Open Book Finances

The benefits of open book finances is that everyone is aware of how well/bad the company is doing.

Not the usual cloak and dagger hush hush style, where no-one is aware they may actually be close to bankruptcy or that the actual money earner is product B not the glorified Product "Novergoingtowork".

Or that hardware cost was 1% of expenditure while salaries was 70% of which pointless meetings accounted for 30%...

Good idea. Open and honesty prevails. Now who dares opening their books publicly? To their customers and competitors...

I've brought this idea up on occasion with one of my inlaws who runs a small business, nothing sexy but it makes money and is profitable and growing. He hates the idea, when I ask why he responds with "it's just not how it's done" I think it's a shame though as it is a family business with a few employees and I recon they would find those employees would feel much more empowered to see the business do well and feel more a part of it. It is after all their work as well which goes into make the business grow.

I believe Apple tried this in its early years, some time after Jobs returned from India and prior to his ouster, and that it didn't work so well. There were problems with employees comparing salaries and feeling slighted at pay differences and whatnot.

I just recall reading that in one of the books about Jobs and Apple, but don't recall the details or which book. Anyone else more familiar with this episode in Apple's history?

This is very important in startups (probably all size companies, but I've never worked at a xx,xxx person scale company to say).

Everyone wants to know this info and so if you don't share it explicitly someone has to construct an excel sheet or something every couple of weeks to send to the team. Why pay someone to do that when your interested coworkers can do it themselves?

Also, it makes things like giving everyone a company credit card much easier to manage - if Bob can see what Alice is buying on her card (and vice versa) it keeps everyone honest.

How do you prevent against sabotage/espionage?

One benefit of hidden finances is that someone new employee can't come in, run analysis on your books, then leave (while courting big $$) and make it themselves (and maybe poach key people who they know aren't asking for their fair value in pay).

There is a popular saying that someone's checkbook embodies their priorities... if this is the case, opening your finances would basically completely reveal your strategies and tactics. Why is Apple so secretive about their supply chain?

Another upside is you end up with a company full of auditors so its unlikely there is going to be much funny business going on.