I’ve been thinking about the same. Starting a company with good intentions is all well and good but the founders won’t want to or be able to run it forever, and then it seems like your options are either selling to a big company or going public. I’m interested to know more about experiences and practicalities of handing ownership to the employees in a tech company.
As far as I can tell the most public examples are both larger and smaller than what I feel would end up where a tech coop company would end up. Larger because examples like Mondragon corp is just much larger and much more stable than a starting coop would be. Smaller because much coop organization and literature is oriented to something like a coffee shop or restaurant.
A direction might be putting together financing as a coop to purchase an ongoing company that a single founder is maybe ready to turn over or sell - lifestyle companies ready to turn over are maybe an interesting category for this kind of transition.
