Comments on: The hacking business model Well, the employee is guaranteed a certain bonus that way, even if the company does not generate any profit that year. Personally I don't think money is a great motivator, but I do believe it's important to have a fair and equal system in place to build a corporate culture based on working together towards the goal of building a successful company, not a culture where elbowing and backstabbing your way to the top of the foodchain is what everyone is occupying their minds with. These rules should allow people to focus on getting the job done, not focus on sucking up to the right persons. Well, the employee is guaranteed a certain bonus that way, even if the company does not generate any profit that year. Personally I don’t think money is a great motivator, but I do believe it’s important to have a fair and equal system in place to build a corporate culture based on working together towards the goal of building a successful company, not a culture where elbowing and backstabbing your way to the top of the foodchain is what everyone is occupying their minds with. These rules should allow people to focus on getting the job done, not focus on sucking up to the right persons.

]]>
By: Doug Leary/2011/05/21/the-hacking-business-model/#comment-5694 Doug Leary Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:26:03 +0000 Very interesting. For those who’d like to learn more about why this should be the standard model for any business, have a read of Small is Beautful by F Schumacher Wikipedia entry for Small is beautiful

]]>
By: The hacking business model » #AltDevBlogADay | Moslem-CyberTuts/2011/05/21/the-hacking-business-model/#comment-4746 The hacking business model » #AltDevBlogADay | Moslem-CyberTuts Mon, 23 May 2011 07:52:38 +0000 [...] How to create a sustainable business model that can be adopted & adapted by others [...] [...] How to create a sustainable business model that can be adopted & adapted by others [...]

]]>
By: links for 2011-05-22 – Kevin Burke/2011/05/21/the-hacking-business-model/#comment-4740 links for 2011-05-22 – Kevin Burke Mon, 23 May 2011 00:01:37 +0000 is this a club or a company? your being way to leninant in terms of creating another company that is like Google. is this a club or a company? your being way to leninant in terms of creating another company that is like Google.

]]>
By: links for 2011-05-22 « Gatunogatuno’s Weblog/2011/05/21/the-hacking-business-model/#comment-4719 links for 2011-05-22 « Gatunogatuno’s Weblog Sun, 22 May 2011 09:02:25 +0000 <cite>complete equality between all employees where everyone is given the same fair treatment</cite> Ah, I see! Then giving out no bonuses to anyone would work equally well in this scheme. Thanks for the reply. complete equality between all employees where everyone is given the same fair treatment

Ah, I see! Then giving out no bonuses to anyone would work equally well in this scheme.

Thanks for the reply.

]]>
By: Mattias Jansson /2011/05/21/the-hacking-business-model/#comment-4676 Mattias Jansson  Sat, 21 May 2011 10:18:54 +0000 Great (re)post :-) I've been thinking a lot about this lately! A friend of mine worked in a truly co-operative non-profit company until recently, and watching that company sink into the ground over the years has reinforced my beliefs that a benevolent dictatorship is still required for the company to succeed in the long term. Any set of rules will have loopholes and given time they can be abused through no obvious fault of most employees. I agree most decisions can and should be made unanimously, but having a core group of people (or person) responsible helps keep things on track. Shared copyright makes no sense in a company where there's shared ownership of the code. The idea of shared copyright is useful (we use it for our volunteer contributions) but since most developers won't be working alone in a cubicle on a single piece of code, the line is very blurred legally and could be tricky to enforce. The original manifesto has a strong bias towards distributed / online / remote work, but I'm not sold on that idea. It can work but having people in the same office is just much more productive, especially if you want things work in a bottom-up emergent fashion with unanimous decision making. On the topic of bonuses, I'm very torn. There's a lot of psychological research that shows that bonuses and rewards are detrimental to intrinsic motivation. You should make sure that money is not a problem for employees, but I'm not sure about paying out the profits every year. Statistically, 80% of companies fail in the first five years, and another 80% fail in the next 5 years. Having a company aim to be sustainable, and keep its money invested in itself to sustain future salaries and development seems like a more pragmatic approach -- particularly in these exciting / turbulent times. Alex <a href="http://twitter.com/AiGameDev" rel="nofollow">@AiGameDev</a> P.S. You should probably put the original Creative Commons license at the bottom too. Great (re)post :-) I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately!

A friend of mine worked in a truly co-operative non-profit company until recently, and watching that company sink into the ground over the years has reinforced my beliefs that a benevolent dictatorship is still required for the company to succeed in the long term. Any set of rules will have loopholes and given time they can be abused through no obvious fault of most employees. I agree most decisions can and should be made unanimously, but having a core group of people (or person) responsible helps keep things on track.

Shared copyright makes no sense in a company where there’s shared ownership of the code. The idea of shared copyright is useful (we use it for our volunteer contributions) but since most developers won’t be working alone in a cubicle on a single piece of code, the line is very blurred legally and could be tricky to enforce.

The original manifesto has a strong bias towards distributed / online / remote work, but I’m not sold on that idea. It can work but having people in the same office is just much more productive, especially if you want things work in a bottom-up emergent fashion with unanimous decision making.

On the topic of bonuses, I’m very torn. There’s a lot of psychological research that shows that bonuses and rewards are detrimental to intrinsic motivation. You should make sure that money is not a problem for employees, but I’m not sure about paying out the profits every year. Statistically, 80% of companies fail in the first five years, and another 80% fail in the next 5 years. Having a company aim to be sustainable, and keep its money invested in itself to sustain future salaries and development seems like a more pragmatic approach — particularly in these exciting / turbulent times.

Alex
@AiGameDev

P.S. You should probably put the original Creative Commons license at the bottom too.

]]>