Every company should be owned by its employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#571

Post by arminiusreturns » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:13 PM UTC

talkingtab wrote: post #552

Corporations pay employees and generate profits for owners. The third party is the customers. The first comment (currently) uses the word "profitable", in other words it asks what happens when a corporation is NOT profitable. We live in a time when profit is shrinking or drying up. So what happens? Corporations are controlled by owners, so they do two things: - they lower wages (inflation) - they raise prices This ha…

I often hear people say "if corporations are people how do we execute them?"

I remind them that this current insanity of profit at all costs has not always been the norm. Of course to a certain degree it has, but a long time ago, in America at least, corporations had to prove they were providing a public good or service, and if they were found to not be, their charter could be revoked! That right there is the death penalty for a corporation. While I'm sure it would have its own set of issues, I often dream about a world in which that becomes the norm instead of destroying the world so a multimillionare can get a few extra mil and the billionares get a few extra bil, while they oppress us and compromise our governments.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#572

Post by fuzzfactor » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

freilanzer wrote: post #440

dheera wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that for the first N years of Nvidia, he probably made less than minimum wage, AND had immense responsibilities on his back to try to get the company to profitability? That's the risk. He's getting a 30M paycheck today only because he built a trillion dollar company from nothing and sacrificed the job opportunities he could have had at other companies for three decades.

Do you realise that CEOs don't all start at a company from day 1 and instead get hired and immediately have a huge salary? According to Wikipedia: As of 2024, Huang has been Nvidia's chief executive for over three decades, a tenure described by The Wall Street Journal as "almost unheard of in fast-moving Silicon Valley".[14] He owns 3.6% of Nvidia's stock, which went public in 1999.[5] He earned US$24.6 million as CE…

>CEOs don't all start at a company from day 1 and instead get hired and immediately have a huge salary?

With 20/20 hindsight which seems like the better path now?

>This should tell you all you need to know.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#573

Post by sqeaky » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

charles_f wrote: post #559

sqeaky wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like someone saying that banning children from mines is a restrictions on the child's right to mine coal. If society would be a better place than short term growth be damned.

I'm not sure why so many people want to find issues with giving more to employees.

To be maximally charitable, some people don't want to trade one freedom for another (lots of people are just assholes, but let's ignore them for a moment).

There are some fundamental compromises in freedom. If I have a right not to be stabbed you have a lost a right to stab me. Clearly, there are some things where this is an obviously good trade, like in not being stabbed.

I suspect this person fears they will lose some freedoms if they choose to run a company or have their options reduced in the job market if companies are regulated to be less shitty. There may be some of that, but I suspect we can take the worst offences off the table and make the market more robust creating a total increase in freedom and options for everyone.

This is why I went with a child in the mines example. Getting kids out of the mines and into schools was a complete gain for everyone beneficial to society. Employers got more educated employees. Kid got out of the mines. Coal production went up.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#574

Post by mattm » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

nox101 wrote: post #548

apantel wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who want to make money above all else are pursuing that because they think that will make them happy. It’s just their idea of the path that will get them to happiness. They see Mark Zuckerberg wakeboarding at his Lake Tahoe retreat and think, ‘That’s happiness — having billions of dollars, not having to worry about meeting basic needs, being able to do what you want.’

Zuckerberg doesn't get to do what he wants. He's in meetings constantly and rarely has a free moment

He could step anytime he wants to. He's not someone who is going to work to make sure him and his family have food to eat.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#575

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:15 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #94

Employee stock options are not a new idea, obviously. If the story is "every company should offer stock options to its employees", then sure, that's often a good business plan. The reason not every company does it to all its employees is probably that for those employees, it wouldn't affect incentives much and it would make payment subject to the vagaries of the stock market. Your barista at Starbucks is not going to…

[deleted]

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#576

Post by InitialLastName » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:18 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #519

stavros wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is spot on. It's just that the priorities are different (even unemployed Greeks scrape enough money to have coffee with their friends), which can seem to Americans like we're lazy.

I was recently in Lisbon and was surprised that an espresso still costs 70 cents despite the influx of tourists and expats. If it's the same in Greece, I can easily see how an unemployed person can afford to hang out.

When I visited a rust belt city recently, it was amazing how many of the coffee shops and bars were still open of my preferred "sit and have a quiet conversation" variety. In my VHCOL city, where commercial rents are absurd, the only coffee shops/bars that can stay open are the ones that can drive tons of business (and thus push patrons through like cattle, with all cues pointing towards "you shouldn't be hanging out here").

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#577

Post by vladms » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:20 PM UTC

Some ideas were in fact already tried, but whomever does not history might suffer reliving it. For example check: https://www.familistere.com/uploads/media/5a9c4bd061fce/fami...

To quote: "the association’s economic and social model fell victim to its users and competitors. The hierarchy of association members, originally intended to reflect ability, led to opposition between Associates (whose status had finished by seeming hereditary) and other, less privileged active members. The spirit of the Familistère co-operative colony faded with each new generation."

It is fascinating that these things were already tried more than 100 years ago. It is also interesting that they did not succeed for simple reasons (people trying to take advantage of other people). I think any proposed solution must be more structural - involve more than ownership but a set of values...

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#578

Post by ninetyninenine » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:22 PM UTC

The tragedy of the commons applies here. Any time you have something that’s commonly owned by many people (the more people, the more the tragedy applies) you have incentives that become misaligned.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#579

Post by kerkeslager » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:22 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #194

stavros wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe "taking over the market" is a bad metric, and we should be optimizing for making a company that makes the workers' lives better. The US cultural bias is showing here, as it's assumed that profit is above all else, and a company that forgoes profit to make workers happier must thus be less good. The vast majority of people in companies are workers. Let's stop optimizing for owner wealth and start optimizing…

How does this work in practice, though. It's easy to say what you're saying, or go slightly further and say "let's stop optimising for work and start optimising for everything to be free". What's the actual plan?

That's quite the slippery slope argument you've got there.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#580

Post by dash2 » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 3:22 PM UTC

rakoo wrote: post #238

dash2 wrote: post #94

Employee stock options are not a new idea, obviously. If the story is "every company should offer stock options to its employees", then sure, that's often a good business plan. The reason not every company does it to all its employees is probably that for those employees, it wouldn't affect incentives much and it would make payment subject to the vagaries of the stock market. Your barista at Starbucks is not going to…

> The reason not every company does it to all its employees is probably that for those employees, it wouldn't affect incentives much and it would make payment subject to the vagaries of the stock market. Pleast don't be so naive. The reason not every company does that is that giving ownership gives power and dilutes your own, reduces the chances at doing humongus profits that can be hoarded by a minority. Business ow…

I'm not naive. Owners also don't pay wages out of sympathy for workers. When they give away wages, they give away profits directly. If anything, short-termist managers might prefer to give away rights to future profits, rather than profits today. Also, you're assuming that small shareholders exercise power via their voting rights - nope, most small shareholders don't vote, not surprisingly since small voting blocs would rarely change outcomes.