Special Offer on Robert Beyster's Book About How He and Employee Ownership Built SAIC

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is arguably the most influential employee-owned company in the world. The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company, a new book by J. Robert Beyster and Peter Economy (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) traces the development of SAIC, the 44,000-employee research and development company Beyster founded in 1969. Beyster has been a passionate advocate of employee ownership since the company's beginning. SAIC went public last year. Between 1969 and 2006, the company's stock grew at an annual compounded rate of 34%. Beyster's core principles were simple: "Hire very smart people, encourage their entrepreneurial spirit, let them focus on customers, and reward them for their contributions." The most important reward was ownership. Beyster's share of the company dropped to 10% after the first year and to 2% by the 1990s. Ownership was shared broadly through options, stock purchase plans (including an in-house stock market), an ESOP, and a 401(k) plan. Beyster said he was never concerned about what percentage of the pie he owned but rather how employee ownership could better serve employees and thus customers. Employees were given considerable freedom to develop their own projects, albeit within firm parameters about business success and ethical behavior. The book is a valuable resource on a company that the business press has largely ignored.