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Mar 3, 2013, 5:25 PM

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Dependencies

[2] AXKKXBWN Initial attempt at writing down my ideas for a company based on trust.

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It feels prosaic, even trite to write this, because our language has
been so long corrupted by those who would abuse such words for
personal gain (at others' loss), but I want to know what it is like to
work with a group of people where the fundamental principle of all our
interaction is trust, where I, and the people I work with on it, will
be utterly honest and open with everyone we come into contact with
(including, of course, each other.) I can feel the claws of a million
corporate ethos statements, and our collective cynicism about them,
rending my very will to write this down. But upon my life, if it is
worth anything at all, I assert that this is true. After the love and
well being of my family, to do meaningful, creative work in an
environment of trust, honesty, and respect is all I really want from
life.

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The Experiment

The experiment is, briefly, this: I have an idea for a form of
"shareholding" partnership where a partner's equity is directly based
upon the amount of time they've contributed to the effort, with a
simple algorithm for allocating revenue among the partners. The thing
that's somewhat radical about the experiment is that, unlike every
model I've seen for business, this one is designed explicitly to work
only in an environment of absolute honesty and mutual trust. It's kind
of intended to be the economic equivalent of functional programming,
where instead of throwing out mutability and side effects to gain
confidence about the correctness of our code, we throw out the
assumption that we have to agressively defend ourselves against
malicious actors with structures of control. Personally, beyond the
love and well-being of my family, all I really want from life is to be
able to do interesting, creative work with a group of good people in
an environment of total honesty and openness. To see if I can make
this happen is the purpose of this experiment.
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way. What I want to create is an opportunity to do profitable work, to
create wealth, without compulsion to spend a certain number of hours
in a certain place doing a certain task. The way I see it, such
compulsion is only necessary in the absence of honesty and the absence
of trust.

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way. What I want to create is an opportunity to do profitable creative
work, to create wealth, without compulsion to spend a certain number
of hours in a certain place doing a certain task. The way I see it,
such compulsion is only necessary in the absence of honesty and the
absence of trust.
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inevitable end. The question to be answered is, what is the value of
of the work produced during that time? This, of course, can only

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inevitable end. The question to be answered is, what is the objective
worth of the work produced during that time? This, of course, can only
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hours, or days of *their* lives they're willing to devote to having
what it is you've produced. For this moment in history, money is as

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hours, or days of *their* lives they're willing to devote to procuring
whatever it is you've produced. For this moment in history, money is as
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I don't know exactly, but a scheme I'd like to try is something like,
after 3 months, the value of an hour of labor in the pool begins to
depreciate by something like two minutes per month. This means that
the value of that labor goes to zero after two years and nine months;
if we tried 6 months and one minute per month, it'd be five and a half
years. It's probably an imperfect scheme, and it very deliberately
ignores the question of good work versus bad, because to be honest I
don't want to collaborate with someone who produces bad work; I'd much
prefer to simply, sadly let them know that they're no longer welcome
on the project (but that they will continue to be paid, as everyone
else, for the value that they contributed while I/we trusted them.)
The advantages, though, are prodigious. Each participant can expect to
be fairly and impartially compensated for the time they've spent on
the project, insofar as there's any compensation to be had. There is
no lower bound, and a very natural upper bound, on the amount that
anyone can work. If someone ceases contributing or becomes unwelcome,
their share of the overall total will fall off at first slowly, then
with increasing rapidity as the total amount of effort invested by
others grows. And, if the project is to be successful, then the
benefits will accrue to everyone who has participated in making it a
success.

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I don't know exactly, but a scheme I'd like to try is: after 6 months,
the value of an hour of labor in the pool begins to depreciate by
something like two minutes per month. This means that the value of
that labor goes to zero after three years; if we tried 6 months and
one minute per month, it'd be five and a half years. It's probably an
imperfect scheme, and it very deliberately ignores the question of
good work versus bad, because to be honest I don't want to collaborate
with someone who produces bad work; I'd much prefer to simply, sadly
let them know that they're no longer welcome on the project (but that
they will continue to be paid, as everyone else, for the value that
they contributed while I/we trusted them.) The advantages, though, are
prodigious. Each participant can expect to be fairly and impartially
compensated for the time they've spent on the project, insofar as
there's any compensation to be had. There is no lower bound, and a
very natural upper bound, on the amount that anyone can work. If
someone ceases contributing or becomes unwelcome, their share of the
overall total will fall off at first slowly, then with increasing
rapidity as the total amount of effort invested by others grows. And,
if the project is to be successful, then the benefits will accrue to
everyone who has participated in making it a success.
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the company in that way.

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the company in that way. Second, there should be no central "entity"
that accumulates money for any period longer than, say, a week or so,
but any revenue should *immediately* be paid out to the
participants. Avoiding the central accumulation of a pool of money
seems like the most straightforward way to avoid any sort of
corruption.
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trust that if I spend some money to benefit everyone, that repayment of that will
be treated as a moral (and no other) sort of obligation by those in
company with me. I want for nothing stronger than the word of a good
person as a guarantee. Likewise, if, at some point down the road we
wished to invite a new member to our company and that person could not
financially manage to survive on the value produced by their initial
contributions of time (due to it being a small fraction of the amassed
total value) I would have no compunction about issuing that person a
series of loans, to be repaid as they are able (providing that doing
so would not jeopardize my own well-being.) For, of course, inviting a
new member requires that he or she be entrusted with far more than
just a bit of money.

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trust that if I spend some money to benefit everyone, that repayment
of that will be treated as a moral (and no other) sort of obligation
by those in company with me. I want for nothing stronger than the word
of a good person as a guarantee. Likewise, if, at some point down the
road we wished to invite a new member to our company and that person
could not financially manage to survive on the value produced by their
initial contributions of time (due to it being a small fraction of the
amassed total value) I would have no compunction about issuing that
person a series of loans, to be repaid as they are able (providing
that doing so would not jeopardize my own well-being.) For, of course,
inviting a new member requires that he or she be entrusted with far
more than just a bit of money. Costs would have to be distributed in
the same manner as compensation; this is of course equivalent to simply
subtracting costs prior to the distribution of dividends if it's more
convenient to do it that way, though I'd almost prefer distribution
first and contribution to costs second. After all, this shouldn't be a
problem in an environment of honor and trust.
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membership of the company to individuals worthy of profound trust will
obviate the need for much of a formal process.

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membership of the company by explicit invitation to individuals known
worthy of profound trust will obviate the need for much of a formal process.
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I have willfully chosen to spend 3 hours and 26 minutes of my lifetime writing this document.

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I have willfully chosen to spend 3 hours and 59 minutes of my lifetime writing this document.
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