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Comment by porker | Hacker News Reader

I'd like this to be true, but I think it's a very utopian ideal. If people care as much as the founders do about the company, they're going to get very disillusioned when the founders head in a different direction to the one they'd take the company and they get no say in it. Because although they're as invested in the company as the founders, they don't have the power.

I also wonder why (apart from the charity sector) employees would be that invested. They don't get the financial rewards or the kudos that the founders do, so why invest their soul in someone else's problem?

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> why invest their soul in someone else's problem?

Depending on their age, they might not know better. Young developers are sold the ideal of changing the world through passion, but still end up as just employees. I still remember the first time a company offered me options instead of an annual raise, and a more experienced coworker quietly informed me why they did that. My enthusiasm was quickly brought down to earth.

Wait, why did they offer you options instead of a raise? I just want to hear why that reason tempered your enthusiasm. (I don't get excited about options since I have to buy them, but they can be more incentivizing, at least for me, than salary in the rare case that they are given on fair terms.)

This is why I find it incredibly creepy and insulting when founders of small companies try the 'true sense of ownership' or 'we hope you are as excited to work on this as we are' lines. If you want me to be as excited as you are, give me the same stake in the outcome of my work that you have in the outcome of yours.

Make employees co-owners. Then they have more incentive to care, and their voice counts in the direction of the company. It's not just someone else's problem anymore.

Only works in smaller companies, when companies grow to big the usual share programms used to achieve this are way to small to mean anything.

Actually in the UK one of the large department store/supermarket chains works this way, and it seems to work pretty well for them. Sure, the reward and input isn't huge, but they look after their staff very well, and they get a share of the profits each year.

http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/csr/our-employees/empl...

There's one big chain in the U.S. that's something like that too. Their claim is that they're "employee owned" and from talking to a checker yesterday, employees value that greatly. That said, this checker was carrying on about how Winco employees "retire as millionaires" so I wonder if they're all being sold a bill of goods by management? Apart from that I guess they're paid comparatively well (versus, say, Walmart) and have good health insurance. http://www.wincofoods.com/about/careers/

Nowadays, retiring comfortably at all is a pretty good deal, even if you don't end up a millionaire.

If you're young enough, the compensation that you are receiving in terms of experience can be quite valuable.

It is measurable in difference between the salary you would have received if you took a job before you worked for X startup and the salary you would have received if you leave and get a job after having worked for X startup.

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