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Employees and board members don't have the same interests in a BigCo. Sure, board members will judge Zuckerberg on whether he's getting Meta to make progress on

Employees and board members don't have the same interests in a BigCo. Sure, board members will judge Zuckerberg on whether he's getting Meta to make progress on the goals he's set in agreement with the board, which should fulfill the board's goals of increasing shareholder value. But that's not the employee's interest. The employee is interested in whether their employment status is stable, whether their work is engaging / interesting, and whether their employer offers opportunities for advancement, in roughly that order of priority. Employers that focus on that order of priorities typically have no such problems with employee trust. Zuckerberg might as well have said that he doesn't really care if he has employee trust anymore, because he doesn't foresee , in the short term, Meta employees willingly leaving their jobs in droves in a bad economy, trust or no trust. But smart Meta employees will keep their ears to the ground and their options open. People remember for far longer than economic boom/bust cycles.

dumbotron 4y ago
> board members will judge Zuckerberg Not that it matters when he controls most of the voting shares.
rektide 4y ago
This whole "we elites know better than our hired knowledge workers" schtik would be more interesting if the knowledge workers ever really had any say in these companies, if we had anything other than the traditional machiavellian top-down org to study & observe. It's all a-technical product orgs pushing demands down to the technicals, everywhere, far as the eye can see. But instead the dismal of the knowledge workers is just embraced, by anti labor disbelief like this, just chalking up the people who know systems & what we could do & their hopes as irrelevant. Strong disagree.
- postmeta 4y ago
  Zappos' "holacracy" kinda tried, and Valve has tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy
- solatic 4y ago
  I don't disagree with you, I just think it's an orthogonal concern. Arguably, companies reach better decisions (and thus perform better financially) when labor has a seat at the table; better financial performance should (but doesn't always! see recent layoffs) result in more stable employment and more opportunities for advancement. But that's beside the point about what labor's primary interest is and what the Board's and the shareholders' primary interests are.
charcircuit 4y ago
>But that's not the employee's interest. Considering a large amount of an employee's compensation is shares in the company it is in their interest to increase shareholder value.
- solatic 4y ago
  In a BigCo, no individual employee has enough influence on share price to make a difference. Share-based compensation, in a BigCo, is simply a scheme to get public markets to pay a portion of an employee's compensation, rather than taking it out of BigCo's cash flow; employees agree to the risk involved because it may result in larger overall compensation compared a compensation scheme with a slightly larger salary and no shares. But it's much more of a lottery than a genuine chance to link harder work with higher compensation.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    Okay? My point is that if Zuckerberg does something to increase the stack price it will benefit people who are getting stock based compensation. I never mentioned anything about individual employees controlling it.
    - solatic 4y ago
      Ok, I think I understand the point you were trying to make. As a statement by itself, sure, if your compensation is at least in part tied to the share price, then you have a financial interest in increasing the share price. But you don't benefit anymore from a rising share price if you get laid off and are no longer receiving any compensation, let alone share-based compensation, from the company (presumably you would sell your shares once you leave to ensure that your investment portfolio is diversified and you no longer have an insider perspective). Put another way, imagine that you have a choice between getting $1 guaranteed, and a 50/50 chance of getting $2 or nothing. Statistically, they have the same expected value, and you would expect a random population sample to evenly split their preferences between the two options, depending on individual appetite for risk. But actually, most people will prefer the $1 guaranteed. Indeed, even when the riskier option has a much higher statistical expected value, most people still prefer the guaranteed payout. See for example https://www.quora.com/Would-you-rather-have-a-50-50-chance-at-1-million-or-take-a-guaranteed-250K https://www.quora.com/Would-you-rather-have-a-50-50-chance-a... , and there are many such examples to draw from. So, no, I don't think employees benefit the same way from increases in stock price, as do shareholders, even when employees are also shareholders. Stability is quite simply a much stronger preference held by most employees.

dumbotron 4y ago

> board members will judge Zuckerberg Not that it matters when he controls most of the voting shares.

rektide 4y ago

This whole "we elites know better than our hired knowledge workers" schtik would be more interesting if the knowledge workers ever really had any say in these companies, if we had anything other than the traditional machiavellian top-down org to study & observe. It's all a-technical product orgs pushing demands down to the technicals, everywhere, far as the eye can see. But instead the dismal of the knowledge workers is just embraced, by anti labor disbelief like this, just chalking up the people who know systems & what we could do & their hopes as irrelevant. Strong disagree.

postmeta 4y ago
Zappos' "holacracy" kinda tried, and Valve has tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy
solatic 4y ago
I don't disagree with you, I just think it's an orthogonal concern. Arguably, companies reach better decisions (and thus perform better financially) when labor has a seat at the table; better financial performance should (but doesn't always! see recent layoffs) result in more stable employment and more opportunities for advancement. But that's beside the point about what labor's primary interest is and what the Board's and the shareholders' primary interests are.

charcircuit 4y ago

>But that's not the employee's interest. Considering a large amount of an employee's compensation is shares in the company it is in their interest to increase shareholder value.

solatic 4y ago
In a BigCo, no individual employee has enough influence on share price to make a difference. Share-based compensation, in a BigCo, is simply a scheme to get public markets to pay a portion of an employee's compensation, rather than taking it out of BigCo's cash flow; employees agree to the risk involved because it may result in larger overall compensation compared a compensation scheme with a slightly larger salary and no shares. But it's much more of a lottery than a genuine chance to link harder work with higher compensation.
- charcircuit 4y ago
  Okay? My point is that if Zuckerberg does something to increase the stack price it will benefit people who are getting stock based compensation. I never mentioned anything about individual employees controlling it.
  - solatic 4y ago
    Ok, I think I understand the point you were trying to make. As a statement by itself, sure, if your compensation is at least in part tied to the share price, then you have a financial interest in increasing the share price. But you don't benefit anymore from a rising share price if you get laid off and are no longer receiving any compensation, let alone share-based compensation, from the company (presumably you would sell your shares once you leave to ensure that your investment portfolio is diversified and you no longer have an insider perspective). Put another way, imagine that you have a choice between getting $1 guaranteed, and a 50/50 chance of getting $2 or nothing. Statistically, they have the same expected value, and you would expect a random population sample to evenly split their preferences between the two options, depending on individual appetite for risk. But actually, most people will prefer the $1 guaranteed. Indeed, even when the riskier option has a much higher statistical expected value, most people still prefer the guaranteed payout. See for example https://www.quora.com/Would-you-rather-have-a-50-50-chance-at-1-million-or-take-a-guaranteed-250K https://www.quora.com/Would-you-rather-have-a-50-50-chance-a... , and there are many such examples to draw from. So, no, I don't think employees benefit the same way from increases in stock price, as do shareholders, even when employees are also shareholders. Stability is quite simply a much stronger preference held by most employees.