---
title: "TED Talk Thursday: Ricardo Semler on Running a Company with (Almost) No Rules"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/4b2ad2a3-ca8b-4d24-8ea4-20dd2fbc7a47
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/ted-talk-thursday-ricardo-semler-on-running-a-company-with-almost-no-rules-2309
category: "General"
published: 2015-08-20T17:12:00.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T13:04:53.916Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/b4d35d5b5989d41677cc4e4ed2b6f3539762.jpg
---

# TED Talk Thursday: Ricardo Semler on Running a Company with (Almost) No Rules

**TL;DR:** Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco Partners, discusses his radical leadership style and support of industrial democracy. Semler's methods, which include eliminating strict schedules and dress codes, increased employee satisfaction and productivity at Semco Partners.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2015-08-20. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/ted-talk-thursday-ricardo-semler-on-running-a-company-with-almost-no-rules-2309).*

## Story

Ricardo Semler, CEO of Brazil-based portfolio manager Semco Partners , has been making headlines with his radical leadership style and support of industrial democracy for decades. Under Semler’s ownership, the company’s revenue has grown along with the notoriety of his leadership strategies.

After writing a handful of books on corporate re-engineering, Semler brought his radical philosophy to TED for a talk about running a company with (almost) no rules. By eliminating all “boarding school aspects” of corporate leadership—strict schedules, dress codes, micromanaging tendencies, etc.—Semler increased employee satisfaction while concurrently driving up productivity.

Semler continued this borderline corporate carte blanche by allowing employees to “buy back” their weekdays with salary cut, divulging employee salaries and company earnings to any curious employees and conducting bi-annual reviews of workplace leaders.

Semler’s methods, however unorthodox they may seem, were so successful at Semco Partners that he decided to translate them to the classroom. By affording students freedom to delegate themselves, Semler found that students were able to become more engaged with the world around them.

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- General (sector)
- leadership style (topic)
- corporate culture (topic)
- industrial democracy (topic)

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Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/ted-talk-thursday-ricardo-semler-on-running-a-company-with-almost-no-rules-2309). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/4b2ad2a3-ca8b-4d24-8ea4-20dd2fbc7a47).