Others predate the government’s facilitation of such structures, celebrating a decade or more of employee ownership. Employee owners interviewed by Boulder Weekly enjoy having a say in business decisions and sharing in the profits. Once Teamshares adds the businesses to their portfolio, their goal is to reach 80% employee ownership within 20 years by directly issuing stocks to employees. Right now, the 44 Left Hand employees invested in the ESOP own roughly 5-7% of the company. “It is really exciting to see more people getting into employee ownership, because it means we get more of a say in how our community is run,” they said.