[solar-ice]

Part of the issue (in countries where you're not liable to be shot or accused by the police of running a cult or what-have-you) is that worker co-ops do not generally have access to significant capital or loans from VCs and banks which are scared of them, so cannot usually spend outside their means to grow - while companies that mesh well with current financialised society can.

As a result, co-ops need to grow differently and often compete differently; you can't afford to pay 50 people right out the gate to build Starcraft 3 to sell in 2 years' time. You need to be making money from day 1, and you can't compete directly with companies that have access to capital or you lose immediately.

There do exist co-ops in the video game industry - Motion Twin, behind Dead Cells, is one.

[vladharbuz]

I'm very interested in this point! Do you think there is something about the structure of co-operatives that intrinsically makes them less attractive to investors? Or do you think that the fear you mentioned is just a result of them being currently unconventional, and this problem will be fixed once we culturally become more open to alternative ways of organising work?

[jasode]

>there is something about the structure of co-operatives that intrinsically makes them less attractive to investors?

It's the intrinsic structure of being owned by the workers that makes co-operatives less financially attractive to outside investors. My previous comment about why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11166080

Co-operatives also have to compete in the marketplace (compete in both the costs & revenue) with other companies that are not co-ops. This financial pressure from other global economic actors is what causes co-ops like Mondragon to outsource labor to subcontractors or workforce in other countries who are not true members of the co-op. Mondragon appliances, etc still have to compete in sales with everyone else.

[vladharbuz]

This is an interesting answer, thank you! I agree that co-ops using only funds contributed by their members will struggle to compete with companies that receive large investments. However, the bigger question is why investors would not want to invest in a co-operative. As far as I can tell, you're saying that investment in co-operatives is intrinsically less attractive because investors would obtain some kind of fixed return, as opposed to permanent ownership of shares in the company. Is that what you meant?

If so, the question that remains is a relatively open one. Let's say that, for the sake of argument, we reached the conclusion that organising companies as co-operatives would bring considerable social benefits to the majority of people compared to the current way or organising work. If this were true, what would have to be changed so as to make them a reasonable option? Perhaps our values of prioritising economic values over social value? Perhaps regulations on shareholders?

Yanis Varoufakis proposes a system that answers this question in Another Now [0], but I'm also curious to hear other answers.

[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49098225-another-now

[matheusd]

We could ask! This is HN, which a non-insignificant cohort of various types of investors (angels, VCs, maybe bankers?) visit.

So let's open a couple of Ask HN/Pool HN: Are you an investor? Did you invest in a coop-like startup? Would you invest in a coop-like startup? Under which conditions?

[vladharbuz]

This is a wonderful idea. I'll try to draft something like this, but if you post this yourself, or notice it posted by someone else with more experience in the VC world than me, would you please ping me? Contact details at https://vladh.net. :)

[nunez]

Would the fact that the capital held by a lot of investors is provided by companies that are not co-ops limit their ability to invest in co-ops?