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Glassdoor: 88% CEO approval rating from 220 ratings. It's interesting that there is such a disconnect between employees and stakeholders. On a related note Ch

Glassdoor: 88% CEO approval rating from 220 ratings. It's interesting that there is such a disconnect between employees and stakeholders. On a related note Chris Sacca wrote this blog [0] titled "What twitter can be" last week. [0]: http://lowercasecapital.com/2015/06/03/what-twitter-can-be-2/ http://lowercasecapital.com/2015/06/03/what-twitter-can-be-2...

omgitstom 11y ago
The only way to allow that connection is to have employees as a collective majority shareholder
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9696476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9696476
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I hope this model continues to evolve in other companies. I'd rather see employees do well versus shareholders (who may or may not be employees), VCs, and investment bankers managing an IPO.
- zanny 11y ago
  You can always found Coops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative Problem of course is that traditional investing is how you get startup funds.
deleted 11y ago
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- myth_buster 11y ago
  You can be good to your employees and bad for stockholders. One way to do this is to hand out bonuses instead of dividends. Agreed. But don't the employees have higher stakes running on the long term success of the company compared to investors who are known to be in for short term profit and hence can't the former be a better indicator? Eg: Mass employee exodus results in company going bust while the team can still bootstrap when investors run away with money.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    Employees often have less business acumen then an old lady selling on the open market. I find it amusing that people who can code think they can do anything and everything. Despite what you like to to believe, those MBAs do have value. Lots of it.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - nekopa 11y ago
      I agree with your first and second sentence 100%. Especially the 2nd sentence. But in my experience (not what I believe) very very few MBAs have value. The few I have seen have been the ones who have done executive MBAs (mainly people with a lot of experience going to get some theory knowledge) and they apply very little and very specific knowledge from their MBA. My favorite experience with 'fresh' MBA students (still in university, no real work experience) was when I sat on a panel of local expat business people (in the Czech republic) doing a Q and A for MBA students from the US somewhere. They came off a day of exploring Prague, and had sat through some chamber of commerce and Ministry of Trade and Industry presentations so our panel was up to talk about our real world experiences building businesses out here. We all gave a short speech about what we've done and lessons learned out here-specifically what is great about business out here but also what pitfalls to look out for- then opened up for questions from the students. The first question came from a student who I think was trying to emulate a hard-nosed, no nonsense businessman, who quite aggressively asked "Hold on, hold on hold on! So, can you just tell me whether I should bring my business here or not? The first presentations are telling me that everything is wonderful out here, now you lot tell me it's not so easy. So which is it then?!?" I (admittedly a little bit annoyed, as I was doing the panel for free, I just wanted to help some future business people out) said to her: "Your job as a business owner is to gather data, evaluate it and make what you think is a sound decision based on it. You saw basically 2 sets of presentations today, one from people who are selling the Czech Republic, and one from foreigners who have actually built businesses here. So, you need to evaluate both sides of the coin, and come up with your own decision. If you can't do that you may well end up buying a lot of bridges and investing blindly in things that can't fail." That gathered a few laughs, and even the woman who asked came up to me afterwards and asked me a few more questions (but still in a bullish type of way). But the local Chamber of commerce and the ministry never invited me again to be a panel member. That was a round about way of trying to say that newly minted MBAs, their heads full of case studies, tends to see the business world in shades of black and white. That theories always work, that the business would be successful if you only did this. But the real world tends to be a little more murky, and until those MBAs gain a little more experience and are granted a little wisdom, they offer very little more value than an interesting tweet.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

omgitstom 11y ago

The only way to allow that connection is to have employees as a collective majority shareholder

hellbanner 11y ago
Like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9696476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9696476
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I hope this model continues to evolve in other companies. I'd rather see employees do well versus shareholders (who may or may not be employees), VCs, and investment bankers managing an IPO.
zanny 11y ago
You can always found Coops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative Problem of course is that traditional investing is how you get startup funds.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

myth_buster 11y ago
You can be good to your employees and bad for stockholders. One way to do this is to hand out bonuses instead of dividends. Agreed. But don't the employees have higher stakes running on the long term success of the company compared to investors who are known to be in for short term profit and hence can't the former be a better indicator? Eg: Mass employee exodus results in company going bust while the team can still bootstrap when investors run away with money.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Employees often have less business acumen then an old lady selling on the open market. I find it amusing that people who can code think they can do anything and everything. Despite what you like to to believe, those MBAs do have value. Lots of it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nekopa 11y ago
    I agree with your first and second sentence 100%. Especially the 2nd sentence. But in my experience (not what I believe) very very few MBAs have value. The few I have seen have been the ones who have done executive MBAs (mainly people with a lot of experience going to get some theory knowledge) and they apply very little and very specific knowledge from their MBA. My favorite experience with 'fresh' MBA students (still in university, no real work experience) was when I sat on a panel of local expat business people (in the Czech republic) doing a Q and A for MBA students from the US somewhere. They came off a day of exploring Prague, and had sat through some chamber of commerce and Ministry of Trade and Industry presentations so our panel was up to talk about our real world experiences building businesses out here. We all gave a short speech about what we've done and lessons learned out here-specifically what is great about business out here but also what pitfalls to look out for- then opened up for questions from the students. The first question came from a student who I think was trying to emulate a hard-nosed, no nonsense businessman, who quite aggressively asked "Hold on, hold on hold on! So, can you just tell me whether I should bring my business here or not? The first presentations are telling me that everything is wonderful out here, now you lot tell me it's not so easy. So which is it then?!?" I (admittedly a little bit annoyed, as I was doing the panel for free, I just wanted to help some future business people out) said to her: "Your job as a business owner is to gather data, evaluate it and make what you think is a sound decision based on it. You saw basically 2 sets of presentations today, one from people who are selling the Czech Republic, and one from foreigners who have actually built businesses here. So, you need to evaluate both sides of the coin, and come up with your own decision. If you can't do that you may well end up buying a lot of bridges and investing blindly in things that can't fail." That gathered a few laughs, and even the woman who asked came up to me afterwards and asked me a few more questions (but still in a bullish type of way). But the local Chamber of commerce and the ministry never invited me again to be a panel member. That was a round about way of trying to say that newly minted MBAs, their heads full of case studies, tends to see the business world in shades of black and white. That theories always work, that the business would be successful if you only did this. But the real world tends to be a little more murky, and until those MBAs gain a little more experience and are granted a little wisdom, they offer very little more value than an interesting tweet.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]