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I think a lot of the back and forth in this thread is dancing around the edges of a couple questions. Who really owns a company? I know legally who owns it. Bu

by DonnyV 6y ago

I think a lot of the back and forth in this thread is dancing around the edges of a couple questions. Who really owns a company? I know legally who owns it. But a company is nothing without the people that work in it and who generate the ideas who keep it going. Shouldn't the majority of people in that company benefit and have a say how its run? Why should a handful of people who don't run the day to day operation or generate the majority of ideas, big and small get to own everyone else's ideas and benefit from them in perpetuity?

marcinzm 6y ago
The workers do benefit, they get paid a salary and get RSUs (whose value increases with stock price). Very large amounts of both depending on the role by both US and world standards. If they want to then they can invest that income into company stock and become shareholders. Then they benefit in perpetuity based on how much they invested. edit: And this union includes part time cleaning staff which while vital to the functioning of a company hardly generate revolutionary ideas except in movies.
okprod 6y ago
This depends on the company, size, whether it's structured to give employees some sort of proportional, equitable ownership stake, etc.. There are scenarios where founders/owners put in 100% of the equity at the start and/or ongoing, and it may not make sense for workers who conduct operations to take on ownership stakes, especially if those workers are all part-time for example.
kyrra 6y ago
A company is nothing without leadership. A company is nothing without the initial investors. A company is nothing without the it's initial idea. It takes a lot of people in different roles and a lot of different resources (be it people, money, opportunity) to make a company work. While there are successful employee-owned companies after, many companies today would not exist if you didn't have the motivation there for certain people. Do you think Tesla and SpaceX would exist if Elon had to give ownership to everyone else? You're not going to see certain kinds of risk-taking by employee-run groups, and that risk-taking tens to require people with top-down responsibility and vision to make them happen.
- wildrhythms 6y ago
  You can have a thousand investors all chip in to build a factory, but without workers in that factory you have nothing. I'm not sure what this comment is trying to accomplish other than pointing out that the value of initial investment ultimately hinges on the ability to hire and retain workers, and ultimately the value of the labor produced by those workers. The workers have the power.
  - herbstein 6y ago
    In other words; throwing money at a tree doesn't turn it into a chair, and throwing money at a keyboard doesn't write code.
jskell725 6y ago
Because we chose to work for them instead of starting our own shops; and so to exchange complete ownership of our labor for a (often very nice) steady compensation. Note that this also applies to managers; up to and including the CEO. They might get paid more in Stock and less in cash; but they're usually not the Owners in and meaningful sense. I personally love the idea of workers cooperatives and do try to patronize such businesses as much as I can. But 1) it doesn't scale up and 2) when you're not in that model; you're not.
- DonnyV 6y ago
  I think they scale up fine. Mondragon Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#:~:text=The%20Mondragon%20Corporation%20is%20a,largest%20cooperative%20in%20the%20world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#:~:text=....
  - jskell725 6y ago
    Interesting and thank you! Perhaps this is a model which can be expanded in the future indeed... It's sort of a logical extension of startups which pay ISOs. With the obvious difference that the employee equity would be immediately realized; and come with corresponding votes.

by DonnyV 6y ago

marcinzm 6y ago

The workers do benefit, they get paid a salary and get RSUs (whose value increases with stock price). Very large amounts of both depending on the role by both US and world standards. If they want to then they can invest that income into company stock and become shareholders. Then they benefit in perpetuity based on how much they invested. edit: And this union includes part time cleaning staff which while vital to the functioning of a company hardly generate revolutionary ideas except in movies.

okprod 6y ago

This depends on the company, size, whether it's structured to give employees some sort of proportional, equitable ownership stake, etc.. There are scenarios where founders/owners put in 100% of the equity at the start and/or ongoing, and it may not make sense for workers who conduct operations to take on ownership stakes, especially if those workers are all part-time for example.

kyrra 6y ago

A company is nothing without leadership. A company is nothing without the initial investors. A company is nothing without the it's initial idea. It takes a lot of people in different roles and a lot of different resources (be it people, money, opportunity) to make a company work. While there are successful employee-owned companies after, many companies today would not exist if you didn't have the motivation there for certain people. Do you think Tesla and SpaceX would exist if Elon had to give ownership to everyone else? You're not going to see certain kinds of risk-taking by employee-run groups, and that risk-taking tens to require people with top-down responsibility and vision to make them happen.

wildrhythms 6y ago
You can have a thousand investors all chip in to build a factory, but without workers in that factory you have nothing. I'm not sure what this comment is trying to accomplish other than pointing out that the value of initial investment ultimately hinges on the ability to hire and retain workers, and ultimately the value of the labor produced by those workers. The workers have the power.
- herbstein 6y ago
  In other words; throwing money at a tree doesn't turn it into a chair, and throwing money at a keyboard doesn't write code.

jskell725 6y ago

Because we chose to work for them instead of starting our own shops; and so to exchange complete ownership of our labor for a (often very nice) steady compensation. Note that this also applies to managers; up to and including the CEO. They might get paid more in Stock and less in cash; but they're usually not the Owners in and meaningful sense. I personally love the idea of workers cooperatives and do try to patronize such businesses as much as I can. But 1) it doesn't scale up and 2) when you're not in that model; you're not.

DonnyV 6y ago
I think they scale up fine. Mondragon Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#:~:text=The%20Mondragon%20Corporation%20is%20a,largest%20cooperative%20in%20the%20world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation#:~:text=....
- jskell725 6y ago
  Interesting and thank you! Perhaps this is a model which can be expanded in the future indeed... It's sort of a logical extension of startups which pay ISOs. With the obvious difference that the employee equity would be immediately realized; and come with corresponding votes.