This is missing the point (full disclosure: I know several people working at Crisp and co-organise workshops with them in Sweden).

I remember hearing Henrik Kniberg talk about this at Oredev a while ago, and we ended up restructuring our consultancy firm quite close to their model in 2013. The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and earns money on their own, but some shared overhead (such as accountants, paperwork, getting master-services agreements with banks and insurance certificates so you can do business) can be effectively shared by everyone under the same umbrella.

our model is not a 10% haircut, but that all shared costs are divided according to the proportion of revenue quarterly. the company also doesn't have a boss or anyone in charge (legally, in the UK, we have designated partners who are allowed to sign documents, but everyone has that right, so everyone is a boss and nobody is the Boss).

Our company is also not allowed by the statute to have any assets or own any IP, that all belongs to individuals. This is to avoid any conflict of interest and people starting to 'work for the company' in the future.

This model obviously wouldn't apply to companies trying to accumulate wealth/IP/assets and looking to create an exit by selling the company. But it works amazingly well if you want a lifestyle consulting business where everyone does their stuff.

Edit: typos

You are missing the point of my comment. I wasn't disparaging Crisp nor passing negative judgement about their business model. (I compared it favorably to doctors contributing to a shared practice.)

My critique is of the terrible writing in the BBC article which warps the situation to spin it into a story about "no CEO". In other words, Katie Hope wrote the BBC story such that the reader is manipulated into thinking this:

- cause: "no CEO" --> effect: "better business"

When the real cause&effect is this:

- cause: "workers pay the company a rental fee" --> effect: "workers conclude they don't need a CEO boss"

The more salient point is that the "workers pay fees to the shared company" and a downstream side effect is the "no CEO". Why do we not read about freelance hairstylists and doctors in group practices having "no CEO"?!? Because it's a non-story that would waste readers' time. The cause & effect is obvious there.

>The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and earns money on their own,

Yes, I agree. Katie's journalism omitted this critical detail. Therefore, her subsequent paragraphs with contrasting quotes from Drew Houston (Dropbox) and Meg Whitman (Hewlett-Packard) are idiotic comparisons. Dropbox/HP are not consultancies where workers pay a royalty fee to work there.

in terms of 'make them untractive to do business with', since the company was restructured in this way we worked with some of the worlds largest investment banks, big telecoms companies, and a ton of other parties that require a lot of paperwork. nobody seemed to mind that we're structured this way or find us unattractive to work with.

I have had bad experiences with clients acting in bad faith destroying one of the companies I worked for

Another common one I've seen is hair stylists. They often rent their booth from the shop in exchange for equipment, pay processing, foot traffic especially, and so on. They get some cut of the base pricing plus tip money. Idea is they'll come out profitable on a regular basis despite paying to be there. Just another business expense really.

" If workers are the ones paying the company, it's easier for them to agree not to have a CEO manage them."

Testing the comparison again, this is also true for hair stylists. They're the ones who have to pay to be there and maximize their revenue. They'd rather be left alone to use whatever methods they can to keep customers happy, regular, and with high tips. Likewise for a consultancy where people renting space in the company would want to be flexible to maximize number of clients and revenue by targeting methods to each one's or each group's preferences. Both for hair stylists and IT consultants this take experimentation that might not happen in organizations with top-down management, esp micro-management.

I'm fairly sure this is also how strippers often work. Pay the house a fee for the night somewhere in the $50-$200 range, and then hopefully make it back in tips and private dances before the end of the evening.

In all three cases - strippers, hairdressers, consultants - this results in a clear and unambiguous motivation to do a good job and provide value to your customers or you lose your shirt.

In a manner of speaking.

If I want to eat what I kill, I'd rather go make millions (or starve) on Wall Street. At least there's a base salary instead of a base rent.

Flat fee + 10% of earnings seems very, very generous to me by comparison.

But I do agree that was a very important detail left out of the article!