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Communism does often work well in small, close-knit groups, and I would certainly hope that the founders of a startup living on VC money would fall into that category.



Yeah, I didn't mean it as a criticism, just was surprised/amused to see it in a VC-backed company. My impression is that a more Randian spirit is somewhat more common, which views anything altruistic as being screwed. I don't have any survey data, but my guess is that a more common arrangement is based on some sort of swap, e.g. the young/no-dependents co-founder who can afford to take a lower salary might negotiate to work for 50% of the other co-founders' salaries, but gets something in return, e.g. an extra equity share--- as opposed to just taking a lower salary for the good of the company.

I don't actually have any problem with the principle the slogan represents, though. IMO the main problems with it are implementation, since there's no way to base a whole country's economy around it without an authoritarian government enforcing who gets what. That's obviously not an issue with voluntary arrangements in smaller groups.




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