Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 141 posts

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#81

Post by anigbrowl »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #40
simlevesque wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also because almost every french home has one of their glasses and they are good quality. So it's a mix of history, tradition, enjoying good products, the pride you get from your country producing good products.

And not only homes. I moved to France several months ago, and I keep seeing the Duralex mark in cafes, at my workplace, basically everywhere.

Sounds like their biggest problem is that the product is so good the domestic market may be saturated. I was pleased to read in the article that they're working to increase exports. I'm a big believer in products that are engineered to last rather than be regularly replaced.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#82

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

I don’t understand the comments here crowing about how this employee-owned company is a success story against capitalism or something. It was going to go out of business, employees bought it, they also couldn’t make it profitable and had to resort to effectively a gofundme to not collapse. And somehow this is a win against profit driven companies? Do you not see how utterly non-viable this is at scale?

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#83

Post by mytailorisrich »

dimal wrote: post #78
mytailorisrich wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s a SCOP (the majority of the capital of the company is owned by the employees) On the other hand, I suspect that this also makes it more difficult for them to change and adapt.

Why? Most large corporations I’ve dealt with are highly bureaucratic and resistant to change. Good ideas get lost in silos or bogged down in bureaucracy. Whether it works or not seems entirely dependent on whether the company has a moat around their revenue stream, which allows them to be inefficient everywhere else. For an employee owned co-op, a more anarchistic organization structure that allows for more employee…

If the employees have the power then decisions that are good for company but bad for the employees won't be made.

Let's say that the company can't compete so the CEO proposes to automate production and lay off 50%+ of the employees, do you think employees will vote in favour?

In general coops are not good at tough decisions and innovation.

Duralex already went bankrupt several times and they are heading for it again. What's in the article is nice but it's charity not business so unfortunately I am not optimistic.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#84

Post by gniv »

constantcrying wrote: post #23
mrweasel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably their problem, cheap and long lasting isn't good for business.

Their products are extremely expensive.

As others have said, no they are not, here in France.

I'm not sure you can see this page, but it's a set of four 16cl Picardie glasses for 3.79 euro: https://www.carrefour.fr/p/gobelet-picardie-duralex-35501905...

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#86

Post by nextos »

Cyph0n wrote: post #34
griffzhowl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did survive. There are thousands in Spain and Italy especially. One of the most well-known is the Mondragon Corporation from the Basque country, one of Spain's largest comanies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

I am particularly interested in coops as a model for a tech startup. How would one go about structuring a new corporation to best ensure it remains a coop?

Igalia (https://www.igalia.com), also Spanish, is a fairly prominent tech company that is also a co-op.

Galois, Inc. (https://www.galois.com) is employee-owned, and they do lots of great formal methods work.

But not sure whether this model is appropriate for a startup. I guess splitting stock more evenly is a good starting point.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#87

Post by smcin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #81
throw-the-towel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not only homes. I moved to France several months ago, and I keep seeing the Duralex mark in cafes, at my workplace, basically everywhere.

Sounds like their biggest problem is that the product is so good the domestic market may be saturated. I was pleased to read in the article that they're working to increase exports. I'm a big believer in products that are engineered to last rather than be regularly replaced.

> Sounds like their biggest problem is that the product is so good the domestic market may be saturated.

Sad how rare that is these days. Which other companies does that apply to?

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#88

Post by coryrc »

decimalenough wrote: post #76
constantcrying wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their products are extremely expensive.

Uhh, no? A pack of 6 Picardie glasses retails for €20, so they're a little over €3 each. https://www.amazon.fr/-/en/Duralex-Picardie-Set-Clear-Glasse...

Apparently 3.14$US on amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Duralex-picardie-clear-tumbler-ounce/...

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#89

Post by anigbrowl »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #48
sigmoid10 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why worker owned companies (which were quite prevalent and a key factor in the 20th century's socialist movements) did not survive in our capitalist world. If we want to see these kinds of companies thrive, we need to change the entire market philosophy. Otherwise they will always be out-competed by companies that favour revenue/profit over worker benefits. In fact they will not even take off in the…

[flagged]

The whole article documents a product that people do want and like so much that they're willing to donate 4x what the owner-operators of the company asked for.

It's odd to see you expressing disdain for 'high school politics' and 'because younger generations don't know' while also displaying such ignorance or disregard of the subject matter, like watching factual waves roll in and dash themselves on the rocks of obdurate opinion.

Re: 'The French people want to save us': help pours in for glassmaker Duralex

#90

Post by ornornor »

mbivert wrote: post #35

A few years ago, a journalist went to Duralex, after they restructured (to be own by the employees), and show off the glasses's solidity, live. Every single one of them broke: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x957g7q

Woops
Post reply on HN