Hank Green

equity, but there would be like a sort of similar share as our profit distribution that would go out.

And so was is that something that would feel like a loss to people?

Is there a way to compensate people for that loss?

Because in the same way that that like the equity is no longer me and John's in the same way, we can never sell and people will never get like a big windfall because of that sale.

And ultimately, it turned out that not very many people at the company were like sitting back waiting, thinking that that was going to happen someday.

It's not really a tech startup vibe because it's a media company.

It's educational media in particular.

And also, we had placed a lot of constraints on the content.

So I think when people look at us as an acquisition target, they were like, oh, you won't put any of it behind a paywall?

What if we made new stuff?

And they're like, no, not that either.

And they're like, we don't really want you then.

They wanted things, but that was a real limitation on the value.

So there's that.

And then there was like, what are the different ways you can go here?

Yeah.

And so we did, I'll be honest, we took meetings with people who wanted to buy us just to get the lay of the land and ultimately decided that that was not a path we wanted to explore.

And we also looked at other weird ownership structures, whether employee ownership was a thing that we could try.

And it just seemed like there was too many signals that actually the thing that this thing should be is a nonprofit organization.

Give me an example of some of those signals.