116 The man who sold shares of himself on the Internet

In 2008, Mike Merrill divided himself into 100,000 shares and offered them to the Internet for $1 a pop. After the initial wave of friends and family bought in, online strangers began to acquire shares of Mike⁠ — a regular person, not a company.
With those shares come voting rights. Shareholders were allowed to decide Merrill's diet, his romantic decisions, even whether or not to get a vasectomy. Any personal life decision for which Merrill would seek advice from a friend, he instead posed to shareholders, who would vote on legally binding decisions.
The experiment led him to global news coverage and an appearance on the Today Show, which raised the price of his shares significantly. These days, shares of Mike trade at around $5.
Alli and Jen talk to Merrill about the origins of the experiment, how crowdsourced decision making has shaped his life, and what he might do differently in the wake of newer online commodity trading models like Bitcoin.
Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1p
Email us: [email protected]
Talk to Alli and Jen:
https://twitter.com/alligold
https://twitter.com/joonbugger
Call the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2008, Mike Merrill divided himself into 100,000 shares and offered them to the Internet for $1 a pop. After the initial wave of friends and family bought in, online strangers began to acquire shares of Mike⁠ — a regular person, not a company.

With those shares come voting rights. Shareholders were allowed to decide Merrill's diet, his romantic decisions, even whether or not to get a vasectomy. Any personal life decision for which Merrill would seek advice from a friend, he instead posed to shareholders, who would vote on legally binding decisions.

The experiment led him to global news coverage and an appearance on the Today Show, which raised the price of his shares significantly. These days, shares of Mike trade at around $5.

Alli and Jen talk to Merrill about the origins of the experiment, how crowdsourced decision making has shaped his life, and what he might do differently in the wake of newer online commodity trading models like Bitcoin.

Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1PJoin us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1p

Email us: [email protected]

Talk to Alli and Jen:

https://twitter.com/alligold

https://twitter.com/joonbugger

Call the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices