Mark E. Hayes wrote: > > The way I see it, which judging by the responses is wrong, you > start a > business by doing what you know how to do. I can't start a > business > making paper because I have no clue how to do that. A big > corporation > can do that by simply buying another company out. But that big > corp > started somewhere, probably by a person or group of persons > doing what > they know how to do, and doing it well. Since they did it well, > they > made a profit and the business prospered. Now we have an entity > (the > corp)that was assembled by the sweat of it's workers. That core > group > that gave the corp it's legs to stand on.
I see that you are familiar with the works of Marx. Yet we are all familiar with how successful Marxism has been as an economic system. Allow me to inject some counterplay into your argument. First, it's not like those initial workers got nothing. At the very least, they got paid a salary. Secondly, when we're talking about the first few workers at a startup, more often than not those workers are handed pieces of equity in the form of stock options. Secretaries who worked at Microsoft from the very early days have gotten filthy rich precisely because of that equity. Third, and most importantly, it's not like those workers are forced to work there. They are free to quit whenever they want. If some other company offers them a better deal, they are free to take it at any time. So the analysis breaks down as follows. Let's say I create my startup company and I decide want to hire you as my secretary. So I make you some sort of compensation offer which you are free to accept or refuse. Obviously I have to give you some sort of offer that is comparable to all the other secretarial offers you may be getting from other companies, otherwise you're not going to work for me, you're going to work for those other companies. So let's say my company does does become big. Why exactly are you, as my secretary, entitled to rewards beyond what may be stipulated in any equity that I had agreed to give you? If I agreed to give you equity, then you deserve the appreciation of that equity, but nothing more. Did you really 'build' that company? Not really, most likely you just did secretarial work just like all the other thousands of other secretaries around the country do every day (for which you got paid just like every other secretary). So why do you have any unusual claim to the success of the company beyond what was agreed upon in an equity package? Just because you happened to be there, you deserve more benefits than the average secretary? I simply don't see it as "giving the core group its legs to stand on" - you did the same secretarial work as you would have done anywhere else and you were paid an accompanying secretarial salary just like anywhere else. Just because you happened to do that secretarial work at my startup company does not by itself give you claim to the success of my company. If you negotiated some equity in your employment contract, that's one thing, but you don't deserve anything more than what you negotiated. That's like saying that if my brother wins the lottery, I am somehow automatically entitled to part of it. If my brother wants to give me some of the winnings, that's one thing, but I have no right to demand it of him. If you think that you as a startup worker should enjoy the benefits from the success of the company, then by all means negotiate yourself an equity stake. Generally, startup negotiations tilt on how much salary you get vs. how much equity you want. The more equity you want, the less salary you are offered. Nowadays, I see that most people are leaning towards more salary and less equity because of the dotcom bust. But the point is, if you choose to trade salary for equity, you can't return later and say "do-over" if the company becomes big. If you agreed to trade equity for salary, then that was your choice. After all, what happens if the company doesn't do well - I can't say "do-over" either, I can't just give you equity in lieu of salary, I have to pay you what I said I was going to pay you. >Along comes Joe or > Josephine > CEO, president, or whatever. They have a bug up their butt to > make even > more profit. After all their business worth (and salary) is > dictated by > the revenues they generate. They did not build that company, > they have > no sweat equity in it. What do they care if people are laid off > for the > sake of a couple million more dollars to the "bottom line". The > corp is > making good cake now, but when is enough, enough? Is it when > you have > outsourced all of the depts that do not have a big profit > center? When > you have laid off all of the workers that built the machine? > When you > have nothing left but people who wear expensive suits and make > ludicrous > administrative policies? Yeah, I know this is over-the-top, but > not too > far. I have worked in places like this. Surely you would agree that that's a rather unfair assessment. Sure, we've all had bad managers. But if you want to be looking at the bad side of things, you have to admit that not all workers are not exactly saints either. Some employees just sit around and chat on the phone with their friends all day long. Some workers steal from their company, and not just office-supplies - some workers have stolen computer equipment, furniture, basically anything that isn't nailed down. Some workers just surf the Internet all day and never do any work. I know guys who have commandeered their company's servers to set up secret porn websites. Consider this quote from Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip: "...here's the strangest backwardism of all: People seem surprised that captains of industry are stealing vast amounts of money at every opportunity. Back in our old dimension everyone assumed that C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s were weasels. Now it's big news. I think it's useful to put these corporate scandals in perspective. Every employee I ever worked with in my old cubicle-dwelling days was pillaging the company on a regular basis, too. But the quantity of loot was rarely newsworthy. My weasel co-workers were pocketing office supplies, fudging expense reports, using sick days as vacation and engaging in a wide array of work-avoidance techniques. Most people rationalize this kind of behavior by saying that corporations are evil and so the weasel employees deserve a little extra. The C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s aren't less ethical than employees and stockholders; they're just more effective. They're getting a higher quality of loot than the rank and file, and for that they must be punished..." http://gregdooley.com/good%20reads/Cubiclecrimes.html Now obviously, I'm not saying that all workers are like this. Most workers are honest people. But if you say you want to make a stand against unethical behavior in the workplace, then let's make a stand against ALL unethical behavior (from both managers and regular employees), not just certain kinds of unethical behavior. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=71067&t=70953 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
