Slashdot Mirror
Toward the Open Company
Arto Stimms writes "The author of the e text editor is using the principles of open source to transform his company into an Open Company. Not only is he releasing the source, the company itself becomes totally open: no concept of bosses or employees. Anyone can join in at any time, doing whatever task they find interesting, for whatever time they find appropriate. This is in service of the idea of 'the real freedom zero': the freedom to decide for yourself what you want to work on."
I think the new buzzword for this is "crowdsourcing".
Oh, you mean this company is not going to pay me and I should work for free?
Read. The. Fucking. Article.
No, really.
The best 'Open' corporate structure I've heard of is the John Lewis Partnership in the UK.
ALL employees are 'partners', from the shelf stackers in Waitrose to the head honcho of the group. Yes the pay varies, but they all get the same bonus as a percentage of their salary.
The percentage is announced at the same time across all stores. By all accounts it's a very good place to work.
-Ben
Earlier in the post it says "The central dilemma of Open Source is, and has always been, how to make a living doing it" -- but then it turns out that the actual plan is a non sequitur.
Getting really offtopic, but I thought I'd share this interesting Economist article regarding Atlas Shrugged.
Atlas felt a sense of deja vu
Feb 26th 2009
The economic bust has caused a boom for at least one author
BOOKS do not sell themselves: that is what films are for. "The Reader", the book that inspired the Oscar-winning film, has shot up the bestseller lists. Another recent publishing success, however, has had more help from Washington, DC, than Hollywood. That book is Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13185404
Once a cornerstone of its socially responsible identity, the company removed its salary cap on the compensation of its highest paid employee in 1994. The company historically limited the salary of its highest paid employee to no more than five times the salary of the lowest paid worker (though the ratio was revised to seven-to-one in 1993). With the removal of the cap, the gap between the highest and lowest paid employee has risen to unprecedented levels. The ratio was an astounding 16-1 in 1998 and is even higher once the current value of unexercised stock options are factored in! Of course, even under the former stringent salary cap, the ratio was misleading for it did not take into account stock options for executives. http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/236/Patel,_Tupate_-_Paper.html
Atlas Shrugged is not actually a history book.
It definitely feels like current events though.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
What happens when that janitor retires, and new janitorial staff is needed? Does the firm now need to find another janitor worth $50,000, reduce the pay of all their top staff (who are doing excellent work and increasing the profitability of the company), or do without a janitor (forcing people making $100,000 doing highly profitable engineering to take time from their work to clean the bathrooms)? I fully intend to be a business owner in the future, and absolutely plan to tie my employees compensation to their performance and to the company's success. However, an arbitrary tie between the amount I pay my key innovators I would have a hard time replacing and the amount I pay someone to come in and clean the lobby isn't logical.
Pay should be based on the value of the contribution, the difficulty of replacement, and the demands of the person you want to do the job. If I'm not happy with what I'm being paid, I start looking for a new position. I feel no loyalty to my employer to work for them if they aren't willing to compensate me adequately, just as they feel no loyalty to me if I don't produce enough value for them. If I like my employer, I'll let them know I'd like a raise before quitting or give 2 weeks notice (as a courtesy). If I don't like them, I'll just notify them I won't be working for them starting tomorrow because they aren't paying me enough (I have no long term contract). If they like me, they will tell me areas they'd like me to improve or how they need me to redirect my work from a non-profitable section of the company to something more useful. If they don't care about me (and most companies don't), they'll just let me know they no longer think they need me not to show up the next day.
Honestly, I really don't understand this attitude of "corporate loyalty" people seem to have. It's like you're a medieval peasant with loyalty to your local noble. The attitude of "noblese oblige" where the upper class acts as father and protector to their people is long dead, if indeed it ever even existed. Workers today have power like never before in history. If you reward good employers with your work and punish bad employers by leaving, the bad employers will go out of business. If you can't find a good employer, save your money and start your own business. If the big CEOs are really as useless as you think, surely you can do better?
Atanamis
Erm, from tfa:
"3rd step: Compensating Participants
All income in the company (minus operating expenses), will be passed through the trust metric and distributed to participants."
So, no ... not "without the paycheck". Without the job security, the pension plan, the medical coverage -- true. But in theory if operating costs are low enough the average worker should be able to make more than in any other reward-model.
Making the (not insignificant) assumption that the company is actually profitable.