Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

themarysue.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 128 posts

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#111

Post by C1sc0cat »

scandox wrote: post #93
C1sc0cat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the point of a worker coop just that the rewards are distributed equitably :-) an d yes that does mean the cleaner / office admin get as much as the CTO

Can you elaborate on "gets as much as". Do you mean they get as many shares? Earn the same salary? I'm a bit unclear on that.

A pure worker coop can have identical salaries - this is very rare.

But a coop MUST by definition distribute shares and dividends per member - if it does not then its not a coop

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#112

Post by fhood »

neves wrote: post #3

I've already loved these guys, now my admiration just increased. Reading HN we start to think that life is to get bigger and richer. These guys spend their time spreading intelligence, art, and fun.

Hmm, maybe it is time for me to forgive them for their depiction of Darwin then.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#113

Post by closeparen »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #90
neves wrote: post #3

I've already loved these guys, now my admiration just increased. Reading HN we start to think that life is to get bigger and richer. These guys spend their time spreading intelligence, art, and fun.

That is the point of a worker coop just that the rewards are distributed equitably :-) an d yes that does mean the cleaner / office admin get as much as the CTO

Modern tech companies are halfway there: contract out low end support functions and high end specialty expertise, so that actual FTEs are paid substantially the same.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#114

Post by mygo »

Scarblac wrote: post #54
mygo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with some consultants who did this sort of thing for companies, and their main spiel was... Sometimes a company’s owners have no one to pass their ownership down to (not having kids or their kids not wanting to take on the family business, etc). So they either sell the business off or do layoffs and liquidate and move on. There have been instances where companies that employed a good amount of people in a to…

I work for a ~80 employee company, the two founders probably want to retire in 5-10 years, and this is an important topic for us. What about the monetary value of the company, do the employees buy it (probably too expensive, cheaper for the employees to shut it down and form a new company with the same people) or is it usual for the founders to give away the companies? Do they just keep a good percentage of the share…

> What about the monetary value of the company, do the employees buy it (probably too expensive, cheaper for the employees to shut it down and form a new company with the same people) or is it usual for the founders to give away the companies?

It’s not unusual for employees to not have enough money to buy shares outright, which is usually why business owners don’t even consider this type of arrangement. However the good thing is that these arrangements are usually structured in such a manner that the employees gain ownership via transactions from future earnings. So founders aren’t giving anything away.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#115

Post by Retric »

alehul wrote: post #106
Retric wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not nessisarily a big payout when you get ~1/1,000 of it.

With 140 employees and assuming equal distribution of the 75% I believe they were giving out, it's around .5% ownership or 1/200. Not huge, but at a $100M buyout offer (didn't they have $25M in sales, and growing?), we're talking $500k a head. Even at a $25M buyout, its $125k a head. That type of money is enough for a middle-class family to usually succumb.

Those numbers seem rather high. Profits are on the order of £2.5m/year ~(3.25 million $) so / 140 and your talking a 23k/year annual bonus. On top of that selling the company likely means the jobs not only pay less, but are also worse.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#116

Post by C1sc0cat »

platz wrote: post #107
C1sc0cat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They outsourced their cleaners and some of the way the constitutional set up works is counter to the spirit of the coop movement

No true scottsman, eh?

There is a formal definition of what makes a coop. and outsourcing your lower paid members job's fails he sniff test.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#117

Post by benj111 »

RobertKerans wrote: post #104
relix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not. If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it…

> and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman From a UK perspective I think you're pretty wrong here. Aardman cant be separated from the style they've built over the last 30 years, and it's incredibly popular. Even if someone didn't recognise the name, you could show most people a even a single frame from one film and they'd recognise what it was immediately.

I think you might be mis interpreting the parent. They are presenting 2 options (either its hard or not), without a preferred option.

But yes I think you're right Aardman are instantly recognisable and not easily copyable.

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#118

Post by neves »

fhood wrote: post #112
neves wrote: post #3

I've already loved these guys, now my admiration just increased. Reading HN we start to think that life is to get bigger and richer. These guys spend their time spreading intelligence, art, and fun.

Hmm, maybe it is time for me to forgive them for their depiction of Darwin then.

But that was pure gold: Darwin as a villain! Nobody ever represented Darwin this way. One of my heroes, and one of the greatest human minds as a cartoon bad guy. Genius!

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#119

Post by neves »

CPLX wrote: post #105
alehul wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can now only be sold if the majority of employees vote to accept the sale Maybe I'd be wrong, but I feel like it would be far easier to buy a company from a group of middle-class minority shareholders than a couple wealthy owners. A big payout sounds easier to refuse if you're already satisfied financially. Are we sure that remaining independent is the motivation here?

Well sure but then you’re left with a company full of skilled people who the company depends on, that you just made financially independent.

Nice point of view. Buying the company for their talent would make the talent abandon the company. A self-defeating prophecy!

Re: Aardman Animation Is Giving the Company to Their Employees

#120

Post by neves »

RobertKerans wrote: post #104
relix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not. If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway). If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it…

> and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman From a UK perspective I think you're pretty wrong here. Aardman cant be separated from the style they've built over the last 30 years, and it's incredibly popular. Even if someone didn't recognise the name, you could show most people a even a single frame from one film and they'd recognise what it was immediately.

I watch a movie because it's made by Aardman.
Post reply on HN