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

Who Needs a Boss?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 83 posts

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#11

Post by dragonwriter »

jorleif wrote: post #10

While I think co-ops can work very well in some cases, I wonder how well they cope with significant change for the worse in their environment. If you need to lose a third of the workforce suddenly, can a co-op decide on that kind of thing or will it lead to some unproductive compromise, or even worse, denial?

It's true that coops are less likely to choose to respond to change by radical workforce reductions, but that's rather the point -- the "need" for such a response isn't an objective fact of circumstance, it's a particular valance of the interest of equity owners vs. those of workers. When the equity owners are the workers, those interests are balanced differently.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#12

Post by k-mcgrady »

candybar wrote: post #9

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else find media sites remapping left/right arrow keys to mean "move to previous/next article" completely annoying?

No. I guess it's annoying if you accidentally hit them but I don't use them for anything else so giving them a useful function makes sense. Is there something else you use them to do that the change in function screws up?

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#13

Post by dragonwriter »

001sky wrote: post #8

Unfortunate Title. It's worth looking at some counter-examples, as Capital Structure (often) has precious little to do with management structure. Most non profits mimic the for-profit in organizational structure (ie, run by a CEO, with a staff of VPs...). On the other hand, many for-profit partnerships are quite flat and more egalitarian than their corporate cousins. Also, many co-ops still have a CEO (eg: REI, the o…

REI is a purchaser coop, not a labor coop. Not at all the same thing.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#14

Post by bryanlarsen »

jorleif wrote: post #10

While I think co-ops can work very well in some cases, I wonder how well they cope with significant change for the worse in their environment. If you need to lose a third of the workforce suddenly, can a co-op decide on that kind of thing or will it lead to some unproductive compromise, or even worse, denial?

Since co-ops vary so widely, there's no single answer to that question, but it's obviously something that co-ops take into account in their articles of incorporation or equivalent. In some co-ops its exactly like a corporation (ie, your boss fires you). Others have more involved procedures, but there's always a procedure. In some it will be a moot question, since worker pay is often set up as a formula based on net income. If net income goes negative, nobody gets paid.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#15

Post by mathattack »

These places still have bosses, the question really is, "Who needs an owner?" If a business can get by with sweat equity rather than external financing, why not? I suspect there are limits to both scale and growth, but those aren't deal breakers.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#16

Post by stronglikedan »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #12
candybar wrote: post #9

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else find media sites remapping left/right arrow keys to mean "move to previous/next article" completely annoying?

No. I guess it's annoying if you accidentally hit them but I don't use them for anything else so giving them a useful function makes sense. Is there something else you use them to do that the change in function screws up?

Scrolling left/right when reading on a small screen on sites that haven't been optimized for small screens.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#17

Post by aestra »

wallflower wrote: post #5
PalUk wrote: post #3

It's one of those rare stories that doesn't claim to take cutting edge technology to make it successful. Just people working together and owning a business, together deciding on their next move. And it has proven to work well. Wow, very inspiring.

You might like the story of Bob's Red Mill which was organic before people even were marketed that term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob's_Red_Mill

I was just going to post about Bob's Red Mill. Bob Moore built a multimillion dollar company and then he transferred ownership of the company (in the form of employee stock) to his employees.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/owner-multi-million-dollar-company-...

>Moore said he's gotten countless buy-out offers over the years, but he couldn't envision selling the business to a stranger.

>"It's the only business decision that I could make," he said. "I don't think there's anybody worthy to run this company but the people who built it. I have employees with me right now that have been with me for 30 years. They just were committed to staying with me now and they're going to own the company."

> "There's a lot of negative stuff going into business today," he said. "It's a good old basic Bible lesson -- love of money is the root of all evil. And unfortunately, our entire philosophy today is get all the money you can and whatever way you can. It's caused many corporations to bite off more than they can chew. And it causes people to do a lot of things just for money that they feel in their hearts is not the right thing to do."

>With his own company, Moore has tried to do just the opposite. In a refreshing twist to the typical tenets of corporate America, Moore thinks of his employees and customers first and foremost.

He also believes that there isn't a secret for building a successful business, it is just hard work and luck.

Sounds like an incredibly down to Earth guy.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#18

Post by jorleif »

dragonwriter wrote: post #11
jorleif wrote: post #10

While I think co-ops can work very well in some cases, I wonder how well they cope with significant change for the worse in their environment. If you need to lose a third of the workforce suddenly, can a co-op decide on that kind of thing or will it lead to some unproductive compromise, or even worse, denial?

It's true that coops are less likely to choose to respond to change by radical workforce reductions, but that's rather the point -- the "need" for such a response isn't an objective fact of circumstance, it's a particular valance of the interest of equity owners vs. those of workers. When the equity owners are the workers, those interests are balanced differently.

It is certainly true that workforce reduction is just one possibility, but what I still wonder is when coops work and when they don't. Somehow it seems to me that they only work when the business is not too scalable, but profit is directly related to work input.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#19

Post by bryanlarsen »

jorleif wrote: post #18
dragonwriter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that coops are less likely to choose to respond to change by radical workforce reductions, but that's rather the point -- the "need" for such a response isn't an objective fact of circumstance, it's a particular valance of the interest of equity owners vs. those of workers. When the equity owners are the workers, those interests are balanced differently.

It is certainly true that workforce reduction is just one possibility, but what I still wonder is when coops work and when they don't. Somehow it seems to me that they only work when the business is not too scalable, but profit is directly related to work input.

The majority (by number) of worker co-operatives are places like coffee shops, where revenue is more closely related with the number of customers than work input.

Co-ops are a great structure when profit is directly related to work input, but that's not a requirement.

Re: Who Needs a Boss?

#20

Post by aestra »

>Meanwhile, credit unions — another form of cooperative — face stringent regulations on business lending.

This was thrown as an aside, but I'm wondering what they exactly mean by that. What are these regulations? Are they government imposed or member imposed? What exactly do the regulations say? I wish the article didn't just throw out "there's regulations" without explaining what said regulations are and how they effect co-op lending.

That being said, I'm a pretty big fan of credit unions and they usually rank higher in customer satisfaction,[1][2] and tend to have better rates. They tend to be more community oriented. Though some credit unions can suck too.

[1] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=842677&...

[2] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=855037&...

Post reply on HN