[ale] [ot] an open source company?

Christopher Bergeron christopher at bergeron.com
Tue Dec 3 00:55:16 EST 2002


Hey guys, I need your opinions on something...   I'm in the process of 
incorporating a company.  It's in a great untapped market, and it's a 
novel company, and it's got amazing potential (a few hundred billion in 
revenue over the next 10 years [ yes thats a B]).  Here's my quandry: 
 should I "open-source" the company?  Would it be possible to do so (be 
careful if you say no, because you just might motivate me to prove you 
wrong).  :)  I understand that there are certain aspects of a 
corporation that have to remain "secret".  

I'm working with many people across the world (most of whom I've never 
met) and we're looking at starting this venture.  What I wonder is, 
could I "open" it up so that the best "performers" get the most return 
from the company?  It's really hard to explain what I'm thinking, but 
it's along the lines of:  100% profit gets divided x ways to the 
"shareholders".  To become a shareholder you have to be a "producer".  A 
producer would be comprised of let's say the top 4 Sales guys, the top 4 
engineers, the top 4 etc....

So you have 100% of the profits of a company.  The ideal business model 
would be X% sales, Y% engineering, Z% management, W% something else, 
etc.  Of those percentages, you break each one up into another 
percentage level (lets say 50% - the other 50% goes towards the budget 
of that department).  So for example, your sales department becomes:

50% the budget for "sales" department
12.5% Ricky at hotmail.com
12.5% best sales of america, ltd
12.5% huang in china
12.5% imhimpontoag in india
----------
100% of the sales proceeds (which is a pre-determined fraction of the 
total profits).

This would be calculated using a moderation or voting or business model 
system to determine who the "top producers" are.

The exact model hasn't been determined yet (obviously); but I wonder if 
something like this could work...

Obviously, this is a total shot in the dark, but I'm wondering if 
there's something obvious that I'm not seeing.  I'm not a "business" 
guy, but I have common sense and a good taste for logic (duh - that's 
why I use linux!).

Any suggestions / ideas / thoughts???

-CB

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale






More information about the Ale mailing list