Minneapolis entrepreneur Eric Dayton on corporate responsibility and civic leadership
Retired MPR host Gary Eichten in conversation with young Minneapolis entrepreneur Eric Dayton. They talked about corporate responsibility, climate change activism, and the importance of making your community — and the world — a better place.
Dayton said he believes a company should not have to choose between "doing well and doing good." And a person with inherited wealth has a responsibility to make the world and their community a better place. He said he learned these things from his father — former Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton — and his mother, Alida Messinger.
Eric Dayton is the co-owner of Askov Finlayson, Bachelor Farmer restaurant, and Marvel Bar. As he considers the role and impact of his businesses, he asks, “are we doing more harm than good?” He’s starting to employ a business model that would quantify the environmental impact and be “climate-accountable.”
In a wide-ranging discussion, Dayton spoke about ways to make Minneapolis a vibrant city where people who visit can envision themselves making a life here. And that, he says, requires challenging conventional thinking. He has proposed taking down the Minneapolis skyways, for example. “Why should we prioritize comfort and convenience over experience?” He also suggests that Minneapolis needs to be as lively year-round as it is when big sporting events are in town.
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Dayton launched an effort to more widely recognize the region as “The North.” We need a more positive attitude, he says. “Who would want to move to a place where the people who live here complain it about it half the year?”
A researcher who studied the far northern regions of Norway to understand why people there seem to be so happy, determined that these Norwegians decide to be consciously happy. “It’s very hard to have a positive winter mindset when you make negative winter small talk.”
In addition to the pressing challenge of climate change, Dayton said one of our most serious problems is inequality. “That needs more of our collective attention,” and our resources.
Regarding civic leadership, Dayton said, “I don’t think the community will be driven by our existing Fortune 500 companies in the next 25 to 50 years and beyond. It’s going to be driven by entrepreneurs and new companies, and hopefully new Fortune 500 companies, and then those entrepreneurs will become leaders. And in many cases they already are.”
“We’ve been looking for leadership in the old places,” Dayton said, “and we’ve got to start looking for it in the new places. Broaden our scope.”
Eric Dayton spoke June 27, 2019 as part of "The Invested" speaker series hosted by SDW Wealth Advisors in downtown Minneapolis. Retired MPR host Gary Eichten was the moderator.