I'm not talking about government regulating anything. Or saying all company structures should change, just that there are other options. When the company structure is formed instead of a S-corp/LLC structure there is something called a workers cooperative where the workers/employees have say in the company and its direction. I've only read about it so I'm sure there are legal structures involved for that setup. This isn't discussed in any business schools from what I gather so maybe some examples would help: https://institute.coop/examples-worker-cooperatives
A solo-dev starting contract work is a great example. They are the owner/operator of everything, profits, losses, direction. Say their work expands and they hire 3 other people - do those people have a say in direction/projects/clients and share profits/losses or are they just assigned tasks and paid for them? Think of a workers cooperative as more like a farmers coop where everyone gets a share of the literal fruit/veggies coming from the farm because they all worked it and have equity and they collectively decided what the crops were for that season.
Tech companies with stock options/RSU's for individual contributors are equity without any say in the company direction. If that company ends up laying off people because of bad management decisions (hiring too many, bad economic forecast, random projects, etc), the people hurt are the employees who had no say in the direction and usually the bad managers stay or have golden parachutes. Like I said earlier, I'm just suggesting an alternative structure perhaps one that doesn't answer to shareholders demand for infinite quarterly growth.
A solo-dev starting contract work is a great example. They are the owner/operator of everything, profits, losses, direction. Say their work expands and they hire 3 other people - do those people have a say in direction/projects/clients and share profits/losses or are they just assigned tasks and paid for them? Think of a workers cooperative as more like a farmers coop where everyone gets a share of the literal fruit/veggies coming from the farm because they all worked it and have equity and they collectively decided what the crops were for that season.
Tech companies with stock options/RSU's for individual contributors are equity without any say in the company direction. If that company ends up laying off people because of bad management decisions (hiring too many, bad economic forecast, random projects, etc), the people hurt are the employees who had no say in the direction and usually the bad managers stay or have golden parachutes. Like I said earlier, I'm just suggesting an alternative structure perhaps one that doesn't answer to shareholders demand for infinite quarterly growth.