shareholder organizing for real outcomes
Friends, thanks to the hard work of many people, we have a shareholder resolution that will be present at the next Twitter general meeting to evaluate shared ownership for the platform – and, make the report public. We also have vital contributions from experts like James McRitchie of CorpGov.Net, Andy Behar of https://www.bkconnection.com/books/title/the-shareholder-action-guide, and others who can map our path to success.
This is real, and urgent, because Twitter is in the eye of a political lightning storm. For example: https://twitter.com/wordofchristian/status/820844458967109632
But over the past few weeks, we have many tangents spiraling off of this campaign - by my count, more than the number of active participants in this group. Every day, I see a new text wall about hypothetical projects. My concern is that people are unexcited about committing to real and sustained effort. @priscillagrim might be the single voice I've heard with a reality check about what it might take to make progress with #BuyTwitter. If others have chimed in, my apologies for missing it.
This thread is an open invitation to everyone: please comment with your interest in getting involved with producing real, tangible outcomes for #BuyTwitter, and your thoughts on moving tangential conversations elsewhere.
Chris Cook Tue 17 Jan 2017 12:00AM
Has there ever been any suggestion of a management/staff buyout/earnout?
I see that as an 'adjacent possible' & it could be funded by users, thereby creating a platform co-operative.
greg brodsky Tue 17 Jan 2017 1:57PM
Danny,
I agree with you. I don't see anything moving forward in a concrete way right now. I sent this before, but here is a concrete plan.
1: Research what price per share and total dollars Twitter likely needs for $ to make a deal happen (# of current shares and price per share will help you figure this out)
2: Develop the co-op as a multi-stake holder model, consisting of an employee member class, and a consumer member class (equity crowd funding). Having the employees as a share holder class will create better long term employee buy-in, and it will also reduce the amount of money needed from the consumer class as well.
3: Get the legal docs ready for the mult-stake holder co-op. Ie set-up the incorporation docs, proposed by-laws, and shareholder agreements. (I know a good co-op atty on multi-stakeholder co-ops if you need one.)
4: Set-up a kickstarter or indiegogo or gofundme page to see if there is enough consumer interest to fund the consumer portion of the shares.
5: Connect with a few existing Twitter employees to make sure that the employee share model works for them and also to make sure that funding model creates enough cash in the bank for Twitter to meet its strategic goals.
Its a lot of work, but do-able under this approach. Happy to discuss if anyone wants. If not I will unsubscribe in next few weeks to focus on other projects. I dont mean that in a mean way.
PS: Fuck trump. ; )
Danny Spitzberg Fri 27 Jan 2017 5:11AM
Hi, all - mixed news: as we fully expected, Twitter rejected our shareholder resolution (they do this to almost everything people submit).
I'm currently evaluating the worth of appealing the rejection letter VS resubmitting a better letter next year.
Curious? Have a sharp legal eye? Get in touch!
(I'll post their letter and details once a few people can commit to helping make sense of things : )
Matthew Cropp Fri 27 Jan 2017 8:16PM
Oh, that's frustrating. I'd naively assumed that meeting the requirements for a resolution was sufficient to get on the ballot; I did not realize they had the power to vet and reject. :/ Definitely up for lending my voice to signal-boosting whatever next move seems appropriate...
Nathan Schneider · Mon 16 Jan 2017 7:19PM
I disagree a bit with labeling some efforts "real" and others "tangential." From the beginning we've made clear that we're working on a both/and strategy—both trying to buy twitter and trying to develop stepwise alternative platforms. This group is big enough for both. Nevertheless, I fully support the effort to streamline our focus toward action.