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Comment by danieka | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have recommended reading on worker-owned corporations? How would it work in practice? Would it work? Are there any success stories?

I imagine that eg consultancies could be worker-owned.

Could a startup be worker-owned? How would that be different from a typical startup where workers receive stock grants? In the way they are governed?

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Wikipedia is your friend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Not many success stories so far. A startup can be a cooperative but there will be no stock to grant. One worker = One vote. You can probably see why these things are not really popular.

Every startup is worker owned before it takes outside investment capital. Being worker-owned means either being limited to organic growth, or being forced to incur debt which is generally worse than giving up equity. It can totally work in sectors where capital intensity is very low, but it's a non-starter for businesses that are inherently dependent on large amounts of capital or predicated on quick initial growth.

A notable success story is the Mondragon Corporation. It's a federation of worker-owned cooperative businesses, and is the 7th largest company in Spain with billions in yearly revenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

what industry is this?

From the Wikipedia link: "At the end of 2016, it employed 74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge. By 2019, 81,507 people were employed."

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