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

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#961

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #710

lupusreal wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies aren't "major companies". I'm for busting up the big monopolies, but I'm not for throwing the baby out with the bath water and imposing communist reforms on all businesses, most of which are small and generally well behaved, just because some big ones with pathological behavior exist.

So if you acknowledge that pathological behaviors exist, what's the problem with regulating against those pathological behaviors? Given you seem to think most companies are small and well-behaved, it won't affect those companies.

Regulation only shifts corruption, it doesn't stop or prevent it. There is plenty of corruption in and around government including the judicial system.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#962

Post by pie_flavor » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:09 PM UTC

consteval wrote: post #938

pie_flavor wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What opportunity manifests at the right place and right time? What's an example of this? And if it's based on knowledge and experience and an acquirable credential, then we're right back to square 1.

Its complex, because even if something is unattainable by knowledge and experience that DOES NOT mean its equal opportunity. Simply being born into a richer family means you're significantly more likely to earn a higher education. Simply being born into a white family means you're more likely to finish high school. And this is leaving out connections. If you know the people hiring, you have a better chance of getting…

In other words, you don't know any specifics. Which is my point.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#963

Post by entropicdrifter » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

apantel wrote: post #815

andrepd wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you wanted to implement a perfectly-efficient system, would that mean banning the fulfillment of any desire that wasn’t strictly a need? I don’t think anyone would want to live in such a system. Holy mother of slippery slopes x) Do you think $current_economic_system can be improved? Ah so you want to ban fulfillment of any desire ? Sheesh

You’re strawmanning. I was caricaturing the call for efficiency by blowing it up into a monster. I wasn’t saying I want to ban fulfillment of desire, or saying that’s the only alternative to the status quo.

The irony of accusing the other person in the conversation of strawmanning while describing your own strawmanning as "caricaturing" as if that were any different

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#964

Post by Alupis » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

Draiken wrote: post #928

Alupis wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This breaks down as soon as you get out of the idea phase. No, it does not. Most ideas fail, and a significant amount of "off the ground" projects fail. To be successful long term, it requires vision and commitment. You can find people to grind on your vision, but you cannot make them see what you see. The overwhelming majority of massive successful projects and companies have a key figure that drove them to succes…

> You can find people to grind on your vision, but you cannot make them see what you see. I call bullshit. If you can't explain your vision you're a shitty leader. Good leaders can share their vision and get people to buy into them, adding their visions on top of it. This is an oversimplification of very complex human interactions. Humans seek the simple explanation, even when there isn't one. >The overwhelming major…

> We can simplify and say "Jobs did it" but it's absolutely inaccurate.

It actually would not be. We got to witness Apple with Jobs, without and with-again... the track record unambiguously demonstrates how impactful a single visionary, highly motivated leader can be within an organization.

We're now seeing Apple without Jobs yet again, and while the stock price has coasted upwards under Cook, Apple has not been the "bold" "think different" Apple ever since. Present-day Apple largely relies on it's existing products and small iterations. Apple, under Cook, has produced nothing market-changing or revolutionary, like they consistently delivered under Jobs.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#965

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

zby wrote: post #380

peepee1982 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so many cooperatives to apply for, are there? Otherwise I would definitely prefer worker owned.

But you can create one? If many people wanted to join a cooperative - then it should be easy to do?

you? Maybe. Me? I have about 15k in credit card bills, $20 in the bank, and my current rent/utiliies take up ~60% of my monthly income. I also have no leverage to be trusted to run a co-op, so I can't attract proper talent to realize the business.

Maybe in a decade when the market and my debt recovers? But I'm planing to work for myself anyway. I have no issues with a co-op if I ever make enough to bring someone else on.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#966

Post by Aerroon » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

bccdee wrote: post #848

Aerroon wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current allocation of capital in the US is quite inefficient if we're interested in the welfare of the public. The welfare of the public today is not the same as the welfare of the public for all time. The Soviet Union couldn't compete on the development of computers, because the USSR was trying to optimize towards what could computers be used for then and there. It turned out that computers could be used for a…

You assume pharmaceutical profits are all funnelled to R&D, rather than to shareholders. I see no reason why we shouldn't slash profit margins on medicine and offer the money back in earmarked grants. So you see, I'm actually radically in favour of R&D.

No, I'm not assuming that. The profit motive is why they get the capital to do the R&D. I'm not just talking about developing an entirely novel drug but also manufacturing and testing it.

Without the possibility of this outrageous profit we would just get less drug research done. That money would then be invested in something else. Drug prices wouldn't be so outrageous (probably), but we probably also wouldn't have as many treatment options. They might be too expensive now, but there's a chance they won't be in 50 years.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#967

Post by randomdata » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

em500 wrote: post #711

nanomonkey wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume that is because they take on jobs that they'll be happy with, instead of what ever job makes the most money. If you're content with what you do, you can do it sustainably for the rest of your life, if your only motivation to do your job is the money, then you'll burn out and retire early.

So if they work less hours than others it's because they prioritize happiness (grandparent's post), and if they work more hours than others it's alsmo because they prioritize happiness (your post)?

The grandparent post was clearly stated as a hypothetical, so there is no expectation of it having any bearing in reality. However, what does seem to stand up to reality based on what data is available is that the people in Greece work more hours, but also take more days away from work.

Which may suggest that the "American way" is to work fewer hours per day, and then try to cram in some fun after work, whereas the Greeks allow themselves to delve into more fun over the span of entire days instead of short spurts. It is possible that more happiness is derived when one is able to enjoy themselves in larger blocks of time, even if the total quantity on a time-unit basis ends up being the same as anyone else. That would support both scenarios in the comments, even if they seem contradictory on the surface.

But, as with earlier comments, this is all based on hypotheticals for the sake of illustration. There is no indication of what the speaker from the greater thread was actually talking about.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#968

Post by ngcc_hk » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

Not every. Not all thinking again. Each film is unique.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#969

Post by VirusNewbie » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #873

VirusNewbie wrote: post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow. Off by millions of orders of magnitude, impressive!

Technically off by 6 orders of magnitude, or a factor of a million. Orders of magnitude are exponential - each order of magnitude is a factor of 10 more than the last, so you take the log10 of the factor of increase.

Til. thanks.

Re: Every company should be owned by its employees

#970

Post by phyzix5761 » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 8:28 PM UTC

charles_f wrote: post #959

phyzix5761 wrote: post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. If they let go of 10% of the staff the value of their shares (or number of shares) increases. This means that the next time there's a dividend they'll get more money. They're incentivized to decrease the number of workers and not hire any more until it starts hurting their returns. Same exact thing that happens when shares are owned by external shareholders.

That's an interesting proposition, and honestly I can't tell if you're right or not. If it's worker owned, what happens to the shares when a worker leaves? Do they have to sell? In which case, is the company buying back, or the remaining workers (or is that the same thing?). If that's so, the share behaves less like a regular share, and more like a vested interest that doubles as a layoff package. Also, is the value…

You're right. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered in order to get a more accurate picture of the situation.

If we're only looking at dividends and the profit generation of the company stays roughly the same from year to year then its in the worker's interest to reduce the number of workers so that the same profits are shared among fewer individuals; increasing the per share value of those dividends.

A buyout of exiting workers doesn't actually reduce the value of the company as you're either decreasing the number of outstanding shares or redistributing those shares to the remaining workers. You're just trading one asset (cash) for another (shares).