3 ms·

To be fair, there are worker-owned co-ops that function like companies, and there are those that are heavy on the ideological experience. I once did some consul

To be fair, there are worker-owned co-ops that function like companies, and there are those that are heavy on the ideological experience. I once did some consulting for one of the latter ones and it was worse than any bureaucracy I've ever encountered. Everyone has a say, everyone must be heard on everything, decisions take forever and there's a lot of overhead. On the one side, you'll have a normal company where the workers own the company (well, most employed engineers own some shares in FB, Google etc, too), on the other hand you have anarcho-syndicalist groups that are super hard into the process and THE PLENUM is paramount.

anon7725 4y ago
In a public big tech company your ownership is immaterial in terms of your influence on the direction of the company. Presumably in a smaller private company with 100% insider ownership, it could be arranged that employees have more influence. For example, the employees could vote on board seats or raise and discuss issues at a General Meeting of the company’s shareholders. This would presumably not be the case in VC-funded startups where the founders and VCs would choose the board and retain the lion’s share of equity and all nominal control. In practice, in most companies that are not agency-style partnerships the insider ownership doesn’t really matter in terms of influence from what I’ve seen. In agency partnerships there is a dual class issue of partners and regular employees. A private company with a BDFL who retains 50% + 1 control but has the minority stake dispersed among the rest of the employees seems like an interesting approach. The “B” comes into play in how the majority owner supports decision making. The “D” acts as a forcing function and guardrail to limit the effect of internal politics.

3 ms·

To be fair, there are worker-owned co-ops that function like companies, and there are those that are heavy on the ideological experience. I once did some consul

by luckylion 4y ago

anon7725 4y ago
In a public big tech company your ownership is immaterial in terms of your influence on the direction of the company. Presumably in a smaller private company with 100% insider ownership, it could be arranged that employees have more influence. For example, the employees could vote on board seats or raise and discuss issues at a General Meeting of the company’s shareholders. This would presumably not be the case in VC-funded startups where the founders and VCs would choose the board and retain the lion’s share of equity and all nominal control. In practice, in most companies that are not agency-style partnerships the insider ownership doesn’t really matter in terms of influence from what I’ve seen. In agency partnerships there is a dual class issue of partners and regular employees. A private company with a BDFL who retains 50% + 1 control but has the minority stake dispersed among the rest of the employees seems like an interesting approach. The “B” comes into play in how the majority owner supports decision making. The “D” acts as a forcing function and guardrail to limit the effect of internal politics.