The Alchemist’s Bank: A True Story of  True Value

Twenty-five years ago, the world felt vast, and I was just a quiet, young nerd. My mission field was not a gleaming tech campus, but a small bank in my home country. Seven years I spent within those walls, and looking back, I realize they were the most rewarding seven years of my professional life—not just for the money, but for the profound education I received.

My job was gloriously, deeply nerdy. We were given a precious, almost unheard-of gift: almost free hands to solve problems. We weren’t cogs; we were alchemists. We dug into the systems, we wrestled with the inefficiencies, and we fixed problems. It was a pure meritocracy of ideas, and we felt valued for the complexity we could tame.

But the true, enduring lesson wasn’t in the code; it was in the corporate soul of this 3,500-person institution.

They operated on a principle I wouldn’t recognize as radical until two decades later: the Stakeholder Model. It wasn’t a slogan; it was the air we breathed. The entire architecture of the bank was built on the unshakeable tripod of shared destiny:

To the Shareholders: They deserved a return, yes, but one that was stable, ethical, and sustainable, built on real value, not manufactured hype.

To the Employees (Us): We deserved fair wages, profound respect, and a good environment because we were the engine. We were the human capital that created every solution and every customer experience.

To the Customers: They deserved quality products, excellent service, and ethical treatment because their trust was the ultimate currency.

We were told, implicitly and explicitly, that these three pillars were not competing interests but a single, powerful feedback loop. Happy, respected employees give great service, leading to loyal customers, which generates long-term wealth for the owners. Simple, elegant, and true.

Twenty years later, I watched the digital giants, the ones who supposedly solved the world’s problems, dismantle their own houses. They adopted the philosophy of Shareholder Primacy, a short-sighted, starving ideology that reduced every human being to a metric of profit. They started the ugly, heartbreaking process of enshittification, where the customer is exploited, the employee is fired or replaced by a broken algorithm, and the board and CEO get rich on the resulting carnage.

My small bank, two decades ahead of the moral curve, never took that desperate path. They taught me that the foundation of great business isn’t greed—it’s trust. And while the tech world rushes toward a corporate graveyard paved with broken promises and automated contempt, that humble bank still stands today, 58 years since its birth, a testament to the quiet, enduring power of putting people first.

The Reckoning: Greed’s Short Reign vs. The Unyielding Power of People
There is a slow-motion corporate disaster unfolding in plain sight. It is not a sudden crash or a market panic; it is the deliberate, internal decay of companies that forgot who actually created their value. The customers. We call this decay “enshittification,” and it is the inevitable consequence of a failed philosophy.

Every enterprise, from the corner shop to the Silicon Valley titan, stands at a moral and strategic crossroads, a decision that determines whether it achieves lasting greatness or crumbles under the weight of its own short-sighted greed. The choice is between worshipping a single master, Shareholder Primacy, or wisely serving a vital triumvirate of Stakeholders: Owners, Employees, and Customers.

The Cult of the Quarter: Shareholder Primacy
The prevailing dogma of modern capitalism, famously championed by Milton Friedman, asserts one ruthless objective: the company’s sole responsibility is to maximize profit for its shareholders. It sounds efficient, clean, and perfectly aligned with the market. Yet, in practice, it transforms the business into a relentless machine of extraction, treating every human connection as a variable cost to be minimized.

This is the path of immediate gratification, the feverish pursuit of a surging quarterly report. When the only measure of success is the stock price, what happens?

The Sacrifice of the Employee: Human capital is rebranded as “labor costs.” The budget for training is slashed. Automation, even deeply flawed, user-hostile automation, such as the broken AI moderation systems we see today, is deployed not to assist staff, but to eliminate them, replacing highly trained human judgment with blind, unappealable algorithms. The result is a demoralized, exhausted workforce that cannot possibly provide the high-quality experience the company promises.

The Exploitation of the Customer: Once the platform has secured a critical mass of users, the tap turns off. The platform stops serving the customer and starts serving the advertiser, the partner, and the investor. This is the heart of enshittification: the digital town square is choked with low-quality, pay-to-play content; the user experience is purposefully degraded; and the system becomes actively hostile to its own foundation. User complaints are met with silence, or worse, with algorithmic contempt.

The Ultimate Irony: In the mad dash for short-term gain, the company burns its own fields. Trust, loyalty, and brand integrity, the very ingredients of long-term shareholder value, are incinerated. The customer, feeling betrayed and exploited, eventually abandons the sinking ship. The employees, stripped of their dignity, are the first to walk. This scorched-earth policy may deliver a few glorious quarters, but the reckoning always arrives, leaving behind a husk of what was once a thriving enterprise.

The cold truth is this: Shareholder Primacy is not a strategy for enduring success; it is a philosophy of internal self-cannibalization.

The Unshakeable Foundation: The Stakeholder Model
Contrast that destructive fever dream with the clear-eyed wisdom of the Stakeholder Model, the very philosophy you witnessed at your bank. It operates from a single, profound insight: Profit is not the purpose of a company, it is the reward for solving a problem well.

This model acknowledges that a business stands upon three essential pillars, all of which must be equally supported to prevent the structure from collapsing.

Pillar 1: The Customers (The Source of Life)
They are not merely revenue streams; they are the purpose of the business’s existence. By prioritizing a customer’s experience, treating them with fairness, and ensuring a high-quality product, the company locks in loyalty that transcends any quarterly report. This focus ensures stability.

Pillar 2: The Employees (The Engine of Value)
They are the living, breathing connection between the company’s promise and the customer’s experience. When a company invests in its people, with fair pay, genuine respect, and the tools to succeed, those people respond with dedication, innovation, and care. It’s obvious. This commitment to the team is what keeps the system robust and adaptable.

Pillar 3: The Shareholders (The Beneficiaries of Success)
They are not forgotten; they are simply placed in their proper strategic position: the ultimate, long-term beneficiaries of a healthy ecosystem. When customers are loyal and employees are motivated, the revenue stream is dependable, the brand equity is high, and the profit is not only stable but sustainable.

Why the Stakeholder Model Works: The Virtuous Cycle
This is where the magic happens. Your bank was successful because it understood that these three groups are not competing, but co-dependent. They form a Virtuous Cycle:

Happy Employees→Exceptional Service→Loyal Customers→Stable Revenue→Long-Term Shareholder Returns
In this model, the short-term crisis mentality is replaced by a long-view strategic calm. The company can afford to maintain human-led quality control (avoiding the tragicomic AI moderation fiascos) because it has built deep goodwill and sustainable profit margins. It doesn’t have to chase fleeting fads or resort to desperation moves.

The Final Verdict: A Question of Legacy
The battle between these two philosophies is a battle for the soul of capitalism.

Shareholder Primacy is the doctrine of the sprinter: an intense burst of energy followed by total collapse. It delivers wealth to a few, fast, by sacrificing the many, and results in a trail of broken platforms, exploited workers, and furious customers, the epitome of enshittification.

The Stakeholder Model is the doctrine of the marathon runner: sustained, strategic effort built on an unshakeable inner core. It delivers equitable value to all who contribute to its success and builds companies that do not just survive a decade, but define an era.

In the end, every leader must choose: Do you want a burst of transient greed, or a legacy of enduring power? History has consistently shown that the only foundation solid enough to stand the test of time is one built not just on money, but on people.

The company Jyske Bank was established in 1967 as a merger of four local banks and I am confident it will outlast the trillion dollar enshittificated companies that dominate the world for a short period in time.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Jyske Bank’s commitment to the Stakeholder Model is deeply embedded in its social responsibility efforts, viewing a “good life” as something that requires both financial security and strong community bonds. The bank translates this philosophy into action through targeted social engagement, focusing its resources and expertise where they can make a genuine difference.

Combating Loneliness & Food Waste: The bank spearheads initiatives to build social ties, partnering with the Folkebevægelsen mod Ensomhed to organize events like Danmark Spiser Sammen (Denmark Eats Together) and actively supporting FødevareBanken, which turns surplus food into meals for vulnerable citizens.

Promoting Inclusion & Accessibility: Jyske Bank demonstrates a commitment to a positive customer experience for everyone by supporting the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Program. This ensures that customers with invisible handicaps receive the extra patience and assistance they may need.

Investing in Youth & Education: The bank actively contributes to the next generation’s future, sending employees to act as guest instructors during Pengeuge (Money Week) to teach financial literacy. They also back projects like MurMal (mural art) and Kloge Hænder (Clever Hands) to offer apprenticeships and promote vocational training among young people.

Community Support: The bank’s engagement extends to the local level by supporting staff involvement in local voluntary work (including crisis relief efforts) and providing long-term support for non-profit debt counseling services.

Sustainability Integration: Beyond social efforts, the bank is committed to reducing its own CO2 footprint and actively helps customers achieve their climate goals by offering ESG-focused investment advice and assistance with climate accounting.

Debt Counselling: For many years, Jyske Bank has supported organizations and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration’s work with debt counselling, and has employees who work as volunteer debt counsellors.

Jyske Bank best at Private Banking for the 10th consecutive year. This is shown by a new survey from the analysis institute Voxmeter.

They must be doing something right.