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A document to help you start a tech cooperative

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Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#61

Post by rmc »

Alex3917 wrote: post #27
marricks wrote: post #17

Back in 19th century USA, during industrialization, the idea of working for someone came across to many as a form of wage-slavery. Going from farming or trade-skills to factories working, one gave up any control in their own worker rights and planning of their business. It seems fundamentally unfair that in most industries you don't have any real share of the company, or any say in the direction of it. People who con…

> People who control those companies are solely executives or wall street share holders, not the people who spend countless hours making the company run and function As an entrepreneur, it's actually pretty difficult to find folks who prefer getting compensated primarily in shares rather than cash. If you want to have significant ownership in a company that usually isn't much of a challenge.

Probably because the shares that most companies offer are worthless for setting company direction. Employee pool of options is 20%? So investors & founders can always out vote everyone.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#62

Post by yochaigal »

I have founded two worker co-ops; both in the tech sector.

Whenever one of these posts hits reddit or this website, there is a surge of interest - and then nothing. Our rate of growth (400 or so worker co-ops in the US) is abysmally slow; if anything I've seen more co-ops fold than start anew! Our conferences seem to bring more and more each year, though - just not workers; instead we get specialists, folks from social justice and non-profits... Just very few workers. At the East coast conference two years ago, 75% of the speakers were non-owners, just co-op specialists; do-gooders and SJWs.

The only new co-ops I seem to see are those that get created by top-down institutions; non-profits and the like. I'm talking Evergreen, WAGES, etc. Once in a while we get web co-ops (like the one liked here); more often than not, they too have a political bent (beyond worker-ownership).

Not sure why I'm saying all this here; I suppose I just wanted to offer a different perspective on all this. I love worker co-ops, and think they should be everywhere. But I'm not sure culture in the US is yet compatible!

Checkout http://reddit.com/r/cooperatives it you want to know more.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#64

Post by vinceguidry »

I've tried starting a few companies and it eventually became clear that without significant revenue coming in, the cofounders need to be either particularly motivated by the vision and capable of putting aside personal politics to achieve it, the former being easier to achieve than the latter, immediate personal goals are going to slowly take priority and your startup will die a sad death.

Once revenue is there, everybody can buy in. The enterprise does not need to actually be profitable or even have a workable plan to profit or exit or anything like that. What it needs is revenue.

Someone has to be the pig that gets the enterprise from zero to revenue. Smart pigs become politically-adroit capitalist "pigs", dumb pigs get slaughtered. But someone has to take the lead, and the rest have to follow.

Uniting collectively behind a vision seems to be one of those things humans just can't do very well. They can unite behind a person with a vision, but not the vision by itself.

Workers cooperatives were a big thing back in the heady days of the early 1800s. Most died out fairly quickly but a few caught on and lasted for a good while. The story was the same throughout, the cooperative eventually ossified and could not retain the magic in the face of broader economic change.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#65

Post by morisy »

yochaigal wrote: post #62

I have founded two worker co-ops; both in the tech sector. Whenever one of these posts hits reddit or this website, there is a surge of interest - and then nothing. Our rate of growth (400 or so worker co-ops in the US) is abysmally slow; if anything I've seen more co-ops fold than start anew! Our conferences seem to bring more and more each year, though - just not workers; instead we get specialists, folks from soci…

I seriously considered it for my organization a little over a year ago, and while ultimately it wasn't the right fit I think a clear document and explanation of how someone else would do it would have been very useful to think about.

I think part of the reason that they haven't succeeded is the necessary capital and scale of technology organizations these days. It seems there's a hollowing out of the mid-tier of bootstrapped organizations where a co-op would be feasible, and if you're a founder who is going to put in years of unpaid or low paid work and funding, giving up ownership is a tough sell.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#66

Post by thistle »

bpchaps wrote: post #7

I'd be very interested if something like this could work well to complement the existing "civic tech" field. It has some pretty substantial problems in its current form and a movement towards co-ops looks pretty damn appealing. Anyone know if any civic tech co-ops exist? Or would folks be willing to start some up? ;)

We do a lot of civic tech work re election monitoring software: sassafras.coop

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#67

Post by monort »

quickben wrote: post #57
tacostakohashi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge proportion of the workforce are employed by listed, publicly traded companies. Those workers can use their salary to buy as many shares as they want on the open market, and also sell those shares whenever they want. The fact that people tend not to do this very often tells you that people don't actually want to have any "real share of the company, or say in the direction of it".

With an average salary, from whatever is left at the end of the month, these workers: 1. Can't​ buy "as many shares as they want". 2. Whatever they buy, considering the market cap and required volume for voting, will be statistical noise.

In 2016 US total income was 16 trillion, US market capitalization was 24 trillion.

It looks like people prefer to spend, not to own.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#68

Post by woah »

yochaigal wrote: post #62

I have founded two worker co-ops; both in the tech sector. Whenever one of these posts hits reddit or this website, there is a surge of interest - and then nothing. Our rate of growth (400 or so worker co-ops in the US) is abysmally slow; if anything I've seen more co-ops fold than start anew! Our conferences seem to bring more and more each year, though - just not workers; instead we get specialists, folks from soci…

Does it offer distinct advantages compared to a regular job (aka employees get paid more)? I've been around a lot of communitarian stuff in my life, like cohousing and hackerspaces, and a lot of it seems to be driven by people who enjoy meetings.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#69

Post by ska »

Alex3917 wrote: post #27
marricks wrote: post #17

Back in 19th century USA, during industrialization, the idea of working for someone came across to many as a form of wage-slavery. Going from farming or trade-skills to factories working, one gave up any control in their own worker rights and planning of their business. It seems fundamentally unfair that in most industries you don't have any real share of the company, or any say in the direction of it. People who con…

> People who control those companies are solely executives or wall street share holders, not the people who spend countless hours making the company run and function As an entrepreneur, it's actually pretty difficult to find folks who prefer getting compensated primarily in shares rather than cash. If you want to have significant ownership in a company that usually isn't much of a challenge.

   If you want to have significant ownership in a company that usually isn't much of a challenge.
It's not so easy if you want to cap your total employee equity to 10-20% or some other arbitrary number that "they" tell you should be targeted. Lot's of people who are advocating this sort of approach are unrealistic about how much equity gives "significant ownership", in my experience.

A related issue - I know many people who are more than happy to consider joining early for "significant ownership" (however we define that) but only if it comes with "significant decision making input" as well, in similar ratio. If as an entrepreneur you are looking at this sort of arrangement as primarily a tool to manage early cash flow, you are thinking about it the wrong way in my opinion.

Re: A document to help you start a tech cooperative

#70

Post by quickben »

monort wrote: post #67
quickben wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With an average salary, from whatever is left at the end of the month, these workers: 1. Can't​ buy "as many shares as they want". 2. Whatever they buy, considering the market cap and required volume for voting, will be statistical noise.

In 2016 US total income was 16 trillion, US market capitalization was 24 trillion. It looks like people prefer to spend, not to own.

Oh yes, people spend. On rent, food, fridge repairs, medical bills, etc.

Outside of the down town cores, and few high demand industries, people 'get by'.

Having extensively seen both worlds, it seems to me that the richer end is always quicker to say: I just ate a big meal, how can world hunger exist.

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