I don't know if they need to be full-blown co-ops with voting power, etc. There are many other ways to ensure financial incentives are aligned. RSUs, ESPPs, and

I don't know if they need to be full-blown co-ops with voting power, etc. There are many other ways to ensure financial incentives are aligned. RSUs, ESPPs, and other forms of stock options are widely used in our industry to attract talent and align incentives. I once worked at a software startup without these (but generous cash comp), and it was awful. Whenever the sales team closed a huge deal by promising some vaporware features, the engineers were outright angry because it just meant extra work to build the overpromised stuff. If the engineers had equity, we would've been high-fiving the sales team for pushing those gargantuan deals past the finish line. Then there's also simple profit-sharing. When I worked at a small mortgage company, each employee got a certain number of dollars for every loan that the company closed, based on how many years they'd been with the company. When things got stressful and busy it definitely eased the blow, and it helped tremendously with retention too.