613: Preserving Companies and Design with Andy Budd

Chad talks with guest Andy Budd, Design Leadership Coach & Venture Partner at Seedcamp, as they look back over Andy’s time at Clearleft, the company he co-founded back in 2005.

Andy discusses employee trust ownership, how it both benefits and protects your employees, and has the potential to keep your business going for generations to come rather than living and dying by the founders interest. Chad also announces that thoughtbot is moving into a Purpose Trust model.

—

Our guest for this episode has been Andy Budd. If you'd like to get in touch with Andy, or to keep up to date with his work, you can do so through BlueSky, LinkedIn, or through his website.

If you are a Medium user, you can also follow Andy at The Design VC

See Andy’s panels at Evolve at the Brighton Centre, 26th June.

Your host for this episode has been Chad Pytel. You can find Chad all over social media as @cpytel, or over on LinkedIn.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@giantrobots.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - LinkedIn - Mastodon - YouTube - Bluesky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.