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Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

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Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#111

Post by leethaxor »

zozbot234 wrote: post #84
mypastself wrote: post #13

It’s high time I stopped reading Medium articles shared here. I got the distinct feeling I was being sold something while reading it, and the last paragraph confirmed it. It’s filled with vague, corporatey platitudes about ego and altruism, and there’s almost nothing in it about how this concept applies specifically to tech . The supposed “cons” sound like the ad equivalents of leading questions: > The relationships…

Co-ops and partnerships work very well for low capital intensity businesses, and coding is a low capital-intensity business in this day and age. It makes total sense that people are interested in such arrangements, it's not just a matter of wishful thinking.

I don't understand... I work as a software contractor in EU. I don't see a single thing I'm missing by not being in a coop. 5% of my income is a lot of money. For that money I can buy all the accounting and tax advisory services I need with enough money left over to get a Wework All Access membership and even then I'd have a significant portion of the 5% left. Why does it make total sense that people are interested?

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#112

Post by Joel_Mckay »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #108
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many have taken issue with William Forster Lloyd's assertion: "tragedy of the commons is a situation in which individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures or formal rules that govern access and use, act independently according to their own self-interest and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action in ca…

>I am not suggesting you are wrong for interjecting off-topic straw-man arguments, but your naive input lends credibility to the observations on human nature. I find that comment odd, given that they cited papers that directly spoke about the functioning of coops. Conversely, your comment mentioning the tragedy of the commons seems very off topic. Could you explain more how it relates? Best of luck =)

In this case YC is a shared resource, and two accounts segued a thread about personal experience in an attempt to defend an unrelated issue they presented themselves.

Again, if you have specific examples of functional firms outside subsidized communist regimes, it would be more relevant.

Have a glorious day =)

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#113

Post by shadowfoxx »

onphonenow wrote: post #83
mihaaly wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am unsure if fast turns is a thing of hierarchical organizations, especially the successful ones, what I see that the bigger (some say more successful) it is the slower it turns. Period. Also it's will to turn is lower by getting bigger, trying to stick to past success and methods as much as pussible because every change is constly and every change is risky, and the members don't want to risk the livelyhood of thei…

Interesting - so in your view Elon as the top person in Twitter hierarchy will not be able to change Twitter except very slowly ?

Not saying this is the case but an outlier (exception) to a rule does not disprove the rule.

So you're right, Elon came in and is making changes quite rapidly but that doesn't mean this is standard for large businesses.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#114

Post by beedeebeedee »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #112
beedeebeedee wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am not suggesting you are wrong for interjecting off-topic straw-man arguments, but your naive input lends credibility to the observations on human nature. I find that comment odd, given that they cited papers that directly spoke about the functioning of coops. Conversely, your comment mentioning the tragedy of the commons seems very off topic. Could you explain more how it relates? Best of luck =)

In this case YC is a shared resource, and two accounts segued a thread about personal experience in an attempt to defend an unrelated issue they presented themselves. Again, if you have specific examples of functional firms outside subsidized communist regimes, it would be more relevant. Have a glorious day =)

> In this case YC is a shared resource, and two accounts segwayed a thread about personal experience in an attempt to defend an unrelated issue they presented themselves.

I'm afraid I don't follow. The commenter above cited papers concerning the topic (coops/labor managed companies). You made a comment about personal experience (nonprofit politics) and then also equated it with the tragedy of the commons (which seems as if you conflated nonprofits with coops and the commons- i.e., three things that appear adverse to private profit). It seems as if you are shifting the goal posts now in a way that means we aren't going to understand each other, which is a shame.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#115

Post by karaterobot »

Just my experience here, but:

A badly run cooperative fails because the people involved don't take it seriously, or lose their alignment and break apart. A well run cooperative fails (or succeeds) for all the usual reasons any business does. A well run coop ends up feeling a lot like a small business with a traditional structure, and an owner who respects their employees and doesn't act like a tyrant. That's cool, but it's a lot of work to reproduce the performance characteristics of an existing technology.

I've been involved in many sessions where we tried to experiment with the structure and mechanics of how a cooperative works, in order to address what seem to be persistent shortcomings in the model. Nobody has really cracked the code yet, in my opinion.

When it comes down to it, having done both, I think I'd rather work for a good boss at a small company than be in another coop, even a good one. I want someone competent to do all the behind the scenes work, and make most of the decisions, asking me for my opinion on the things that affect me directly or for which my expertise can provide some direct insight.

The advantages: If I don't like the company, I can leave without feeling like I've failed: there are no non-work relationships, or sense of ownership holding me there. I don't have to attend additional meetings. I don't have to look at budgets. I don't have to be on a committee or working group. I don't have to pick a side and convince the other side of anything. If the company makes a bad decision, I say "ha ha, those morons did it again" and keep on doing my job.

In short, as I have come to identify less with work, I have become less interested in the cooperative model because the value of ownership has gone down.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#116

Post by Joel_Mckay »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #114
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case YC is a shared resource, and two accounts segued a thread about personal experience in an attempt to defend an unrelated issue they presented themselves. Again, if you have specific examples of functional firms outside subsidized communist regimes, it would be more relevant. Have a glorious day =)

> In this case YC is a shared resource, and two accounts segwayed a thread about personal experience in an attempt to defend an unrelated issue they presented themselves. I'm afraid I don't follow. The commenter above cited papers concerning the topic (coops/labor managed companies). You made a comment about personal experience (nonprofit politics) and then also equated it with the tragedy of the commons (which seems…

Most coops tend to be registered as nonprofits in my part of the world for tax reasons, and others have an elected board which distributes earnings though a share structure to members.

You have failed to provide data to explain the context of your input. Thus, still remain off-topic, and orthogonal to the line of observations corroborated with other members experiences.

As initially inferred, unaccountable individuals that normally get away with cowing people tend to destroy shared environments which should be otherwise sustainable in theory.

I agree without relevant data your perspective may be beyond comprehension.

May you find a path to happiness =)

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#117

Post by nanomonkey »

leethaxor wrote: post #111
zozbot234 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-ops and partnerships work very well for low capital intensity businesses, and coding is a low capital-intensity business in this day and age. It makes total sense that people are interested in such arrangements, it's not just a matter of wishful thinking.

I don't understand... I work as a software contractor in EU. I don't see a single thing I'm missing by not being in a coop. 5% of my income is a lot of money. For that money I can buy all the accounting and tax advisory services I need with enough money left over to get a Wework All Access membership and even then I'd have a significant portion of the 5% left. Why does it make total sense that people are interested?

I would assume that the benefits are in having coworkers that fill in the gaps in your own business skills. For example: finding clients, invoicing, server maintenance, customer service, training, documentation, implementation consultants. There are a variety of job skills that one person will not have or want to contribute 100% of the time that are valuable jobs for junior or more senior coworkers.

If you are paying someone to do any of these jobs, you are doing it out of income that you've paid taxes on. If they are a part of your cooperative then it comes out of the businesses own funds pretax. There are also incentives to share in other resources, such as buildings, child care and other invisible labor that we normally place little value on.

Also, some cooperative companies will only outsource work to other cooperative groups.

Not to mention the camaraderie of working with people with similar goals in a noncompetitive environment where they value your success.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#118

Post by bluesign »

Shoue wrote: post #43
bluesign wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it is little worse than unions done good.

That's an odd critique considering coops exist to solve the friction between unions and businesses by building the democratic control into the business itself, avoiding the need for a union. Especially when you consider all the union busting tactics used by leadership at traditional businesses – how are you even supposed to form a union when they won't let you? Coops come at that from a different angle: you get democ…

Normally with union done right, you would have voice in management. Problem is all you see is non-working unions ( union busting etc also from sibling comments)

Thats why I commented union done good from the beginning.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#119

Post by sokoloff »

sofixa wrote: post #103
sokoloff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do know this. Many of their tactics are specifically directed at “make the employees not want the union”. Some of those tactics are under-handed, even despicable, but it’s safe to say that they know this and act in accordance.

Firing everyone in a store in the process of unionizing isn't "make employees not want the union", it's retaliating against those that do and instilling fear in the rest.

You might not like the methods (and in some cases, they are not legal), but I think that’s exactly what it does. Fear makes (some) people not want the union.

Firing pro-union employees also obviously directly reduces the number of employees who are pro-union.

Re: Fired? Why cooperatives might be your next career choice in tech

#120

Post by leethaxor »

nanomonkey wrote: post #117
leethaxor wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand... I work as a software contractor in EU. I don't see a single thing I'm missing by not being in a coop. 5% of my income is a lot of money. For that money I can buy all the accounting and tax advisory services I need with enough money left over to get a Wework All Access membership and even then I'd have a significant portion of the 5% left. Why does it make total sense that people are interested?

I would assume that the benefits are in having coworkers that fill in the gaps in your own business skills. For example: finding clients, invoicing, server maintenance, customer service, training, documentation, implementation consultants. There are a variety of job skills that one person will not have or want to contribute 100% of the time that are valuable jobs for junior or more senior coworkers. If you are paying…

> finding clients, invoicing, server maintenance, customer service, training, documentation, implementation consultants

Clients find me, not the other way around. Documentation and implementation are my own lines of work.

I have an accountant, tax advisor and lawyer as subscriptions. I also have a coworking pass. These cost me about 1.5% of my annual income.

Trainings are given for free in coops? I can't imagine myself or my friends working for free, are you forced to work for free in a coop? As in, would I be forced to give trainings too? I value my time too much for this. Of course I do the occasional free tech talk for my friends/the public, but that's not in any way comparable to a "full" training.

> If you are paying someone to do any of these jobs, you are doing it out of income that you've paid taxes on.

No. As a contractor, all of the above are my business expenses (also including conference passes, trainings/certifications, driving to/from the client, all my hardware I use to work etc). Companies and contractors pay tax on profit, not turnover.

> Also, some cooperative companies will only outsource work to other cooperative groups.

Yeah indeed there's a coop like that where I live. They pay like half of what I make to their top guys (I myself am not a top guy; they offered me even less). Not encouraging.

> Not to mention the camaraderie of working with people with similar goals in a noncompetitive environment where they value your success.

I have this at the coworking space - and we don't share any money so there's no chance of any bad feelings whatsoever. I have very bad experience with that, it ends friendships.

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