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Every company should be owned by its employees

elysian.press

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Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#651

Post by nsonha »

Apocryphon wrote: post #645
hemantv wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals have visions not committee. We build monuments for individuals not for committee. Having said that no man is island of itself. Current incentive structure works great to motivate individuals to start companies

Seems like confirmation bias. We often than not like to lionize successful individuals, but plenty of visions are false or otherwise fail. On the other hand, we tend not to remember group efforts because it's harder to remember multiple individuals at a time. But surely they do exist. Was there a single visionary behind Bell Labs? Xerox PARC? The traitorous eight? The Apollo program? The Manhattan Project?

Groups are slower and less consistent in decision making than individuals, simple as that.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#652

Post by chasd00 »

apantel wrote: post #529
sotix wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US cultural bias is showing here, as it's assumed that profit is above all else I asked my Greek teacher what they biggest change she experienced moving to the US was, and she said that in Greece, her community prioritized happiness above all else, but everyone she met in the US prioritized making money. I also asked her what the financial crisis was like in Greece, and she said that you couldn’t find an empty…

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.’

i heard a quote a long time ago "money won't buy you happiness but it's more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes".

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#653

Post by Apocryphon »

nsonha wrote: post #651
Apocryphon wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like confirmation bias. We often than not like to lionize successful individuals, but plenty of visions are false or otherwise fail. On the other hand, we tend not to remember group efforts because it's harder to remember multiple individuals at a time. But surely they do exist. Was there a single visionary behind Bell Labs? Xerox PARC? The traitorous eight? The Apollo program? The Manhattan Project?

Groups are slower and less consistent in decision making than individuals, simple as that.

There are different types of group governance and almost all of them having an individual decision-maker at the front. Oppenheimer directed the Manhattan Project but he wasn't a "visionary individual," he had plenty of talented geniuses working under him.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#654

Post by shkkmo »

nradov wrote: post #475
shkkmo wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like doing meaningful work that benefits their customers. I think that employee owned businesses tens to treat their customers better than companies that are owned by private equity, pension funds or other investors who never touch the product or interact with the customers.

When United Airlines was employee owned they didn't treat their customers better than competitors. https://www.forbes.com/sites/fotschcase/2017/04/17/uniteds-t...

The article you linked doesn't say anything to backup your claim. United was employee owned for a total of only 6 years. Employee ownership was institued over some employee objections and wasn't fully supported by management. The labor relation issues that caused the pilot strike and slowdown duering that period predated the employee ownership initiative.

Nobody is saying that employee ownership is a magic bullet that fixes organization disfunction but data from that first year does show that it can have a positive impact of performance and customer satisfaction.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#655

Post by Mesopropithecus »

francisofascii wrote: post #558
SoftTalker wrote: post #537

This is a really bad idea for the average worker. "We've got a number of people that have been here 15, 20 years and they have $1 million plus balances" Sounds good but they are catastrophically undiversified. Nobody should have their entire nest egg in one stock. Yes they are motivated for the company to do well, but so many things play into a stock price that are out of any one person's control. Just giving them pr…

Isn't there some asset insurance vehicle to protect against a catastrophic loss?

That's what options are for. But I find it more cost effective to just diversify my investments.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#656

Post by munificent »

> “It's hard to build true wealth for yourself if you don't have some type of ownership in something, and it's hard for most people to get ownership in something,” Ruger says.

I think this is a really good insight.

But it also touches on something that many of the HN crowd, especially in the Bay Area find uncomfortable: home ownership.

One of the ownership assets that is most attainable by many Americans is a little plot of real estate, so it's rational that it's a goal of many. But at the same time, once that piece of ownership has been attained it's also rational to want to preserve and maximize the value of that investment. But that can often (but not always) lead to the kind of selfish NIMBY behavior that is criticized everytime anything related to urban development comes up.

Is there a middle ground balance where we respect that ownership of property is an important, attainable kind of wealth building for middle-class people while also accepting that a city must also develop in ways that benefit people that aren't homeowners, or aren't homeowners yet?

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#657

Post by dls2016 »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #594

I think it's easy to look at this with an existing, successful business in mind - but things don't always work out that way. How would a business like this get started? Usually the owner is the one who invests a lot of their own time and/or money into the business to get it off the ground in the first place. Would we be asking workers to pony up in those early years when failure is likely? With Central States, the st…

> IOW, they're being underpaid relative to market, in exchange for ownership, expecting to get more later when they sell the shares. So far so good, but how does this look when the business has a rough patch, even one that's not their fault?

Uhm, do you have a 401k?

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#658

Post by RandomCitizen12 »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #594

I think it's easy to look at this with an existing, successful business in mind - but things don't always work out that way. How would a business like this get started? Usually the owner is the one who invests a lot of their own time and/or money into the business to get it off the ground in the first place. Would we be asking workers to pony up in those early years when failure is likely? With Central States, the st…

> How would a business like this get started? Usually the owner is the one who invests a lot of their own time and/or money into the business to get it off the ground in the first place. Would we be asking workers to pony up in those early years when failure is likely?

In Canada, there are 'Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations' with union overseers to do this and special tax deductions for investing money through these.

They are, of course, a giant failure that neither provides easier access to capital for entrepreneurs nor generates any notable return for investors.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#660

Post by chasd00 »

vundercind wrote: post #471
vrotaru wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an example. Should teachers be judged on how a pleasant life they live, or how good they teach?

I assure you that being allowed to teach well would greatly increase the pleasantness of life for a hell of a lot of teachers. Nobody gets into teaching for the money—and, for that matter, there’s not a clear connection between doing it well and any kind of rewards at all, as it stands.

Teaching is a good example. When you teach in public schools which is basically where the "people own the means of production" since the school is paid for by the taxes collected by an elected government, you're absolutely right. No rewards for quality teaching basically at all.

However, if you're really good at teaching you can teach at a private school and reap a lot more rewards. Better pay, better recognition, a better work environment this list goes on and on.

/wife is a teacher and has taught in both public and private highschool

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