Businesses need more verbs
"When you take infinite growth off the table, this entire world of possibilities opens up." — Ramsey Nassar, EMMA Technology Cooperative
We make this show to learn things, ask good questions, and let really cool people shine (and maybe occasionally get a little clever ourselves). This conversation did something different: it reminded us that what we're building isn't just a business model. It can be radical. And maybe it should be.
Ramsey Nassar, Gwen Pasquarello, and Andy Wallace at EMMA Technology Cooperative have spent five years as a worker-owned co-op building software and hardware for video games, theater, public installation, and media arts. And theme parks. And custom programming languages. And a nonprofit arcade collective. They're thriving.
This one gets into:
Why consensus produces the highest quality decisions at the lowest velocity
How their compensation model works: flat salary plus a percentage of every invoice cleared, paid out throughout the year as patronage dividends
How they survived a 10-month dry spell: suspending commissions, recording a debt to members on the books, and plugging away regardless
The Venn diagram problem: useful and interesting work vs. profitable work
Also: Emma Goldman (now on our reading list), and the strong case for EMMA jumpsuits
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