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> without giving them founder equity To me, it's not a question of monetary reward so much as agency. If you want me to care about something deeply, then I nee
by danShumway 7y ago
> without giving them founder equity
To me, it's not a question of monetary reward so much as agency. If you want me to care about something deeply, then I need to have say in how it works. I'm not going to be blindly devoted to a plan that could change at any moment for any reason.
Of course, compensation/equity matters as well, but as a programmer I tend to get heavily attached to work that matters. Nothing is more demotivating then feeling like I'm giving up free time and working long hours to build something that doesn't matter or that is poorly managed. And at a certain point, if I'm devoting that kind of energy into something, I'm going to start having opinions about it.
With many VC funded startups, workers often get sold on a vision, and then in 4-5 years they get sold to Google and everything they build dies. Workers know that their work isn't going to matter in the long run, and that the vision they're being sold could change at any moment (and in fact is highly likely to change once VCs start putting on more pressure for rapid growth). It's hard to invest emotional energy into something that fragile.
Founders have a vested interest in making sure that their baby stays under their control. But if you want me to work like a founder, treat me like a founder. And while equity is a part of that, the biggest thing is that I want a say in how that vision evolves.
The way I work on personal projects and the way I work as an employee are different. It's not the money that makes them different, it's the sense of ownership and agency. As an employee I work from a contractual "what are my obligations" perspective, because I recognize that it's not my vision, it's never going to be my vision, and that it would be problematic and against the company's interests for me to try and make it into my vision.
This is part of why I am very cautiously optimistic about the rise in popularity of worker collectives. I dislike founders who want the employee enthusiasm that comes with ownership and purpose, but none of the employee opinions and agency that are part of that.
- TheBlerch 7y agoAgreed. Could you please elaborate on the “rise in popularity of worker collectives”? Curious what examples you’ve seen, especially in tech and business.
- danShumway 7y agoFew ungoing experiments in the US (that I know of), more hype in news articles and conversations about tech policy, which is why my optimism is still very cautious. There are a lot of things that sound good in theory but fall apart when tried out in practice. So I'd like to see more evidence that flat management structures really work at scale before I jump on that train. But in principle it makes enough sense that when I see an article in Slate or similar[0] that's championing them, I don't dismiss it out of hand. I want to see more evidence that any working examples that do exist aren't just very rare, temporary exceptions to the rule that hierarchy is necessary. But the idea seems worth looking at. This principle is the same reason I'm also very cautiously optimistic about ideas like UBI. I'm cautious of anything that sounds great in theory but that has comparatively little practical data behind it. My understanding is collectives are more common in Europe, but it's not clear to me how that experience will map to the US. [0]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-are-trying-to-fix-the-gig-economys-exploitation https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-...
- modo_mario 7y agoI never worked at one and whilst i think they were a lot more common here (Belgium-Flanders) given some of the old buildings with their business-name engraved in stone I'm interested as well. The biggest ones which could be a reference for scale if they're nice seem to be german and french. https://monitor.coop/en https://monitor.coop/en I also suggest stay to keep a good eye on operation, rules and definitions when considering mapping that or any experience to the US. It's become very apparent to me that discussion on concepts (for example unions or healthcare stuff) in the US often reference apparent success or failure in other countries without ever looking deeper into the workings and such. Thus implementations often end up flawed or just not equivalent. Someone who's attacking or defending unions for example should not consider my country an example for the style and workings of unions I often see described across the pond and if they do talk about the style of unions here they should to the environment and law constraints in which they exist all of which has a big impact.