Active Partner
  
Your passive partner just gave you a few hundred grand to open your Singing Lawn Mower store. They're passive because they have nothing to do with tuning the mowers, sharpening their blades, loading in riffs from Adele, The Stones, and The Eagles, and they don't sell to customers. They just gave you the money, left, and went off to play golf all day.
An active partner either gave you money directly, or has sweat equity in some form, and actually helps you run the business. Because they are active, should one of those singing lawn mowers listen to too many angry Kelly Clarkson songs one day and decide to eat feet, the active partner has unlimited liability, as opposed to the passive partner who was just a remote investor.
The definition of active partner is broad, but it can involve as little direct daily touch with the business as simply being on the board of directors, or it can refer to the CEO of the company. So when you think passive, think public shareholder, or non-board member private investor, and when you think active, think: playing mellow songs on the mowers when you're selling them.
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![Finance: What is a limited partnership?](https://media1.shmoop.com/video/thumbnails/COURSE.FINANCE.412_770x433.jpg)
Finance: What is a limited partnership?1 Views
Finance allah shmoop what is a limited partnership Well a
limited partnership is not the qualitative assessment of mole arian
curly here woop woop and yes shmoop alright Rather a
limited partner is an investment company run by a general
partner with clear lines of demarcation as it relates to
risk fiduciary duty and management responsibilities like of the day
to day investing or whatever the partnership does When you
think limited partnership think things like a venture capital company
or venture capital partnerships like one where you have a
dozen experts who come together with long track records of
identifying early stage growth companies usually deep in technology at
least here in silicon valley Together they are the general
partners of the partnership the generals they're responsible for the
day to day management of the firm and in theory
they have unlimited personal liability Should something go terribly terribly
wrong the limited partners are their investors the people who
give them money to make more money General partners raise
money for their funds by getting limited apartments to invest
in them So what is limited about this Well the
liability to the investors as long as those investing in
the limited liability partnership Don't operate the firm or manage
it or deal with day to day issues that come
up well then those limited partners are fully shielded from
any liability Should you know something go terribly terribly wrong
Although if your limited partner in a company that's designed
a nuclear power blender that spend just a little too
fast Well we're not sure how much that'll be worth 00:01:42.696 --> [endTime] in the grand scheme of things Whoa
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