Ves conceived of the Exemplar Plan as a means to avoid giving away his shares.
Due to his bad experiences with giving away shares in the LMC, it had become taboo in his eyes. He never wanted to reduce his ownership in his mech company or dilute his existing shares ever again!
By drawing such a hard red line, he couldn't reward his lead designers like many other mech companies.
Perhaps regular leaders might not care too much about passing on 2 or 5 percent of outstanding shares to a helpful Journeyman, but Ves was different.
He didn't want to give away a single individual share if he could help it! After losing majority control in the LMC for a period of time, he managed to climb back up to possessing a 59 percent stake.
This was his bottom line!
In the future, he would always welcome expanding his stake, but never lowering it. The LMC was a private corporation and he had no intentions at all to make it public anytime soon!
