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Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

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Re: Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

#31

Post by 001sky »

jboynyc wrote: post #12
zt wrote: post #8

I don't want to draw out a tenuous claim: but in some ways most tech companies (and particularly early-stage startups) are more like cooperatives than has historically been the case in corporations. As Sam Altman's recent article on employee equity points to, being liberal with ownership is considered a virtue in technology companies. Long-gone are the days where you can build a technology company and keep all the ow…

Ownership is one part of the model, and I think you have a point that it's more diffused in many startups. However, I'm not sure democratic control of the business is part of the startup model. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they tend to create a traditional management structure with CEOs, etc.

Co-Op is a very loose term and comes in many flavors.

It would be a bit naive to think that they are inherently better managed or more "democratic" (egalitarian?) than a regularly run business. Like any democracy, not only do they come in different flavors (ie, representative democracy vs "pure" democracy etc), but they come with their own quirks of implementation. In many democracies the individual voters have little actual power and organized and concetrated special interest groups game the system. And there are plenty of co-ops run by CEOs.

And most co-ops do not offer order-of-magnitude improvements in working conditions or pay. You are looking at a 10% type improvement, not a 10x one. The downside of a co-op is that it might have a 10% improvemnet in (potential) conditions, but a poor implenetation but will be -10% as productive due to inefficiencies and execution problems.Which basically runs the risk of zero net improvement for the typical person there.

All of which means that you really need to analyze any proposed or actual implementation. Broad-brush generalizations are often misleading in this context. Just something to keep in mind.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

#33

Post by stronglikedan »

jawns wrote: post #29

Not a direct response to OP's question, but I wanted to give some general background info on worker cooperatives and coops in general. A cooperative is type of a business entity that does not have outside shareholders. Rather, its members are its owners. So, in the case of a worker cooperative, the people who work for the business are its member-owners. (In the case of a consumer cooperative, its patrons are its memb…

Thanks for the informative post. I'm new to the idea, and I have a question. You say that the decision making process is democratic. Couldn't that be dangerous?

The majority is not always right, or even informed enough to make a correct decision. An executive hierarchy puts this process in the hands of key decision makers, who are supposed to make the correct decisions to protect the company's interests based on their experience.

What happens when the decision made by the democratic majority is potentially harmful to the company? Is there a hierarchy in place to mitigate bad decisions?

Thanks for the informative post. I'm new to the idea, and I have a question. You say that the decision making process is democratic. Couldn't that be dangerous?

The majority is not always right, or even informed enough to make a correct decision. An executive hierarchy puts this process in the hands of key decision makers, who are supposed to make the correct decisions to protect the company's interests based on their experience.

What happens when the decision made by the democratic majority is potentially harmful to the company? Is there a hierarchy in place to mitigate bad decisions?

EDIT: jawns has clarified that the democratic process can be used to appoint an executive heirarchy. I was under the impression that every business decision was put to a vote by the entire cooperative. I understand now that key decision makers can be elected in order to mitigate decisions that may be harmful to the business.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

#36

Post by nickbauman »

stronglikedan wrote: post #33
jawns wrote: post #29

Not a direct response to OP's question, but I wanted to give some general background info on worker cooperatives and coops in general. A cooperative is type of a business entity that does not have outside shareholders. Rather, its members are its owners. So, in the case of a worker cooperative, the people who work for the business are its member-owners. (In the case of a consumer cooperative, its patrons are its memb…

Thanks for the informative post. I'm new to the idea, and I have a question. You say that the decision making process is democratic. Couldn't that be dangerous? The majority is not always right, or even informed enough to make a correct decision. An executive hierarchy puts this process in the hands of key decision makers, who are supposed to make the correct decisions to protect the company's interests based on thei…

I find it amusing that you think a hierarchy can solve the bad decision problem. You may be right, though not in the sense of mitigating a bad decision by having hierarchies, but that hierarchies have the uncanny ability of redefining a bad decision as a good one. At least that's been my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

#37

Post by zwegner »

stronglikedan wrote: post #33
jawns wrote: post #29

Not a direct response to OP's question, but I wanted to give some general background info on worker cooperatives and coops in general. A cooperative is type of a business entity that does not have outside shareholders. Rather, its members are its owners. So, in the case of a worker cooperative, the people who work for the business are its member-owners. (In the case of a consumer cooperative, its patrons are its memb…

Thanks for the informative post. I'm new to the idea, and I have a question. You say that the decision making process is democratic. Couldn't that be dangerous? The majority is not always right, or even informed enough to make a correct decision. An executive hierarchy puts this process in the hands of key decision makers, who are supposed to make the correct decisions to protect the company's interests based on thei…

Seems like it might be an appropriate place for representative democracy. Every year or so, everyone votes on a new CEO, etc.

There's probably a lot of decisions that could still be left up to workers, but I agree that having some clear direction is important, and there's lots of questions that just need a "no". The BDFL model of open source is a good example of how this can work without excessive hierarchy.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

#38

Post by jawns »

stronglikedan wrote: post #33
jawns wrote: post #29

Not a direct response to OP's question, but I wanted to give some general background info on worker cooperatives and coops in general. A cooperative is type of a business entity that does not have outside shareholders. Rather, its members are its owners. So, in the case of a worker cooperative, the people who work for the business are its member-owners. (In the case of a consumer cooperative, its patrons are its memb…

Thanks for the informative post. I'm new to the idea, and I have a question. You say that the decision making process is democratic. Couldn't that be dangerous? The majority is not always right, or even informed enough to make a correct decision. An executive hierarchy puts this process in the hands of key decision makers, who are supposed to make the correct decisions to protect the company's interests based on thei…

Well, remember that just because a company is democratically controlled does not mean that its member-owners cannot elect an executive hierarchy of its own. But when the votes are cast for that election, it will be the member-owners' interests that are being reflected, and not outside investors' interests.

To give an example that's more to do with worker cooperatives, suppose the member-owners are discussing whether to work 35- or 45-hour work weeks. The 35-hour work week might be good for work-life balance, but bad for the business itself, while the 45-hour work week might be the reverse. Nevertheless, the majority of members might vote in favor of the 35-hour work week, and whether or not that is bad for the business, it will be good for the majority of the workers.

Granted, the democratic process isn't perfect -- you need only look at U.S. politics if you need proof of that -- but when you compare it to its alternatives, it's not at the bottom of the pack.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives?

#40

Post by jboynyc »

roflc0ptic wrote: post #39

I'm on a Tech-Coop mailing list: http://npogroups.org/lists/info/tech-coop They're a friendly, cooperative bunch. Join and introduce yourself, or read the archives. It seems like most of them have thought really hard about what they're doing, and it's pretty solid.

This list seems to have spawned the site techworkers.coop mentioned by audionerd. Good to see there's a space where people have been having this important conversation.
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