
Who Needs a Boss? - HSO
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/magazine/who-needs-a-boss.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0
======
sasvari
The Basque Mondragon Corporation [0] is actually very impressive:

    
    
      It is the seventh-largest Spanish company in terms of asset
      turnover and the leading business group in the Basque
      Country. At the end of 2012, it employed 80,321 people in
      289 companies and organizations in four areas of activity:
      finance, industry, retail and knowledge.
    

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation)

~~~
Retric
Long term I have wondered if co-op will end up dominating less capital
intensive businesses. The downside is an inability to raise outside capital
however they don't need to fund profits which allows them to operate on leaner
margins which could presumably push out traditional businesses and simply
grow.

~~~
toomuchtodo
As technology moves forward, all businesses slowly become non-capital
intensive businesses.

~~~
TrainedMonkey
I beg to disagree, for example finer gate size in microchips requires vastly
more investment with each iteration. See:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock%27s_law)

~~~
learc83
If you look at the semiconductor industry as a whole, it will eventually start
to become less capital intensive because (at some point in the future) the
vast majority of chips produced will be old generation technology that is
"good enough".

There will still be companies trying to push miniscule improvements, but
eventually those incremental improvements won't be enough to justify using
them over older cheaper technology (for most use cases). We're already getting
there by the way-- just look at the number of cheap embedded CPUs with
relatively large transistors produced each years.

Say we get to the point, call it x nanometers, where we can't really get any
smaller because we've reached physical limitations. 50 years after what will
the cost to produce an x nm chip be compared to 50 years before--even if we've
moved beyond silicon 50 years later there will still be countless applications
capable of being performed by older cheaper technology.

------
pekk
Without someone to have all the ideas, how could I build anything? It's a
question for the ages

Answer: the boss isn't for the employee, the boss is for the people who are
spending the money on employees they don't trust. Putting in a boss is the
first of many measures to protect capital. Most of these measures are very
flawed.

But even in a cooperative scenario, protecting capital is still a concern
because an employee of a cooperative can also fuck off rather than working,
thereby squandering jointly-owned capital. Big difference, not really.

Only if you have ways of doing business without requiring any capital, or
where the worker puts their own capital on the line, is it going to stop being
a need

~~~
RHSeeger
My "boss" (Tech Manager, really) is there to take care of the things that
would be a waste of my time...

* Sitting in on meetings of things that might be, and calling me in when he feels my input would be useful

* Being a first point of contact for the "customer" when they want to find something out but don't want to poke dev directly (they do poke me directly on occasion when they know it's appropriate)

* Being a first point of contact when I need some information (Who should I talk to to get more information about X? Can you schedule a meeting with the folks from Y so that we can discuss the technical details of something? etc)

He's there because he knows enough about my work and the work of everyone else
we interact with that he can handle the management of non-technical details.
I, for one, am very thankful that he is there.

Honestly, it runs similar to the argument for an Administrative Assistant.
Sure, I could schedule my own trips, and order my own <stuff>, and such. But
having someone there that does such things on a regular basis is a huge
benefit. The AA(s) at every company I've worked for have always been someone I
am very thankful to have, even if we could get by without them. It's all about
efficiency.

~~~
enraged_camel
This is the exact opposite of my boss.

* Sending random IMs to the entire team throughout the day about funny stuff he finds on the Internet "to maintain team cohesion."

* Regularly interrupting individual team members and asking them about their projects "to make sure things are getting done and nothing is falling through the cracks."

* Nitpicking on small, often inconsequential details as a way of giving "constructive feedback" while insisting that everyone should be able to think "big picture."

* Occasionally saying racist/sexist stuff in weekly meetings "as a joke"

* Claiming that there is nothing wrong with asking an interviewee about their personal life because "culture fit is an extremely important part of the hiring process."

* Dismissing complicated front-end customizations as "just scripting" and insisting that "real programming" is done by our software developers (most of whom are fresh out of college).

Ah, sorry. That quickly turned into a rant...

~~~
smaddali
Do you work at Dunder-Mifflin ?

------
aestra
>Meanwhile, credit unions — another form of cooperative — face stringent
regulations on business lending.

This was thrown as an aside, but I'm wondering what they exactly mean by that.
What are these regulations? Are they government imposed or member imposed?
What exactly do the regulations say? I wish the article didn't just throw out
"there's regulations" without explaining what said regulations are and how
they effect co-op lending.

That being said, I'm a pretty big fan of credit unions and they usually rank
higher in customer satisfaction,[1][2] and tend to have better rates. They
tend to be more community oriented. Though some credit unions can suck too.

[1]
[http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=842677&...](http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=842677&show=abstract)

[2]
[http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=855037&...](http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=855037&show=abstract)

~~~
HillRat
Credit unions are nonprofit organizations that benefit from tax exemptions and
not having to comply with a number of banking regulations, including CRA and
FDIC coverage. (Most, but not all, CUs are covered by NCUSIF.)

Due to their community charters and nonprofit statuses, CUs have regulatory
and statutory limits to the amount of business loans they can hand out (12% of
total loan portfolio, with loans up to $50,000 or SBA-backed loans not
counting against the cap). Bankers and smaller credit unions argue, I believe
reasonably, that increasing commercial portfolios by CUs would create an
unfair playing field (the bankers' argument) and increase CU accountholders'
risks (the smaller CUs, which generally aren't going for large commercial
portfolios and see this as a way for the largest CUs to reduce the smaller
competition).

Lending restrictions on CUs work well -- post-2008, credit unions were
considerably more stable than commercial banks, with the exception of CUs that
took on outsized commercial portfolios. For example, Texans Credit Union had a
waiver that allowed up to 20% of its portfolio to be commercial (and then
bought a subsidiary that had billions of dollars in CRE loans that didn't
count towards its cap). Even before the crash, its bad debt ate up a majority
of its equity, and consumed the rest in the 2008 meltdown. As a result, the
board and executive leadership were summarily canned in 2011, after three
years of steady deterioration, and the NCUA took over running the institution.

------
beat
My children attended a charter high school run as a teacher's co-op - no
principal or formal administration. It works very well, although I'm not sure
it would scale as a model. Certainly, I've never seen such high levels of
teacher satisfaction anywhere else, and I'm sure the cost of a principal and
assistant principal easily funds three more teachers - a big deal at a small
school.

~~~
jeffbr13
Interesting, was this a primary or a secondary school?

I ask because teachers in secondary schools seem to be under much more
pressure to ensure their students pass standardised exams to enter higher
education, whereas there's much more wiggle-room for alternative methodologies
at younger ages. It'd be good to see some innovation at the secondary level,
rather than just attempting to keep up with what examiners require.

~~~
beat
Secondary. Grades 7-12 (the school has since added 6th grade).

Minnesota's charter system is (or should be) a model for other states. There's
lots of interesting education innovation going on here. Lots of failures too,
but that's what happens when you open the doors to innovation.

Besides being a co-op, Avalon is a project-based learning environment. This
requires a great deal more personal responsibility on the part of students for
their own educations. It wouldn't work for most students, but for those who do
well there, it shines gloriously. That's what I love about charters, really -
the opportunity for educational diversity, and finding models that work well
for different kinds of students and different kinds of teachers.

------
logfromblammo
I, for one, need a boss. I don't necessarily need that person to tell me what
to do, but I do need someone to remind me that the things that I do, whatever
they may be, should be in the best interests of our company and its revenue
stream. And I need someone to give me positive and negative feedback on my
work, so I can improve my own productivity.

What I really don't need is owners that are not personally involved in the
business, yet can somehow tell those who are involved how to operate. Those
guys are the ones that merge sick leave with vacation, slice off 6 days from
the total, and then pay themselves an extra dividend.

~~~
wolfgke
> I, for one, need a boss. I don't necessarily need that person to tell me
> what to do, but I do need someone to remind me that the things that I do,
> whatever they may be, should be in the best interests of our company and its
> revenue stream. And I need someone to give me positive and negative feedback
> on my work, so I can improve my own productivity.

Why can't coworkers do that?

~~~
logfromblammo
They can. But when acting in that capacity, they become a boss. For
psychological reasons I cannot adequately explain, two people can be effective
bosses of each other when they cannot be effective bosses of themselves. I
think this is probably part of the basis for pair programming.

------
candybar
On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else find media sites remapping
left/right arrow keys to mean "move to previous/next article" completely
annoying?

~~~
k-mcgrady
No. I guess it's annoying if you accidentally hit them but I don't use them
for anything else so giving them a useful function makes sense. Is there
something else you use them to do that the change in function screws up?

~~~
stronglikedan
Scrolling left/right when reading on a small screen on sites that haven't been
optimized for small screens.

------
bryanlarsen
A worker co-operative seems like the ideal corporate structure for the typical
consulting software shop. It can be set up to be very corporate-like or it can
be set up as a loose group of freelancers who pooled together to share a
health insurance plan, or anything in between.

~~~
bryanlarsen
[http://techworker.coop/](http://techworker.coop/)

~~~
lsh
very cool - does anyone know if there is something similar for the UK? I would
love to know more.

~~~
markvdb
[http://www.software.coop](http://www.software.coop)

MJ Ray of Debian fame is part of this. He's also very much involved in
promoting the cooperative as a concept.

------
nmridul
Another success story of commercially successful cooperative society is Amul
which is a cooperative dairy society. With 2 million + milk farmers as owners
and is one of the forces that revolutionized milk production and distribution
in India. Making India the largest producer of milk in the world [1].

The beauty is that, majority of these farmers own one or two cows and that is
their main means of income for their whole family.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amul) [2]
[http://www.iitk.ac.in/ime/MBA_IITK/avantgarde/?p=1018](http://www.iitk.ac.in/ime/MBA_IITK/avantgarde/?p=1018)

------
hisem
We built a co-operative web agency in France
([http://www.joro.fr](http://www.joro.fr)).

I don't know how it works in other countries, but I can give some more
detailed info about the requirements in France, if anyone's interested :

\- A partner can own 50% max. of the company.

\- Whether you own 1% or 50%, every partner has the same voting power.

\- You can have a maximum of 1/3 non-employed partners, and the combined non-
employed partners cannot own a majority of shares (49% max). This assures that
the "power" stays within the people that actually work in the company.

\- This also means that 2/3 of the partners must be employed with a contract
and a salary. This can be quite difficult when you build the company as you
must, technically, start paying yourself and your partner (since you must be 2
partners minimum) on day 1.

\- You need a minimum of 2 partners, but can also have as many employees as
you want. This means you can technically be a co-op even if your company has 2
partners and 1000 employees.

\- There are rules as to how you distribute your benefits : a maximum of 33%
can be distributed as dividends to the partners, a minimum of 16% must be kept
in the company for investment (reserves), and a minimum of 33% has to be
distributed amongst all employees (following a calculation the employees can
decide upon, like according to time worked, salaries, how long one's been in
the company, or a custom calculation...). This tends to lead to high employee
motivation and better ensure long-term health.

\- Co-operatives have a few tax deductions that other companies don't. If you
don't distribute any dividends and distribute it all to your employees + keep
some for investments, and follow a certain number of other rules, you can
practically be exempted of taxes on the company's benefits.

\- On the other hand, you must go through a bunch of red tape to prove every
year that you follow the rules of a co-operative, which costs time and a bit
of money.

We built the company 2 years ago, and right now we're only 3 partner/employees
so our day-to-day life is basically the same as any other similar-sized
company, but we liked the philosophy, and it has actually been an interesting
marketing feature.

------
001sky
Unfortunate Title. It's worth looking at some counter-examples, as Capital
Structure (often) has precious little to do with management structure. Most
non profits mimic the for-profit in organizational structure (ie, run by a
CEO, with a staff of VPs...). On the other hand, many for-profit partnerships
are quite flat and more egalitarian than their corporate cousins. Also, many
co-ops still have a CEO (eg: REI, the outdoor goods store). The outgoing CEO
for REI was in fact a banker previously and is now a government "boss" (a/k/a
secretary of the interior).

~~~
dragonwriter
REI is a purchaser coop, not a labor coop. Not at all the same thing.

~~~
001sky
If by purchaser you mean consumer (not producer), yes. Many types of org
structures use hier-archical managaement, independent of the capital structure
(legal strucure). That's my point. Even in the co-op space there are multiple
structures that don't imply everything is flat-org.

------
fennecfoxen
Worker-owned coops are the kind of Communism that a capitalist can really get
behind. Good show.

Also, Arizmendi Bakery is in fact delicious.

~~~
jerf
One of the strengths of capitalism is that it does not philosophically insist
that the macroeconomic system must match all microeconomic systems, enabling
local adaptations to changing conditions without global-level upheavals. It is
not part of the capitalistic ethos that all organizations must be run on the
same principles. Contrast this with philosophies like Communism that claims to
have The One Answer To All Problems.

If, for instance, technology shifts over time such that a large-scale
corporate system becomes optimal, the capitalistic society can shift with it.
And if technology changes so that the optimal situation becomes a much large
set of smaller, nimbler competitors, which is probably where we're currently
going, we don't have to have a bloody revolution to permit new organizations
to be adopted. And at no time is there a contradiction between a co-op, a
centrally-managed company, a hierarchy-less Valve-style company, and a non-
profit all operating in the same space.

~~~
jahaja
On the other hand; I think that a solid foundation of co-ops and similarly
worker-owned workplaces would be required for the abolishment of capitalism
altogether.

~~~
jerf
Part of my point is that it is not at all clear that a structure which works
at a relatively small scale (hundreds, thousands tops) necessarily works at a
national scale. There is no _a priori_ reason to assume the two sets would be
the same. There is no practical evidence to suggest they are the same. There
is a lot of evidence they _aren 't_ the same.

------
mathattack
These places still have bosses, the question really is, "Who needs an owner?"
If a business can get by with sweat equity rather than external financing, why
not? I suspect there are limits to both scale and growth, but those aren't
deal breakers.

------
PalUk
It's one of those rare stories that doesn't claim to take cutting edge
technology to make it successful. Just people working together and owning a
business, together deciding on their next move. And it has proven to work
well. Wow, very inspiring.

~~~
wallflower
You might like the story of Bob's Red Mill which was organic before people
even were marketed that term.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob's_Red_Mill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob's_Red_Mill)

~~~
aestra
I was just going to post about Bob's Red Mill. Bob Moore built a multimillion
dollar company and then he transferred ownership of the company (in the form
of employee stock) to his employees.

[http://abcnews.go.com/WN/owner-multi-million-dollar-
company-...](http://abcnews.go.com/WN/owner-multi-million-dollar-company-
hands-business-employees/story?id=9875038)

>Moore said he's gotten countless buy-out offers over the years, but he
couldn't envision selling the business to a stranger.

>"It's the only business decision that I could make," he said. "I don't think
there's anybody worthy to run this company but the people who built it. I have
employees with me right now that have been with me for 30 years. They just
were committed to staying with me now and they're going to own the company."

> "There's a lot of negative stuff going into business today," he said. "It's
> a good old basic Bible lesson -- love of money is the root of all evil. And
> unfortunately, our entire philosophy today is get all the money you can and
> whatever way you can. It's caused many corporations to bite off more than
> they can chew. And it causes people to do a lot of things just for money
> that they feel in their hearts is not the right thing to do."

>With his own company, Moore has tried to do just the opposite. In a
refreshing twist to the typical tenets of corporate America, Moore thinks of
his employees and customers first and foremost.

He also believes that there isn't a secret for building a successful business,
it is just hard work and luck.

Sounds like an incredibly down to Earth guy.

~~~
wallflower
Bob Moore speaking last year. Pretty amazing story (There was a fire that
destroyed his first mill)

[http://vimeo.com/70167461](http://vimeo.com/70167461)

------
jorleif
While I think co-ops can work very well in some cases, I wonder how well they
cope with significant change for the worse in their environment. If you need
to lose a third of the workforce suddenly, can a co-op decide on that kind of
thing or will it lead to some unproductive compromise, or even worse, denial?

~~~
dragonwriter
It's true that coops are less likely to choose to respond to change by radical
workforce reductions, but that's rather the point -- the "need" for such a
response isn't an objective fact of circumstance, it's a particular valance of
the interest of equity owners vs. those of workers. When the equity owners are
the workers, those interests are balanced differently.

~~~
jorleif
It is certainly true that workforce reduction is just one possibility, but
what I still wonder is when coops work and when they don't. Somehow it seems
to me that they only work when the business is not too scalable, but profit is
directly related to work input.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The majority (by number) of worker co-operatives are places like coffee shops,
where revenue is more closely related with the number of customers than work
input.

Co-ops are a great structure when profit is directly related to work input,
but that's not a requirement.

------
forkandwait
Sort of related, though freakishly religious, are the hutterites:

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite)

The colonies are very successful, so much so local farmers have often lobbied
successfully to make made them illegal.

~~~
sitkack
We had a hard working Taiwanese family that the locals would disparage as,
"taking our jobs" because they all worked, saved their money and bought a
restaurant together.

------
up_and_up
The Cheeseboard Collective is another great worker-owned bakery collective for
those in the Berkeley area:
[http://cheeseboardcollective.coop/](http://cheeseboardcollective.coop/)

Amazing pizza and scones.

------
dkokelley
It's important to make the distinction between a boss-owner and a boss-
manager. There are many employee-owned businesses that still utilize some
leadership structure. The difference is that the leadership structure has been
decided on by the employee-owners.

------
perakojotgenije
This is not a new thing, Yugoslavia had something similar some 30-40 years
ago, it was called self-governing socialism. The difference is it was forced
by government and it was the only form of ownership, there were no private
companies, all of them were self-governed. It works if you have a small
company but it didn't show so well in companies with few hundred workers.

------
waldrews
Apparently, Shareefa featuring Ludacris: [http://rapgenius.com/Shareefa-i-
need-a-boss-lyrics](http://rapgenius.com/Shareefa-i-need-a-boss-lyrics)

------
paulhauggis
I work for myself and am my own boss. I have tried starting businesses over
the years with many friends and co-workers. None of them worked out.

Most people just don't have the discipline to work on something for 8
hours/day without being told what to do.

I have also joined many meetup groups for various activities /meeting new
people. When a group doesn't have a leader, it pretty much doesn't go anywhere
until someone takes up the lead and keeps everyone on track.

If you ran a company this way, you would either vote on all decisions (which
would be painful and slow) or you have a group of people make these decisions
on your behalf (IE: leadership).

It's a small example of human nature and why we still need bosses.

~~~
pekk
Completely agree with your observations. But there's a certain nice quality to
the leaders being people who provide genuine energy and guidance rather than
people who just claim control and demand things.

In addition to the passive masses, things like meetup groups tend to attract
people who want titles or to boss people around or to take credit for things,
but at the same time are really not offering anything that is of value to
members. (demanders, not providers)

And unfortunately lots of companies are run this way too; the nominal
leadership is parasitic and the majority of the constructive force is provided
by people who have lower titles, less authority, less control of the
environment and don't get credit for anything.

Leaderless isn't great but parasitic "leadership" by demanders isn't either.

