REWORK

Tibet Sprague is a "communitarian technologist" with a vision for building companies and communities outside of investor-driven, for-profit systems. His current project is Hylo, an online platform for collaboration that's governed by its users.Show Notes"Truss the Process" and "Success is Surviving," our episodes on pay equity - 00:18"Coops: The Next Generation" and "Exit to Community," our episodes about cooperatives - 00:21Hylo - 00:29Tibet Sprague on Twitter - 1:08Terran Collective - 1:30NRG acquired One Block Off the Grid (renamed Pure Energies Group) in 2014 - 4:10Holo - 7:48Announcement about Holo giving Hylo to Terran Collective - 9:08Sociocracy for All - 17:30"Mass vaccination site in Gary draws Chicago-area residents" (Chicago Tribune) - 24:32"Gary, Indiana" from The Music Man - 24:42Tibet's List of ResourcesProsocialReinventing OrganizationsFree, Fair, and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the CommonsEmergent StrategyMore books, articles, and resources can be found on Terran Collective's website.

How Basecamp's Michael Berger approached accessibility during the development of HEY, including collaborating with a blind Basecamp user on accessible features that ultimately improved the experience for everyone.Show NotesMichael Berger on Twitter - 00:52Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - 3:49 Apple's Voiceover - 5:32JAWS - 5:39NVDA - 5:41Scott Ballard-Ridley on Twitter - 12:47HEY for Work - 18:32Ruby on Rails Core Team - 23:33thoughtbot - 23:44Aspiritech - 24:12CSUN Assistive Technology Conference - 26:29HEY's Accessibility page | Michael's write-up of his work on HEY - 29:51Wailin's tweet complaining that Shaun doesn't insert enough airhorn - 30:10Adam Stoddard on Twitter - 30:43Manos: The Hands of HEY - 30:50

When Robin Petravic and Cathy Bailey bought Heath Ceramics from the company's founders in 2003, they promised to keep the dinnerware maker and its manufacturing workforce in its home base of Sausalito, California. The pandemic provided an opportunity for Heath to recommit to this pledge and create a Living Wage Initiative, which in turn prompted a radical overhaul of the company's 401(k) program. Robin Petravic comes on Rework to talk about walking the walk on equity, resilience, and equipping Heath for the next 200 years.Robin and Cathy wrote about the Living Wage Initiative in Heath's January newsletter.Show NotesHeath Ceramics website | Instagram - 1:02"Edith Heath: A Rebellion in Clay" (KCET, 2019) - 1:14"A New Year, 166 New Owners" - 6:30"Marin County's intensive effort drove down a COVID surge among Latino residents" (San Jose Mercury News) - 10:46MIT Living Wage Calculator - 15:46Eau de Space - 25:16

Upsolve makes a free tool that automates the process of filing for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy. The organization is an atypical tech startup that's also an atypical non-profit. Co-founder and CTO Mark Hansen comes on the show to talk about how Upsolve alternately embraces and subverts the norms of the tech and non-profit worlds, and why the "right" corporate structure won't necessarily prevent an organization from causing harm.Show NotesUpsolve website | Twitter - 00:40Mark Hansen on Twitter - 00:48"HHS failed to heed many warnings that HealthCare.gov was in trouble" (Washington Post, February 2016) - 1:52Rohan Pavuluri on Twitter - 2:28Jonathan Petts on Twitter - 2:29A 2014 study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that many payday loans trap borrowers in revolving debt - 3:45Upsolve's explanation of a bankruptcy discharge - 5:37Upsolve's explanation of the "meeting of creditors" - 8:17The Legal Services Corporation's Technology Initiative Grant Program - 10:17Philadelphia Legal Assistance - 10:22Certified B Corporation - 10:32Sidewalk Labs - 12:00"YC-backed Upsolve is automating bankruptcy for everyone" (TechCrunch, January 2019) - 13:28Yvon Chouinard's 2019 interview in Fast Company - 20:28

In 2016, software infrastructure consulting firm Truss made salaries transparent across the entire company. Salaries were revealed internally for all employees, from the executives on down. In this episode, Truss CEO Everett Harper and COO Jen Leech talk about why and how they approached their salary transparency project, and how they've adapted this system as the company has grown.For more details, check out Jen's write-ups of the project on the Truss company blog: "Why We Made Salary Transparent" and "How We Made Salaries Transparent."Show Notes Truss website | LinkedIn | GitHub | Twitter - 00:30Everett Harper's bio | @everettharper | Jen Leech's bio | @jennifermleech - 1:20Buffer's policy on open salaries - 3:27"The True Story of the Gender Pay Gap," a 2016 Freakonomics Radio episode - 3:47"Demystifying the Gender Pay Gap: Evidence from Glassdoor Salary Data" - 4:52Dreyfus model of skill acquisition (Wikipedia) - 6:43

Imagine if gig workers like rideshare drivers or grocery shoppers were compensated for their labor through ownership stakes in the Lyfts and Instacarts of the world. Imagine if companies distributed profits not just to founders and investors, but to their employees and customers. Start.coop is an accelerator for startups that are doing just this—reimagining concepts like scale, investment, and governance under a cooperative ownership structure, and trying to create a more equitable economic system in the process.Show NotesExit to Community - 00:13Start.coop | Twitter | LinkedIn - 00:37Greg Brodsky on Twitter | LinkedIn - 00:54Greg's dad, Howard Brodsky - 1:25Greg was on the board of directors of the Cooperative Development Institute, a nonprofit for coops - 1:38Start.coop's graduates - 2:29Jessica Mason on Twitter | LinkedIn - 2:5440 Acre Cooperative - 5:31The U.S. Federal Reserve says the typical white American family has 8x the wealth of the typical Black family - 6:50Equitable Economy Fund - 7:20Driver's Seat Cooperative - 11:11Twitter discussion about imagining Apple as a coop - 12:56

Basecamp co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson talk about HEY World, a new feature of the HEY email service where customers can create a super simple blog. HEY World has no templates, no endless scroll, no ads, no trackers, and no JavaScript. It represents Basecamp's attempt to create a Web 1.0 typewriter for our current digital age. In this episode, we talk about the return of blogging, countering abuse, and the sunsetting of Basecamp's long-running Signal v. Noise blog. Stay tuned until the end for a chance to win some Basecamp bucks! And by Basecamp bucks, we mean actual American dollars. Show NotesHEY - 00:17Jason's post announcing HEY World - 00:22Signal v. Noise - 00:34The dumpster fire project - 2:02Jason on HEY World - 3:10David on HEY World - 3:13"Pick A Fight (on Twitter)," a vintage episode about David's relationship with Twitter - 3:28"100% Facebook-Free," our episode about getting Basecamp off Facebook and Instagram - 4:40"Two Weeks," our episode about launching HEY and running afoul of Apple - 5:21Berkshire Hathaway's website - 18:23The.Ink, Anand Giridharadas' newsletter - 18:45The Lefsetz Letter - 20:21HEY's Screener - 27:20HEY's Shield - 27:44Basecamp's "Until the end of the Internet" policy - 30:56Greymatter - 31:34David and Jason talk about how they met via email in this episode - 31:58

Equilibria, a company that makes CBD products for women, has a team of dedicated dosage specialists who do one-on-one consultations with customers. During the pandemic, this team has taken on an unprecedented amount of customer support—bearing witness to the heightened stress and anxiety that their customers are feeling around job security, caregiving, and family life. Equilibria's Marcy Capron Vermillion and Maia Reed come on Rework to talk about helping this team maintain their own stores of emotional energy.Show Notes"Women Tending to Their Basic Needs Is Not Self-Care" by Meredith Ethington - 00:12"This Is A Primal Scream," the New York Times' special report on American mothers' mental health crisis - 1:02Equilibria website | Instagram - 1:13Marcy Capron-Vermillion - 2:20Maia Reed - 3:39Illinois Women in Cannabis - 4:25Ellementa - 4:28Laura van Dernoot Lipsky of The Trauma Stewardship Institute - 12:12

A career climbing the ladder in tech and software left Jesse Noller feeling disillusioned and isolated. He found connection, community, and purpose in a different kind of complex distributed system—mushrooms. Today he's the proprietor of a spore-to-table business called The Humble Fungus. (Content warning: This episode mentions suicide.)For free and confidential emotional support, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.Show NotesJesse Noller on Twitter | Instagram - 1:02The Humble Fungus website | YouTube | Facebook - 1:10Community Food Share in Louisville, CO - 3:32The Humble Fungus "About Us" page - 14:12The Humble Fungus on Patreon - 20:50

Basecamp recently set out to do a carbon accounting, looking at the company's emissions, as well as meaningful ways to offset and mitigate those impacts. Jane Yang and Elizabeth Gramm, the two Basecampers who took on this daunting and nuanced project, come on the show to discuss not just the work itself, but how they've been processing the fear, skepticism, grief, and hope that come with trying to address the climate crisis.Show NotesThe United Nations 2018 special report on global warming of 1.5ºC (PDF) - 1:52"Why Air Quality Matters," David Heinemeier Hansson's presentation to the company about indoor air quality - 2:26The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells - 4:01Explainer on Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions - 5:46Basecamp's former office in Chicago - 6:22"Spending in the Clouds," our episode about looking for savings on Basecamp's cloud services - 6:59Books by Basecamp - 10:18"Towards carbon negativity," Jane's first post about the project on Signal v. Noise - 10:56"Want to Do Something About Climate Change? Follow the Money" (NYT) - 13:05"You Never Forget George Pappageorge," our episode about closing the Chicago office - 16:25Microsoft's Sustainability Calculator for its cloud services - 17:59"Basecamp has offset our cumulative emissions through 2019," Jane's follow-up post on SvN - 22:09Cool Effect - 25:05GoClimate - 25:06ClimateAction.Tech - 26:08Wholegrain Digital - 26:35"The Chicago plant that sparked a hunger strike amid environmental racism claims" (The Guardian) - 27:04350.org - 27:38Elizabeth's Reading RecommendationsA January 2021 article by David Wallace-Wells about the pandemic and climate changeWhat We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, Per Espen StoknesHope and Grief in the Anthropocene, Lesley HeadThe Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth KolbertThe Ecology of Wisdom, Arne NaessThe Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing<