Stock price increase benefits workers quite a bit though.

Assuming workers own stock.

We are talking about Twilio specifically.

Which they do. Twilio's equity comp was fairly generous, at least for a time, and I believe all employees had equity as some percentage of their compensation. In addition, Twilio offered an ESPP that all employees could take advantage of.

(Full disclosure: former Twilio employee and current Twilio stockholder.)

Stock holder =/= worker

Most Twilio workers are paid at least partly in stock.

Maybe sometimes that's true but at Twilio all employee's are stock holders.

Thanks !

I didn't know, and apparently yes, Twillio employees get RSU at entry as a standard perk. Now, those are still just RSU.

I couldn't get an exact number but if they are in line with most other companies, the stock raising while hypothetically the employee compensation goes down the drain would still a net negative for employees.

No, just no. Capital extraction, be it dividend payout or stock buybacks, benefit existing stockholders, by definition. Stock buybacks, however, as opposed to dividend payout, in a free-ish market increase stock price, which prevents those with less free capital from being stockholders in the first place, which, under capitalist system, are the workers.

Stock buybacks benefit those with previously free capital while at the same time hurting those without free capital currently. In a capitalist system this does hurt workers quite a bit.

Am I missing something in your argument?

Are you saying the price of an individual stock is what's pricing people out? Having trouble reconciling that with the fact that only a few stocks are above $1000 (which doesn't seem to hard to reach if you want any substantial savings), and then stock splits and fractional shares happen often.

Or are you just saying that they will own a smaller percent of the total stock, so they have less say as stockholders?

This is the type of nonsense I expect to see on reddit. "excess profits should be used for salary increases, otherwise they'll go to the fatcat owners". Seriously?

Yes

There's tension over who gets profits. Should capital or labor?

It's a totally valid debate.

It's not a valid debate at all.

If workers want to take on the risks of the business they can become investors

It's completely valid.

If capital wants to take on the risks of being suddenly fired and losing access to healthcare, injured on the job, sued for non-compete, being forced to relocate to keep benefits, lack the freedom of vacations, sick leave, parental and bereavement leave, being forced to commute to and work in an office with other people during a deadly global pandemic, deal with stress and potentially harassment and discrimination, sometimes be forced to surrender their work life balance to handle completely predictable emergencies, be forced to work on days off because of shortages and scheduling screw ups, be forced to travel to keep their job, they can roll up their sleeves and Get A Job.

It's ridiculous to pretend this isn't a valid negotiation.

If you own a lawnmower (capital), and you want to hire someone to mow your yard (labor), it's clearly and obviously a negotiation for appropriate wages. Why would it be ANY different if you're paying them to mow your neighbor's yard, and you pocket the profit???

Oh I forgot, you went to the HOA and pulled a regulatory capture coup d'etat and convinced them that only Certified lawn companies should be able to charge to mow in the subdivision, and there's a prohibitive fee and delays and inspections, making it practically impossible for the guy to save up and buy his own lawn mower to compete with you and "take on the risks" of business ownership you worried about.

never heard of an owner dying from OSHA violations

I know, as if the people who actually create the value should receive it!

Software development is a really interesting capital class, because the means of production are humans. So it’s not the same as owning a big loom machine and expecting a return on your capital investment, in software the loom is people, you don’t own them and they are directly linked to your value creation. This needs more thought than simple: worker vs owner dichotomy

> ... employee bonuses or salary raises

or pensions, fully paid HC, the list goes on.

There is no such thing as "excess profits" -- people start businesses and invest in businesses in order to get rich. Anything less than "excess profit" isn't enough profit.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s anti-capitalistic in an original sense.

One purpose of the free market is to deliver the best value to consumers at the lowest expense possible. If a company is making excessively vast profit, then there isn’t enough competition making a cheaper product of the same value to the consumer.

‘Excess profit’ can be argued as the free market not working. Profit has no value to humanity if the system doesn’t deliver on other promises.