I suppose I did speak a bit accusatively with the word “you” instead of impersonally, sorry, but this is how some people think of their employees, it’s an attitude you almost outright expressed with your analogy, and it was worth addressing. Obviously what you said is the legal position, nobody was saying otherwise. But it could imply ownership if you wanted. That’s a plausible change you could make to either the law or company structures. It’s something that can change over time simply by publishing information on company regulators’ websites that people look at when they start companies, if you want. Are you open to that kind of change? That’s the question, and you didn’t seem very open to it at all. Some people, especially labour activists who have been trying to give workers more rights since forever, would probably respond positively. You don’t have to have an answer.

> nobody was saying otherwise

The parent I replied to wanted to use the government to force the issue.

You and anybody else are free to set up and run a corporation the way you please. If it works better, others will copy it. You can even set up a collective, or a commune, or a workers' cooperative. It's not illegal in the US.

Whether I am open to your vision of how a company should operate is irrelevant. In a free market, you get to choose how your company will operate. And the best structure will win.

> Back when I ran Zortech, which was privately held, we gave each employee a cut of the monthly sales.

That’s really awesome man, I wish you’d started with that.

We also demanded that employees could wear whatever they wanted in the office, but when meeting a customer, they had to wear a suit. This caused some grumbling, which we dug into, and found they were simply reluctant to buy a suit. So we paid for their suits.

And ... they loved them! They were really proud of their suits (for many it was their very first one) and enjoyed visiting customers with them on. Our customers liked it, too, and would remark that no other tech company representative would wear one. They took it as a mark of respect for the customers, as tech representatives usually were slobs. It was a big win for us, and a fun way to differentiate us from our competitors.

The conventional wisdom is one's dress doesn't matter, but in my experience it makes a big difference.