Are there any good tech companies where your surplus value isn't stolen, and the fate of the company isn't in the hands of a few rich owners and VCs?
The best response the western apparatus had was that it was ‘just a profit-sharing arrangement’, and even that was based on an amateurish misreading of the relevant law.
Oh and if you want something smaller and more American, Tonight We Riot was made by a workers’ co-operative.
TBF, Huawei's complex internal structure leaves it really open to interpretation on how ownership actually works.
Yes. Loomio is a tech startup that is a cooperative and democratically managed. When a new partner/member comes on board they buy a share of the company for $1, which can only be sold back to the company for $1, so there is no benefit to "cashing out" later.
Their main product is collaborative organizational management software to help make your own workplace more democratic, and they do consulting on how to restructure existing orgs to go in that direction.
The General Intellect Unit podcast did an interview with their team on the history of the org, how they operate, and socially what it is like to work at a place without a hierarchy, and how conflicts are managed.
I don't know any successful ones yet.
I think the fast-growth startup model popularized by Silicon Valley has a lot of potential as a way to bring power to workers though. The way folks like Paul Graham managed to convince everyone that VC funding was the default structure for a field with practically no capital costs was a real coup for the capital class.
If you're looking to start your own, I'd recommend building specialist tooling software for underserved professions. Chip design software stands out to me as an example of something economically active where nobody can stand their tools, but if you know something further from tech that'd be a better choice. This sort of thing is invisible to VC because nobody has built a huge tooling company since the 90s, it's reasonable to bootstrap (which you'll have to do with no VC money), and it builds its own growth market since you're actually helping your target market become relevant.
I came across this list a while back. Seems like a pretty comprehensive resource.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Twin All I know of unfortunately
More examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_cooperative#Examples
