#BuyTwitter is going up for a vote – help us win!
Great news, birdies:
Thanks to you, Twitter has a chance to become a user-owned co-op. Imagine if the "people's news network" was democratically owned!
In April and May, Twitter shareholders will be voting on our resolution: to study the advantages of converting to democratic ownership. They’ll call the vote at the annual meeting at Twitter HQ, on May 24th or 25th. Most votes will made via proxy, especially for shareholders that have a large amount of stock in Twitter. Ideally, we win with 51% or more of the vote – and if we want to learn from this process and make a stronger proposal for 2018, we need at least 3%!
If we win this vote, Twitter will commission a report to consider a transition to a more equitable kind of shared ownership, something like the models that have made the Green Bay Packers, REI, and the Associated Press so popular, profitable, and trustworthy. Better information means better business decisions for shareholders.
Our small group of volunteer organizers has come a long way to get here. Our strategy for winning this vote is to run an awareness campaign. We’ll focus on a few big shareholders like the California pension fund, which value democratic ownership.
Want to help us win? Here’s how to get involved:
1) Follow https://twitter.com/BuyThisPlatform
2) Tweet your vision for a user-owned Twitter using #WeAreTwitter #BuyTwitter
2) Become a shareholder! You can attend the annual meeting at Twitter HQ, and vote! Buy a share of Twitter stock from a stockbroker, or take 5 minutes on https://robinhood.com or https://loyal3.com. Note: the deadline to buy stock and be counted as a shareholder is March 30th.
Want to get more involved? That’s great! This campaign goes live on Monday, April 10th. We need help building a new website, writing fresh analysis supporting our proposal, and getting featured in press and media. Please join our organizing group for a call on Wednesday, March 29th at 10am Pacific Time – RSVP at https://goo.gl/forms/36Bewf2Y64Wm2Wux2.
Excited? Have questions? Comment below, or email [email protected].
This small group of volunteer organizers has come a long way to get here. Thank you again for helping us get this far.
Onward!
Matthew Cropp Mon 27 Mar 2017 12:59AM
So, if Twitter were to be a multi-stakeholder co-op, what would be the optimal worker consumer ownership split? 50/50? Something else?
Or could it make sense to split the business into a worker and a consumer co-op with a strong contractual relationship. The consumers own their data, and hire a worker co-op to maintain and improve the infrastructure on which they deploy said data. The old '70s-era food co-ops used to functionally work that way. An assembly of household cluster reps would meet with the worker's collective on pick-up day each month to make decisions.
Joel Brock Mon 27 Mar 2017 2:02AM
My understanding of B-Corps was that they were a certification body, but not in themselves a business model, ie. not a model for incorporation. So we could be a co-op that is also a certified B-Corp. As for multi-stakeholder cooperative structure, i see this as necessary. With a member class for consumers, workers, and then probably at least one additional class for investors.
Chris Cook Mon 27 Mar 2017 12:46PM
I advocate a complementary & participative approach through the use of a US LLC framework.
Rather than raising an enormous amount of dollars to buy out existing shareholders (ie Buying Twitter) the existing Twitter Inc would be absorbed into an LLC vehicle which will transform legacy Twitter Inc into a sustainable Twitter Utility.
Phase One - Resolution LLC (Caterpillar)
BuyTwitter sets up Twitter LLC and Twitter Coop
Twitter Inc and Twitter Coop become Twitter LLC Founder Members.
some or all existing managers & staff transfer to Twitter Coop
existing Twitter Inc revenues allocated proportionally between Twitter Inc and Twitter Coop
Phase Two - Transition LLC (Chrysalis)
new Twitter strategy & business model developed by Twitter Coop and agreed by Twitter Inc.
Twitter Coop members receive basic reasonable remuneration plus agreed % share of surplus value created.
Active (risk-friendly) investors invited as Investor Members to cover this remuneration and other implementation costs in exchange for a % share of surplus value created.
Phase Three - Utility LLC (Butterfly)
Twitter Utility has a long term sustainable utility return.
Long term passive (risk averse) investment by new LLC Investor members directly in Twitter utility revenues.
Passive investment enables all legacy Twitter Inc investors and transitional development investment to obtain an optimal outcome.
Nathan Schneider Mon 27 Mar 2017 3:59PM
Just to be clear here, the proposal we're offering here is not to define a transition for Twitter, but to encouage the company to merely study the options.
Matthew Cropp Mon 27 Mar 2017 4:04PM
Good point, @ntnsndr - carts and horses and such... ;)
In any case, I just bought my 1 share of Twitter before the 3/30 deadline so I can participate however minutely in the vote... :)
Danny Spitzberg Tue 28 Mar 2017 6:21PM
Friends, this is a friendly reminder about our organizing call tomorrow – Wednesday, March 29th at 10am Pacific Time.
If you want to get more involved, please RSVP at https://goo.gl/forms/36Bewf2Y64Wm2Wux2
We hope that long-time volunteers who have more context and hold more vision can join us!
Antonis Triantafyllakis Wed 29 Mar 2017 2:11AM
Is there a way similar to robinhood and loyal3 to buy shares from Europe?
Danny Spitzberg Fri 31 Mar 2017 3:30PM
I was wondering that! Maybe @acyment found an option?
Camille Emefa Acey Wed 29 Mar 2017 9:45PM
Great! I just bought stock to support the cause!
Devin · Sun 26 Mar 2017 6:12PM
I agree with Chris Cook that this endeavour would be much more likely to get serious consideration from the press and Twitter community if it were being led in partnership with Twitter employees. Maintaining a platform like Twitter is no small feat and building a business model that can sustain the platform over the long term in the highly competitive social media landscape is a complex undertaking that could only be plausibly executed by people with deep knowledge of Twitter's operations. Ignoring these practicalities will make this effort look naive to the press, Twitter's users, shareholder and employees IMHO.