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> That’s why the type of company that interests me is one where ownership and the employees are truly in it together, > Everyone at a company – owners and empl

> That’s why the type of company that interests me is one where ownership and the employees are truly in it together, > Everyone at a company – owners and employees alike – need to be sitting on the same end of the seesaw Never mind that the founders or CEO will have 1000X more equity than you, employee (if you have equity at all). You're in it together!

aspenmayer 9y ago
That just gave me an idea. What if it were the norm to be paid in cryptocoins linked to the value of the company you worked for? So instead of making 100K a year, you made 100 AnyCorpCoins, which the company's internal payroll exchange or any compatible cryptoexchange will change for dollars happily? The company could peg the coins at their own employee-only values to prevent major market fluctuations from devaluing your salary, and it allows employees and non-employees to earn stake in the company simply by holding the coins. Thoughts?
- coryl 9y ago
  Basically sounds like some class of shares in a corporation?
- brians 9y ago
  Can the company tell how many you have, and draw conclusions about how committed you are? I think this is being paid in stock options. Many people choose to mix stock, options, and cash in compensation.
  - aspenmayer 9y ago
    I guess I'm thinking of a periodical rolling ICO with employees being able to buy in early, often, and at a discount.
- hiram112 9y ago
  Isn't this equity and stock shares, without the extra conversion step?
- eropple 9y ago
  What if it were the norm to be paid in company scrip with no meaningful value to anybody outside the company? Why is it that engineering types don't pay the least attention to history...? Why is it that engineering types think that sprinkling crypto on it solves a single meaningful social ill? Hiding the scrip behind "crypto" does nothing. Who's going to take your FacebookForCatsCoin when they could have actual money instead? A random speculator? Meanwhile, who's gonna take dollars? Jeez.
  - aspenmayer 9y ago
    I'm not advocating for this, but it is an interesting thought experiment. I do share your concerns, but I feel that this kind of thing is likely inevitable with the rise of ICOs and cryptocurrency futures trading. Capital flows will make a market of it somehow, even if it's only quants and AIs who are able to operate such a market in meaningful, value-adding ways.
    - eropple 9y ago
      I'm gonna be straight with you: it's an interesting thought experiment if you ignore the entirety of the history of the industrialized world. If you don't ignore it, it's not even novel. ICOs are valueless trash in ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of all cases. This will only change, maybe-if-you're-lucky, if they are securitized and regulated, at which point it's the new "oh but stock!", and it's still not going to be a sane deal for a worker because the worker has no real way to deal with either counterparty risk of exchanges (meanwhile, dollars involve no such risk) short of paying a vig--you know, like how companies pay poor employees on debit cards with fees, how's that reality sound for everybody?--or safety of exchange rate, because LOL your company has a bad quarter and now you can't pay your rent because FacebookForCatsCoin no longer makes the speculators, the only people who are paying attention to it, sufficiently money-horny. Sprinkling crypto on company scrip doesn't make it anything other than company scrip. And it's a bad idea for companies, too, because a mere, what, ninety-nine percent of companies have no public stock and would very much like to keep it that way?
      - 9y ago
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  What if it were the norm to be paid in cryptocoins linked to the value of the company you worked for? Well, it's usually the norm for employees to be paid enough to get food, clothing and shelter. In your norm, this normal might not hold. Perhaps employees would be so upset in this case they'd form a union - or maybe just quit in en mass.
- wingerlang 9y ago
  That's just shares isn't it? Imagine 100 employees having 100 coins each, and then the company tanks. No thanks..
pmoriarty 9y ago
We're all in it together to make the founders rich.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
"Never mind that the founders or CEO will have 1000X more equity than you, employee (if you have equity at all). You're in it together!" Okay, I'll bite: why shouldn't the founders and investors have a lot more equity than the employees? If the business goes belly-up, they lose everything they've put into it, while an employee just goes out and finds another job. Risk and reward need to be related somehow, surely?
- pyromine 9y ago
  Employment is not a happy-go-lucky partnership. At the end of the day people have jobs because they need to eat, the point was not that founders shouldn't have more equity it was that their incentives are not aligned. Lower wages is good for the employer and bad for the employee, it is adversarial and sugar coating it as if it's not is bullshit. (Not that I think companies can't have good relations with their employees, just at the very least wages are adversarial)
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    "Lower wages is good for the employer" Not if the wages become so low that qualified employees refuse to work there, it isn't. There's nothing more deadly to a business than crappy, unmotivated employees.
- manicdee 9y ago
  What is stopping the founders from “just finding another job”? Losing “everything they’ve put into it” suggests that the founders will actually lose money if the business fails, where in most cases the business goes bankrupt and the founders only lose whatever seed capital they put into the venture before incorporating as a limited liability venture (specifically to limit their personal liability). The employees also lose eveything they put into it, which is however many months or years of their life they contributed to the venture.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    "What is stopping the founders from “just finding another job”?" Do you really not understand the concept of equity? "suggests that the founders will actually lose money if the business fails, where in most cases the business goes bankrupt and the founders only lose whatever seed capital" Oh, they only lose their "seed capital" (plus all the --usually unpaid -- work they've put into starting and growing the business). That makes it okay, then! "The employees also lose eveything they put into it" The employees got paid every week, dude.
iAMAGuest 9y ago
> Never mind that the founders or CEO will have 1000X more equity than you, employee (if you have equity at all). You're in it together! It's a falsehood to think that every company is a profit machine, many employers are small business so 1000x more equity is not really much.
- adrianN 9y ago
  If it's not all that much, why not share it equally among all employees. You want everybody to be sitting in the same end of the seesaw, right?
  - khazhou 9y ago
    Founders have the courage to sit on the risky and stressful side of the seesaw. Haven't you heard? Founders are not free to just walk away! The horror. </s>
  - iAMAGuest 9y ago
    > If it's not all that much, why not share it equally among all employees. You want everybody to be sitting in the same end of the seesaw, right? Ok, but remember you take the good with the bad. Statistically more business fail than survive, so if you want to take that risk then why not. But even easier you could start your own business and share the utopian form of employment with your staff.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- khazhou 9y ago
  Great, we'll ignore them and focus on companies like the author's: Ameritrade. Also, every Silicon Valley company. And the point isn't whether a company exits or not -- the point is that the potential rewards are so lopsided, any notion of "we're in it together" is just idiotic.

aspenmayer 9y ago

That just gave me an idea. What if it were the norm to be paid in cryptocoins linked to the value of the company you worked for? So instead of making 100K a year, you made 100 AnyCorpCoins, which the company's internal payroll exchange or any compatible cryptoexchange will change for dollars happily? The company could peg the coins at their own employee-only values to prevent major market fluctuations from devaluing your salary, and it allows employees and non-employees to earn stake in the company simply by holding the coins. Thoughts?

coryl 9y ago
Basically sounds like some class of shares in a corporation?
brians 9y ago
Can the company tell how many you have, and draw conclusions about how committed you are? I think this is being paid in stock options. Many people choose to mix stock, options, and cash in compensation.
- aspenmayer 9y ago
  I guess I'm thinking of a periodical rolling ICO with employees being able to buy in early, often, and at a discount.
hiram112 9y ago
Isn't this equity and stock shares, without the extra conversion step?
eropple 9y ago
What if it were the norm to be paid in company scrip with no meaningful value to anybody outside the company? Why is it that engineering types don't pay the least attention to history...? Why is it that engineering types think that sprinkling crypto on it solves a single meaningful social ill? Hiding the scrip behind "crypto" does nothing. Who's going to take your FacebookForCatsCoin when they could have actual money instead? A random speculator? Meanwhile, who's gonna take dollars? Jeez.
- aspenmayer 9y ago
  I'm not advocating for this, but it is an interesting thought experiment. I do share your concerns, but I feel that this kind of thing is likely inevitable with the rise of ICOs and cryptocurrency futures trading. Capital flows will make a market of it somehow, even if it's only quants and AIs who are able to operate such a market in meaningful, value-adding ways.
  - eropple 9y ago
    I'm gonna be straight with you: it's an interesting thought experiment if you ignore the entirety of the history of the industrialized world. If you don't ignore it, it's not even novel. ICOs are valueless trash in ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of all cases. This will only change, maybe-if-you're-lucky, if they are securitized and regulated, at which point it's the new "oh but stock!", and it's still not going to be a sane deal for a worker because the worker has no real way to deal with either counterparty risk of exchanges (meanwhile, dollars involve no such risk) short of paying a vig--you know, like how companies pay poor employees on debit cards with fees, how's that reality sound for everybody?--or safety of exchange rate, because LOL your company has a bad quarter and now you can't pay your rent because FacebookForCatsCoin no longer makes the speculators, the only people who are paying attention to it, sufficiently money-horny. Sprinkling crypto on company scrip doesn't make it anything other than company scrip. And it's a bad idea for companies, too, because a mere, what, ninety-nine percent of companies have no public stock and would very much like to keep it that way?
    - 9y ago
joe_the_user 9y ago
What if it were the norm to be paid in cryptocoins linked to the value of the company you worked for? Well, it's usually the norm for employees to be paid enough to get food, clothing and shelter. In your norm, this normal might not hold. Perhaps employees would be so upset in this case they'd form a union - or maybe just quit in en mass.
wingerlang 9y ago
That's just shares isn't it? Imagine 100 employees having 100 coins each, and then the company tanks. No thanks..

pmoriarty 9y ago

We're all in it together to make the founders rich.

Turing_Machine 9y ago

"Never mind that the founders or CEO will have 1000X more equity than you, employee (if you have equity at all). You're in it together!" Okay, I'll bite: why shouldn't the founders and investors have a lot more equity than the employees? If the business goes belly-up, they lose everything they've put into it, while an employee just goes out and finds another job. Risk and reward need to be related somehow, surely?

pyromine 9y ago
Employment is not a happy-go-lucky partnership. At the end of the day people have jobs because they need to eat, the point was not that founders shouldn't have more equity it was that their incentives are not aligned. Lower wages is good for the employer and bad for the employee, it is adversarial and sugar coating it as if it's not is bullshit. (Not that I think companies can't have good relations with their employees, just at the very least wages are adversarial)
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "Lower wages is good for the employer" Not if the wages become so low that qualified employees refuse to work there, it isn't. There's nothing more deadly to a business than crappy, unmotivated employees.
manicdee 9y ago
What is stopping the founders from “just finding another job”? Losing “everything they’ve put into it” suggests that the founders will actually lose money if the business fails, where in most cases the business goes bankrupt and the founders only lose whatever seed capital they put into the venture before incorporating as a limited liability venture (specifically to limit their personal liability). The employees also lose eveything they put into it, which is however many months or years of their life they contributed to the venture.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "What is stopping the founders from “just finding another job”?" Do you really not understand the concept of equity? "suggests that the founders will actually lose money if the business fails, where in most cases the business goes bankrupt and the founders only lose whatever seed capital" Oh, they only lose their "seed capital" (plus all the --usually unpaid -- work they've put into starting and growing the business). That makes it okay, then! "The employees also lose eveything they put into it" The employees got paid every week, dude.

iAMAGuest 9y ago

> Never mind that the founders or CEO will have 1000X more equity than you, employee (if you have equity at all). You're in it together! It's a falsehood to think that every company is a profit machine, many employers are small business so 1000x more equity is not really much.

adrianN 9y ago
If it's not all that much, why not share it equally among all employees. You want everybody to be sitting in the same end of the seesaw, right?
- khazhou 9y ago
  Founders have the courage to sit on the risky and stressful side of the seesaw. Haven't you heard? Founders are not free to just walk away! The horror. </s>
- iAMAGuest 9y ago
  > If it's not all that much, why not share it equally among all employees. You want everybody to be sitting in the same end of the seesaw, right? Ok, but remember you take the good with the bad. Statistically more business fail than survive, so if you want to take that risk then why not. But even easier you could start your own business and share the utopian form of employment with your staff.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
khazhou 9y ago
Great, we'll ignore them and focus on companies like the author's: Ameritrade. Also, every Silicon Valley company. And the point isn't whether a company exits or not -- the point is that the potential rewards are so lopsided, any notion of "we're in it together" is just idiotic.