Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD
1 day ago
I mean, if you wanna get technical, many companies in Silicon Valley are worker-owned (equity compensation)
1 day ago
I mean, if you wanna get technical, many companies in Silicon Valley are worker-owned (equity compensation)
They are not worker owned, they have some small amount of worker ownership. But the majority of stock is never owned by workers, other than the CEO.
Consider also that VC funds often have pension funds as their limited partners. Workers have a claim to their pension, and thus a claim to the startup returns that the VC invests in.
So yeah it basically comes down to your definition of "worker-owned". What fraction of worker ownership is necessary? Do C-level execs count as workers? Can it be "worker-owned" if the "workers" are people working elsewhere?
Beyond the "worker-owned" terminology, why is this distinction supposed to matter exactly? Supposing there was an SV startup that was relatively generous with equity compensation, so over 50% of equity is owned by non-C-level employees. What would you expect to change, if anything, if that threshold was passed?
> Supposing there was an SV startup that was relatively generous with equity compensation, so over 50% of equity is owned by non-C-level employees. What would you expect to change, if anything, if that threshold was passed?
If the workers are majority owners, then they can, for example, fire a CEO that is leading the company in the wrong direction, or trying to cut their salaries, or anything like that.