Nothing is enough!
Calm down. We just need to get the return our owners expect.
What about telling them that their expectations is modulated by what people can afford. And as it is they are paying over 100 times what it costs to developed and make our drugs.
But that is the point, there is an opportunity to get higher returns. The window has opened to raise our prices. What is wrong with that?
What is wrong with it is that it is an artificial ‘opportunity.’ The window that you are talking about is something that we are making up!
Wait, it is not just us…
Right, it is not just us. We are all raising prices because we can.
Which will result in higher levels of returns the fiscal year than last fiscal year.
I see that your mind is made up and my participation is cosmetic. I came prepared for that.
David took out an envelope and pushed it towards the power end of the table.
This is my letter of resignation. You can send my stuff to my house, later on. Or keep it, it doesn’t matter.
David, calm down. We are not accepting…
As the words kept spewing down from the power end of the table, David got up and walked out.
What’s Next?
It wasn’t the first time, and they will keep doing it. There is no bottom to their ‘fiduciary’ greed.
Well, you did it. Let’s take some time off as we said and figure out what is next. OK?
The Epiphany
Less than a week later, they had it. David have come running from the nearby lake into the cabin they had rented. As Thúy managed to slow him down she, too, became excited: they were going to start a new company to do pharmaceutical research based on David’s brand-as-fortune and Thúy’s business experience and energy.
Then David started to hesitate, afraid that his previous company was going to come after them and make their lives impossible. They would be stopped dead in their tracks even before they had a chance to do anything. Thúy gave him a deep, sustained hug.
David… David! They won’t come after you if you are not in competition with them. They will laugh and let you fry in your own grease.
Fry in my… what? OK, OK, I get what you mean…
Once you announce that you are not raising any serious capital, they’ll laugh. I did when you first said it, I did laugh. I was convinced that it would take a multimillion dollar lab to make any headway. Then you laughed and told me why not.
And if they don’t laugh, screw them. Plenty of people will come to my defense…
… plenty of people will be sympathetic and that’s it. Our biggest defense is that we are tiny and unimportant. That is the only thing we have going to us, OK?
‘Tiny and unimportant’ … maybe that is what we should call it, TAU.
TAU, reminds of UA.
Yeah. Whatever…
Don’t be dismissive, please. “UA” stands for Unincorporated Association. It is a new class of legal entity that does not include stock. There are no shares in the company. I do not think it exists outside California, but we can do business in every state of the union so long as we register it and pay taxes.
The fact that we will be operating without stock will make them fall off their chairs with laughter. They may even offer to buy a percentage of the company so they can have a laugh.
I like it. But, isn’t kind of ‘not-so-funny’ to not have company stock? I mean, what do we do for growth?
We are going to create a co-owned company, and run it as a co-managed company, too. I have read all about it. Growth will come and we will get the capital, but we won’t give our power over the business.
OK, I am listening…
Impact
OK, I’ll ask: what is a co-owned business?
Company. A co-owned company.
Company, business, whatever.
No, no, no. Not ‘whatever.’ A business is meant to ‘do business,’ do transactions, make money, be hyper-competitive like every other business. In any case, leave that to me. Trust me and don’t have to worry about that, for now
Yes, ma‘am. As you say.
You are so dramatic sometimes… But, you are right. I said that with my boss hat on. The point is to get away from that and learn from each other.
Let’s start with why I insisted on calling it a ‘company’ instead of ‘business.’
A business, as I said, is a money-making machine and that‘s that. A company, on the other hand, is a community of people working together to have a bigger impact that they could on their own. Besides, the work ’company‘ itself is a gem because it means a group of people who break bread together. Isn‘t that beautiful? We are going to create a space for a community of researchers working together to make a big impact. And also be financially successful.
How fine-anne-shelly successful
Creating a co-owned company is a strategy, but it is not magic. It depends on our results. Will they be accepted, embraced? In the end, we may not be that financially successfully, but that is the risk people always take when they start a business.
A ‘company,’ right?
What?…
You meant to say a ‘company,’ not a ‘bus…
… Right! Hey, you are good at this.
As I have said before, what I know doesn’t stand a chance when it meets what I’ve learned.
Explicit Alignment
As they were formalizing their company, they got the box from the company with David’ personal items.
By the end of the day they had created rHEALTH. And, more importantly, they had come with what Thúy called their Explicit Alignment. This include their intended Impact, Purpose, and Mission. The Impact was very important because it would tell all future members WHAT they were signing up FOR. The Purpose tells them WHY they were doing it. The Mission was the most tentative because it will fit its shape to whatever team they assembled so what they wrote sketched out WHAT they were going to do, WHEN, and HOW.
David struggled with the process, he wanted a solid Mission, a definite goal that would tell the team what to strive for. Everything else was bullshit.
I struggled with that, too. How will you get there if you don't know where you are going, right? That is Justification101 for planning. But, think about it, if our Impact is to give people the opportunity to live a healthy live, is the Mission more important than that. Can you really say that the goal of the Mission is more important than giving people the opportunity to live healthy lives?
But the Mission is the first step in getting to the Impact…
You are smart, but you are not that smart. Can you falsify what you just said? Are you being a scientist or a boss?
Well, look, I am always a…
That statement screams ’boss‘ to me. We cannot afford to create obstacles for people to join the team and creating a ’solid Mission‘ is creating an obstacle. Many people will ignore it because they want to work with you, they want to learn from you. But it is an obstacle that get bigger and bigger over time, until they quit to get away from it or submit to it and we all lose.
Open Relationships
They had talked about what Thúy knew about Trust Relationship, and they were now working through one they found online. They would then be ready to ask future potential rHEALTH to go through it, add their piece, and modify as needed.
I am still not clear on what co-owned company is.
It is a company that is not owned by anybody in particular. It is owned by the people who contribute to it.
So, if we take time off, we are owners anymore? That doesn’t seem right!
Well, no, if we take time off… OK, time out, I’ll tell you all I know about co-owned and co-managed companies. They are called RADIcAL companies, by the way.
So, that’s what the little-r stands for.
Yes, that. And the fact that rhealth.com was available and health.com was not.
Yes.
Co-management is similar to self-management but it is renamed to better reflect the fact that people do the management and not the company itself. There is no self when it comes to something like a company; people co-manage the company.
OK.
Co-ownership… co-ownership sounded scary when I first heard about it. I had the questions you had plus a bunch of others. What I found so appealing was that it is ownership based on contributions, not capital. That means that anybody can be an owner! That blew my mind and at the same time brought up all kinds of fears. What if somebody pretends to do contribute? Can somebody steal all my work and claim it as their own?
Yeah an…
… but the thing is that we gets to decide what is or isn’t a contribution. Everybody in the company decides. I had to think about that for a bit. And then I got very, very angry,
Why? I can ask why, right?
Because nobody had said so. Because it was invisible and then it became so obvious. We think of ourselves as so smart, but we never saw this… power? It was like a veil got lifted off and I could see clearly. I wanted to cry and punch the walls at the same time. I mean, WHY DO WE NEED BOSSES?
OK, OK. Calm down. Drop a ’lude.
Oh, I am calmed. You should have seen me when I first realized it.
I think I did.
I am OK now, better than ever, actually.
So ownership is dynamic, not static.
You… you say it so matter-of-fact. Like it is obvious…
Well, it is implied by what you just said. If you are constantly judging me, my worth in your eyes must change all the time. Nobody has a static view of other people.
It’s not your worth or anything like that, it is about what you did that struck me as a contribution to us as a community.
Yes, I understand, but if I do my best work and nobody sees that as a contribution, I am going to feel like crap. You may be judging based on my behavior, but I will internalize it as worth.
If you are doing your best work and nobody notices, then you need to talk more. Or different. In any case, they need to learn why what you have done is so important.
Good point. And that is what a ‘learning organization’ is all about, ain’t it? Besides, it will bring other benefits along. People can ask better questions and not feel left out of it. They would be more playful and kick the ball more… shit, it would lead to more innovation. Holy Mackerel! So, how does it work?
How does what work?
The contribution thing. Are there rules? Who keeps track of them? What?
Oh, there is an app for that.
David reached for his phone
What’s it called?
RADs, with an exclamation mark at the end.
Got it… It looks awfully simple to use. Here, I’ll invite you to rHEALTH, but I first have to create it. Oh, wait, it already exists. I will ask for an invite from the lonely, lovely member.
And… you are now a member of the rHEALTH community!
So, now… oh, I see, I press this button. And it… ejaculates stars every time I do.
David laughed full throat. And, suddenly, he stopped laughing and looked down for a bit. Finally, he looked up, and said,
This is going to change everything.
If they don’t throw us in jail to rot first.
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