[LunaSea]

Thanks for the enlightening post ! I had just a question.

You talk about the "brightest in the industry [...] will choose to work in cooperatives".

Wouldn't most people prefer the high-risk / high-reward choice that the startups model offers ? Or am I too cynical ?

[solarlion]

Well, the brightest has an asterisk where the asterisk corresponds to those who are orienting their lives towards service and the common good - those seeking solutions to our shared problems - rather than simply personal benefit.

If the goal of life is simply 'self-service' - making tons of money and living fat (ie. ‘he with the most toys wins’ mentality) - then cooperatives are not the path an individual will choose.

If the goal is to help others while working together with peers who share a common purpose, then a cooperative makes a lot of sense as a model.

In my case I realized that much of our society is oriented fundamentally towards greed with consumer capitalism actually manipulating us to be more greedy.

I was simply looking for a company structure that helped us to learn to be more generous through our work together. While I can’t say honestly that our work is yet shaking the foundations of capitalism, I can say that we are learning to be more selfless, more generous, by working within a cooperative structure that encourages us to help meet each others’ needs along with those of the clients we serve.