[jisaacstone]

I went to high school with this guy, and used his company as a payment processor when I was running a small retail shop. That was about 4 years ago. really did a good job nailing down the small merchant niche by removing dumb fees like 'drop fee' and 'statement fee'

It's been really weird to see everyone's reaction to this thing. Surreal almost. Didn't see Notch get this kind of hate when he shared his bonus with all employees. Perhaps it's because he works in the financial industry?

[Someone1234]

It is because he is promoting "evil" socialist ideas that go against the very grain of capitalism (essentially sharing the wealth, and sharing the profits).

He's upset a lot of rich and powerful people who don't want their poor underlings to start asking why they aren't benefiting from the company's growth or profit margins.

Essentially he upset the status quo.

[cpwright]

It would be fine for him to share the profits, if the profits were his to share. The lawsuit seems to be that he was paying himself salary instead of distributing profits to cut out the minority shareholder's from their rightful percentage of profits (turning profits into his own salary).

Then it sounds like to spite his brother (the minority partner) he came up with a self-promoting way to give those profits to other people; and enrich himself through speaking deals, etc. again at the expense of the minority partner.

[zymhan]

This guy is not the first person in history to pay his employees well. You're sadly mistaken if you think this guy is some socialist hero to the working class.

[Someone1234]

He isn't. But he is seen that way by others, and that's why upset THEM. This is more about them and how they perceive it (and the associated media) than about him directly.

[jsprogrammer]

>Perhaps it's because he works in the financial industry?

It could be. There is definitely an adversarial relationship between owners and employees (both are competing for the same pie, in most models) and I'm comfortable guessing that many in the finance industry (including the industry media) identify more strongly with owners than employees. If such an identity is stronger, it's more than reasonable to expect that those with that identity will show undue bias towards those who seem to have a similar identity and against those who may be viewed as a type of adversary.

The industry appears to be founded on the idea of all profits flowing to owners. It seems reasonable that the industry would generally reject alternative models with little thought.

[lifeformed]

With Notch's situation, Mojang feels like a small team of people who built a single video game together (whether or not that's actually the case), so profit-share seems like a reasonable response. Gravity feels like just a "normal" company, a 9-5 white collar desk job, indistinguishable from other ones. Most people can relate to that kind of situation more than an indie game team.

[peppage]

Do you think America vs Sweden has anything to do with it?

[DaveWalk]

I was going to suggest the same -- I don't think Notch would be doing 24 TV interviews in 3 days, including at Fox, about his company's payroll. I think it wouldn't stick, because he is foreign and the US news-watching public would assume it's just a weird thing that a foreigner might do.

[whatok]

I had to Google "notch bonus" to find out what you were talking about. Maybe when you don't have a press campaign accompanying things it flies under the radar and seems more sincere.