Founders: Would you agree that team should own a part of a company? If this is a common practice for you. Could you share how are currently achieving this? |
Founders: Would you agree that team should own a part of a company? If this is a common practice for you. Could you share how are currently achieving this? |
For example, "company" could mean private or public. It could be 5 people or 150000 people.
"own" can refer to control, responsibilities, legislation, profit share, product direction, market fit, investment of cash, and more.
"team" might be everyone from the lead who's been there from the beginning, to the receptionist hired last week. Or some subset.
Context matters. The goal of ownership matters. Each context is different so there's no blanket answer. Hence my answer to your (incomplete) answer is no.
I post this reply, not to be a dick, but to point out that your question needs a lot more thought and clarity. From that I infer (perhaps incorrectly) that you are the team-member in this context, not an existing owner.
I think you have a valid, specific, question in there somewhere, but you need to narrow it down a bit. And perhaps also figure out if team ownership will actually solve the problem you are trying to solve.
Of course it is not 100% free and there are some self-correcting forces at play (e.g. students who would complain if you picked meaningless topics each semester), but if I decided the next semester is going to be on something arbitrary like the history of karaoke technology and building RC-cars I could totally do that.
So even if ultimately I end up doing something reasonable that fits the needs of the students, I know that the choice is mine entirely and I don't get the feeling of "this is the boring crap course I have to give each semester". This is worth a lot in terms of satisfaction, especially since there are few people in this instution who would understand what I am even teaching (apart from the students who visited the courses and the IT department)
Should employees have some equity in the company? Of course. That’s the single biggest driving force behind the growth of the tech sector over the last few decades. It’s pretty hard for employees - especially at startups - to be fully bought in if they are getting a paycheck and nothing else.
Should every tech company be some kind of cooperative? That’s a harder one to answer, but this model hasn’t really been proven in the real world so until that happens it’s safe to say no, that won’t work.
When it comes to expanding the team with key employees outside of the founding team, giving them equity share is a decision that the founding team needs to make. A policy decision could be x% of the shares will be dedicated to key employees equity participation.
Also, key employees doesn't have to be all employees. You can segment this by role, service duration etc., For eg: an entry level role may not be eligible, but may become eligible after x months of service in the company.
There are opposing philosophies to the above. But most use some form of probation period to make employees eligible for participation.
Edit: Also, typically the equity is granted through options vesting. So, it is part of deferred compensation over a vesting period that runs over several years. It is also tied to differentiated performance-based pay.
In my ventures, I've never done that sort of this because the complexity of it is a headache I could do without, and I've not seen a good argument for why it would benefit my companies or employees enough to be worth the cost. But that's very dependent on the particular venture, I think. I could see it penciling out very differently in other situations.
If a team didn’t create it, then why should they own over the team that actually created it?
It here == whole company or any substantial part of it.
But seriously, it's an interesting question and I got some interesting answers when I asked something similar last week. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34945428
If you get hired at Amazon, you get stock options after your vest is done. This does not mean you have any real impact at all on company decisions.
The idea of employees owning the company is Marxism 101. No fucking way any founders in this economic system will be for it
And in my statups, I want that group of people, and actively don't want the ones who are just looking for a big payday.
I will say every time I hear someone claim that their employees should want to join them for non-monetary reasons, I assume its to try to keep more of the rewards for themselves.
You assume incorrectly. I am not rich by the standards of rich people (although I am rich by the standards of many others, but I think it's safe to say that most of the people reading my comment right now are wealthier than me), and I don't form startups because of a desire to gain wealth. I have no actual interest in amassing wealth as such.
I form startups because they give me the opportunity and freedom to engage in projects that deeply interest me.
That's not a value judgement, that's just being interested in finding people who are more on the same page as me.