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

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#61

Post by dheera » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:11 AM UTC

RicoElectrico wrote: post #53

dheera wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being paid $34M in 2024. 26.6M of that was stock. In percentage terms it's just equity that he effectively handed out before as a founder and is getting back in return for growing the company even more. I don't see a problem with it, considering that the median employee takes almost zero risks and can leave whenever they want.

No, the risk for regular employee is higher due to downside vs upside. Once you cross some wealth threshold, it's not possible to lose everything (e.g. become homeless) unless you do something deliberately stupid like gambling or drugs. There's always plan B if you're rich. Like, rent out property or something.

The risk for a software engineer at any of the big tech companies is extremely low if you have some common sense level of financial literacy.

If you're an engineer at Nvidia you'd have to do some braindead stupid things with your money to end up homeless.

Also, if you have technical skills at a level that Nvidia would hire you, you can easily get a job at probably a thousand other companies. Layoffs are a non-issue. Recruiters will be scrambling to hire ex-Nvidia folks in the event of a mass layoff, barring a major global financial collapse (in which case you're still better off than 95% of the population).

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#62

Post by Guthur » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:11 AM UTC

shswkna wrote: post #55

There are many advantages to having employees own shares in a company. However, I would add that it depends on the industry, type of company and other circumstances. These are factors that play a role and should add to a more nuanced discussion: - Ownership also implies responsibilities and risk. There might be capital risks or surety needed for certain industries. Not all people want this in their lives. - For any c…

What capital risks? Private equity many times purchases a company, loads it up with debt, strips it off assets, pay themselves fat dividends and then walks away when it all falls apart.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#63

Post by Stealthisbook » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:11 AM UTC

xmprt wrote: post #18

I think the most surprising thing about trends in modern executive class pay is just how steep it is compared to the median employee. It makes me wonder why shareholders outside the company are happy with it. For example, the Boeing CEO made 22M in 2022 and 32M in 2023. I'd argue that he did a much worse job in 2023 than in 2022 but somehow got paid almost 50% more. Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being p…

It helps that board members are often fellow CEOs or members of multiple other company boards. They have an incentive to negotiate high pay packages and shareholders in general get presented with a yes/no question

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#64

Post by rendaw » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:12 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #36

xmprt wrote: post #18

I think the most surprising thing about trends in modern executive class pay is just how steep it is compared to the median employee. It makes me wonder why shareholders outside the company are happy with it. For example, the Boeing CEO made 22M in 2022 and 32M in 2023. I'd argue that he did a much worse job in 2023 than in 2022 but somehow got paid almost 50% more. Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being p…

> Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being paid $34M in 2024. 26.6M of that was stock. In percentage terms it's just equity that he effectively handed out before as a founder and is getting back in return for growing the company even more. I don't see a problem with it, considering that the median employee takes almost zero risks and can leave whenever they want.

What risk does Jensen Huang take and why can't he leave whenever he wants?

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#65

Post by brightlancer » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:13 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #36

xmprt wrote: post #18

I think the most surprising thing about trends in modern executive class pay is just how steep it is compared to the median employee. It makes me wonder why shareholders outside the company are happy with it. For example, the Boeing CEO made 22M in 2022 and 32M in 2023. I'd argue that he did a much worse job in 2023 than in 2022 but somehow got paid almost 50% more. Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being p…

> Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being paid $34M in 2024. 26.6M of that was stock. In percentage terms it's just equity that he effectively handed out before as a founder and is getting back in return for growing the company even more. I don't see a problem with it, considering that the median employee takes almost zero risks and can leave whenever they want.

> considering that the median employee takes almost zero risks and can leave whenever they want.

This is an important point that is often ignored.

Within the past week there was a thread about "How to get paid FAANG money at non-FAANG companies", and someone mentioned starting your own business -- which folks (correctly) pointed out involved risks and time that most folks don't want to take.

(Also, it's always funny on HN when someone sarcastically talks about a CEO "only" being paid an absurd amount of money, when almost all of us are getting paid multiples of the median salary, plus whatever annual bonuses and stock.)

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#66

Post by marsten » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:13 AM UTC

My favorite pizza place in Sunnyvale became employee-owned, and shortly after decided they only wanted to stay open 3 days a week.

I'm happy for those employees but man, I also wish I could get pizza on Monday.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#67

Post by croisillon » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:14 AM UTC

b800h wrote: post #43

TomK32 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviet Union was just the same old russian feudalism with a new name tag and leadership. In a sense even modern-day russians are still not emancipated citizens like we are in the West.

Absolute rubbish. This is a classic trope of the fully-brainwashed. The bread queues that resulted from collectivised agriculture that couldn't respond to market conditions had nothing to do with feudalism. The mass-murder of the middle-classes in Cambodia had nothing to do with feudalism. Communism is a brutal, oppressive system that has to erase individual liberty in order to force people to comply with its absurd,…

they wrote "same old russian feudalism" and "still not emancipated citizens" and you non-sequitur it with "if it was so great"..?

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#68

Post by dools » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:15 AM UTC

Worker co-ops and ESOPs are already available as business structures. If they’re better, they will be more common, it’s as simple as that. Mandating employee ownership is ridiculous.

In terms of policy I think a cap on revenue per employee for a privately held company and a cap on individual ownership is a better solution to reducing income inequality.

That and eliminating involuntary unemployment so that companies have to compete with a guaranteed job that is not exploitative.

Let the private sector figure out the details within those boundary conditions, that’s what it’s there for.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#69

Post by bpodgursky » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:15 AM UTC

infotainment wrote: post #26

xmprt wrote: post #18

I think the most surprising thing about trends in modern executive class pay is just how steep it is compared to the median employee. It makes me wonder why shareholders outside the company are happy with it. For example, the Boeing CEO made 22M in 2022 and 32M in 2023. I'd argue that he did a much worse job in 2023 than in 2022 but somehow got paid almost 50% more. Even Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is "only" being p…

It's so bizarre, considering that the modern CEO's only job is to issue meaningless positive statements to shareholders. If you look at many top CEOs resumes, they are almost always devoid of any real experience. People talk about replacing various jobs by AI, but I'm pretty sure an LLM could replace most CEOs and no one would notice.

I don't want to be rude but you have no idea what you are talking about and clearly have 0 insight into the day-to-day of an actual CEO. It's fine to argue that a particular CEO is underperforming, it's often true, but very few of them are "underworking" by any reasonable definition.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#70

Post by mjamesaustin » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 7:16 AM UTC

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #37

sofixa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing some entities, often private equity or similar corporations buying assets, often to rent, sometimes just to park, being able to buy, and the general public being able to afford to buy. In many desirable metro areas, you need two high incomes (two people in tech or lawyers or finance) to be able to afford to buy anything. What about everyone else?

> often private equity or similar corporations buying assets What proportion of housing do they own? I would assume it’s pretty small if still significant.

Huge percentage nowadays. Lately private equity is making 30-40% of all single family home purchases in the US.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/15/in-shift-44...