Nobody builds Amazon or Google alone. VC-backed or publicly traded companies are putting some of the risk on others and giving them some of the rewards. Sure, w

Nobody builds Amazon or Google alone. VC-backed or publicly traded companies are putting some of the risk on others and giving them some of the rewards. Sure, what specific role you play and how much risk you take on is reflected in the level of reward when things go well. Let's not pretend Bezos pulled a retail behemoth and AWS out of his back pocket and delivered it to a waiting world. Even a corporation is a type of cooperative endeavor. We need to not confuse "cooperative" as an adjective describing people working together with "cooperative" as an ownership model. Really, though, some cooperatively owned organizations are very successful. Yes, even in the US. REI is a customer cooperative. Hy-Vee food stores are a workers' cooperative. Many rural areas have telephone, electric, gas, or other cooperatives. My parents belong to an LP gas cooperative for example. They live along a road where their side is served by a commercial electric company and across the road is served by the local electric cooperative. These specific-purpose cooperatives work well. You could, as a high earning tech person, build a fully cooperative neighborhood with other people who earn similar money. You could form an insurance pool for healthcare, unemployment, accidents, and such. Since you'd be choosing who's in your cohort, so you don't need to worry about substantial differences in earning power. Or you could do what many high-skilled people do - start a new company with a handful of equal partners, where your income and success are equalized across an entirely different organization of willing equals.