[simonh]

It seems like employee-owned co-ops are an alternative to traditional company organisation. There's nothing to stop anyone from founding such things right now, in fact some do exist though not sure about in the software space, but I suspect there are so few for good reasons.

Meanwhile a lot of startups do compensate employees with stock and options though, under conventional company structures. That's overall a small segment of the industry, but it is an option. A lot of programmers work for conventional businesses in traditional domains though, where radical corporate structures are just pie in the sky.