You misunderstood me, I am not saying you should exploit your workers, pay them fair wage. What I am saying is that founder who took the risk should enjoy the fruits.
> How is the risk the founder takes that different to Employee #1's?
Employee #1 will probably be getting a salary, if the company fails he can get a job somewhere else. Meanwhile the founders who worked on the idea probably used their savings initially not to mention quitting their jobs and working on the idea and facing humiliation if the company fails.
That takes courage which everyone cannot do which is why founders deserve to get rich if they build something valuable, employees not so much unless they are willing to stick it out till the end.
I am not sure what you mean by the high flying CEO, I am talking more from the founder's side who puts his money and time on the line. Take Musk as an example, he invested most of his money in Tesla and Space X and both the companies came close to bankruptcy.
Those companies and many others will not work as a cooperative.
Because most people who will be working in the cooperative are sane and will bail out if things get tough. You need a crazy founder to take enormous risks.
Just look around you, most of the tech titans are founders who took risk, can you give examples of tech cooperatives which are equally famous?
>if the company fails he can get a job somewhere else //
Because it's so hard to adapt CEO skills to the jobs market? Whilst peons can pick up a low paid job and should just lap it up and be happy about it??
If the founder is taking a risk running the company then the employees are taking a risk working there; their risk is often as great, the chance to lose one's livelihood.
To my mind a guy in sales that wrote up £1 million of orders in one days work and a guy in janitorial that cleaned the toilets all day both did a days work and both deserve a days pay - they're both humans who gave a day of their lives to the purposes of the company.
The founder is also putting his money on the table while the employee is not. The employee can just say no to working in a startup, nobody is forcing him to work there.
The janitor should be paid the market rate, nobody is denying that but he should not expect to get rich via the company
> How is the risk the founder takes that different to Employee #1's?
Employee #1 will probably be getting a salary, if the company fails he can get a job somewhere else. Meanwhile the founders who worked on the idea probably used their savings initially not to mention quitting their jobs and working on the idea and facing humiliation if the company fails.
That takes courage which everyone cannot do which is why founders deserve to get rich if they build something valuable, employees not so much unless they are willing to stick it out till the end.