Ask HN: Where are laid off employees gathering?
I'm in SF. Besides the linkedin posts... is there a forum, discussion etc? I feel like I saw a thing/form launched on HN. Also - might be time for an old fashioned meet up!
333 comments
It just occurred to me that so many people were laid off, we could start the world's largest software co-op (and arguably one of the largest tech orgs, period). We could build software products that every industry needs, that every worker owns a part of and can vote on org-wide decisions.
Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some volunteers to organize. We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them.
(there are lots of different kinds of co-ops, and I'm not suggesting any particular model other than a worker owned organization where the workers own and control the company)
Literally everyone you need was laid off... Tech people, business people, marketing, sales, etc. We just need a forum and some volunteers to organize. We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them.
(there are lots of different kinds of co-ops, and I'm not suggesting any particular model other than a worker owned organization where the workers own and control the company)
It's hard to imagine such an organization working out over the long term. The incentives are all wonky! The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain. I for one can't think of a less attractive idea than taking a product idea that I love and turning ownership and creative control over to a group of strangers.
And that's probably why these things are so rare. After all, it would take a helluva lot of drive and energy to bring such a thing to life--probably much more than it would take to start a company in the usual way. If you were capable of building such an organization, why not retain creative control of your ideas and make millions at the same time?
Making millions doesn't have to be a selfish act, by the way. If you want to help people, money affords you the opportunity to do so in any way you please. Horray, effective altruism!
Meanwhile, if you start a software co-op... who exactly are you helping? Software developers, who get a chunk of profits instead of a measly 150K? Software consumers, who're likely business owners? Folks who have money to pay for software?
And that's probably why these things are so rare. After all, it would take a helluva lot of drive and energy to bring such a thing to life--probably much more than it would take to start a company in the usual way. If you were capable of building such an organization, why not retain creative control of your ideas and make millions at the same time?
Making millions doesn't have to be a selfish act, by the way. If you want to help people, money affords you the opportunity to do so in any way you please. Horray, effective altruism!
Meanwhile, if you start a software co-op... who exactly are you helping? Software developers, who get a chunk of profits instead of a measly 150K? Software consumers, who're likely business owners? Folks who have money to pay for software?
>The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain.
How do you think co-ops work? Are you imagining a flat organizational structure like Valve Software? An open source project plus invoices? Those are all interesting ideas, but co-ops presently work like employee-owned business and usually have managers and compensation structures that fit the obvious way those things work. HN's tendency to GPT whenever exposed to something it doesn't know about is driving me nuts today. :-)
How do you think co-ops work? Are you imagining a flat organizational structure like Valve Software? An open source project plus invoices? Those are all interesting ideas, but co-ops presently work like employee-owned business and usually have managers and compensation structures that fit the obvious way those things work. HN's tendency to GPT whenever exposed to something it doesn't know about is driving me nuts today. :-)
Interesting fact - valve no longer works this way because it didn't work.
Valve was never actually flat, they always had a corporate wing setting payscales and directing the company. It's a common misconception, partly brought about by their recruitment marketing.
That's some great marketing. I never applied to work there, I just assumed "now that's how you run a company!"
It didn't really make sense to me. How did you imagine any decisions working?
For technical stuff it works okay, because people can make decisions just by doing whatever it is, or by talking to the team and agreeing on something. It's a lot harder to get people to do that for bonuses and pay.
Right, or "should we spend millions on Steam Deck which will pay off in 10 years" vs "should we all just get a big pay rise now with the money?"
The fact that even Valve, which is one of the companies closest to the idea of having endless free money, and thus the most forgiving to a structure like that, didn't make it work, must surely at least give us pause for thought!
The fact that even Valve, which is one of the companies closest to the idea of having endless free money, and thus the most forgiving to a structure like that, didn't make it work, must surely at least give us pause for thought!
At Valve the corporate wing made (and still makes) those decisions, trying to have ten people agree on who deserves to be paid what and whether it should be invested instead hasn't been tried in any company I know of. In contrast having managers who are collectively answerable to those ten employees through the share ownership structure has been tried, and it works out okay.
> having managers who are collectively answerable to those ten employees through the share ownership structure has been tried
How does that work? As in the employees are owners but the managers aren't?
How does that work? As in the employees are owners but the managers aren't?
But are those 10 professionally qualified to check the manager's work quality during those 10 years? (Or do they buy some audit service from another division?)
In this example we're talking about 11 more or less equal shareholders, one of whom is a manager.
I've always been curious about claims that such an approach inevitably doesn't work. I feel like my intuition tells me it could with the right people and variation on the concept. But it's probably difficult. Even the best managers I've seen usually have blind spots on how the team is running.
Tons of very proficient people are simply not interested in responsibility that comes with flat structure.
Because of that such company will either stay small (probably leaving ambitious people with unfulfilled ambitions) or change along the way, because you simply will not find enough people to make it grow.
Because of that such company will either stay small (probably leaving ambitious people with unfulfilled ambitions) or change along the way, because you simply will not find enough people to make it grow.
Many ambitious people thrive in a flat environment, though. That's one reason some people like startups.
It's been a few years since I pondered this, but I used to spend a lot of time thinking on this subject. I think for it to be successful you need a lot of the type of person that prefers to work in such an environment, and to make effort to keep it that way. That might mean staying small staffed, but I'm not totally convinced it even needs that.
It's been a few years since I pondered this, but I used to spend a lot of time thinking on this subject. I think for it to be successful you need a lot of the type of person that prefers to work in such an environment, and to make effort to keep it that way. That might mean staying small staffed, but I'm not totally convinced it even needs that.
A good boss is a BS shield, that enhances productivity. I enjoyed startups when I was younger, but now I like to be focused. Fighting fires for a living can result in broad experience, but also less deep work, which can “stunt growth”. At least that’s my opinion/experience. They were also the most fulfilling, that completely disappeared 8 years of my life.
I think not all startup experiences are the same. I had a startup experience that had lots of deep, focused work and not putting out fires. That sort of holy grail is one thing that had me thinking about this topic and how to buck conventional wisdom about what type of environment is inevitable, or what can't work.
But where is the room for ambition in a large company with flat staffing? If you, completely independently, build something adding $2 million of revenue at e.g. Google, you've increased the company revenue by 0.0007%. Even hundreds of millions of dollars remain but a decimal point. The company is simply so large that even if you achieve amazing things, they're going to be largely irrelevant. So the only real avenue for ambition is climbing the ladder of hierarchy. But when that ladder doesn't exist?
One could argue that social economic systems, at scale, are functionally similar to a massive corporation operating on a flat environment. And you end up with a similar issue there. "Company" ambition doesn't really have a viable path forward, and so the optimal solution is to just coast by - and direct your ambition towards your own personal stuff. Or even set the ambition aside, and just enjoy life. At least until the consequences of everybody operating under a similar system of demotivation kicks in.
One could argue that social economic systems, at scale, are functionally similar to a massive corporation operating on a flat environment. And you end up with a similar issue there. "Company" ambition doesn't really have a viable path forward, and so the optimal solution is to just coast by - and direct your ambition towards your own personal stuff. Or even set the ambition aside, and just enjoy life. At least until the consequences of everybody operating under a similar system of demotivation kicks in.
Some interesting approaches that companies are taking around this are described in Matt Parker's book, "A Radical Enterprise" for example, companies being made up of many microenterprises.
Once you can break away from many traditional imaginations of what a business is and how it should run there are some interesting possibilities.
Very challenging and easy to get wrong though I'd guess.
https://itrevolution.com/articles/radical-enterprise-pioneer...
Once you can break away from many traditional imaginations of what a business is and how it should run there are some interesting possibilities.
Very challenging and easy to get wrong though I'd guess.
https://itrevolution.com/articles/radical-enterprise-pioneer...
My intuition is basically its like networking. Using broadcast on a shared medium works fine for small groups, but in big groups it overwhelms. Similarly, in small groups flat structure is fine, but eventually in large groups you have to spend 110% of your time managing relationships and stakeholders, which simply isn't practical.
And that is true even if the group is the best people possible. The only way would be to have no disagreement, but then you would probably be creatively dead.
To put another way, i suspect communication scales quasi linearly with managers, but at least quadratically without.
And that is true even if the group is the best people possible. The only way would be to have no disagreement, but then you would probably be creatively dead.
To put another way, i suspect communication scales quasi linearly with managers, but at least quadratically without.
I think you're probably right. I've seen it work at small companies. What it doesn't do is scale to large companies, which is the heuristic most growing companies use for any decision. You'd have to say "we'll grow no larger than our flat structure can sustain, even if it costs us billions," and who is going to do that? Not saying it's a good thing, in fact the opposite — optimizing for scale is the source of many of our woes as an industry, in my grumpy opinion.
Even assuming those "right people" exist, you'd need a hiring process that could pick them out, and they'd need to want to work for you.
And hope they never change. Say something happens in one of their lives and they no longer contribute anything. Getting rid of them would be exactly what the OP post is criticizing.
Isn’t ~50% of people working at companies with less than 10 people?
Somehow that works, so maybe that suggests ~50% of employees at a business could be in self-organising units of less than 10 people?
Somehow that works, so maybe that suggests ~50% of employees at a business could be in self-organising units of less than 10 people?
It works for attorneys and accountants. It’s an approach with ups and downs. The biggest down being it’s harder to scale.
Interestingly though attorneys and accountants charge by the hour to customers. So their individual value to the group is easy to quantify and measure.
And while they may have support staff, they typically "work alone" in the sense that there's one partner per account, so very little oversight or management is needed.
The primary purpose of this "collective" is to create a "brand" of sorts. Ernst and Young has more prestige than say Franklin and Franklin. This draws in higher paying customers.
I feel like there are sufficient differences in this kind of business to a typical software business that the comparison is not especially useful.
Which is not to say that a coop can't work, just that the comparison to accountants and lawyers doesn't work.
And while they may have support staff, they typically "work alone" in the sense that there's one partner per account, so very little oversight or management is needed.
The primary purpose of this "collective" is to create a "brand" of sorts. Ernst and Young has more prestige than say Franklin and Franklin. This draws in higher paying customers.
I feel like there are sufficient differences in this kind of business to a typical software business that the comparison is not especially useful.
Which is not to say that a coop can't work, just that the comparison to accountants and lawyers doesn't work.
Attorneys: associates, junior partners, senior partners, managing partners, named partners. Does not look like flat structure to me.
Like I said, growth is hard.
My brother is an attorney in a small practice of 6 attorneys. They are all partners, share ownership, and rotate who the managing partner annually.
My brother is an attorney in a small practice of 6 attorneys. They are all partners, share ownership, and rotate who the managing partner annually.
Technically there is nothing preventing you from stacking 10 eggs on top of each other, If you balance it just right, they won't move assuming no outside forces.
Realistically, you may as well talk about it as something that can't be done. If anything, it's probably easier to stack eggs than to get more than 4 people to work collaboratively without the current incentives and rules making it all hold together.
Realistically, you may as well talk about it as something that can't be done. If anything, it's probably easier to stack eggs than to get more than 4 people to work collaboratively without the current incentives and rules making it all hold together.
Do any sources state that Valve transitioned to a traditional hierarchy? There's been reports of cliques and internal opaqueness going back a decade, but the only concrete difference I've heard versus pre-2012 is a shift towards microtransactions and hardware design.
Oh wow, I had no idea. When did they stop?
I think it was always so, ie cliques of power happened almost right away and a de facto power hierarchy manifested organically. This is what I've surmised from ex Valve people but until we have a book or documentary that reveals what really went on we may only speculate.
Ah, thanks for the info.
To be fair, there are worker-owned co-ops that function like companies, and there are those that are heavy on the ideological experience. I once did some consulting for one of the latter ones and it was worse than any bureaucracy I've ever encountered. Everyone has a say, everyone must be heard on everything, decisions take forever and there's a lot of overhead.
On the one side, you'll have a normal company where the workers own the company (well, most employed engineers own some shares in FB, Google etc, too), on the other hand you have anarcho-syndicalist groups that are super hard into the process and THE PLENUM is paramount.
On the one side, you'll have a normal company where the workers own the company (well, most employed engineers own some shares in FB, Google etc, too), on the other hand you have anarcho-syndicalist groups that are super hard into the process and THE PLENUM is paramount.
In a public big tech company your ownership is immaterial in terms of your influence on the direction of the company.
Presumably in a smaller private company with 100% insider ownership, it could be arranged that employees have more influence. For example, the employees could vote on board seats or raise and discuss issues at a General Meeting of the company’s shareholders.
This would presumably not be the case in VC-funded startups where the founders and VCs would choose the board and retain the lion’s share of equity and all nominal control.
In practice, in most companies that are not agency-style partnerships the insider ownership doesn’t really matter in terms of influence from what I’ve seen. In agency partnerships there is a dual class issue of partners and regular employees.
A private company with a BDFL who retains 50% + 1 control but has the minority stake dispersed among the rest of the employees seems like an interesting approach. The “B” comes into play in how the majority owner supports decision making. The “D” acts as a forcing function and guardrail to limit the effect of internal politics.
Presumably in a smaller private company with 100% insider ownership, it could be arranged that employees have more influence. For example, the employees could vote on board seats or raise and discuss issues at a General Meeting of the company’s shareholders.
This would presumably not be the case in VC-funded startups where the founders and VCs would choose the board and retain the lion’s share of equity and all nominal control.
In practice, in most companies that are not agency-style partnerships the insider ownership doesn’t really matter in terms of influence from what I’ve seen. In agency partnerships there is a dual class issue of partners and regular employees.
A private company with a BDFL who retains 50% + 1 control but has the minority stake dispersed among the rest of the employees seems like an interesting approach. The “B” comes into play in how the majority owner supports decision making. The “D” acts as a forcing function and guardrail to limit the effect of internal politics.
For a similar example of the difference between ownership and management, while it's not a co-op, Vanguard Group (the investment firm) is structured so that the company is owned by the funds it manages and thereby by its own investors. The internal structure is still basically the same as any other big corporation, the difference is how the top-down management behavior is incentivized.
>> to GPT
Nice verb, is this an original coinage?
Nice verb, is this an original coinage?
love it, I'm going to use it when someone talks without knowledge of what they're talking about.
I've said this elsewhere, but GPT's probabilistic filler, emitted without concern or awareness of whether it's true or not matches the academic definition of "bullshit." :)
>HN's tendency to GPT whenever exposed to something it doesn't know about is driving me nuts today. :-)
today? checks created date.
I mean, lol, this place was basically blasting anyone who dared say GPT Bing was going to be less than the revolution of our lifetimes. Right before it went off the rails.
today? checks created date.
I mean, lol, this place was basically blasting anyone who dared say GPT Bing was going to be less than the revolution of our lifetimes. Right before it went off the rails.
The coop that I'm a part of (Quorum1) has been using game theory to play out just those scenarios. We've been at it for two years and you're right it's been like 10x as difficult as starting a normal company (I'm a serial entrepreneur and have started lots of traditional companies too). But we think the payoff is worth it, plus doing things differently is just straight up more fun, so there's that.
What we're finding is that if you start with the right culture and balance the incentives very carefully you can basically create a magnet-like mechanism where the more people join the network/coop, the greater the value derived for all members and the greater the opportunity cost for the remaining hold outs to not join.
What we're finding is that if you start with the right culture and balance the incentives very carefully you can basically create a magnet-like mechanism where the more people join the network/coop, the greater the value derived for all members and the greater the opportunity cost for the remaining hold outs to not join.
-> What we're finding is that if you start with the right culture and balance the incentives very carefully you can basically create a magnet-like mechanism where the more people join the network/coop, the greater the value derived for all members and the greater the opportunity cost for the remaining hold outs to not join.
Well, now you owe us a blog post
Well, now you owe us a blog post
Lol, yes you're right I do. Don't have it yet though. :)
I am very interested in what you have built. I've recently stepped down as a director of engineering at a fintech startup where I was building self-organizing teams based off the models I found in the book Reinventing Organizations. I have been considering starting a coop much like Quorum1, but I haven't been sure where to start. I'd love to chat sometime about Quorum1 and perhaps get the chance to work together in the future. My email is email at steve shogren dotcom if you are interested. Thanks!
Awesome, I'm definitely down to talk. Sending you an email now. Also my LinkedIn is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hankholiday
> It's hard to imagine such an organization working out over the long term. The incentives are all wonky! The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain.
If that were true, there would be no successful co-ops anywhere in any field of work. That's obviously not the case. Just look at this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooperatives#United_St... if you're from the USA, I'm sure you'll be able to recognize a name or two.
If that were true, there would be no successful co-ops anywhere in any field of work. That's obviously not the case. Just look at this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooperatives#United_St... if you're from the USA, I'm sure you'll be able to recognize a name or two.
Most of those coops are professionally managed, if they're of any size.
Just like a democracy dies once the voters figure out they can vote themselves money from the public till, a coop dies when the workers realize they can decide they don't have to work.
Just like a democracy dies once the voters figure out they can vote themselves money from the public till, a coop dies when the workers realize they can decide they don't have to work.
I feel like this can be mitigated with the right by-laws and whatever, and also screening very heavily for culture fit during the hiring process.
The flattest companies (meaning, the ones where individuals had the most autonomy, and were actually interested in business ideas that came from the bottom up) cared more about culture fit and the ability to learn things quickly.
The flattest companies (meaning, the ones where individuals had the most autonomy, and were actually interested in business ideas that came from the bottom up) cared more about culture fit and the ability to learn things quickly.
I'm thinking most of those are customer-owned cooperatives, not employee-owned. Big difference.
> The more you contribute, the more you sacrifice by joining a coop. The less you contribute, the more you gain.
You could say the same thing to describe working for any corporation.
You could say the same thing to describe working for any corporation.
Any corporation which fails to extract more value from it's employees than it pays them doesn't stay in business for long.
But yes, you are absolutely correct, and the value added by a productive developer is probably vastly larger than the value added by the rest of the rank and file. That's why developer centric startups can grow so large, so quickly.
Still need the rank and file to take care of pesky things like sales, payroll, governance/compliance, etc...
But yes, you are absolutely correct, and the value added by a productive developer is probably vastly larger than the value added by the rest of the rank and file. That's why developer centric startups can grow so large, so quickly.
Still need the rank and file to take care of pesky things like sales, payroll, governance/compliance, etc...
Not sure of the co-operatives in software. I am from state of Kerala, India. We have a number of very successful and long running co-operatives.
1. Milma - Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing federation. Virtually every household uses and trusts milma. It has been around for 53 years.
2. Indian Coffee House - It is a worker co-operative restaurant chain. Very successful and is around since 1958.
3. ULCCS - India's oldest worker co-operative. Operating from 1925, mainly in construction sector. It also has an IT wing.
1. Milma - Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing federation. Virtually every household uses and trusts milma. It has been around for 53 years.
2. Indian Coffee House - It is a worker co-operative restaurant chain. Very successful and is around since 1958.
3. ULCCS - India's oldest worker co-operative. Operating from 1925, mainly in construction sector. It also has an IT wing.
The company Torchbox (creators of Wagtail CMS) are an interesting example of an employee owned company. In their case it was a matter of the founders selling/moving most of their ownership to an Employee Owned Trust (as opposed to starting as a coop from scratch) - EOT is an interesting option in the UK with tax incentives to make it work.
https://torchbox.com/careers/employee-owned-trust
https://baxendaleownership.co.uk/torchbox-digital-agency-mov...
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https://torchbox.com/careers/employee-owned-trust
https://baxendaleownership.co.uk/torchbox-digital-agency-mov...
[edit formatting]
> Horray, effective altruism!
Yup, there we go
Yup, there we go
It's 10x harder because you are doing something counter-cultural and pro-social. The global economic system is structured to prevent you from doing precisely that.
The systems and processes for running a psychopathic corporation are laid out like the Netflix Paved Path for anyone who wants to play the game of "get as much as you can." This path will push you to build the most exploitative thing there is possible in order create maximum returns for capital (even if that becomes you). The end result is what you see: GE, Exxon, Amazon, Wal-Mart, BP Google, etc... an organization with no long term goal other than making money for investors. Is that your definition of "Working out over the long term?"
How about we build a real strong community where we're all owners and we have a say in how the process works, we share in the wins and the losses and don't screw anyone over ever. It's possible, yet somehow all of my fellow geniuses - despite all our ingeniousness - can't unpack this super simple problem that cooperatives around the world have been solving forever. Oh sorry, a few anecdotes about some failed ones and some old hippies that fight yet retain amazingly robust communities, means it will never work.
The systems and processes for "share everything from the beginning" - while working within the economic system that exists today - that's severely underdeveloped and needs thousands of former-capitalists like you and me to start putting the work in to change it.
Or you can build yet another private dictatorship cause it's "easier" for you.
The systems and processes for running a psychopathic corporation are laid out like the Netflix Paved Path for anyone who wants to play the game of "get as much as you can." This path will push you to build the most exploitative thing there is possible in order create maximum returns for capital (even if that becomes you). The end result is what you see: GE, Exxon, Amazon, Wal-Mart, BP Google, etc... an organization with no long term goal other than making money for investors. Is that your definition of "Working out over the long term?"
How about we build a real strong community where we're all owners and we have a say in how the process works, we share in the wins and the losses and don't screw anyone over ever. It's possible, yet somehow all of my fellow geniuses - despite all our ingeniousness - can't unpack this super simple problem that cooperatives around the world have been solving forever. Oh sorry, a few anecdotes about some failed ones and some old hippies that fight yet retain amazingly robust communities, means it will never work.
The systems and processes for "share everything from the beginning" - while working within the economic system that exists today - that's severely underdeveloped and needs thousands of former-capitalists like you and me to start putting the work in to change it.
Or you can build yet another private dictatorship cause it's "easier" for you.
A co-op doesn't mean everyone must share profits equally.
How about an internal market where people bid for tickets?
There are crypto projects facilitating governance of organizations. They could help both enforce and simplify keeping records. Example: https://aragon.org/
Edit: Earlier I suggested hiring people for internal-money, but that might be tax evasion. Don't do it without consulting lawyers in your country.
How about an internal market where people bid for tickets?
There are crypto projects facilitating governance of organizations. They could help both enforce and simplify keeping records. Example: https://aragon.org/
Edit: Earlier I suggested hiring people for internal-money, but that might be tax evasion. Don't do it without consulting lawyers in your country.
+1 for using marketplace dynamics, particularly when you want groups to be able to grow to be quite large. (For small groups they are overkill and potentially harmful.)
This can be done without involving anything crypto related too. A great design principle to incorporate is Stigmergy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy
To be clear though: Just because folks talk about using "markets" doesn't mean those marketplaces have to be built around "currencies" as we typically imagine them (crypto currencies included). They can be built around anything that can be counted or conceptualized numerically. For instance, HN / reddit votes are a type of stigmergic marketplace.
When designed effectively, markets can be massively scalable engines for human consensus.
This can be done without involving anything crypto related too. A great design principle to incorporate is Stigmergy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy
To be clear though: Just because folks talk about using "markets" doesn't mean those marketplaces have to be built around "currencies" as we typically imagine them (crypto currencies included). They can be built around anything that can be counted or conceptualized numerically. For instance, HN / reddit votes are a type of stigmergic marketplace.
When designed effectively, markets can be massively scalable engines for human consensus.
No reason to turn everything into market, and use blockchain for voting automation or partial governance, especially seeing what clownshow DAOs have been.
You could have a plain Reddit clone web server for governance, and whatever compensation the group deems fair, to account for the work done by each member.
Have you actually ever seen a co-op work?
> why not retain creative control of your ideas and make millions at the same time?
Because there are (a lot!) of people who are more interested in an equitable work than extracting fortunes for themselves.
Because you "make millions" on the backs of the people you string along, and not everybody wants that.
> Horray, effective altruism! You mean the thing that allows you to ignore any current problem in favor of pretend problems a hundred years out? And conveniently includes making yourself rich, which is of course only happening to fix said pretend problem. And, well, your life really pleasant on the backs of others, but that's a rounding error.
> Meanwhile, if you start a software co-op... who exactly are you helping? One option here is helping an industry that's currently setting itself up for a marvellous collapse because it treats open source as an opportunity to extract only. (Until the maintainers give up, and then there'll wailing and gnashing of teeth)
Another side is helping people live a more sustainable live. There's nothing wrong with a co-op to e.g. ensure health care and pensions. While working reasonable hours.
Could this fail? Probably. Maybe even likely, because co-op folks tend to be a bit more idealist, which makes business survival a bit harder.
But let's not pretend there aren't a lot of people who wouldn't be willing to join a co-op, or that it generates absolutely no benefit.
> why not retain creative control of your ideas and make millions at the same time?
Because there are (a lot!) of people who are more interested in an equitable work than extracting fortunes for themselves.
Because you "make millions" on the backs of the people you string along, and not everybody wants that.
> Horray, effective altruism! You mean the thing that allows you to ignore any current problem in favor of pretend problems a hundred years out? And conveniently includes making yourself rich, which is of course only happening to fix said pretend problem. And, well, your life really pleasant on the backs of others, but that's a rounding error.
> Meanwhile, if you start a software co-op... who exactly are you helping? One option here is helping an industry that's currently setting itself up for a marvellous collapse because it treats open source as an opportunity to extract only. (Until the maintainers give up, and then there'll wailing and gnashing of teeth)
Another side is helping people live a more sustainable live. There's nothing wrong with a co-op to e.g. ensure health care and pensions. While working reasonable hours.
Could this fail? Probably. Maybe even likely, because co-op folks tend to be a bit more idealist, which makes business survival a bit harder.
But let's not pretend there aren't a lot of people who wouldn't be willing to join a co-op, or that it generates absolutely no benefit.
“On the backs of others” implies the world is zero sum, which is just dumb. If you come in with an idea that gets 10% more efficiency out of an industry, you can pay more to the laborers for the same work they were doing before and still become a millionaire.
The laborers made more money because of your idea while performing the same work. They are better off and still had no part in making the improvement.
The laborers made more money because of your idea while performing the same work. They are better off and still had no part in making the improvement.
>still had no part in making the improvement.
Please explain how this "improvement" happened without the "laborers"
Please explain how this "improvement" happened without the "laborers"
Lots of ways. Buying cost critical supplies in bulk from cheaper suppliers. Switching from truck based shipping to rail for distance where the flexibility isn’t needed.
Those are just the low hanging fruits without any major impact to how work is done.
Stepping down into the internals of the business, it’s going to vary a lot but in manufacturing you spend time looking at high failure rate processes, bottlenecks, and single points of failure. Changing these with effectively no change to how individual laborers work is quite common and can significantly improve yield stability and throughput.
Going even lower level, it might be as simple as better insulation around a bake process resulting in 50% less energy.
You might be interested in reading about the improvements in steel mills where the labor required was reduced by an order of magnitude over the last 50 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_crisis
Improvements come without labor all of the time and it’s a frequent point of contention with the labor when it eliminates a role rather than acts as a force multiplier.
Those are just the low hanging fruits without any major impact to how work is done.
Stepping down into the internals of the business, it’s going to vary a lot but in manufacturing you spend time looking at high failure rate processes, bottlenecks, and single points of failure. Changing these with effectively no change to how individual laborers work is quite common and can significantly improve yield stability and throughput.
Going even lower level, it might be as simple as better insulation around a bake process resulting in 50% less energy.
You might be interested in reading about the improvements in steel mills where the labor required was reduced by an order of magnitude over the last 50 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_crisis
Improvements come without labor all of the time and it’s a frequent point of contention with the labor when it eliminates a role rather than acts as a force multiplier.
I love how the answer is "by eliminating labor altogether"
I couldn't have explained worker alienation better had I tried
I couldn't have explained worker alienation better had I tried
You air quoted something I did not say. Re-read my comment and at least try to learn how people that improve productivity are beneficial both to society and can be to labor itself.
I always thought having a "guild" like Hollywood does or something similar would be a great boon to empower tech workers.
Of course, it wouldn't be 1:1 mapping, but a collective tech union-like open institution would go far in leveraging against hostile employers.
CEOs get golden parachutes on signing. It's time tech workers start demanding what their exit package looks like in case of layoffs/reductions against their will. I know a lot of this is wishful thinking, but in the face of an increasingly bleak economic landscape, we may need something like this sooner than later.
Of course, it wouldn't be 1:1 mapping, but a collective tech union-like open institution would go far in leveraging against hostile employers.
CEOs get golden parachutes on signing. It's time tech workers start demanding what their exit package looks like in case of layoffs/reductions against their will. I know a lot of this is wishful thinking, but in the face of an increasingly bleak economic landscape, we may need something like this sooner than later.
Like quite a lot of guilds and unions, the actor's guild started out by defending workers rights against a restrictive system (in that case, the Hollywood studio system) but has evolved into a gatekeeping and rent-seeking organization that primarily enriches its senior members and hurts everyone else.
We really, really don't want that in tech. Tech is one of the few segments of the economy where skill trumps credentials and connections for people entering the field. As a result, tech benefits from a lot of talent that would be ignored by more traditional methods of filtering candidates.
And what would tech workers gain? Unions don't stop layoffs -- look at the past few decades in the auto industry for proof. Unions would also negotiate standard pay packages that might be attractive to low performers, but would hold high performers back. Plus, severance packages are already legally mandated for layoffs in the places where the majority of tech workers live.
We really, really don't want that in tech. Tech is one of the few segments of the economy where skill trumps credentials and connections for people entering the field. As a result, tech benefits from a lot of talent that would be ignored by more traditional methods of filtering candidates.
And what would tech workers gain? Unions don't stop layoffs -- look at the past few decades in the auto industry for proof. Unions would also negotiate standard pay packages that might be attractive to low performers, but would hold high performers back. Plus, severance packages are already legally mandated for layoffs in the places where the majority of tech workers live.
Skill trumping credentials and connections has not been my experience in a 35 year career.
The gatekeeping by recruiters and HR departments is extreme - until I got my CS degree a couple of years ago I could not get interviews anywhere, despite the fact I'd never been sacked from a job and was always one of the best coders in my teams with the broadest range of experience.
I lucked out many years ago on getting an interesting job but that job went through a series of acquisitions and after a while I kept trying to get out but couldn't get interviewed anywhere.
Then I finally get a degree and get a job made with a contact while doing that and all of a sudden a few years later I can at least get to the first round of interviews.
Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves.
Software developers are essentially the blue collar workers of the 21st century. We are the modern fitters and turners. Highly skilled in some cases, but not valued.
The gatekeeping by recruiters and HR departments is extreme - until I got my CS degree a couple of years ago I could not get interviews anywhere, despite the fact I'd never been sacked from a job and was always one of the best coders in my teams with the broadest range of experience.
I lucked out many years ago on getting an interesting job but that job went through a series of acquisitions and after a while I kept trying to get out but couldn't get interviewed anywhere.
Then I finally get a degree and get a job made with a contact while doing that and all of a sudden a few years later I can at least get to the first round of interviews.
Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves.
Software developers are essentially the blue collar workers of the 21st century. We are the modern fitters and turners. Highly skilled in some cases, but not valued.
I humbly disagree with some aspects of your comment. I think software engineers are highly paid, almost the lowest paid devs in the country are decently paid. Companies are just looking for a simple filter and a degree is an easy one. With my degree I actually did learn theory and did learn to program in several languages and did learn how to work in groups. But that's not universally true of course. And there's plenty of self-taught people. I have known a few people who got started without a degree as engineers doing software and it was really hard until they had an extensive resume. After they have a resume it doesn't matter. I just see it as a lazy, easy filter. The reason I don't see us as fitters and turners is because there's so much demand for our resources and you can become wealthy. My wife has a master's degree in library science and this isn't open to her. She's national board certified and I probably started out at more than she'll ever make.
I got into tech without a CS degree and I know a lot of other people who have.
If you had trouble getting your foot in the door, it's probably because of something else.
> Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves.
That's just not true. Interchangeable cogs in a machine don't get paid several hundred thousand dollars a year. If you want to see what being interchangeable really looks like, work in the food service industry.
If you had trouble getting your foot in the door, it's probably because of something else.
> Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves.
That's just not true. Interchangeable cogs in a machine don't get paid several hundred thousand dollars a year. If you want to see what being interchangeable really looks like, work in the food service industry.
I've been a developer full time for 35 years, since I was 16 years old. I've led teams, I've been a systems architect, I've never been fired. I can program in Java, C/C++, Python, COBOL, asm of various flavours. I've written crypto software, ERP systems, remote sensing systems, BI systems, dev tools.
I have never got paid close to several hundred thousand dollars a year, and I have always had trouble getting through the HR degree filter until the last couple of years when I finally got my CS degree.
You could be right, the problem is me. I don't have enough contacts due to 15 years of fully remote work and spending too much time at my previous job, and I don't want to flog myself any more because I'm in my 50s.
But I am certain my career has suffered greatly by not having that piece of paper 'proving' to HR I know what I'm doing. And yes, I am bitter about it ;)
I have never got paid close to several hundred thousand dollars a year, and I have always had trouble getting through the HR degree filter until the last couple of years when I finally got my CS degree.
You could be right, the problem is me. I don't have enough contacts due to 15 years of fully remote work and spending too much time at my previous job, and I don't want to flog myself any more because I'm in my 50s.
But I am certain my career has suffered greatly by not having that piece of paper 'proving' to HR I know what I'm doing. And yes, I am bitter about it ;)
I would not call a degree requirement extreme gatekeeping.
When your hire can prove your algorithm runs in O(1) amortized time but has trouble setting up ssh and always commits to master, and you turn down a candidate who got stumped on rederiving Bellman-Ford but maintains several projects, I'd say that's gatekeeping
dajtxx claimed 'extreme' gatekeeping while describing some employers having either a degree requirement or higher standards for employees without degrees. In the US, to the extent that this is 'extreme' it's in the 'less gatekeeping' direction.
(I agree that there's some gatekeeping, and I'd rather see the industry pay less attention to degrees.)
(I agree that there's some gatekeeping, and I'd rather see the industry pay less attention to degrees.)
but has evolved into a gatekeeping and rent-seeking organization that primarily enriches its senior members and hurts everyone else.
This is not simply false, this is the typical FUD spread by people who have no idea how guilds or unions actually work.
SAG does not prohibit non-union actors in SAG-covered productions. In fact, appearing in a SAG-covered production is how one qualifies for membership into SAG.
SAG sets minimum thresholds for pay, benefits, and rights. Actors are free to negotiate better packages if they have the leverage for it. Most don't, which is why the actor-waiter meme is a thing for people hoping to get cast into a SAG-covered role. As someone who has appeared as a background actor in a SAG-covered production: SAG minimums are significantly higher than non-SAG pay, at every level.
This is not simply false, this is the typical FUD spread by people who have no idea how guilds or unions actually work.
SAG does not prohibit non-union actors in SAG-covered productions. In fact, appearing in a SAG-covered production is how one qualifies for membership into SAG.
SAG sets minimum thresholds for pay, benefits, and rights. Actors are free to negotiate better packages if they have the leverage for it. Most don't, which is why the actor-waiter meme is a thing for people hoping to get cast into a SAG-covered role. As someone who has appeared as a background actor in a SAG-covered production: SAG minimums are significantly higher than non-SAG pay, at every level.
> This is not simply false, this is the typical FUD spread by people who have no idea how guilds or unions actually work.
I have been a member of several unions and I know what I'm talking about.
You can disagree if you want, but I am speaking from real life experience.
I have been a member of several unions and I know what I'm talking about.
You can disagree if you want, but I am speaking from real life experience.
I am speaking from a position of legal expertise about how Hollywood unions function.
I have been part of the legal counsel to several Hollywood guilds/unions, and have participated in the production of multiple Hollywood and non-Hollywood productions. Like you, I was also a member of a non-Hollywood union (while I was in the public sector), though that experience is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
I have been part of the legal counsel to several Hollywood guilds/unions, and have participated in the production of multiple Hollywood and non-Hollywood productions. Like you, I was also a member of a non-Hollywood union (while I was in the public sector), though that experience is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
What you see from the legal perspective vs the actual on-the-ground wheeling, dealing, favor-trading, social circle maintaining, networking actions to even get onto a union production as a non-union worker can be quite a big spread.
The intended legal requirement can be very different from the way it’s practiced on the ground.
My own attempts to break-in + friends’ experiences shows a clear pattern: the guilds gatekeep, almost arbitrarily, and creates environments primed for abuse.
Perhaps the legal, corporate side of the guilds should realign with the reality on the ground and change this. That is, if this is an undesirable state of affairs.
The intended legal requirement can be very different from the way it’s practiced on the ground.
My own attempts to break-in + friends’ experiences shows a clear pattern: the guilds gatekeep, almost arbitrarily, and creates environments primed for abuse.
Perhaps the legal, corporate side of the guilds should realign with the reality on the ground and change this. That is, if this is an undesirable state of affairs.
You actually have it backwards. Unionized productions aren't limited to unionized crew; in fact working on unionized productions is how you qualify to become a union member. OTOH, union members are generally prohibited from working on non-union productions. IOW, it's the opposite of gate-keeping.
It sounds like you and your friends tried to get hired as crew onto jobs for which you have no experience, because if you guys did have the experience you would already be union members and you would be swamped with work or offers. (The thresholds are pretty low. I'm one production away from being a member of several unions and I'm trying very hard to avoid that since it would limit my ability to work on non-union productions).
Most jobs don't hire people without experience without someone vouching for them. Why would you think that Hollywood would be different? They don't know you from Adam and from their point of view there are millions of other people just like you that are willing to put in the time and effort to start at the bottom instead of trying to skip a few rungs.
If you want to work in film, start at the bottom (i.e., meaning as an assistant or an extra) or work non-unionized productions (generally, low-budget or student films).
It sounds like you and your friends tried to get hired as crew onto jobs for which you have no experience, because if you guys did have the experience you would already be union members and you would be swamped with work or offers. (The thresholds are pretty low. I'm one production away from being a member of several unions and I'm trying very hard to avoid that since it would limit my ability to work on non-union productions).
Most jobs don't hire people without experience without someone vouching for them. Why would you think that Hollywood would be different? They don't know you from Adam and from their point of view there are millions of other people just like you that are willing to put in the time and effort to start at the bottom instead of trying to skip a few rungs.
If you want to work in film, start at the bottom (i.e., meaning as an assistant or an extra) or work non-unionized productions (generally, low-budget or student films).
If you haven’t been a member of SAG, you don’t know what you are talking about.
I’ve been a member of SAG (as a child, but still!) and the WGA (as an adult). The systems are imperfect. They are also significantly better than productions with no guild affiliation.
I’ve been a member of SAG (as a child, but still!) and the WGA (as an adult). The systems are imperfect. They are also significantly better than productions with no guild affiliation.
Sounds like you don't know any other reality.
> I always thought having a "guild" like Hollywood does or something similar would be a great boon to empower tech workers.
Maybe. But remember that the Hollywood guild system also acts as gatekeepers keeping people out of the system.
Maybe. But remember that the Hollywood guild system also acts as gatekeepers keeping people out of the system.
Software development has arguably more gatekeeping even without any guild. Got a CS degree from a university that isn't R1 and didn't score a summer internship? Need a visa sponsor? I don't envy how painful your early career will be. Luck out with the Stanford admission and a summer internship? You are playing on easy mode.
It depends on what part of the industry you're working in. If you're looking at FAANG-style companies, that's absolutely true. But there's much more to the industry than that.
I got my FANG job with a degree from a 50-ish rank school. I think their acceptance rate was 70% so it’s not exactly Ivy League levels of gatekeeping.
Some of my coworkers went to even lower ranked schools or altogether don’t have degrees (though I admit it’s uncommon).
Some of my coworkers went to even lower ranked schools or altogether don’t have degrees (though I admit it’s uncommon).
When I was at a FANG I had at least three bootcamp grads for close coworkers, and many with degrees from schools you've never heard of.
Strong disagreement!
Software is the high paying industry with the least gatekeeping I'm aware of.
I never got around to finish my degree. Neither did Bill Gates. I've worked with highschool dropouts and Harvard graduates. And by and large, nobody cares!
Software is the high paying industry with the least gatekeeping I'm aware of.
I never got around to finish my degree. Neither did Bill Gates. I've worked with highschool dropouts and Harvard graduates. And by and large, nobody cares!
Did you also have generational wealth and networking like Bill Gates?
Not in the slightest :)
Some of the best engineers I've ever worked don't even have a bachelor's degree. These autodidacts will suffer greatly if the wrong kind of "software guild" gains control over licensing tech employees.
SAG doesn't require a degree in screen acting. It's a little convoluted but they basically operate mainly on proof of work. That sort of system would probably give self taught engineers who spent their years from 18-22 doing actual work a huge leg up compared to those who were in school during that time doing no work on any projects for any company.
>It's a little convoluted but they basically operate mainly on proof of work.
It's mainly leveraging cartel power rather than proof of work. Even if you have a lot of experience acting in non-union productions, you're still ineligible from joining SAG. To be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing for SAG because the number of aspiring actors far exceeds demand, so SAG increase wages without causing the most of negative effects with cartels, but I don't think this is the same for tech.
It's mainly leveraging cartel power rather than proof of work. Even if you have a lot of experience acting in non-union productions, you're still ineligible from joining SAG. To be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing for SAG because the number of aspiring actors far exceeds demand, so SAG increase wages without causing the most of negative effects with cartels, but I don't think this is the same for tech.
Those people have a huge leg up right now in large swaths of the industry anyway.
The issue with the "proof of work" standard is it sets up a difficult conundrum. You need to work to join the guild, and you need to be a guild member to get most work.
The issue with the "proof of work" standard is it sets up a difficult conundrum. You need to work to join the guild, and you need to be a guild member to get most work.
You can get hired for guild work as a non guild member, usually you join the guild after though.
Sure, it's obviously possible. If it weren't there would never be new actors on the scene.
But the number of times I've heard directors and such tell stories about how they wrote a line for a non-speaking part as a favor to the actor in the role, solely to allow them to get their SAG card, is disturbing.
It's indicative of a high degree of gatekeeping.
But the number of times I've heard directors and such tell stories about how they wrote a line for a non-speaking part as a favor to the actor in the role, solely to allow them to get their SAG card, is disturbing.
It's indicative of a high degree of gatekeeping.
The sag rules have changed in recent years to be a lot simpler.
And that is the main gatekeeping mechanism that keeps so many talented young writers, actors, cinematographers, etc. out of the game or working for pennies on the dollar as assistants.
It’s great when you’re in but if you don’t have the connections to get in you can find yourself on the outs for years.
If a SWE guild can find a way to eliminate the nepotism and create a meritocratic way to get into a guild…
It’s great when you’re in but if you don’t have the connections to get in you can find yourself on the outs for years.
If a SWE guild can find a way to eliminate the nepotism and create a meritocratic way to get into a guild…
You don't think school has any value? There's a reason we have higher education - Work-based learning is somewhat prone to leaving significant gaps in a person's knowledge.
Not to say working has no value, but neither does schooling have no value.
Not to say working has no value, but neither does schooling have no value.
It has approximately zero value for doing the job of software development vs. equivalent time spent with actual work experience. It has value otherwise, but I'm really not concerned about that when hiring my future coworkers. There are other ways to acquire the skills you learn in college. This credentialist bias of yours is exactly what I'm arguing against. Guilds tend to promote this mindset, when they're not too busy promoting nepotism.
School is a good tool to gain a comprehensive education. It is not the only tool to gain a comprehensive education, and it is not effective for everybody.
Not really, if the guild founders include self-taught coders then they will make provisions for their fellows.
I don’t think the production guild system works in tech. In Hollywood, guilds and unions are necessary and work, in part because most people in the guild are independent contractors. Each production is its own thing. And that assignment could last a day, a few weeks, a few months, or years (depending on your contract/position), but it’s not an ongoing concern.
Whereas in tech, that isn’t the case for the majority of the employees at large companies. Yes, you have consultants and contractors, hit the vast majority of people at Google or Microsoft or Facebook are full-time employees, not hired on a project by project basis.
And that changes both the incentive structure and the organizing power. There are other unions that could be better parallels to trying to organize tech — but I don’t think the Hollywood guild system is the one to try to copy. You’d need to have specific unions covering each company (even if many companies were still affiliated with the same umbrella union) and carve outs and contracts for each company or even subgroup of workers inside a company. You couldn’t just do a blanket SAG-AFTRA style guild for everyone at every company when most of the employees are not on contract but full-time. It just wouldn’t work.
Whereas in tech, that isn’t the case for the majority of the employees at large companies. Yes, you have consultants and contractors, hit the vast majority of people at Google or Microsoft or Facebook are full-time employees, not hired on a project by project basis.
And that changes both the incentive structure and the organizing power. There are other unions that could be better parallels to trying to organize tech — but I don’t think the Hollywood guild system is the one to try to copy. You’d need to have specific unions covering each company (even if many companies were still affiliated with the same umbrella union) and carve outs and contracts for each company or even subgroup of workers inside a company. You couldn’t just do a blanket SAG-AFTRA style guild for everyone at every company when most of the employees are not on contract but full-time. It just wouldn’t work.
I've been thinking about how IT union would look like, because IMO the reason it still hasn't materialized is that it needs to be dramatically different from the unions every other industry has. For one, I think it should be remote only, highly automated and the main offer would be to create a platform to discuss problems that arise, collectively make a choice and then enforce it through the hands of union members, if people sabotage the process they get kicked away. Have a way to prove that you are indeed a current member, things like that.
But a guild minus the dues, bureaucracy, political infighting, barriers to entry, and corruption.
The biggest barrier to unionizing in tech is immigration. A union is able to collectively bargain by restricting labor supply. If outside workers are able to work the same job, the biggest weapon a union has is taken away.
Sounds like Anarcho-syndicalism[1]. I am rooting for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism#:~:text=An....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism#:~:text=An....
We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--
...
King Arthur: I am your king.
Peasant Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Peasant Woman: Well, how'd you become king, then?
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.
Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis the Peasant: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cos some watery tart threw a sword at you!
King Arthur: I am your king.
Peasant Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Peasant Woman: Well, how'd you become king, then?
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.
Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis the Peasant: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cos some watery tart threw a sword at you!
That scene was based on an actual historical village communities, such as those in Castile, and the later medieval conflict between the historically self-governing communities and the centralized order that had previously tolerated them: https://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/220237/1/06_Communit...
It's amazing how much better media inspired by history is when it's based on real history and not the mythologized version. I noticed this recently rewatching the Pirates of the Carribean series (mythologized), then Black Sails (closer to reality, especially after season 2 when the showrunner read some current literature on pirates). It turns out a lot of pirate ships were democracies, they were often pro-abolition and happy to take on freed slaves as crew, and they didn't much care who you loved.
Black Sails is a forgotten gem of a show!
Randall: Look, do you want to be leader of this gang?
Strutter: No, we agreed: No leader!
Randall: Right. So shut up and do as I say.
Strutter: No, we agreed: No leader!
Randall: Right. So shut up and do as I say.
Anarchy in the context of nuclear power, by WKUK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibDNwF8bjs
I think this is an interesting idea, but the reality is that most people want jobs, not a new model for how to make a living. In tech, or startups, or interesting problem spaces.
Right now, the biggest problem is discovery, i.e. who is still hiring vs who just has stale jobs listed on their website. I'm working on making this list so it's much easier to discover the (literally thousands of Seed to Series B companies still hiring!)
See companies that are hiring: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OeuaamkeOpMzlufPk6hY...
If anyone is struggling and is on the mid/senior/director side of their career (3+ yrs), I'm helping place people at my friends' Seed and Series A companies. VC money is still there but pumping into Seed/Series A companies with more upside now rather than insane B, C, D companies that have no profitability in sight. email me at j{at}markovmanagement.com if interested :)
Right now, the biggest problem is discovery, i.e. who is still hiring vs who just has stale jobs listed on their website. I'm working on making this list so it's much easier to discover the (literally thousands of Seed to Series B companies still hiring!)
See companies that are hiring: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OeuaamkeOpMzlufPk6hY...
If anyone is struggling and is on the mid/senior/director side of their career (3+ yrs), I'm helping place people at my friends' Seed and Series A companies. VC money is still there but pumping into Seed/Series A companies with more upside now rather than insane B, C, D companies that have no profitability in sight. email me at j{at}markovmanagement.com if interested :)
What a brilliant idea! Me and a bunch of other folks have been working for the last 18 months to create just such a professional collective, with the goal of expanding it massively. Lots of laid off workers are joining and everything is cooperatively-managed, self-organizing and transparent.
It's a combination of a professional network, a full service consultancy, a skills academy, and a startup incubator. We've got 105 members at the moment and are growing every day.
We've got more info here if you're interested >> https://wiki.quorum.one/blog/what-is-quorum1
It's a combination of a professional network, a full service consultancy, a skills academy, and a startup incubator. We've got 105 members at the moment and are growing every day.
We've got more info here if you're interested >> https://wiki.quorum.one/blog/what-is-quorum1
To be very blunt - do you not have a concern that companies tend to shed less skilled, under-performing and generally not terribly useful employees first?
We had the same idea after the .com bust, though at a somewhat smaller scale. In our case however everyone got laid off. The startup I was in burned through its money, failed to raise more and was closed down by the VCs. All developers and several project managers then gathered for beers and decided to start what you have - a co-op of sorts. The idea was that everyone would fish around for gigs and share them with others, under a (naive) assumption that some people would get more than they could handle, e.g. the PMs.
Sounded good in theory, but in practice just two devs out of 20 were qualified enough to bid on projects that paid enough. The rest just kept sitting things out. Two months in, the whole thing fell apart.
Ultimately, the incentives are just not there. If there are two people of different professional levels, there's no reason for a more skilled one to associate themselves with another person. So the dynamics of the co-op is that it keeps shedding most qualified people, making it less and less competitive. If you managed to figure out this aspect - chapeau. But it's an extremely hard nut to crack.
We had the same idea after the .com bust, though at a somewhat smaller scale. In our case however everyone got laid off. The startup I was in burned through its money, failed to raise more and was closed down by the VCs. All developers and several project managers then gathered for beers and decided to start what you have - a co-op of sorts. The idea was that everyone would fish around for gigs and share them with others, under a (naive) assumption that some people would get more than they could handle, e.g. the PMs.
Sounded good in theory, but in practice just two devs out of 20 were qualified enough to bid on projects that paid enough. The rest just kept sitting things out. Two months in, the whole thing fell apart.
Ultimately, the incentives are just not there. If there are two people of different professional levels, there's no reason for a more skilled one to associate themselves with another person. So the dynamics of the co-op is that it keeps shedding most qualified people, making it less and less competitive. If you managed to figure out this aspect - chapeau. But it's an extremely hard nut to crack.
I think you're absolutely right that not everyone is equally employable right off the bat (though most folks can, with time and effort, become super valuable team members). It's very important to be up-front with that somewhat harsh reality and to bake that directly into your organizational design. When done correctly it becomes a benefit rather than a weakness.
Our group is 18 months in and going strong. However, the structure is based on a decade of thought work from some of the founding folks, so we've been very intentional with the design.
Some of the keys to our approach have been:
1. Our main focus is on "professional empowerment" (learning, networking, experience building, etc) not getting people paid work. We do happen to get people paid work, but we set the expectation up front that it's a network first and a consultancy second. We can guarantee professional growth but not necessarily immediate employment. Of course, the bigger the network grows & the more brand awareness we build, the easier it gets to staff people quickly.
2. We use gamified incentivization mechanics to recognize and reward anything that benefits the collective with actual cash and longterm passive income: mentoring/coaching, bringing in business, building internal tools, working on products we're incubating, etc.
3. We're very focused on membership diversity in terms of role type, career stage and interest. We've got members with full time roles who are only in the group to coach & mentor, long term consultants looking to staff juniors on projects, juniors looking to get their first experience, entrepreneurs looking to exchange mentorship for help with their startups, etc. There's a network effect that starts to kick in when there's enough different sorts of folks involved. That is absolutely critical to longterm success. But it also requires a lot of patience.
---
As you say, this is definitely an extremely hard nut to crack. That's part of the reason why we're putting a lot of effort into developing the model and offering it to other community-centric organizations to incorporate into their own orgs. The more orgs which adopt these sorts of models, the more data we'll have on what works and what doesn't.
Our group is 18 months in and going strong. However, the structure is based on a decade of thought work from some of the founding folks, so we've been very intentional with the design.
Some of the keys to our approach have been:
1. Our main focus is on "professional empowerment" (learning, networking, experience building, etc) not getting people paid work. We do happen to get people paid work, but we set the expectation up front that it's a network first and a consultancy second. We can guarantee professional growth but not necessarily immediate employment. Of course, the bigger the network grows & the more brand awareness we build, the easier it gets to staff people quickly.
2. We use gamified incentivization mechanics to recognize and reward anything that benefits the collective with actual cash and longterm passive income: mentoring/coaching, bringing in business, building internal tools, working on products we're incubating, etc.
3. We're very focused on membership diversity in terms of role type, career stage and interest. We've got members with full time roles who are only in the group to coach & mentor, long term consultants looking to staff juniors on projects, juniors looking to get their first experience, entrepreneurs looking to exchange mentorship for help with their startups, etc. There's a network effect that starts to kick in when there's enough different sorts of folks involved. That is absolutely critical to longterm success. But it also requires a lot of patience.
---
As you say, this is definitely an extremely hard nut to crack. That's part of the reason why we're putting a lot of effort into developing the model and offering it to other community-centric organizations to incorporate into their own orgs. The more orgs which adopt these sorts of models, the more data we'll have on what works and what doesn't.
quorum honestly looks fantastic. thanks for this!
> We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them.
I disagree. Knowing what to build is the hardest part of the tech industry. It's why the industry funds a constant stream of failing startups: it's the trial and error process of finding out what the world actually needs built.
Worker coops will work great for the successful products, but most are failures. Who pays for those?
I disagree. Knowing what to build is the hardest part of the tech industry. It's why the industry funds a constant stream of failing startups: it's the trial and error process of finding out what the world actually needs built.
Worker coops will work great for the successful products, but most are failures. Who pays for those?
>Worker coops will work great for the successful products, but most are failures. Who pays for those?
The people who invested to start them. A co-op is just when the stakeholders get together to buy something (shares in the startup, in this case) instead of having a handful of not-so-informed and partially disinterested investors provide liquidity.
The people who invested to start them. A co-op is just when the stakeholders get together to buy something (shares in the startup, in this case) instead of having a handful of not-so-informed and partially disinterested investors provide liquidity.
So in this example, are the laid-off workers investing money to the coop? Are they getting paid? Who contributes the money for the marketing budget, for example?
And if the people investing aren't the workers, how is it different than the VC model?
And if the people investing aren't the workers, how is it different than the VC model?
The people investing are the workers, and (I am including all co-ops here, not just the one that we're discussing) sometimes the customers.
So this model only works if the laid-off employees can self-fund the new company, right? and they can afford to lose the invested capital if the startup fails?
Maybe that explains why there aren't a lot of co-op grocery stores or hardware companies compared to the number that used outside investment or the capital of one individual rich person to get started, but software engineers are in a better position to do this than most professions that I can think of.
Can you explain with some detail how would this work? Because I can’t make it work in my head.
Say you find 100 tech people that can afford to put $100k each to start the company. Then what? Do they put up money and work for free? If you have to give the money back in 1 year as a salary what about the second year? How about marketing budget, office space, equipment etc?
Say you find 100 tech people that can afford to put $100k each to start the company. Then what? Do they put up money and work for free? If you have to give the money back in 1 year as a salary what about the second year? How about marketing budget, office space, equipment etc?
In a startup with investors you have money coming from the investors and equity going to them, expenses leaving the company, and money going to and work coming from employees. For a co-op you draw that diagram but have the equity and money arrows that were connected to the investors connect to the employees, with some of the money cancelling out (working for equity, not for free.)
As for why the employees would work for equity, well, they'd value it for the same reasons the investors would. If 1M shares is worth $20M to a group of investors it should be worth the same to 100 employees. You're obviously going to be using personal runway, which millionaires have more of than average workers, but SWEs have been making enough money over the last 30 years that it will be easier for them than almost any other profession.
As for why the employees would work for equity, well, they'd value it for the same reasons the investors would. If 1M shares is worth $20M to a group of investors it should be worth the same to 100 employees. You're obviously going to be using personal runway, which millionaires have more of than average workers, but SWEs have been making enough money over the last 30 years that it will be easier for them than almost any other profession.
Equity is valuable to investors in no small part because they have the expectation that they'll be able to sell it should the enterprise become very successful. That isn't usually available to a cooperative - there generally isn't a liquid market.
Something is only worth what you can sell it for. If you can't readily sell your equity to anyone but your fellow worker-employees, how sure are you that it'll be worth the same to them as it might be to investors?
Something is only worth what you can sell it for. If you can't readily sell your equity to anyone but your fellow worker-employees, how sure are you that it'll be worth the same to them as it might be to investors?
It depends on the business. For one with steady recurring revenue and a predictable future, they could value it on a risk-discounted basis. I agree that the unicorn model wouldn't work well for someone who was going to put most of their money in a single opportunity. Fortunately, any given business is virtually guaranteed not to be a unicorn.
Yes, you're right. I think that's the problem here. Worker-owners can't value their equity for the same reasons investors would. Those reasons aren't available in this hypothetical context. I think you need a different explanation for why worker-owners would value equity if they can't expect to be able to sell it for a profit.
Might I suggest avoiding the question of equity and financial value entirely? Successful worker-owned coops seem to handle it mostly by making shares the thing that gets you voting rights with the rest going into wages.
Might I suggest avoiding the question of equity and financial value entirely? Successful worker-owned coops seem to handle it mostly by making shares the thing that gets you voting rights with the rest going into wages.
I always surmised that this was the only way to compete with Google and others. Even if you had 10k engineers, heck 1000 engineers who did it, it would be a formidable force. But actually doing it. That's the hard part.
The number of engineers isn’t the limiting factor competing against google, it’s the innovation/talent. While most engineers even at google aren’t working on hard problems, there’s a few who’re solving distributed computing/gfs/page rank/etc and those individuals are definitely not being laid off. The others use their tools to solve business problems.
I don't think it's the number of engineers or the innovation/talent. I think it's the sheer economic advantage of being a huge multinational corporation.
>economic advantage of being a huge multinational corporation
I just left a huge multinational corporation that despite its economic power was wasting millions/billions and not achieving anything in the tech space due to huge mismanagement, as everyone at the top was completely clueless but well connected and good at bullshitting and too busy fighting private wars just so they can climb the corporate ladder to coast for massive paychecks. Basically very wealthy crabs in a bucket.
Money and talent aren't everything. You also need competent leadership who can steer the ship in the right direction and are motivated to bring value to the company not just to themselves.
I just left a huge multinational corporation that despite its economic power was wasting millions/billions and not achieving anything in the tech space due to huge mismanagement, as everyone at the top was completely clueless but well connected and good at bullshitting and too busy fighting private wars just so they can climb the corporate ladder to coast for massive paychecks. Basically very wealthy crabs in a bucket.
Money and talent aren't everything. You also need competent leadership who can steer the ship in the right direction and are motivated to bring value to the company not just to themselves.
Right. That sort of thing is why I don't think their advantage is the number of engineers or innovation/talent.
It's pretty clear at this point that Google's bigness is holding it back.
Milking money from ads is all they can do. Innovation is very hard when everything has to go through many layers of approvals and there are constant re-orgs. People are fighting over small slices of the pie, rather than growing the pie.
If the ad money stops rolling in, Google is done.
Smaller, more agile companies are usually where innovation comes from. Google accomplished most of the good things it did when it was small.
Milking money from ads is all they can do. Innovation is very hard when everything has to go through many layers of approvals and there are constant re-orgs. People are fighting over small slices of the pie, rather than growing the pie.
If the ad money stops rolling in, Google is done.
Smaller, more agile companies are usually where innovation comes from. Google accomplished most of the good things it did when it was small.
We're actually doing it right now at Quorum1, fwiw. It has been hard, but it's working. Maybe join us and help make it work even better? >> https://wiki.quorum.one/blog/what-is-quorum1
I just don't understand the incentive and it seems like it would end up as a race to the bottom, no?
Perhaps maybe its a good starting point for developers or those just wanting smooth sailing... but for others... why stay in a "system" with a low ceiling? They could take a risk and create a startup and earn much more.
>We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them.
Regarding this. I _wish_ it were that easy. If it were, I would just spin up a consulting business, lol. Its probably the case SDEs know more about what the client needs than the client itself does... but getting them to pay for something new is incredibly difficult.
I guess at the end of the day, I don't believe you could throw 100 talented people in a room and just expect results to start happening. I would love to join this as an experiment though.
Perhaps maybe its a good starting point for developers or those just wanting smooth sailing... but for others... why stay in a "system" with a low ceiling? They could take a risk and create a startup and earn much more.
>We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them.
Regarding this. I _wish_ it were that easy. If it were, I would just spin up a consulting business, lol. Its probably the case SDEs know more about what the client needs than the client itself does... but getting them to pay for something new is incredibly difficult.
I guess at the end of the day, I don't believe you could throw 100 talented people in a room and just expect results to start happening. I would love to join this as an experiment though.
With the way investors handle things these days the ceiling for founders is a lot lower than you think.
How would you achieve similar comp in the system OP describes?
I didn't think the OP described a comp structure. The org-wide decisions being put to a vote already happens in a lot of public companies, and it would be the employees voting if they were the shareholders. It's a really straightforward idea.
Well, I know there's more to life than comp but when it comes to deciding what to do for work, its a huge factor. I'm just wondering how you would get a similar comp in OPs system.
The co-op makes and offer, and I guess you'd negotiate, then accept it if they offered enough. Voting shares would be a major part of your compensation like with most companies. You might offer them a premium because you'd expect to be exempt from industry-wide anti-labor actions like the recent layoffs and those old anti-poaching agreements, but that would be for you to decide.
Makes sense. I suppose that may be enticing for some. I just don't know how many people would sign up for it when there's tons of companies dangling RSUs and insane bonuses or the opportunity to do a startup and get acquired. I would wish this theoretical structure luck though.
The early engineers would be paid in a lot of equity, not the tiny fractions of a percent that you get at startups these days, so if you're willing to take a risk, it could be a good deal.
Because you get to set the pace for whatever you are doing as a group instead of someone else setting the pace for you
That's the difference
Do you want to work for the desires of wall street or do you want to work for the desires of your friends and community around you?
You can't do both and have investors unfortunately.
That's the difference
Do you want to work for the desires of wall street or do you want to work for the desires of your friends and community around you?
You can't do both and have investors unfortunately.
Loomio [https://www.loomio.com/] would be a great forum, cooperative decision making tool for running such a group. The next step would be building out any tools that are not covered by loomio and the likes.
I had to go check and see if that was a basecamp product, style looked very similar on first glance
Do you have experience with this tool?
Yes, we use it at the Hackerspace that I used to go to before the pandemic.
It helps if your community has experience with running a cooperative community. Things like Robert's Rules of Engagement, active listening, differences between a super majority and majority...it's important to not have to reinvent the wheel and have some experience with democratic decision making progressions.
It helps if your community has experience with running a cooperative community. Things like Robert's Rules of Engagement, active listening, differences between a super majority and majority...it's important to not have to reinvent the wheel and have some experience with democratic decision making progressions.
Loomio is a great tool. It works great for certain types of things but I've struggled to really build an effective worker community with it multiple times. At the end of the day, voting on proposals is not a terribly effective nor scalable form of democratic governance.
> At the end of the day, voting on proposals is not a terribly effective nor scalable form of democratic governance.
What isn't effective enough? What do you envision going better?
What isn't effective enough? What do you envision going better?
This is admittedly a complex subject to boil down into HN replies. And I do not claim to have all of the answers. But here's an attempt to share some parts of the vision.
There's nothing wrong with voting as a concept.
But most organizations implement voting such that it happens fairly infrequently on somewhat complex proposals which are fully understood by few and have been heavily guided by leadership. Those proposals tend to be necessarily high-level since voting on all of the little details is impractical. As such, the overall "choice bandwidth" of these traditional voting paradigms are quite low. Also the level of thoughtfulness, engagement, and participation are often low as well (ask anyone who's been involved in an old school coop and they'll confirm this). Also these paradigms are not very agile and do not adapt well to projects which evolve and change over time.
There are lots of potential solutions, but the high level guiding principle is to design structures which are able to support and incentivize more choices being made more thoughtfully by more people more frequently.
So, governance which functions more like a (well-designed) video game and less like a city council meeting.
At Quorum1 we focus very heavily on using stigmergy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy) as a design principle. The idea is to use internal marketplace structures to (a) gamify the process of building consensus and (b) break what could be large/episodic/top-down/waterfall/boolean decision making processes into smaller more spectrum-based decisions. So instead of voting Yes/No on a big proposal and going with whatever got 51%, you run a participatory budgeting process to simultaneously fund multiple potential solutions which then evolve and cross-pollinate until consensus emerges over time.
The strategy is to encourage ongoing experimentation and continuous decision-making able to adapt and evolve as new information comes in over time.
There's nothing wrong with voting as a concept.
But most organizations implement voting such that it happens fairly infrequently on somewhat complex proposals which are fully understood by few and have been heavily guided by leadership. Those proposals tend to be necessarily high-level since voting on all of the little details is impractical. As such, the overall "choice bandwidth" of these traditional voting paradigms are quite low. Also the level of thoughtfulness, engagement, and participation are often low as well (ask anyone who's been involved in an old school coop and they'll confirm this). Also these paradigms are not very agile and do not adapt well to projects which evolve and change over time.
There are lots of potential solutions, but the high level guiding principle is to design structures which are able to support and incentivize more choices being made more thoughtfully by more people more frequently.
So, governance which functions more like a (well-designed) video game and less like a city council meeting.
At Quorum1 we focus very heavily on using stigmergy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy) as a design principle. The idea is to use internal marketplace structures to (a) gamify the process of building consensus and (b) break what could be large/episodic/top-down/waterfall/boolean decision making processes into smaller more spectrum-based decisions. So instead of voting Yes/No on a big proposal and going with whatever got 51%, you run a participatory budgeting process to simultaneously fund multiple potential solutions which then evolve and cross-pollinate until consensus emerges over time.
The strategy is to encourage ongoing experimentation and continuous decision-making able to adapt and evolve as new information comes in over time.
Here's what I think can be more important than co-op (although I think co-ops seem like a good idea and I'd like to see more):
(a) Open governance model: the companies decisions has input from employees and users, even the general public (with care taken not to suffer attacks e.g. sybil attacks from false users)
(b) Ethical goal model: have a non-modifiable set of goals and ethical standards (improve the lives of everyone). Not maximizing revenue, but genuinely improving wellbeing of everyone. (this should have the benefit of attracting ESG investors)
(c) Cross-industry cooperation: open sourcing as much as feasible, and asking users and other collaborators for donations to maintain the project. Likewise, contribute financially to projects that are useful for the company. Basically, establish cooperation networks among open source, open governance and ethical companies.
(a) Open governance model: the companies decisions has input from employees and users, even the general public (with care taken not to suffer attacks e.g. sybil attacks from false users)
(b) Ethical goal model: have a non-modifiable set of goals and ethical standards (improve the lives of everyone). Not maximizing revenue, but genuinely improving wellbeing of everyone. (this should have the benefit of attracting ESG investors)
(c) Cross-industry cooperation: open sourcing as much as feasible, and asking users and other collaborators for donations to maintain the project. Likewise, contribute financially to projects that are useful for the company. Basically, establish cooperation networks among open source, open governance and ethical companies.
>improve the lives of everyone
This is a really naive goal. It’s super trivial to twist almost anything into “improving the lives of everyone”.
This is a really naive goal. It’s super trivial to twist almost anything into “improving the lives of everyone”.
We have CoTech in the UK, and they have a decent forum: https://www.coops.tech/
£10.3m of revenue for 211 workers is absolutely terrible though.
> We all know what products companies/individuals would pay for, because we used to build/buy them.
Why wouldn't the traditional approach of starting a company to sell those things work?
Co-ops have never been a successful software business model. Not even once that I can think of.
That model seems to work ok for open source, but since you are talking about building things people will pay for, I'm not seeing how it would succeed.
Why wouldn't the traditional approach of starting a company to sell those things work?
Co-ops have never been a successful software business model. Not even once that I can think of.
That model seems to work ok for open source, but since you are talking about building things people will pay for, I'm not seeing how it would succeed.
A co-op can mean a lot of things, but in particular it means an employee-owned business. For all of the reasons not to get behind the idea of a company without a billionaire at the top, the Hobbesian faith in the monarch could be the worst one.
The functional difference between a co-op and a normal business could be as small as having a board that is informed (because the shareholders are employees and naturally very informed), and that doesn't go for the usual extreme comp levels at the top.
The functional difference between a co-op and a normal business could be as small as having a board that is informed (because the shareholders are employees and naturally very informed), and that doesn't go for the usual extreme comp levels at the top.
Ok, show me a single example of this model working for a software business that makes a profit. Just one.
I honestly can't find any.
I honestly can't find any.
I'm one of the managing directors for a 3-person software development co-operative. We each made around double the market rate for developers in our country last year, with a small amount left over in the company at the end of the year to invest in new staff and a small side-business the company owns.
Loomio[1] is a successful product-based co-operative, and was spun out of another successful co-operative called Enspiral[2]. Enspiral got up to over 200 co-owners before they started splitting off to other companies.
This is just looking at New Zealand, which is small and doesn't have a big co-operative sector. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples around the world.
1. https://www.loomio.com/about/ 2. https://www.enspiral.com/
Loomio[1] is a successful product-based co-operative, and was spun out of another successful co-operative called Enspiral[2]. Enspiral got up to over 200 co-owners before they started splitting off to other companies.
This is just looking at New Zealand, which is small and doesn't have a big co-operative sector. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples around the world.
1. https://www.loomio.com/about/ 2. https://www.enspiral.com/
Not parent and not arguing that this model is common by any means. But a noteable example is Motion Twin [0]: a game company that had a couple of mainstream hits (most recently Dead Cells).
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Twin
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Twin
My point is that pretty much every business is an example of what a co-op could do, because the differences are small on an operational level. It's an ownership structure, not a management structure.
Companies in new areas of technology generally started with a concentration of power and after a while that concentration of power goes away. Every new tech has effectively had this.
Anyway our economic model is toxic to cooperative businesses. So yeah it’s gonna be hard to find examples of successful coops.
Anyway our economic model is toxic to cooperative businesses. So yeah it’s gonna be hard to find examples of successful coops.
> Anyway our economic model is toxic to cooperative businesses.
I don't really buy that.
Our economic model rewards businesses that make money. In tech, you don't even need to make a profit, just having a lot of revenue is enough to get a ton of investment (although that might be changing, and that change is probably good).
If a software co-op could succeed as a business, why hasn't that happened?
I don't really buy that.
Our economic model rewards businesses that make money. In tech, you don't even need to make a profit, just having a lot of revenue is enough to get a ton of investment (although that might be changing, and that change is probably good).
If a software co-op could succeed as a business, why hasn't that happened?
One of the tricky things about worker coops is that it’s more difficult to grow fast. You can’t just have outside investors and shareholders pump money into it. Ownership and employment are directly tied together.
There are successful software worker coops out there. Usually small and medium.
And there are examples of firms that follow the spirit but not the legal structure. Effectively worker owned, but regular corporations on paper.
Generally worker coops have been shown to provide more stability/sustainability, worker engagement in many cases.
My intuition is that these virtues are less in demand than rapid growth and big exits when it comes to software ventures. Also a big issue might be that this business form is simply less on the radar for people, which can be perceived as risky or off base.
But there might be domains and types of projects that would fit very nicely.
There are successful software worker coops out there. Usually small and medium.
And there are examples of firms that follow the spirit but not the legal structure. Effectively worker owned, but regular corporations on paper.
Generally worker coops have been shown to provide more stability/sustainability, worker engagement in many cases.
My intuition is that these virtues are less in demand than rapid growth and big exits when it comes to software ventures. Also a big issue might be that this business form is simply less on the radar for people, which can be perceived as risky or off base.
But there might be domains and types of projects that would fit very nicely.
Models of company ownership don't really extend properly into cooperative companies. Raising funds is neigh impossible.
B2B relationships are extremely difficult with cooperative business models due to a lack of understanding (both on law side and just "personal feels" side of things).
B2B relationships are extremely difficult with cooperative business models due to a lack of understanding (both on law side and just "personal feels" side of things).
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superb-owl(1)
>Co-ops have never been a successful software business model. Not even once that I can think of
Igalia is a co-op of software developers. Seems to work well for them.
Igalia is a co-op of software developers. Seems to work well for them.
Quite a few successful web3 companies are decentralized anonymous organizations (DAOs) which are essentially co-ops with more automation and anonymity.
Tessitura and NISC are successful.
Teaming up with a bunch of recruiters, product managers, and rest-and-vest engineers sounds like a winning strategy.
Isn't this more-or-less what the GNU Project and Apache are?
Just gonna throw this out there... perhaps those who were "let go" were not all let go because they were the best of the bunch? Not that such a thing should stop you, we all love a good rag-tag band of outcasts overcoming the evil empire story, but, you know.
I think you’re overestimating the average complexity of software. Low-medium skills folks can probably build functional clones to 90%+ of the software people use daily. They could build a new product of similar complexity. Most enterprise software is a UI for CRUD operations. I doubt they’ll be developing firmware for space X or any type of advanced/mission critical systems. But there’s a lot of room to operate.
I say this as someone that regularly employs <$15/hr freelance talent. You have to manage them differently but they can produce just the same on the majority of tasks I need of them.
I say this as someone that regularly employs <$15/hr freelance talent. You have to manage them differently but they can produce just the same on the majority of tasks I need of them.
I think most people are scrambling to find a stable source of income. Unless they have a quarter million dollars in cash, or a paid off house, the cost of living in major metro areas means they don't have the time and capital to start a startup with any reasonable chance of becoming profitable or raising money before they go bankrupt.
I can imagine the news will say "aha, see, there weren't really that many who were capable of being entrepreneurs who were working at FAANG", but really it's just the same old lack of access to capital, and if they did have capital many of them certainly would and could.
I can imagine the news will say "aha, see, there weren't really that many who were capable of being entrepreneurs who were working at FAANG", but really it's just the same old lack of access to capital, and if they did have capital many of them certainly would and could.
Co-ops can work however they bring a lot of problems. My kids are in a co-op run school where I'm the treasurer (all families are co-op members). Only the teachers are paid.
There is so much drama and you always have a share of people who don't pull their weight and the resentment that comes with that.
Another thing people never remember is that depending on your country you are on the hook for your share of the looses incurred if the co-op runs with a loss. Your are not insulated from the losses in the same was as if you are just a shareholder.
There is so much drama and you always have a share of people who don't pull their weight and the resentment that comes with that.
Another thing people never remember is that depending on your country you are on the hook for your share of the looses incurred if the co-op runs with a loss. Your are not insulated from the losses in the same was as if you are just a shareholder.
What products would companies/individuals pay for?
My org is starting with B2B SaaS products. If you can move these into a cooperatively managed framework you drive long term value while also building networks with successful businesses. It's a major opportunity because so many B2B SaaS platforms are super overpriced. The client companies are basically overpaying in order to pay back the VC investors. If you start out without any of that overhead you can offer a completely different funding model.
Yeah the difficulty isn't even thinking of a good idea, it's reconstructing the enormous legal barriers, government contracts, and relationships with private capital that the existing tech companies have cemented over decades.
The larger barrier will be coming up with products that people are willing to pay for.
Thats one way to market yourself, but not the only way. For example, consultancies don't come up with products people are willing to pay for. They are hired as a service to do work on a project, but they aren't selling things off the shelf. A software "consultancy" could operate in a similar way, where customers say "we need engineering labor to achieve our goals" and this agency comes in with the labor that develops the product to meet the companies needs.
Creating an open market for compute, labor and goods that would compete with AWS, Amazon and the gig economy would be a good place to start. These groups skim a large portion of companies/individual's profit.
This is a pipe dream. The only thing laid off workers care about is making money, not wasting time working for free.
It's not a pipe dream! We've got a collective structured in exactly this manner with over 100 people, growing by ~1 person per day and things are going great! Join us and see, if you're interested. :)
Tech Co-ops backed by crypto contracts representing fractional equity ownership are emerging.
They are a logical evolution of the Digital Nomad movement from years past (some emerged from Upwork).
However, each member is expected to be an independent LLC and handle their own country-specific revenue withholdings and taxes.
They are a logical evolution of the Digital Nomad movement from years past (some emerged from Upwork).
However, each member is expected to be an independent LLC and handle their own country-specific revenue withholdings and taxes.
Yep, this is definitely happening, I'm part of one such group. There's a whole community of decentralized worker collectives working on doing the hard work of getting these models to function.
I suspect you may quickly run into the basic problem that your worker-owners like getting paid. Which will be challenging to start with, given a lack of products and a sharply limited ability to raise funds.
This is how some of the trade unions started, back in the day.
[deleted]
That's exactly how it worked for Brotherhood without Banners in A Song of Ice and Fire series. Except it doesn't work
You have everything you need except a business plan and willing participants.
> Literally everyone you need was laid off...
All the least valuable people were laid off…
All the least valuable people were laid off…
I think that org might end up quite heavy with Product and HR Managers.
Wow, you just invented open source software.
Can I contract for the co-op?
Yes! Happy to support. This is the only workable way to organize in the long run and is exciting to see this as the top comment.
Please let me know how I can help via the email in my profile.
FWIW I'm starting a residential trash/recycling cooperative to roll back the capitalistic accretion of all public works, so anything anarchic-syndicalist I will support however I can.
Please let me know how I can help via the email in my profile.
FWIW I'm starting a residential trash/recycling cooperative to roll back the capitalistic accretion of all public works, so anything anarchic-syndicalist I will support however I can.
they could call themselves the Loper Formers
An organization of B and C players with socialist leanings will have a hard time competing in a free market. See any "worker owned co-op" coffee shop.
This is pretty rude. The people who were laid off were certainly not "B and C players". When large companies cut, it's often entire business units, so no performance or talent considerations are made.
Plenty of worker-owned coffee shops, book stores, grocery stores, etc are famously successful. Be more open-minded, ya scrooge.
Plenty of worker-owned coffee shops, book stores, grocery stores, etc are famously successful. Be more open-minded, ya scrooge.
Cool idea. Let's use technologies to beat "sharks".
In my ideal world, those who only have money, should work for highly skilled techies.
In my ideal world, those who only have money, should work for highly skilled techies.
>we could start the world's largest software co-op
How would non-compete, confidentially clause contracts when when you work for yourself? Would the judiciary in that part of the world uphold them or strike them out like the judiciary of other parts of the world have done.
Tip, if you are female and married a rich bloke, move to the UK, prove your British citizenship and then get divorced in UK law courts!
Amber Heard knew the British law courts are biased against men!
How would non-compete, confidentially clause contracts when when you work for yourself? Would the judiciary in that part of the world uphold them or strike them out like the judiciary of other parts of the world have done.
Tip, if you are female and married a rich bloke, move to the UK, prove your British citizenship and then get divorced in UK law courts!
Amber Heard knew the British law courts are biased against men!
>How would non-compete, confidentially clause contracts when when you work for yourself?
You sign them with the co-op as the other party, same as any other business.
You sign them with the co-op as the other party, same as any other business.
But are they ethically or morally correct clauses to have in a contract?
I know lawyers let you put WTF into business contracts because its a business to business contract anything goes, but business to human contracts are different and this is what amazes me about the ethical nature of lawyers & law firms knowing some of those lawyers will go on to become judges of all things.
Been There, Seen it, Done it!
I know lawyers let you put WTF into business contracts because its a business to business contract anything goes, but business to human contracts are different and this is what amazes me about the ethical nature of lawyers & law firms knowing some of those lawyers will go on to become judges of all things.
Been There, Seen it, Done it!
I think you can find a lot of unreasonable ones out there, but at its core the idea of not taking a company's trade secrets to a competitor is a reasonable thing to agree on. It turns into a bad thing when companies abuse their bargaining power to stop you from working on totally unrelated projects in your personal time, or when they stop people from practicing their profession for a period of time after they part ways with no compensation for lost income.
In industries where they really care about trade secrets but are also dealing with people who know how to negotiate, you see a lot of contracts where you get paid your full salary for say a year to sit at home and do nothing, as compensation for not working for a competitor during that time.
In industries where they really care about trade secrets but are also dealing with people who know how to negotiate, you see a lot of contracts where you get paid your full salary for say a year to sit at home and do nothing, as compensation for not working for a competitor during that time.
> at its core the idea of not taking a company's trade secrets to a competitor is a reasonable thing to agree on
But its ok to pay poor wages and let staff go, using the law as a weapon? Isnt that anti capitalist? Isnt that against the spirit of the law?
>with people who know how to negotiate
Rather the employment is not so one sided, the employee has to take everything dished out to them.
>you see a lot of contracts where you get paid your full salary for say a year to sit at home and do nothing,
You also see people put on gardening leave where the contract contains nothing to handle certain situations.
But its ok to pay poor wages and let staff go, using the law as a weapon? Isnt that anti capitalist? Isnt that against the spirit of the law?
>with people who know how to negotiate
Rather the employment is not so one sided, the employee has to take everything dished out to them.
>you see a lot of contracts where you get paid your full salary for say a year to sit at home and do nothing,
You also see people put on gardening leave where the contract contains nothing to handle certain situations.
Hey folks!
I'm a member of just such a cooperative, worker-owned tech community / consultancy. It's still early stages but we're growing really fast! Let's make that dream a reality.
Check out the following link and if it resonates for you then shoot me a message on LinkedIn (https://LinkedIn.com/in/gscrawley) to discuss next steps and answer any questions you might have.
https://wiki.quorum.one/blog/what-is-quorum1
Check out the following link and if it resonates for you then shoot me a message on LinkedIn (https://LinkedIn.com/in/gscrawley) to discuss next steps and answer any questions you might have.
https://wiki.quorum.one/blog/what-is-quorum1
We're sitting in the park, drinking Thunderbird and arguing with the pigeons.
Lost original lyrics to Little River Band's "Reminiscing":
o/~ We'll be sitting in the park
sipping Thunderbird till dark
debating pigeons
1m51s
If you can make it to Texas they'll buy you a one-way ticket to the coastal metropolis of your choice
That's funny, there are no pigeons where I live. I recently came back from holiday and I enjoyed looking at them and analyse their seemingly erratic alas scavenging behaviour all along. I even felt sorry for the not-so-well-groomed ones... We don't think enough about pigeons... oh well... back to work.
Reminds me of the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' - https://youtu.be/GmlSSSN7C78?t=14
Drinking Night Train and yelling at clouds over here...
That’s fine but if the pigeons start arguing back, you should probably leave.
Hello fellow Brit
Ughhh...the dream...
Wow.. I didn't expect this many comments.. the amazing extended discussion about software collectives and communities.
Some things that looks in the neighborhood is #openforwork, Quorom1, Loomio, and the discord posted here https://discord.gg/TyQfcSZk
But I was looking for a simple meetup organized in San Francisco, and perhaps an online forum/discussion area. No business model, no guild.. just community. Would others join?
I've already committed the ultimate sin: registered a domain: openforwork.community. Nothing there yet.
To keep the good discussion juice going - what do you recommend for a forum? Last one I installed was Discourse. I think these days a slack/discord channel is what new communities do.. but..I'm old.. and a place on the internet with its own domain could work for this.
Some things that looks in the neighborhood is #openforwork, Quorom1, Loomio, and the discord posted here https://discord.gg/TyQfcSZk
But I was looking for a simple meetup organized in San Francisco, and perhaps an online forum/discussion area. No business model, no guild.. just community. Would others join?
I've already committed the ultimate sin: registered a domain: openforwork.community. Nothing there yet.
To keep the good discussion juice going - what do you recommend for a forum? Last one I installed was Discourse. I think these days a slack/discord channel is what new communities do.. but..I'm old.. and a place on the internet with its own domain could work for this.
Related question: are any actual software engineers getting laid off or is it just support/admin/management who work in the tech sector?
(I have been dealing with consulting contracts for software engineers lately, and was surprised to see that hourly rates are significantly higher than they were 5 years ago)
(I have been dealing with consulting contracts for software engineers lately, and was surprised to see that hourly rates are significantly higher than they were 5 years ago)
Yes. Software engineers. Senior engineers. TLs. Folks with 10 years at the company. No one seems safe. Except executives probably.
The executives have already "suffered enough" with their stock compensation going down so much (eye roll)
Just a personal anecdote, but at my place of employment we had a wave of layoffs late last year. As part of the process 4 top-level execs "left", although I think saying they were "dismissed" is more accurate.
I am not certain, but it might have been nearly half the people at this level let go. And then there was a trail of layoffs all the way down the leadership chain. Of course the most people let go in absolute numbers are the individual contributors.
I am not certain, but it might have been nearly half the people at this level let go. And then there was a trail of layoffs all the way down the leadership chain. Of course the most people let go in absolute numbers are the individual contributors.
If you read between the lines it appears Eyal Manor maybe was laid off/fired?
https://archive.is/INZea
https://archive.is/INZea
Yes, I know talented engineers from several companies that were laid off simply due to being unlucky enough to have ended up on the “wrong” project
Or maybe they are not so talented after all.
I mean we’re all just trading anecdotes but absolutely people that were fantastic were also let go by being in the wrong place. I feel I dodged a bullet with choice of project personally when comparing to two specific other people I know that were laid off.
Yes, I’m a senior engineer who was laid off. The company I worked for layed off 20% of engineering.
Software Engineers are being laid off for certain.
Yes. Google laid off several very high level engineers. Engineers that were likely making 7 figures.
Yes, DigitalOcean, who laid me off last week along with the entire writing/editing team for DO Community tutorials, also laid off some engineers, including most of the infra engineers, from what I heard. Not sure how they can get along without infra. Sheesh.
I think ChatGPT and the like is going to increase the efficiency of software engineers at all level, possibly obviating the need for entry-level coders.
I think ChatGPT and the like is going to increase the efficiency of software engineers at all level, possibly obviating the need for entry-level coders.
Yes, coworker had 30 years under his belt. We were let go together.
Half the Engineering team at my company got laid off.
The closest thing to gathering I've seen is the consistency of posting on LinkedIn with the #layoffs and #opentowork tags. I've also seen a decent amount of activity in the ex-Googler community where former Google leaders (e.g. Laszlo Block, former head of HR) host Zoom discussions about what life's like on the outside and whatnot.
"what's life like on the outside" haha. It blows my mind how disconnected some people in tech are.
They're probably either working a new job, job hunting, or vacationing. If I got laid off I'd probably grab a beer with a couple employees or fellow ex employees. Maybe grab a couple numbers. Then.. adios. Don't make it a bigger thing than it needs to be.
Right now, the biggest problem is discovery, i.e. who is still hiring vs who just has stale jobs listed on their website. I'm working on making this list so it's much easier to discover the (literally thousands of Seed to Series B companies still hiring!)
See companies that are hiring: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OeuaamkeOpMzlufPk6hY...
Add company here: https://forms.gle/abCCJ5ByvDFcyRP2A
If anyone is struggling and is on the mid/senior/director side of their career (3+ yrs), I'm helping place people at my friends' Seed and Series A companies. Email me at j{at}markovmanagement.com if I can help :)
See companies that are hiring: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OeuaamkeOpMzlufPk6hY...
Add company here: https://forms.gle/abCCJ5ByvDFcyRP2A
If anyone is struggling and is on the mid/senior/director side of their career (3+ yrs), I'm helping place people at my friends' Seed and Series A companies. Email me at j{at}markovmanagement.com if I can help :)
Maybe I was thinking of this: https://layoffs.fyi/. The "list of employees" must be an opt in spreadsheets where people are posting their own info. Could be improved with a forum IMO.
Probably around the water cooler with their new coworkers.
Hopefully somewhere here or at similar companies, solving some of the important issues of our times.
https://github.com/pogopaule/awesome-sustainability-jobs
https://github.com/pogopaule/awesome-sustainability-jobs
Rebound is an event for marketing professionals impacted by layoffs and economic uncertainty. Hear from experts, network with peers, and participate in interactive mentor sessions with marketing leaders.
Our goal is to create a supportive community where attendees can find resources, connections, and advice to help them navigate the job market. Join us!
See the line up of speakers, mentors and more here: https://www.experiencewelcome.com/rebound
Our goal is to create a supportive community where attendees can find resources, connections, and advice to help them navigate the job market. Join us!
See the line up of speakers, mentors and more here: https://www.experiencewelcome.com/rebound
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I created a discord server here for everyone to connect: https://discord.gg/TyQfcSZk
Hope this helps.
Hope this helps.
caeril(6)
Each man for himself. I'm seeing a dog eats dog mentality.
Here (Israel tech scene) there are a ton of initiatives to help people who were impacted by the recent layoffs. Lots of mixers with companies that are hiring, free tutoring/help and meetups. Certainly not perfect but it's very far from "dog eat dog".
Without going as far as "dog eats dog", I don't know if I would feel the need to socialize with laid off people if I got laid off. What would that serve? It's not like one of them is gonna be like "hey, we're hiring at my company!".
Socialize with people who have a job.
Socialize with people who have a job.
On the other hand, when you are laid off and looking for people to socialize with, your other laid off friends will be the most available. Nothing like taking advantage of things like discount matinee rates, happy hours you never were able to make on time with a job, or speedy efficient trips through town without traffic when you are already generating no income.
Other people laid off are looking and might find something for you. They are looking for companies actively hiring.
People who have a job 1. don't have time during the day and 2. only know about their company since they aren't looking.
I would guess that even if someone had my exact skillset, I would be better off teaming up with them in the search than avoiding them. We could identify more jobs and there is a good chance one of those is looking for more than one person.
People who have a job 1. don't have time during the day and 2. only know about their company since they aren't looking.
I would guess that even if someone had my exact skillset, I would be better off teaming up with them in the search than avoiding them. We could identify more jobs and there is a good chance one of those is looking for more than one person.
People have networks. It’s important to leverage different networks and get help.
Such is the way in an unorganized labor market.
Perhaps we should organize....
And expect lower salaries as a result. Nothing is free
Right. The weird American manufactured distaste for unionism has progressed to the point where y’all can be working for some of the most rich and profitable companies in the world and somehow convince yourselves that unionising will make you LESS money. Frankly you get what you deserve at this point.
Do you have any examples of where labour organisation has led to lower pay?
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I seem to recall companies closing stores that voted to unionize. /s
That definitely wasn’t the case for me. I was laid off with 30% of my company several months back and the support was absolutely enormous. Tons of people reaching out on LinkedIn, leads being passed around from coworkers both laid off and still employed. I went through the interview process and had offers from 4-5 companies within 2-3 weeks. Many of my colleagues had similar experiences.
One thing I appreciate about our industry is people tend to be generally helpful or atleast give you parting advice with no strings attached.
So like it’s always been in the job market?
Past that, why do you want to hang out with other people who are doing poorly when you could be hanging out with people who are doing better?
Being laid off does not equate to doing poorly. Some people just get cut because some people who wear suits to work seem to not care.
Or maybe too many people got hired by some guy in a hoodie because they were afraid any talented people they didn’t hire would work for a startup that puts them out of business or that they feel they need to spend $15 billion to buy so they don’t face competition.
Said “guy in hoodie” and his close buddies “guy in khakis” and “athleisure gal” have just materially increased the likelihood that they’ll be spending $15B (or whatever the going rate is in 5 years).
I think you're interpreting "doing poorly" wrong.
I read GP as saying that people who are laid off are currently going through a stressful time in their life: "doing poorly".
I read GP as saying that people who are laid off are currently going through a stressful time in their life: "doing poorly".
Support groups are common for all kinds of things, so there seems to be some kind of value in it.
If your buddies are going through a stressful time in their life then you should be spending even more time with them if possible.
I completely agree... My comment was based on the assumption this conversation isn't about helping your buddies through a tough time, it's about who to network with when you've been laid off.
There is xgooglers community https://xoogler.co/, I think they hold meetings
thanks.. I remember hearing about that in 2009 :) There must/should to be something thats more open to the thousands of people recently forced into the job market across many companies?
I am not a part of that community, but I believe the purpose of the community is to help colleagues. They even have a jobboard!
If laid off folks are looking for work or side projects, we've got a collective you can join. Based in SF but with members from all around the world.
More info here: https://wiki.quorum.one/join
More info here: https://wiki.quorum.one/join
Pink-slip parties? [1]
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/pink-slip-parties-laid-off-t...
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/pink-slip-parties-laid-off-t...
We wrote a post about ex-googlers who got laid off - https://nubela.co/blog/1-in-3-ex-google-employees-in-15-bill...
The gist is that 1/3 of them joined startups. A couple of them started new startups.
The gist is that 1/3 of them joined startups. A couple of them started new startups.
I sort of thought this is what git was designed for. Need to signal your proficiency? Start contributing to projects and answering stackoverflow questions, but with a flag that says you are interested in new work.
> this is what git was designed for
Well here we are, prophecy fulfilled: tech people who see no difference between GitHub and git.
Well here we are, prophecy fulfilled: tech people who see no difference between GitHub and git.
The problem is same as with any group of people coming together especially at scale. That of aligning incentives. 100k people or even 1k can create a pretty formidable force. But Who decides influences which problems to solve and when? Who holds said unit accountable and how? How do you split the rewards? This ends up devolving into yet another big company no? A good example is even in yc startup school you meet so many awesome cofounders and still it is so hard to just align on a problem to solve!
I started a Discord if y'all wanna join: https://discord.gg/5k2HDF7J
> Where are laid off employees gathering?
I'd guess underneath bridges, in public open parks, backside service roads, and similar places.
I'd guess underneath bridges, in public open parks, backside service roads, and similar places.
I'm in a few Slacks where former employees have gathered. Not necessarily just in the most recent round of lay offs.
It is critical for me to keep in touch with like minded people not to mention to maintain friendships.
Slack is pretty easy and free as long as you don't care much about retention of old content.
It is critical for me to keep in touch with like minded people not to mention to maintain friendships.
Slack is pretty easy and free as long as you don't care much about retention of old content.
[deleted]
Here: I reckon if you all put your heads together you could coordinate something.
I also suspect AI coordinated organisations are very close to being achievable.
https://discord.gg/aheb8j9b
I also suspect AI coordinated organisations are very close to being achievable.
https://discord.gg/aheb8j9b
[deleted]
[deleted]
for data science/ML folks, I created a small slack group with 17 ppl who are helping mentor and mock interview each other ..
if anyone is interested in joining, pls fill this out: https://forms.gle/CAbVhBYmc34EeBMM9
we have a notion page to help with introductions/interview scheduling and a slack to chat with each other.
if anyone is interested in joining, pls fill this out: https://forms.gle/CAbVhBYmc34EeBMM9
we have a notion page to help with introductions/interview scheduling and a slack to chat with each other.
Ooh, I like this. I would be happy to co-organize, say, an evening at Zeitgeist. Contact me via email or mastodon!
SF is the worst place to be unemployed right now.
High burn rate, and opportunities are moving out.
High burn rate, and opportunities are moving out.
Does anyone have any recommendations for referral community/platform?
Mastodon
hopefully doing absolutely nothing and taking some time off
Blind[1] is a decent community to get a glimpse into what employees truly feel about employers, get referrals and overall tech career advice. It can get rather toxic and troll-ey at times, but you can filter that out to focus on the useful stuff.
[1] - https://www.teamblind.com/
[1] - https://www.teamblind.com/
At times? It's a cesspool of negativity and lies. Good content is the exception on Blind. Deleting that app is one of the best things someone can do for their mental health.
I can second this.
I made the mistake of downloading it once big players started layoffs in hopes of getting in on the news before it hit. But that forum is toxic sludge for anyone’s mental health.
I don’t use it anymore. The only time I download the app is like glassdoor when figuring out if a company is ok or not.
I made the mistake of downloading it once big players started layoffs in hopes of getting in on the news before it hit. But that forum is toxic sludge for anyone’s mental health.
I don’t use it anymore. The only time I download the app is like glassdoor when figuring out if a company is ok or not.
I would not trust Glassdoor reviews whatsoever. Companies can pay to curate reviews.
They are discussing this thread here: https://www.teamblind.com/post/The-Hacker-News-community-vie...
Partial archive: https://archive.ph/npoh6
As you would expect, it's horrible. The moderation is quite bad too. They'll ban you for just saying you disagree with someone depending on the topic.
Partial archive: https://archive.ph/npoh6
As you would expect, it's horrible. The moderation is quite bad too. They'll ban you for just saying you disagree with someone depending on the topic.
> The moderation is quite bad too.
What moderation? There's been a picture of feces inside a toilet bowl on that Blind thread for the past 3 hours.
What moderation? There's been a picture of feces inside a toilet bowl on that Blind thread for the past 3 hours.
Feast or famine, as they say. Whole new meaning to the phrase "shit hole."
blind has to be the most toxic community in tech. I don't know if i can handle the mental damage for referrals and insider info on prospective employers.
Everyone on Blind is a Principal Engineer making $750k TC while only working 8 hours a month
I get a similar impression. The community is deeply negative, and deeply cynical about everything. Everyone seems to only care about compensation. It seems full of the sort of people who put zero effort in but who know how to play the corporate game enough to negotiate big salaries, only to then moan about poor performance reviews or getting laid off.
This is a typical Blind response: https://imgur.com/a/X7tSrGf
Bragging about their workplace.
Bragging about their workplace.
You forgot the weekly posts about which brand of toilet bowl cleaner has the most prestige.
I'll go ahead and defend blind. It's absolutely negative to the extreme, but it gave me the heads up on a layoff and has all sorts of relevant information. I've come to realize I (we?) trust companies so little that many people would never even complain in a private direct message to a coworker -- pretty hard to commiserate if you're remote.
Most coworkers I know refuse to fill out any "how happy are you at work?" surveys or fill out max scores because they think (and I don't doubt them) that any and all information could be used by management to jeopardize their career -- basically they see their work an totalitarian information state...
Most coworkers I know refuse to fill out any "how happy are you at work?" surveys or fill out max scores because they think (and I don't doubt them) that any and all information could be used by management to jeopardize their career -- basically they see their work an totalitarian information state...
> I've come to realize I (we?) trust companies so little that many people would never even complain in a private direct message to a coworker
We claim to live in democracies, while in fact we spend good part of our adult life in parallel societies where we can't even express dissent in private.
We claim to live in democracies, while in fact we spend good part of our adult life in parallel societies where we can't even express dissent in private.
This right here. Blind contains a lot of noise but also some signal. Internal corporate comms are 100% noise and unless you have a trusted and informed coworker the grapevine doesn’t tell you much.
Does anyone have ANY recommendations for referral platform?
Cold application is fairly useless in today's age and time. A referral puts your application much ahead in the pool so that a human actually reads it.
Blind used to be a tolerable place until they made it exclusively US-centric. Importantly, I really loved their side product - Rooftop Slushie - where you could have resume reviews, interview prep, and get trusted referrals for a small sum. They seem to have closed that though.
Cold application is fairly useless in today's age and time. A referral puts your application much ahead in the pool so that a human actually reads it.
Blind used to be a tolerable place until they made it exclusively US-centric. Importantly, I really loved their side product - Rooftop Slushie - where you could have resume reviews, interview prep, and get trusted referrals for a small sum. They seem to have closed that though.
>Cold application is fairly useless in today's age and time.
Really? 95% of the people I've been involved in hiring have been cold applicants or via a recruiter (where normally those connections aren't made by referrals either).
Really? 95% of the people I've been involved in hiring have been cold applicants or via a recruiter (where normally those connections aren't made by referrals either).
Aside from referrals channel, Blind is terribly neurotic and toxic.
[deleted]
[deleted]