Ernst Abbe

After Carl Zeiss's death, his partner Abbe set up the Carl Zeiss Foundation in 1889 and transferred his own shares to it in 1891, so that the optical works and the Schott glassworks belonged to no individual. The foundation statute he wrote guaranteed workers pensions, sick pay and later an eight-hour day. The foundation still owns both companies outright, which makes it one of the purest examples of the model.