On Stock Options

Vancouverites in the tech industry and Canadians in general, in my experience, still have a fairly Neo-Marxist view of the employee – employer relationship: you sell me your labour for the negotiated price and, where surplus value is created, this is absorbed not by the company as a group but instead by its managers and investors. The labour is unsually neither ineffectual nor is it inspired, and the employee has no fundamental interest in the company’s success beyond remaining employed because the company continues to exist. If it fails nothing is lost by the employee, except for a few weeks of rest before they move on to sell their labour to the next buyer.