I want to preface this post by stating that I am not here to discuss politics. I have my views, which you can probably gather from the post you are about to read, but you have your own, and neither of them matters when it comes to being a growth hacker, founder, entrepreneur, CMO, CIO, CEO, social media evangelist, digital consultant, well I think my point is made. What is important to all of the aforementioned positions within an organization is a mindset, and that is what I am going to discuss. The mission is to inform and teach you how to make the most out of the least, and oftentimes, that aligns closely with the socialist (as an ideology, not a political party) mindset. So, with that said, here are 3 things I’ve learned about being a founder and entrepreneur from Socialist ideology.
1) Socialism is incentive-based, as workers in a socialist society act more as worker-owners. If you are the founder of a multi-million dollar valued tech startup, you can attest to this. Your reward is not in your salary, as it should be quite meager (trust me), rather, your reward is in the end, a major merger or acquisition, where you can liquidate equity for a job well done and deliver on your promises to investors, stakeholders, and employees. Imagine if this was the case for venture capitalists. A VC is supposed to be a true partner, imagine if they were rewarded entirely or nearly entirely based on an incentive-based system. I’ve learned by adopting this mindset that the CEO always eats last.
2) The design of Socialism was to create a society where individuals were free to express their genuine interests and have creative freedom. Because a Socialistic society is designed to remove the “survival of the fittest” mentality, it creates a more uninhibited individual because the desire to constantly strive for a specific class of ownership is removed. Personally, the more I’ve let go of societal norms and have been willing to buck trends, the better I’ve become as an entrepreneur because I begin to see things others do not because my mind is freer. As a tech founder, this is vital to success because your world moves extremely fast.
3) Socialism creates an autonomous individual. Because Socialism is incentive-based, and you have worker-owners, who have creative freedom, a strong sense of ownership is created over their work. Since every individual worker is a true stakeholder in an operation, the coercive manner that is represented in a more vertical, capitalistic society is thus removed. This creates an autonomous individual worker who does not feel alienated by his/her work. Rather you develop a worker who is engaged and emotionally attached to their work and takes true ownership of it.
If you would like some follow-up reading or recommended books for entrepreneurs, please take a moment to check out my list of…