an invisible, metaphysical "the market", which exists in the Platonic world of forms, that governs the behavior of these genuine markets.

This is like reading "The Gods of the Copybook Headings", and founding a religion which worships and offers sacrifice to those gods!

This "the market" you refer to is an _abstraction_ of the behavior of real markets. It can give us all sorts of guidance as to what will happen when various rules are applied, or not, to these real markets; but comparing these broad heuristic rules to thermodynamics has me suspecting you don't understand either thermodynamics nor macroeconomics.

Every market has rules. Invariably, you are not allowed to stab a vendor and take their stuff. Sometimes there are things you can't sell; sometimes only Dutch auction is allowed, and so on ad infinitum.

This is simply a market with different rules from those governing other stock markets. We're all free to speculate on the consequences those different rules will have; perhaps they will summon literal Gods of the Copybook Headings, which will return upon us with actual terror and slaughter.

The safe bet is that prediction and reality will be divergent. This is economics, not thermodynamics, after all.

<comment><USER12> > The way you've put this bears more resemblance to religion than anything > else.

The connection with religion goes deeper that it seems.

Mission, vision / visionary, iconic (product), (job) creator, charismatic, angel (investors).

All these words had a purely religious meaning 200 years ago.

This is not just natural evolution of the language. Other fields don't have this amount of religious words at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The blog post doesn't explain what, if anything, is different about how the market works.

From the name, I expected that it would require holding an investment for a minimum period. But I see no evidence of that elsewhere on the site. I do see listing requirements that supposedly require companies to have a long term focus. But then elsewhere I see that all securities in the S&P 500 and the RUSSEL 2000 index will be included.

So I'm very confused? What even is this thing? Did I miss a concise explanation somewhere?

<comment><USER14> IMO, the main difference between LTSE and a traditional stock exchange is the way votes are allocated to shareholders. Traditionally voting power is proportional to shares owned. However, on LTSE the amount of time a stock has been held is also considered.

There is no minimum holding period, but there is an incentive to hold.

A bit of a tangent: Since there is a premium in voting rights (GOOG vs GOOGL), I'm curious to see how this new voting structure might result in strange behavior by traders and investors. For example, will people use single stock futures to hedge while retaining their voting rights? Will special purpose vehicles for holding shares be created?

<comment><USER15> < Traditionally voting power is proportional to shares owned. However, on LTSE the amount of time a stock has been held is also considered.

This seems problematic. The longer you hold your stock the more voting rights and hence value it accrues. But if you sell the shares all the accrued value is lost. So it surely leads to proxy voting, where former owners still are registered as owners of their former shares, but vote them for whoever they secretly sold the shares to.

<comment><USER16> I might be naive, but are you not going to get caught doing this? Because if you're secretly selling enough shares that your voting rights will have an actual impact, it seems like that'll be a fair amount of money you'd also need to transfer secretly, which is not that easy.

<comment><USER15> No, controls would be trivial to evade.

Let's say I have a billion dollars worth of Tesla stock that I've owned for a decade, giving me twice as much votes as normal. You want to increase your voting power, and are willing to pay $1.5B for my shares to do so.

We sign a loan agreement. You loan me $1.5B at a high interest rate, secured by my shares and my agreement to vote them as per your instructions. If you demand repayment I can pay off the loan in full simply by surrendering my shares to you, and all interest is forgiven. If I want to repay the loan, I have to pay the full balance, all interest and a prepayment penalty in cash, no stock accepted.

You don't want me to repay the loan so the shares can retain their ownership premium, and so I can't without paying a massive penalty + interest. You can never require me to repay the $1.5B, I can simply surrender the shares, so I can spend it immediately any way I want.

So we can keep this "loan" going for decades more, or until you want to sell these shares. Presumably you will sign a similar "loan" agreement with your buyer to maintain the voting power the share accumulated.

<comment><USER17> I was with you until the end - how does transferability function with this kind of loan arrangement?

<comment><USER15> On its face it's clearly harder, just because now you need three parties to sign a new loan agreement. It could be made much easier if the loan is assignable under same terms, especially if parts of the loan are assignable for proportionate parts of the shares.

And if the benefits are significant, I would bet this creates a whole tertiary layer of brokers, bankers and lawyers enabling these kind of transactions with standardized loan agreements and clearing houses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder what the actual business model for the company is and how the incentives from this will affect the LTSE vision behind "long-term investing". As far as I have seen on the website the company runs various freemium SaaS products like captable.io, startuprunway.io and hiringplan.io. They obviously want or need to monetize on that.

edit links: \- [https://captable.io](https://captable.io) \- [https://startuprunway.io](https://startuprunway.io) \- [https://hiringplan.io](https://hiringplan.io) \- [https://fast409a.io](https://fast409a.io) \- [https://startupdisclosure.io](https://startupdisclosure.io) \- [https://notegenie.io](https://notegenie.io)

<comment><USER19> I spoke to a recruiter for LTSE a year ago and they were hiring lots of engineers to compete with Carta.

I was a bit disappointed with the pitch; sure Carta is useful but I had hoped LTSE was a place to do some really revolutionary stuff. It seems like that aspect of the company is a ways off and from my limited understanding, it doesn't seem like today's announcement makes it tangibly different than NYSE.

I'm neither a banker nor a major investor so I'm really curious to understand how they see this as a paradigm shift. For now it looks like a stock exchange started by someone I really admire but not much else.

<comment><USER20> Companies built to last are built that way from the start. The culture and contracts baked into the companies follow them for life. That's why we build software for ourselves and our fellow founders. I wrote more about this here: [https://shan.io/writing/ltse-launch-americas-newest-stock- ex...](https://shan.io/writing/ltse-launch-americas-newest-stock-exchange/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems really cool, but after being on your site for 10 min I have yet to find the "meat". Other than a vague reference to "through member broker-dealers". For me the info I am interested in, and would want to see featured most prominently, is 1) A list of companies on the exchange and their last closing price. 2) An option (even if through a third party) to purchase shares of companies listed on LTSE. This information is no where to be found.

<comment><USER4> Today's announcement doesn't pertain to listings, so 1) is a ways off still

You can do 2) through your existing broker, so long as they are a member of the LTSE, which they likely already are. You can check their membership status here: [https://brokercheck.finra.org/](https://brokercheck.finra.org/)

<comment><USER22> I honestly cannot figure out how to use this site to see if my broker, or any broker for that matter, is a member of LTSE. Would you be able to provide an example?

<comment><USER4> Sure. Here's Citadel's profile from FINRA: [https://files.brokercheck.finra.org/firm/firm_116797.pdf](https://files.brokercheck.finra.org/firm/firm_116797.pdf)

Scroll down to page 9, you'll see they are a member of The Long-Term Stock Exchange

<comment><USER23> Citadel securities are famous for their long-term investment horizons.

100 milliseconds is practically an eternity

<comment><USER24> For an android!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a question: what exactly is different? Wasn't clear in the blog post.

Do you prevent day-trading or something similar?

<comment><USER4> We require companies that list with us to adopt corporate governance that aligns their behavior and incentives to the long term.

I know that doesn't sound super sexy but we believe this is a high-leverage point for reforms

We will have more to say on reforms that relate to reading in the future, but we don't limit the ability of "tourists" to trade in and out of stocks as normal.

<comment><USER26> What does that mean concretely? Will earnings reports still be quarterly? I guess I'm trying to figure out why the exchange has to do anything here. There's plenty of investors and companies that think long term with BRK and its investors being the most prominent.

Digging a bit more, on the investor side, there are value investors who look for solid, if unspectacular businesses at a price point and buy and hold over long periods of time.

On the company side, there are exceptional founder run businesses like Amazon, FB etc. that don't care very much what things look like in the short term (Bezos claims he's willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time for example).

<comment><USER27> > What does that mean concretely?

I noticed there doesn't appear to be tangible answers to this anywhere (including in the reply you got to your comment). Curious to pitch a supposed long-term stock exchange without anything meaningful to lure listings to it other than vapor statements.

I'd bet it's because they can't set any strict upfront requirements. They won't be able to get the listings they need if they do it, the interest won't be there. So most of what they're going to try to do is espouse the mission goals, hoping over time they can gradually implement those controls.

<comment><USER28> Agreed. Just like everything else, the ideas hold more power based on who they are coming from. Eric is a stellar individual with a trail of success behind him - and I'm not taking anything away from him with this comment, but if I were to go to a set of worthy investors and corporations pitching this idea - I'd be laughed out of the room as naive.

<comment><USER4> I don't know if this is as true as you think. First of all, I've been laughed out of a lot of rooms for pitching this idea. Hundreds, by now.

Further, although many VC's are indeed herd animals as you seem to suggest, there are a few bold ones who genuinely hunt for new and radical ideas and would be willing to back a first-time founder - if you're willing to do the work.

<comment><USER28> Thanks for the response Eric. My point is about the audacity of the idea. Specifically, to open a new financial market place of the magnitude it would take to be viable, one would need - 1. significant experience in the space to understand the nuances, what's working, what's broken, etc. 2. Sizable investments and talent for operations (scale, uptime, compliance, etc.), 3. A well thought through G2M strategy (including derivatives, indices, options, day trading, HFT, etc.), 4. A broker network, 5. A true, unambiguous differentiator that is viable, measurable, enforceable, and timely.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure I had any of those 5 things when I began this journey, tbh

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Congrats to Eric on this.

The thing missing from this article is: What does this actually mean? When will companies start listing? Who will start listing? How do companies list? What are you offering? etc.

<comment><USER30> Yes, interesting article. Though, if this were a software announcement I'd label it _vaporware_.

<comment> wombat-man this article feels like when one person at a bar tells me about their startup that has like 0 progress.

lmk when this materializes I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This short-term-pervades-the-market is based on the idea that the current stockholders are able to trick future stockholders into buying stocks that have eaten their seed corn, before those future stockholders realize this.

How can this process of continually tricking the next investor possibly work out quarter after quarter? Wouldn't the stock market have tanked long ago if this was, in fact, underlying the bulk of the market valuations?

The reality must be, as soon as investors realize a company is short-term only, they dump and run from its stock, because they will be unable to trick someone else into buying it at the high price.

Some years ago, I knew the CEO of a company who said he did the financials "according to what Wall Street short term investors wanted". The stock promptly tanked as investors actually do not invest that way, and certainly don't want to invest in companies that eat their seed corn.

Take a look at the companies with the biggest market caps in the world - <USER2> thinks they are driven by short-term thinking? I don't. The investors obviously don't. And the rewards of long-term thinking are off the charts.

<comment><USER32> >How can this process of continually tricking the next investor possibly work out quarter after quarter?

I imagine that if the next investor was someone like a retirement fund this could work out pretty well, since they have a steady flow of money being paid in. I don't know to what extent that actually happens.

<comment><USER31> Retirement funds lose their investors if they do poorly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't understand from the website this bit which is about the "Long-Term Stakeholder Policy". What was the motivation for adding specific fields to this policy regarding diversity, the environment, and employee retention strategies? are these just examples?

\- The company's impact on the environment and its community \- The company's approach to diversity and inclusion \- The company's approach to investing in its employees

<comment><USER4> We wanted to make it explicit that these issues must be addressed in the stakeholder policy. Mostly we did this to create clarity for the regulators as to where such disclosures will live. This language mirrors other SEC-approved rules, but with stronger disclosure requirements here

It's not meant to be an exhaustive list

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Buffett, Bogel, and other famous financial folks signed a doc to overcome short-termism in 2009 that goes into more technical details: [https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/cont...](https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/docs/pubs/overcome_short_state0909_0.pdf)

Modern executives have incredible pressure to hit quarterly numbers and the ones that provide value in the long term are the ones that can effectively ignore this pressure.

Short term pressure also forces firms to play accounting games like taking big goodwill impairment losses in a down quarter, so they don't need to perform a writeoff in subsequent quarters.

<comment><USER35> This is a good example of an accounting trick that should not be allowed by an exchange-listed company. It's simply a trick to make a loss not count against earnings. It's not even shown as a liability like a self-loan would. In M&A situations it's usually shown as an asset. The point being that you can't trust the earnings number and you can't trust the balance sheet asst value, so you really don't know anything about a stock. I'm surprised that no analyst firm has published a common GAAP-based valuation. Perhaps because it's impossible, but that underlies the problem for small investors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Given current 50x multiples and high valuations for unprofitable tech companies I don't think there is much evidence that that current stock markets are unable to value long term ventures. As well the extent to which a company is expected to deliver quarterly results is more defined by their board and capital structure than anything in inherent to NYSE or the NASDAQ.

</comment><comment><USER37> Congrats! Aside from viewing volume, where can I see the individual stocks listed on the exchange?

Also, as a side note, it would be interesting if you had an LTSE index fund!

<comment><USER4> None are listed yet. Give us a little time, it's only Day One

<comment><USER38> Echoing what somebody else said, "open for business" feels a bit disingenuous from a retail investor perspective as there is no place to trade stocks, no sign up, no stocks listed etc. A more restricted announcement (read directly to companies) would probably have been a better idea to gain that critical mass.

For reference, whenever Uber/Lyft "open for business" in a new city, they don't just flip the switch to enable the app in an area. They work towards gaining a critical mass of drivers to ensure reasonable quality service levels, incentivize drivers to stay online as rides trickle in etc.

Or is this the "Lean Startup" approach to get a feel for the reception of the idea though I'd imagine that was done before you got started on building the product :)

Overall, I am very excited for what you're building and will watch out for more substantive updates! It is super cool that your team is working on challenging the status quo in an unconventional manner.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand this criticism. We are actively trading stocks today: [https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/](https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/)

You can call your broker right now and ask them to direct your orders to a specific exchange, including "L" on the SIP.

<comment><USER39> Eric, you are a smart guy. I think you should pay attention to the signal.

Multiple people have mentioned a similar thing. I have had a similar experience.

While it may be technically accurate that the "LTSE is open for business"

My expectation and others also seem to have had a similar expectation after reading the announcement was:

We can now purchase shares in companies that are listed on the LTSE. Having tried to get more info on companies listed on the LTSE, we are finding none.

"Open for business" is never defined.

It says

"Today, after months of booting up, I am thrilled to report that the Long-Term Stock Exchange has opened for business with a mission to support companies and investors who share a long-term vision."

There are a few potential options:

1\. oversight , without the realisation that people will assume the LTSE has shares listed on it which can be traded

2\. Deliberately designed to lead people to think the LTSE has shares listed on it in order to test. Lean startup and all that.

On a other note long range planning and thinking is difficult, due to discounting and uncertainty. A massive impact can be had if more people could think Though multiple causal generations down.

<comment><USER40> I don't know why you would assume that a stock exchange being "open for business" meant having a company listed. If you have a company to list, LTSE is now a place you could take it public. Yesterday that wasn't true.

Maybe it's people used to stock exchanges treating companies as the product, instead of as their customers? If so, you seem to be demonstrating the problem LTSE is trying to solve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How would I buy a share of a company on LTSE today? Does any major online brokerage work with LTSE?

<comment><USER4> Yes, the major broker-dealers and market makers are members of the exchange. You can route orders to LTSE via your existing broker, just call them up and ask them to do so.

I believe Interactive Brokers, in particular, extends this privilege to all of their retail customers. But I don't have first-hand knowledge of this, just what I've heard.

<comment><USER41> Do I have to "call up" a broker to do this trade? I've only ever used online brokerages. Am I just supposed to call Etrade's 1-800 number or something?

EDIT: Wait a minute. No individual stocks are listed yet on LTSE [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24421925](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24421925) so what am I supposed to ask them to do?

When I want to buy a share, the first thing the brokerage asks me is the stock's symbol. Without any listings, what am I supposed to tell them?

<comment><USER4> Today's announcement is about our ability to trade all US exchange-listed securities. It's not about listing our own equities. This is what it means to be a National Securities Exchange in the US.

So if you want to trade any US exchange-listed symbol, your broker can do that on LTSE (assuming they are a member)

<comment><USER41> So I could use LTSE to buy a share of MSFT? But MSFT hasn't agreed to follow any of the LTSE's rules. Why would/should anyone buy MSFT on the LTSE?

Or maybe the point is: there's no point in buying shares with LTSE today, even though you technically can do so, and instead I should wait until there are individual listings and buy those?

(And even then, I don't need to use LTSE, I can just buy their shares on NASDAQ with Etrade like I always do…?)

<comment><USER4> Correct. There is no need for you to transact on LTSE for the specific use cases you've outlined in this thread. We are open for business so, for the first time, you're able to if you want to.

<comment><USER42> Forgive the stupid question, but what's the continuity plan LTSE shuts down in a decade. Who does my share of MSFT go to?

<comment><USER4> Exchanges don't hold your shares, so once you have them in a custodian account you can do whatever you want with them, regardless of what exchange you acquired them from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The real solution for better aligning corporate incentives with long term investing is to reform the public company board structure. The problem is current public boards are controlled by insiders, both C suite execs and entrenched board members, which leads to insular self dealing. Every CEO over time pollutes the board with their cronies to maintain their power base.

The solution is simple, allow shareholders to propose board slates. That guts the power of insiders to control the company, but the SEC has never had cajones to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER43> Suppose LTSE becomes a thing, and they find some companies that they can certify as Long-Term(TM). What stops those shares from being traded on some other exchange, eg BATS?

What is it about the venue that makes it special? It seems that once an investor thinks a company has some desired characteristic, all they'd care about is where to get the shares as cheaply as possible.

<comment><USER44> NMS shares can trade on any exchange, but there is still a primary listing exchange. They're mainly (AIUI) responsible for publishing data on various administrative minutia such as the handling of dividends and splits. I imagine most of LTSE's attraction to companies is enhancing the perception of only accepting listings from companies with a long-term view

Much like as an investor you'd think twice before purchasing an OTCBB share today, or perhaps 30 years ago pay more attention to the difference in listing requirements between Nasdaq and NYSE, I think that's what's intended here

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> PS. we are hiring: [https://jobs.lever.co/ltse](https://jobs.lever.co/ltse)

<comment><USER45> > This is an opportunity to join a new stock exchange at a critical time in > its development as our first IT Engineer

First IT? Wait, how is the exchange running?

<comment><USER4> I hadn't thought of parsing the sentence that way. We mean our first hire dedicated entirely to IT (as opposed to other forms of software engineering)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Having a hard time groking what exactly LTSE does differently.

What are the specific features/differences between LTSE and other markets?

Will companies listed on LTSE be listed exclusively there, or also on other markets?

<comment><USER4> I've posted links elsewhere in this thread to the exact points of differentiation. You can even read the legal filings, if you are so inclined.

We support (and encourage) dual-listing, so that a company can still benefit from our protections while accessing liquidity at the open/close from a legacy exchange.

<comment><USER13> What protections do you provide for companies?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I read this post and its vagueness gave me no info. Where's the link to the LTSE? How does it work? What's the plan? Any quantitate metrics?

</comment><comment><USER48> Many private companies are staying private for longer, with an average time from launch to IPO creeping up toward 10 years or more. Most unaccredited investors are missing all of those substantial early gains.

Does LTSE have any plans to help speed the path to IPO and let more unaccredited investors participate in early growth and success?

<comment><USER4> It is my hope that we will be able to reverse this trend by making the experience of being a public company dramatically better. It will take time to see this play out, just as it has taken time for us to get into this mess.

But in the long run, it's important that the broad public be allowed to participate in growth investments, and I think the public markets could once again be the best place to enable that to happen. Frankly, I think it's immoral that at a time in history when we are pushing more and more of the responsibility for people's retirement onto individual savers, we have also made it illegal for them to make most growth investments. If we don't correct this imbalance, I fear the backlash to tech will only worse and intensify.

Tech didn't cause this problem but we will bear the brunt of the backlash if people feel left behind.

<comment><USER49> So, do you anticipate startups being able to IPO on LTSE at some point?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> There is no need for a long-term stock exchange.

If you want to encourage long-term investing, "all you need to do" is change investment taxation.

Equities held for less than a minute? 100% tax. A year? 20%, like the US today. Five or ten years? Zero.

Boom, HFT gone, and a sudden rise in long-term investing.

But the devil's in the details, in this case the length and shape of the curve.

<comment><USER51> This would discourage market makers form entering the market, increasing spreads and investors would pay more to execute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The entire trading industry is formed around the public markets. Large financial firms, both in accounting and investing depend on revenue from the quarterly reporting. I'd expect a tremendous amount of resistance to moving companies to LTSE.

Do you expect that any firms will transfer? Or do you expect a new ecosystem to develop side by side, over time?

<comment><USER4> We have indeed seen quite a bit of resistance, as you say. I kind of think of it as carving the grand canyon with water and gravity. With sufficient time, determination, and patience, you can make remarkable things happen. We've been able to win over many former skeptics to become allies over the years.

I can't predict the future. I know there are existing public companies for whom this would be a great fit. Can they overcome the inertia and bureaucracy that tends to set in once you go public enough to make a farsighted bet like this? Or will it be up to the next generation of corporate leaders to act with boldness? Time will tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is one of my top 5 underrated ideas that I'm so excited to see launch. This could redefine the relationship between investors/founders/operators which is clearly driven by quarterly financials. Then go listen to how people like Jeff Bezos think about building strong companies. Clear misalignment. You have to be so strong as a founder that you can resist the urges of the market to think long term.

Excited and hopeful that LTSE might make that type of thinking engrained in all businesses!! Just might take building a stock market to get there :P (which is an incredible feat)

<comment><USER54> According to this comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24423448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24423448) there is nothing they can do about quarterly reporting, so unfortunately the shift in thinking will have to happen under existing regulations.

My understanding of this is quite limited at the moment but I'm curious to learn how and why companies would benefit from signing up for the LTSE and what effect it will have in practice. There are requirements such as a "Long- term Strategy Policy" but it seems like pretty much a leap of faith / honor system for the company to upload the principles.

<comment><USER4> Each principle requires a corresponding policy enactment / which must be verifiable and enforceable

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> where are the VCs that share this vision? when I tried to raise capital on a long term vision for our hardware startup I got laughed at.

<comment><USER4> Tell me about it...

<comment><USER56> Try Nick Hanauer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> "They described the immense pressure on companies to pursue short-term results over creating value for future decades and generations."

Where does this pressure come from? The board? Can't you appoint a board that is long-term friendly? Institutional investors? Wouldn't the same investors interested in the LTSE also be interested in you on the traditional market if long-term is part of your DNA? Shareholders? Shareholders agree to all sorts of craziness if they like your company (see voting structure of Palantir, Facebook, etc.)

Maybe others can elaborate on what problem is being solved here.

<comment><USER58> I'll give a shareholder's perspective. Management, when left unchecked, frequently engages in in wasteful empire building and prestige projects. The most apparent manifestation of this is in mergers and acquisitions. Decades of evidence shows that the median merger destroys shareholder value for the acquiring company.

Imposing strong controls on corporate management is one of the most important thing that shareholders can do. This might take the form of independent boards, which aren't handpicked by the CEO. Or the removal of poison pills (which raises the threat of a hostile takeover for underperforming companies). But most important of all is the existence of transparent, consistent, regularly evaluated metrics. That means quarterly earnings targets.

Like any job, CEOs need consistent feedback to keep their incentive aligned with those who employ them (shareholders). Management has shown time and time again, that when monitoring is weakened, they go off the reservation and destroy shareholder value. The good thing about earnings is that it's they're easy-to-measure, hard-to-fake tangible proof of continuing performance. In contrast stories about "long-term value" or intangible promises of future rewards are usually BS used to justify extravagant empire building while the CEO uses the company's balance sheet as his personal piggy bank.

Lest anyone think that evil Wall Street shareholders are hobbling visionary CEOs, observe the rare cases when management does prove its credibility. Prime example is Amazon, which time and time again has scarified short-term earnings for long-term development. And nobody could possibly claim that it's punished by Wall Street for this. The difference is that unlike 99% of CEOs, Bezos has conclusively proven his ability and alignment with Amazon shareholders.

<comment><USER59> Bezos was an investment banker.

Before he had the track record of long term development (only born from long term efforts) he knew how to speak Wall Street and had a track record on Wall Street.

Most CEO's will never be capitalized like him for long term empire building so it's hard to say there couldn't be more Amazon sized successes out there if Capital was more accessible for longer term visions.

<comment><USER60> Wait, I thought Bezos was a quant, not an investment banker?

<comment><USER61> He worked at bankers trust, but not as a banker, and then at a quant hedge fund, but not as a quant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Amazing to see you here Eric.

Having worked in Equities most my life I love the idea you are putting forward here. We really need to stopthinking in terms of "next quarter" and structure our markets for the longer term.

Question for you : What are your thoughts on corporate buybacks on your exchange?

<comment><USER4> I think buybacks have occasional legitimate uses, but there's a reason that they were considered basically illegal not that long ago

I think if companies are sincere in their desire to use buybacks only for good purposes, they should commit to report "EPS net of buybacks"

<comment><USER63> They do. The number of shares outstanding is publicly reported. You can already divide earnings any way you want yourself. To me shares buyback is just the counterpart to selling shares on the open market to raise capital. It's anti-dilutive and can be in the interest of shareholders.

<comment><USER64> Disclaimer: I can take any side of the regulatory pendulum with a straight face, and that also means pointing out accurate statements with no real opinion on either.

Buybacks were illegal because it falsely showed demand in the market. False demand is a key point in modern market manipulation and fraud cases.

Given that reality dissolved 30 years ago, of course we are all familiar with the arguments "It's anti-dilutive and can be in the interest of shareholders"

<comment><USER65> My understanding is that stock buybacks are generally better than issuing a dividend for the simple reason that with a buyback, an owner can choose to sell (and incur a taxable event) or not sell, while with a dividend the taxable event is forced upon them.

<comment><USER64> A convenient reality as they can also just be used to constrict the supply of shares on market more and more, which is what they do. How also convenient that it can result in gains much more amplified than dividends.

Yes, your observation is _also_ true. But lets not pretend companies were really trying to choose between dividends and buybacks, most don't do dividends and ultimately never return capital to shareholders, which is the point of stock: to act as a conduit in sharing earnings.

<comment><USER65> > But lets not pretend companies were really trying to choose between > dividends and buybacks

I'm not pretending. And most companies eventually are designed to return capital to shareholders - otherwise why would anyone buy them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I don't have any questions, I just wanted to mention that I think you're changing the world more than most people realize.

<comment><USER4> Thank you! I don't mind being misunderstood for long periods of time, that kind of goes with the territory. But still, it's nice to get a shot in the arm every once in a while

<comment><USER67> Opening a new exchange is a huge achievement. Congrats on making it over all of the regulatory (and other) hurdles!

I wish you the best of luck in attracting new listings; it's a fascinating idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Are there any incentive systems in place to ensure that companies being traded on your exchange don't take part in these destructive practices, or is it simply that they agreed to your policies?

If it's the latter, I don't see why a company would opt to be traded on your exchange if they get literally nothing in return other than good boy points.

I also don't understand why this is a problem you are tackling at the exchange level if you aren't changing how the exchange works.

<comment><USER4> Yes, there are incentives. But I object to your characterization of doing the right thing as "good boy points." Acting ethically and treating people right is its own reward _and also_ has been repeatedly shown to lead to outperformance.

Our exchange works differently than the legacy players, so I don't really understand your last point.

<comment><USER68> >Acting ethically and treating people right is its own reward _and also_ has been repeatedly shown to lead to outperformance.

If that's the case, then what does your exchange add? I think we are in agreement about these principles, but I don't understand how your exchange is encouraging them.

Better than just encouraging people to agree to these practices is if you could set up a competitive landscape where they are more directly rewarded than in the current paradigm. That is primarily how I see an alternative exchange contributing to this cause.

>Our exchange works differently than the legacy players, so I don't really understand your last point.

This is the central contention. I don't understand _how_ you are different from legacy players. What is the actual concrete difference in how you operate _as an exchange_ that differs from your competitors? Furthermore, how do you expect that to lead to less short-term rent seeking?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It says you're open for business. What business is now open? Can I buy a share of a company on LTSE today? Can I list a company on LTSE? (I can't find a way to do either of those things on your website.)

<comment><USER4> Yes, you can do both. Trades happen through stock brokers as with any other exchange. You can track the exchange's daily trading volume here: [https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/](https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/)

The listing application (and attendant legal docs) is here: [https://longtermstockexchange.com/listings/documents/](https://longtermstockexchange.com/listings/documents/)

<comment><USER69> Is there a publicly available list of companies that are listed on the LTSE?

<comment><USER4> Not yet

<comment><USER70> Can you say how many it is roughly? Like, are there 10? 100?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> The only way I think investors could invest more in companies with a long term view is better margining so you could borrow money to invest in companies without getting margin called. Eg you can buy a house with 5% down, but you can't do this with stocks because normal volatility means you'll likely be wiped out.

<comment><USER72> You can buy (and sell) options to limit the impact of that volatility.

But I'm not sure why you would want to encourage margining when you are against volatility? The capital for the margin loan has to come from somewhere too.

So instead of person A putting up 5$ and borrowing 95$ to own 100$ in stock, and person B lending those 95$; it might be better for volatility for person A to own 5$ in stock and B to own 95$ in stock?

I am not sure.

For full disclosure: my investment strategy involves margining.

(Btw, I do think that 5% equity on houses is bad. It's mostly a function of land prices going up so much.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> It can be argued that long-term thinking is already part of the current market structure, for example take Amazon or Tesla which trades at extraordinary PE ratios. In essence investors are betting in the far future these companies will make money. How does the long term stock exchange differ?

<comment><USER20> How would companies live up to the long-term expectations? Who's holding them accountable? What's the investor's discovery mechanism for more long-term oriented companies? These are some of the things we think about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> If you have a long term view on business, you can actually just use the existing stock exchanges. The stock exchanges aren't the reason for short term thinking ... the incentives of executives and investors are the reason for that.

There's plenty of companies that take the long view and whose investors have been rewarded for it ... Amazon, Netflix, Tesla, etc. ... its not like the existing stock exchanges and investors have stopped them from running a loss and investing in the long term.

I feel this is a solution that isn't aimed at the right part of the "stack". Reform is needed in the way the professional management of large public funds and pension funds are evaluated and compensated ... but you won't solve that with a new stock exchange.

</comment><comment><USER75> I can understand the effort to weigh firm's incentives towards longer-term incentives, and I can see how the suggested changes to companies' structure would achieve that.

But why do those changes need to be coupled to the exchange a company assigns as its primary listing venue?

<comment><USER4> Companies can dual-list so LTSE does not need to be the primary venue

Stock exchanges have the obligation to set standards for the behavior of managers and investors. It's this dual-stakeholder role that uniquely allows our reforms to take hold.

Believe me, I looked long and hard for an easier way to get this done

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> > adopt corporate governance that aligns their behavior and incentives to the > long term.

What does this mean? What quantitive measures are you using to qualify long term incentives and behaviours?

No offence but you don't seem to have an answer to this question.

For example is RDSA long term? They have been around for ever and people will need cars and oils for the forseable future at least 10 years is this long term? What happens when the oil runs out / global warming / move to electric cars is it still long term and how long will that term end?

I need qualitative facts and figures before investing.

I buy stocks that provide value to people in a way thats scaleable and I have fixed time periods for when I expect investments to return like 5 years or 10 years.

When some one can't talk about the value their service provides and use loose terms like "long term" how long is long? This is an easy pass for me.

<comment><USER4> Leaving aside some of your odd claims, I'm happy to answer the question. Our definitions and standards are laid out in excruciating detail in our hundreds of pages of legal filings. Here's a good place to start if you are interested: [https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse/2019/34-86327.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse/2019/34-86327.pdf)

Also this may be of some interest:

[https://longtermstockexchange.com/static/principals_for_lt_s...](https://longtermstockexchange.com/static/principals_for_lt_success_white_paper-52e153e1e0be49bd178f74475f274ef0.pdf)

<comment><USER77> You don't have any key ideas that you can express without linking to "hundreds of pages of legal filings"? His claims are not odd at all, you really haven't put any effort into distilling the incentive design.

It's not impossible to express complex incentive design or push readers in the right direction to understand this. What is the essence of what is quantitatively or contractually different about LTSE?

<comment><USER78> The first link seems to be a 14-page memo and the second link a 28-page marketing document.

As someone who writes these docs for a living, don't be afraid to read the legal stuff. It's just text.

<comment><USER77> I'm more flummoxed by the suggestion that expressing the basic idea concretely would be too hard than I am scared of reading a legal document.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Genuine question, what good does the ability to buy and sell stock on the short term do for humanity ? Does it have any specific vertue appart from allowing one to make make money by betting correctly ? Why are not all sales required to be long term ?

<comment><USER80> It prevents capital being mis-allocated.

It turns out that is one of the most important things to do in modern, capital intensive, economies.

It also means people can invest for shorter periods and that means more capital is available for investment. This has a double bonus where it reduces the risk of investments again making more capital available...

<comment><USER79> I don't have the background to understand your answer, can you make it simpler with some examples ?

<comment><USER80> No worries, it's all quite counterintuitive :)

Imagine if you're a would be investor. You're money is available now to invest. So you want the market to be open to let you buy. Otherwise that cash is just sat there waiting. Similarly, you want to invest all your money. But if you know you won't be able to get it back for X period of time then you can't can you? You might not even know how long you can invest for: I might reasonable expect not to need some cash till Christmas time but if I lose my job tomorrow I want it now please!

So a market where you can buy and sell rapidly makes you more able and more likely to invest. That's good for you as you can use spare cash productively and make a profit while still being safe if you suddenly have a change in circumstances. It's also it's good for the company you're investing in as they can raise capital quickly and there is more capital available. And all of this means more growth and lower costs and that means more tax money for social services and more jobs for other workers etc.

The analysis for the people receiving the investment is similar but a bit more complex because the company doesn't just get investment, it also get's information: a rising share price tells you you should expand, high prices in general indicate a great time to start new businesses, a competitor whose share price falls while your one rises has issues and might be open to a merger\takeover etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I read this article and skimmed the original and I'm still not sure what the exact details of this exchange are. No robo/quant investing? Minimum hold periods? No requirements for quarterly earnings? No penny stocks?

<comment><USER82> Me too. According to the wiki page:

> Operating principles: In an earlier SEC filing, LTSE said that its corporate > governance rules might include: increased voting rights for shareholders who > hold company stock for long periods of time, restrictions on offering short- > term incentives to executives, disclosure of impact of any stock buybacks, > and requiring companies to have a board-level long-term product and strategy > committee.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long- Term_Stock_Exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Stock_Exchange)

<comment><USER83> So you make a fund which holds the stock of the listed company long-term, and trade the fund as normal... this doesn't seem robust yet.

<comment><USER84> This would add a level of indirection to stockholders trying to influence the company though, right? You have to make the fund managers put pressure on the company to give you short term gains, rather than pressuring the company directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Why not just create a template for corporate bylaws that you can certify, like a B-Corp? An LT-Corp, if you will.

If you aren't implementing any exchange-level mechanisms, why does this need to be an exchange at all?

</comment><comment><USER86> I'm still trying to understand the rationale. They should create a comparison against the current public markets to highlight the differences.

Based on the "long term", I'm guessing the core concept is no quarterly reporting, so companies can focus on long term initiatives.

However, how do they explain Amazon, who reinvested what would be their profits for over a decade, to continue expanding their business and build the massive Walmart juggernaut? All Bezos had to do was describe the strategy to the market, expand quarterly sales, and many investors were patient over the years.

<comment><USER87> Amazon is a great counter example and I don't have an argument that says Amazon does focus on short term at all, and certainly not to its detriment.

However, an exception to the rule is not the rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> _The objective was to create a public market designed for trading the stocks of companies organized to sustain long-term thinking_

How are they defining long-term thinking? Is Walmart thinking long-term? Is Uber?

</comment><comment><USER89> With all respect to Eric, I strongly believe the concept of forcing "long-term investment" is ultimately a scam.

At the end of the day, it's fundamentally a blank check for management to misbehave -- to misspend money, pursue pet projects rather than real business goals, and have nobody to tell them no.

There is _nothing_ inherently short-term about the stock market -- this is a myth that keeps getting repeated but has zero substance. Short-term changes in supply and demand add changes to prices, but it's not like anything's 10x off of the value a company is expected to produce -- the net present value of future cash flows.

But if you prevent people from selling, then you're preventing the market from holding a company accountable when its management messes up.

<comment><USER90> > But if you prevent people from selling, then you're preventing the market > from holding a company accountable when its management messes up.

Is it even possible to hold management accountable for anything at all? Personally, I think executive compensation is the real culprit.

I've tried to think of ways to put a cap on compensation but I can't think of any way especially since the management of one company is on the board of another and they are all in it together. Also something I didn't know until recently: board members get paid! How is that not the dumbest thing in the world, I will never know... Personally, I think board members in public companies should get ZERO compensation, no travel allowance, no perks. They own stock, don't they? but I digress.

Is there a way to cap executive compensation to a multiplier of the lowest salary paid by the company? like 10x or 50x something? Like if the lowest pay is USD 15 per hour or USD 15 * 2000 = USD 30k then the highest executive compensation (including stock grants, bonuses etc) may not exceed USD 30k * 50 = USD 1.5M which isn't too bad.

Is it possible to codify something like this?

<comment><USER89> > _Is it even possible to hold management accountable for anything at all?_

Of course, it's the way things work now. And it has nothing to do with compensation.

Employees are held accountable by management, and are fired when underperforming.

Management is held accountable by the board -- and is similarly fired when underperforming. CEO's are let go all the time.

And the board is held accountable to shareholders -- as owners change or demand new policies, board composition changes accordingly.

Of course if the CEO/founder owns more than 50% of voting shares then the board is more advisory than anything else, but that's the exception -- and it's simply what you get from being the _owner_.

<comment><USER91> That's what it says on paper but there is a lot written about management's capture of the levers of control. They sit on the boards, set each others salaries, and recommend each other for their boards. Shares are automatically voted the way the board chooses unless specifically voted the other way. Institutional investors typically have a hands-off attitude toward corporate governance issues leaving activists as the only ones who can hold management's feet to the fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> Shouldn't this be an index fund with conditions to be included rather than a stock exchange ?

<comment><USER4> Probably. I'd love it if someone would build this and get companies and investors to take it seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> > The objective was to create a public market designed for trading the stocks > of companies organized to sustain long-term thinking.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't seem to be clear at all to me.

Take the subset of investors that don't trade daily, or monthly, or, even yearly. There you have your long-term thinkers. And it's a large subset, make no mistake.

Also, LTSE? That's suspiciously close to LSE. I'm not being a detractor here, just asking the obvious.

</comment><comment><USER94> Hmmm, a bit disappointed after reading their blog and site. I expected that they'd integrated some clever rules around stock trading itself in order to force, or encourage, long term thinking. I expected something along the lines of, "no shorting allowed", "stocks must be held a minimum of 6 months", etc. There was nothing like that, all they have is the rule, "come on guys, think long term".

I fail to see how this will have any meaningful effect on "long term vision", if they still allow your stock price to be dumped at the first sign of trouble, or allow people to bet against your company when some irrelevant bad news hits, or no one else sees value when you decide to deepen your spend on R&D for some long term plan. If people freak out, or think they can profit off of your lack of current obvious value, the you are still going to have short term fluctuations that you will feel pressured to address.

The problem with short term thinking isn't from companies or company leadership, they are reacting to the natural short term fluctuations in their value because of the short term thinking of investors. Shareholders are not gonna understand your vision every time you decide to engage in a long term strategic shift in priorities, so they will react when they find out, and that reaction can swiftly damage a company's value. If shareholders can still trade over short-terms, then you will still have large scale short-term fluctuations that CEOs will be forced to address, as more and more potential buyers will be influenced by the low price of a stock caused by other skittish short-term thinking investors.

The problem is with investors in stocks, not with the companies unwillingness to think long term. To make such an exchange work, you have to have clever trading rules in place to force longer term thinking.

<comment><USER95> Why is shorting not consistent with long-term thinking? You can think a company or industry will decline over a long-term horizon, just as much as you can think it will grow. It seems like the symmetry of being able to be either short or long on a company is a useful part of the market signal.

I'm also not sure "hold for 6 months" is particularly useful. A lot of people are already investing on that timeline today and it hasn't solved the problem. Also, there are enough investors on aggregate that there would still be a lot of buy/sell activity every day even with that model.

Something that might be kind of interesting is if there were a short trading window every ~5 years or something. Then nobody is trading at all for years, the company can focus completely on the long-term vision and only have to check in and worry about the public perception of the work for a short period of time every few years.

<comment><USER94> Apologies, shorting-bans isn't necessarily a long-term view rule, just an example of something they could do around constraints on trading, not necessarily something they should do, just I expected some kind of trading rules to fix the real problem, which in my opinion is investor pressure, not management short-sightedness.

The rules I suggested aren't necessarily good rules, just random examples. That is, to me the most powerful driver for short term thinking isn't managerial in nature, it's investor in nature. That is, it's the short term fluctuations in market value as investor reactions to events or goals that have _nothing_ to do with the company's bottom line or long term goals, etc. But if essentially random forces are affecting the value of your company, there will exist pressure on management to respond to that pressure. So to me the real fix is some set of rules constraining _investor_ behavior with regards to how the stock is traded, not some nebulous honor-code among CEOs. I am not sure what the rules should be, I just picked random rules out of my butt. But I think there should be some trading constraints: if you truly want to incentivize long term vision, you _have_ to remove the short term pressures.

Like your suggestion for a trading window every 5 years. I have no idea how well that would work, but it seems reasonable, and is the sort of thing I expected for the site, but they seem not to have anything like that in mind. Which to me means that have entirely missed the mark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> How do I create an LTSE account and start investing? I went to [https://ltse.com/](https://ltse.com/), clicked on the menu and selected "Exchange". But I only see marketing material.

Update: I found the Sign In/Sign Up URL: [https://account.ltse.com/](https://account.ltse.com/)

<comment><USER97> You'll probably need to go through a broker - you don't buy directly from the other exchanges like NASDAQ either. If/when any brokers are on board I'm sure LTSE will be sharing that information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> I'm not sure how this works practically. Let's say Apple wants to do this, and they list. Do they issue new shares of stock, and that dilutes their other shares? How is the price determined on this exchange? If there are no restrictions on trading, and Execs get stock on LTSE, Wouldnt market reactions to quarterly reports still move price around, incentivizing short term results?

</comment><comment><USER99> Just an idea - put a link to longtermstockexchange.com into your blog post, preferably at the top, with how people can use or buy into it

</comment><comment><USER100> This seems like a wonderful idea that the world needs. But until I can see a list of companies that are "accepted", it's hard to know if it's all just lip service. There are a few companies in the tech sphere I can think of off the top of my head that many consider "long term thinkers" that others would consider nothing of the sort.

<comment><USER4> I'm as curious as you are to see what happens next...

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> The irony of launching now is that the Federal Reserve has created an environment with zero rates and endless cash that has made speculative stocks much more attractive in the traditional public markets. The stock market has become very forgiving if you can show top line growth regardless of whether you're profitable or not.

</comment><comment><USER102> Want to invest in stocks long term? Buy some stock in an unlisted company. Then you are stuck with them whether you like it or not.

Above only partly in jest. Modern crowdfunding-style stock platforms offers this to anybody, and while most startups fail, there are exceptions. The long term commitment required is a different experience.

</comment><comment> daniel-levin Hi Eric, presumably the companies will trade on a limit order book, like other exchanges. This mechanism of price formation allows rapid price movements up or down. What's to stop the speculators or retail investor hordes from piling into a stock and driving its price up or down? Are there holding period rules?

<comment><USER4> No, we do not restrict liquidity in any way. We simply believe that companies should be able to engage with "speculators" as you call them differently from long-term investors. Ultimately volatility isn't a problem in itself - it's the effect it has on corporate decision-making that matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> I assume companies will still need to be "priced" and then supply/demand will affect prices, do you intend to have any unique mechanisms to reduce volatility and short termism by investors or is the idea to be hands off and control the long term focus in "softer" ways?

<comment><USER4> Yes we do, but there's not really a good way to summarize our plans here. Suffice to say we are keenly aware of the need to reduce the aspect of volatility that is driven by speculators

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> This feels... not open. Click around the site, can't find anything useful just manifestos and principles. I really hate when startups do this. You're not "open for business" you're open to being in business. If you tell me you've started an exchange, you're open when there's listings and people can trade.

<comment><USER4> Good point: [https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/](https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_share/)

<comment><USER105> I am kind of confused. Does this site have a list of the actual listings? Maybe I'm not navigating this cboe site correctly but that just looks like some numbers.

Edit: For example if I wanted to invest in a business through LTSE today, is cboe how I would do so? What would my order flow look like?

<comment><USER106> I think you and I would need to lean on a Robinhood to do that. You can't walk up to NASDAQ / NYSE and perform a trade direct you need a broker.

<comment><USER4> correct

to find out if your preferred broker or market maker is a member of LTSE, you can ask FINRA: [https://brokercheck.finra.org/](https://brokercheck.finra.org/)

<comment><USER105> I do not have a preferred broker, and I have no idea how to find LTSE on Robinhood. I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but how would an average person find out what companies are listed on your exchange?

<comment><USER4> No companies are listed on our exchange - <USER3>

<comment><USER107> Then how have $117m passed through your exchange? If no companies are listed on the LTSE, how are stocks being traded on the LTSE?

<comment><USER105> I would also like to know about this.

Edit: Also, he didn't quite answer my question. I asked _how_ one would find out what companies are listed, not for a list of what's currently up.

I might assume that they'll eventually be on their website but I've now asked twice and gotten answers about "preferred brokers" and "market makers" (I honestly don't know what that is) and another saying that this stock exchange has no stock to exchange. Again, I am not savvy in this area but it seems reasonable that "how would I view what's available?" wouldn't be to difficult of a question. If the answer is "those listings aren't 'For you' as a non- professional investor" then I'd be happy being informed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> How is "long term" defined? The website talks about decades but does not make that clear.

Isn't every investment ultimately measured against a 30 year U.S. Treasury bond? Will the LTSE incentivize longer term investments?

</comment><comment><USER109> Is Warren Buffet involved, I wonder? I'm reading "The Intelligent Investor" at the moment, and it seems to me the principles of defensive investing would align closely with this new exchange.

<comment><USER110> Is this book outdated?

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> Not any technical details. Doesnt make sense. Short time speculators are not an enemy for long time investors. Also, doesnt make sense to enforce long-term view on exchange level.

</comment><comment><USER112> So excited to see this vision come together Eric. I honestly hope one day we're taking HMBradley public on the LTSE. I have never felt more aligned with a mission or a vision, Systematically allowing companies to take a long term view without being punished is what the market needs.

Or put another way ... Adam Smith > Milton Friedman

I cannot wait to see where this goes and the mechanics LTSE puts in place to help reward long term thinking and long term holders

<comment><USER100> > _Systematically allowing companies to take a long term view without being > punished is what the market needs._

Why is the default that companies are "punished" for long-term thinking?

I'd bet that there are far more cases of long-term investors "punished" in the public markets by short-term thinking executives than vice versa.

<comment><USER112> The simplest answer to this is regularly tying executive compensation to short term stock performance ... it leads to more Jack Welch's and less Jeff Bezos' ... Ballmer is another prominent example, Microsoft all but died under him while his key metric was stock price, that's not a win in my book

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> Why did you feel the need to support trading of non-LTSE listed names on the LTSE? Are there novel order types or other trading mechanics coming down the pipe?

<comment><USER4> Just the opposite, we adopted a set of rules that we call the Very Simple Market (tm) (yes really). We have reduced the types of orders and removed all hidden liquidity. This isn't the best trading venue for all kinds of traders, but we do believe it is superior for certain investors who have a long-term orientation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> The density of unsubstantiated platitudes in the marketing for this is high even for silicon valley. There's a good evolutionary reason human beings focus on short term thinking. We have no demonstrable ability to forecast into the distant future!

Corporate governance is eff'd, and does promote short-term shenanigans, but technology that enables shareholder governance is the solution. Not just avoiding the price discovery process.

<comment><USER115> > We have no demonstrable ability to forecast into the distant future!

Well I woke up this morning and got myself a beer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> I want to support this but man is this a botched launch. If your blogpost is so low on details that you have to spend hours answering the same questions over and over in the comments, then maybe you should write a better blog post. It feels like I've just visited a "we are under construction" website; I still have no idea what this is or what it does or what I'm supposed to do.

</comment><comment><USER117> If you want long term thinking, pay packages for executives should take that into account. This can be done regardless of exchange.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. our standards require this

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> There were a few transactions which got completed today. Who is buying and What are they buying ?

Source : [https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/venue...](https://markets.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/venue/longtermstockexchange/all_market/)

</comment><comment><USER119> Like many people here, I've been wondering for a long time how they are planning on keeping companies focussed on the long term. Here is a summary that is shorter than the SEC filings.

[https://longtermstockexchange.com/listings](https://longtermstockexchange.com/listings)

</comment><comment><USER120> How can you enforce long term holding without explicitly banning shareholders from selling within an x month period of purchase date? I think it should be a law that you have to wait like 6 months before you can sell a stock... that would eliminate ALL traders and craziness in the markets.

</comment><comment><USER121> I haven't read every comment here but is this a direct repeal to the common business logic: "do what increases the shareholder's profits"?. i.e. moving business focus away from pure profit and onto values that benefit the greater good (environmentalism, diversity, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER42> Congrats Eric! I've been excited about this since your original announcement.

I'm hoping that you'll offer an index fund to make it for passive investors (and dollar cost averaging) to put more money in this exchange, with less effort, and push the wall street incentives toward longer term.

<comment><USER4> good idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> Confused? I'd highly suggest listening to the talk by Eric on this LTSE: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvaAYpP691Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvaAYpP691Y)

And congrats Eric on getting to this point, I know it's been a long road!

<comment><USER4> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER123> Congrats! I agree that this is a very important problem to solve. Can you elaborate on some of the specifics of how LTSE will incentive investors to think long-term?

I'm imagining some strict trading frequency limits. Like an inventor can only trade a specific stock once a year. Do I have the right idea?

<comment><USER4> No, what you are describing is not currently legal in the US. We have to allow the stocks listed on LTSE to trade freely across the entire "National Market System" which includes dark pools and incumbent legacy exchanges.

So in order to solve this problem we have to start with corporate governance. Remember, though, that shares of stock are not actually commodities. They are contracts and the rights and responsibilities of stockholding emanate from the corporate charter. So as we are able to encode protections and requirements there, they will follow the stock wherever it trades.

Through this mechanism, much reform is possible both today and in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> Great, creating an equity exchange is a heavy endeavor and I've seen no more than a couple of medium posts which speak only to the problem but nothing towards your solution. I'm definitely missing something; where's the beef? Is there something of your solution that we can read?

<comment><USER4> Sure. All of the details are available in public filings and on our website. You might start here: [https://longtermstockexchange.com/listings](https://longtermstockexchange.com/listings)

or here: [https://longtermstockexchange.com/static/principals_for_lt_s...](https://longtermstockexchange.com/static/principals_for_lt_success_white_paper-52e153e1e0be49bd178f74475f274ef0.pdf)

or here: [https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse/2019/34-86327.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse/2019/34-86327.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> It's pretty awesome.

Which was harder - building a stock exchange, or getting someone to read a whole book?

With the benefit of hindsight, which of the following would you say is the biggest predictor of growth in equities prices: everything else, greater buying, less selling, brand, liquidity, or previous prices?

<comment><USER4> What makes you think I ever did the latter ;)

In all seriousness, there's no comparison. A regulated national securities exchange is one of the harder kinds of startups you can attempt.

I'm pretty sure that over the long run equity prices are a mirror of the fundamental value creation that companies do by serving customers. The problem is that this can become distorted "longer than you can stay liquid" as the old saying goes

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> The assumed problem is that investors of publicly traded companies pressure management to make suboptimal decisions, because they overfocus on short-term performance instead of maximizing the present value of all future cash-flows.

Looking at TSLA, AMZN, FB... I'm skeptical about this premise.

</comment><comment><USER127> @eries Isn't this a raw deal for executives and potential executives of listed companies? It introduces new corporate governance rules (no short-term incentives, buybacks, etc) without alleviating the existing regulatory burden of quarterly filings, GAAP, etc.

<comment><USER4> if a company's executives feel like gaining outperformance by doing extra work isn't a good deal, maybe don't invest in that company? I'm not an expert, but I do play one on TV sometimes

<comment><USER127> Fixed the typos. Yeah that's kind of my point. You are going to have less interest from investors - but not only that you will have less interest from boards or executives. What's the advantage of being listed on the LTSE, if all I get are more rules? It's a neat option for investors, but there's two sides to every market. What does it offer that a long-term-conscious board couldn't implement themselves?

I can't say "I'm starting a food truck which will sell popsicles that don't melt even in the face of great heat. Sure the suppliers have to put in a little extra work to make sure they don't melt, but you as a buyer will benefit" \- that doesn't really work unless there is a path for those popsicles to be created and offered for sale in a way that makes sense for the supplier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER128> Non-Medium article about the same topic: [https://ltse.com/articles/the-long- term-stock-exchange-goes-...](https://ltse.com/articles/the-long-term-stock- exchange-goes-live)

</comment><comment><USER129> My understanding is that the market cap of a company listed at LTSE will be far less than of the same company listed at NYSE or NASDAQ since there will not be a as much interest by both many institutional and retail investors. Is my understanding correct?

<comment><USER4> Definitely not

<comment><USER130> You can't just say "Definitely not" and leave it at that. You have to explain why or you come off as a huckster.

<comment><USER4> I'm happy to clarify further. There is nothing in the summary above that is accurate so I wasn't sure what else to say. Please feel free to ask followup questions, I'll do my best to get to them today

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER131> I think something like this might be more useful outside the USA.

Publicly traded companies in the USA already re-invest quite a large chunk of their profits for future growth, where companies in other countries would tend to pay out larger dividends.

</comment><comment><USER132> @eries any plans/timeline to list LTSE on LTSE? Also any additional thoughts on the index fund proposal described by a few here: would you want to include existing public companies or only completely brand new LTSE listed companies?

Thanks

</comment><comment> GuB-42 I'm wondering if "stability warrants" could help promoting long term goals over runaway speculation.

This is a financial product available on the CAC40 index which pays off if the index value stays within a certain range.

<comment><USER4> Curious to learn more about how this might work

</comment></comment><comment><USER133> Wow, it sure was pretty hard to find the street address, and this was in a context which makes it look like you were legally forced to publish it. Don't you want people to know where you're located at?

</comment><comment><USER134> What criteria is necessary for companies to list on the exchange? Can we have you on our podcast for 10 minutes to talk about the exchange? We are called Moontower Business based in Austin, Texas

</comment><comment><USER135> Do you think you'll see something like "ethical index funds" that index your exchange, and sell themselves to customers based on the rules of your exchange?

And if so, when can I buy in?

<comment><USER4> Yes, I hope so. I think if and when that happens, it'll be pretty big news. I don't think you'll miss it.

(But I guess you could subscribe to our newsletter in the meantime... [https://ltse.com](https://ltse.com) at the bottom of the page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER136> Just throwing this out there... Why not a simple rule to require all shares to be held for at least 24 hours before selling? It would certainly change the game in every way imaginable.

<comment><USER137> It would but powerful vested interests would probably fight it tooth and nail. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax)

<comment><USER72> Not just powerful vested interests. Anyone who knows anything about economics knows that transaction taxes are bad for efficiency etc.

Tax wealth for all I care. But don't tax transactions.

(Btw taxing transactions would actually make financial speculation more profitable. Because bid/ask spreads would become wider and prices more volatile.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> Will the long term stock exchange feature any kind of derivatives?

</comment><comment><USER134> What criteria is necessary for companies to be listed? Can we have you on our podcast for 10 minutes to talk about your exchange? We are a business podcast in Austin, Texas.

</comment><comment><USER139> Small brain: Link your site, get DDOS'd

Big brain: Link your blog explaining your site, main site is unaffected by DDOS

Galaxy brain: Link your blog explaining your site hosted by a 3rd party. No DDOS.

Nice work, everyone.

</comment><comment><USER140> Oh, it's mostly a statement of principles to which a company can sign up. More like a "public benefit corporation". Are these binding? How are they enforced?

I was expecting some kind of exchange designed for lower volatility. There have been exchanges proposed where prices only change once a minute, or something like that, to stop high frequency trading. But this isn't one of them. Warren Buffett has proposed that any capital gain over a period less than a year be taxed at 100%, to force a buy and hold strategy. Not seeing any of that here.

<comment><USER141> > _Warren Buffett has proposed that any capital gain over a period less than a > year be taxed at 100%, to force a buy and hold strategy_

Well yes, anyone with ample liquidity would love this. Anyone needing short- term liquidity would be price indifferent between their acquisition price and the market price. Liquidity providers would make bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER142> I'm wondering a few things:

1\. Can we do a direct stock listing?

2\. How much equity needs to be offered?

3\. Is there a minimum valuation that needs to be met to be listed?

4\. What are the fees to be listed?

</comment><comment><USER120> Are you explicitly banning traders from trading? For example requiring you have to wait x months from purchase date before you can sell your shares.

<comment><USER143> That's a really bad idea. If that was a rule, there would be no liquidity at all as no market maker would touch it. Also shorting would become too risky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER144> Are any companies currently applying to be listed?

<comment><USER4> The listings process is highly regulated and any conversations of this type would be confidential, so I can't answer this one

</comment></comment><comment><USER145> What are the benefits for a company to list here?

What are the current examples of company that exists now that fit that ideal long-term vision?

<comment><USER146> I expect they'll find capital from investors/shareholders there that will be less activistic in periods of short-lasting economic underperformance

<comment><USER145> Are they going to limit the volum of the transactions, or it's trusting the investors.

It would be better if they gave more details on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER147> Eric, what are some companies you'd be happy to list on your exchange? Both IPO and older companies already listed elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER148> So how do we monetize this? I see the idea is the long term goal of sustainability, but how does one get their money out at the end? I wouldn't have these expectations for most of these initiatives, except for the use of "stock exchange", so I expect there to be some reason to exchange stock. Call it "the green list" or something if there's no money to be had, and that's totally fine, but the name doesn't match the goal.

</comment><comment><USER149> Can/will LTSE restrict options trading?

<comment> d--b If they don't do options themselves, nothing prevents another exchange to list options on prices published by the ltse. So if the exchange is succesful, it's likely they will list options there too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> What are the listing fees and procedures? Are you similarly regulated to NYSE? Can smaller startups and Reg D List?

<comment><USER4> Yes, similar to NYSE and NASDAQ. All of our exchange fees are regulated: [https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse.htm](https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER151> Great initiative! how do you plan to attract buyers and sellers to create a meaningful and transparent exchange.

</comment><comment><USER152> When will the LTSE be open for investors to buy shares? Will focus be on institutional investors or retail?

</comment><comment><USER153> How can an average investor buy stocks on this exchange? Will they be available in regular stock brokerages?

<comment><USER4> Yes, all of our listed securities will be available in regular brokerages. If your current broker allows it, you can even ask them to direct trades to LTSE as opposed to another exchange. Although most retail brokerages do not allow customers do specify this, a few do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER154> What is your view on the whole Derivatives issue? Because they seem to be very problematic as it seems that a small part of it is really used for useful business objectives (like hedging) but the vast majority of them is used as plain, bubble generating, gambling in the markets (as the subprime chaos in 2008). Will LTSE address this issue in any way?

<comment><USER4> Yes, but I don't have anything to announce at this time.

<comment><USER154> Good. Now I'm curious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER151> Great Initiative ! How do you plan to attract buyers and sellers for transparent exchange?

</comment><comment><USER155> What a bold move, Eric! What does a Minimum Viable Product for a stock exchange look like?

<comment><USER4> You're looking at it. MVP doesn't mean "fast" in some absolute sense. It just means fast compared to the underlying cycle time of the relevant industry. I think we did pretty well with this one.

That said, there were many many many MVPs that you don't see that informed the direction we are at now.

In some way our private company tools are also an MVP of sorts: [https://ltse.com/tools/](https://ltse.com/tools/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER156> Will there be a limitation on buying/selling to prevent automated traders?

( Or plans for this)

<comment><USER4> No, that's currently not legal in the US

We focus instead on finding ways to differentiate the experiences of the "tourist" speculators from the "citizen" long-term investors

<comment><USER157> >We focus instead on finding ways to differentiate the experiences of the "tourist" speculators from the "citizen" long-term investors

Can you expand on this?

<comment><USER4> Sure. I don't have an objection to short-term investors, even the long-term investors like having them around to provide liquidity. But I don't think an investor who has an average equity holding period of 10 minutes should be involved in corporate governance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER158> When will you see the first companies list and how do I invest in these companies

</comment><comment><USER159> Is there an index fund where I can easily buy into all the companies in the LTSE?

<comment><USER4> Not yet

</comment></comment><comment><USER160> How much time and money did you spend building the MVP? How did you validate it?

<comment><USER4> We have raised on the order of $90M so far. It cost us almost $20M to get to the initial regulatory approval

I've answered about MVPs elsewhere in this thread but a big part of what made this possible is our superior cost structure due to being a software-native company

Validation I'll have to answer a little later, once we make a little more progress

</comment></comment><comment><USER161> What's the smallest a company can be to consider being listed on LTSE?

</comment><comment> obi-wan How did you decide on your first early hires and how did you convince them ?

</comment><comment><USER156> Add a 1 minute delay on every order and most automated trading would be gone.

<comment><USER133> I'd prefer trading timeslots, like once every 10 minutes, with randomized execution order.

You put your orders in, they all get queued up and then the queue gets executed randomly.

That would force the traders to think in different terms, closer to the real value of the asset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER162> What are your thoughts on listing foreign companies? Asking from the UK.

<comment><USER4> LTSE should work fine for any company that wants to add a secondary listing to access US capital markets, so long as they otherwise meet the listing standards

</comment></comment><comment><USER163> How often can you trade? Once a day (at the same time)? As you like?

<comment><USER4> We are a RegNMS complaint exchange which means we don't restrict trading or liquidity. We have found ways to make our reforms effective without having to go there

</comment></comment><comment><USER164> Isn't this solved by an app that only lets you buy and sell long term? I mean why do we need a new exchange for it?

Sorry, if that sounded harsh. I am not familiar with the business nuances around exchanges and so the question.

</comment><comment><USER165> how do you handle M&As when companies are absorbed by other companies that don't live by the charter? grace period, or are they just dropped?

<comment><USER4> Same as any other exchange. The new entity will either have to meet the listing standards or be de-listed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER166> How is this different to equitybee.com or carat.com?

</comment><comment><USER167> Best of luck Eric. I can feel the ship turning.

<comment><USER4> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER168> Not all good ideas make good businesses.

</comment><comment><USER169> I always thought that the LTSE would be an excellent crypto/ICO use-case.

</comment><comment><USER170> If you're starting I think you should read the lean startup

</comment><comment><USER171> Please compare LTSE to IEX, why is LTSE better?

</comment><comment><USER101> what incentives do companies have to be "long term focused" in a market environment that has become highly frothy and speculative due to central bankers?

when investors will buy anything that whiffs of growth and executives can raise debt for cheap and raise secondaries easily no one on either side is exactly clamoring for a "long term" focused exchange right now.

<comment><USER4> No one? At least a few people are clamoring for it, surely?

There are some investors and companies that tune out the noise and try to make lasting change, making a dent in the universe, that kind of thing. I think they could use financial infrastructure to support their ambitions. Seems pretty simple to me

<comment><USER101> clearly you're biased, but hard to imagine the actions of the Federal Reserve that has pumped liquidity into the economy and cut rates to 0 that many predict will last for 5+ years make an exchange that is focused on "long term" less interesting to both executives and investors.

we live in a market when there's a dozen SPACs listed every week and a company like Nikola that doesn't even have a functioning product has a valuation of $20B. liquidity and support from central bankers have naturally made investors more patient and willing to ignore short term road bumps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER172> What support will there be for high frequency trading? What is required for Direct Market Access? Will the realtime data feed be public? What is the fee schedule?

<comment><USER4> \- What support will there be for high frequency trading? LTSE's market is designed to create a level playing field for all market participants. We provide equal support across all of our members.

\- What is required for Direct Market Access? A relationship with a member of LTSE who offers DMA.

\- Will the realtime data feed be public? Yes, LTSE's market data can be accessed via the SIP's (Securities Information Processor) under the "L" quote.

\- What is the fee schedule? Free/Free (Add/Remove)

<comment><USER172> Regarding "a level playing field for all market participants" I don't believe that in an exchange that supports HFT there can be a truly level playing field. There are some technologies that can help mitigate the effects of HFT on the market. One is the approach that AZX [1] took where you do large and infrequent dual auctions. Another approach is to go with an Automated Market Maker (AMM) technology and eliminate the need for order books all together as has become popular recently in the cryptocurrency space. Some background research can be found here [2] but what really took off was Uniswap's innovative use of a "Constant Function Market Maker" [3]. This allows average individuals to provide liquidity while getting the benefits of what is normally only reserved for high frequency traders. I believe that an institutional grade AMM program would be greatly democratizing for the industry.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Stock_Exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Stock_Exchange) [2] [http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/2012/CMU- CS-12-12...](http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/2012/CMU- CS-12-123.pdf) [3] [https://medium.com/bollinger-investment-group/constant- funct...](https://medium.com/bollinger-investment-group/constant-function- market-makers-defis-zero-to-one-innovation-968f77022159)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER173> Sounds like something designed to impair price discovery and efficient allocation of capital. Ultimately this will rise the cost of capital for the companies listed there.

</comment><comment><USER174> As we're seeing right in our face on the West Coast of the US right now, climate change is going to continue to get worse, affecting the globe at least as much as the pandemic and for much longer unless we take serious action now.

Does the LTSE structure support companies oriented towards developing rapid climate solutions that will pay off in the longer term, but not at the rate of typical venture investments? If this isn't a focus, why not?

<comment><USER4> Yes. I don't think any other platform is better suited to such companies</comment></comment>


Basic Flaw Reveals Source Code to 3,300 Popular Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/23/basic-flaw-reveals-source-code-to-3300-popular-websites/

<comment><USER2> If there are .svn directories still present, it's likely that they just copied a working copy to their web server. You're supposed to use "svn export" to create a "production" version without the .svn directories. Or just delete them. Either way, this is really VCS misuse more than anything else.

<comment><USER3> Using subversion for deployment is a common practice. They _should_ be blocking access to the .svn directories via web server configuration.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838981>

</comment><comment><USER4> blocked or not, utilizing svn export is a 101 level thing. Who runs these places??

Another reason to love git, one single .git folder in the project root.</comment>