When I wrote the piece for Shareable, I tried to give CS the benefit of the doubt. But, as I said, I have very little trust in any sort of self-enforced notion of "corporate responsibility." If CS is determined to grow and do good and is for now ahead of the enforceable law, then hopefully they can be a major force in pushing B Corp legislation forward. But structurally, a program that relies on a for-profit to regulate themselves, well, we know how that ends up...<div>
<br></div><div>Malcolm Harris<br>Shareable.net<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 10:28 AM, robin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:robokow@gmail.com">robokow@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
>> On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michel@p2pfoundation.net">michel@p2pfoundation.net</a>> wrote:<br>
>>> thanks Robin ...<br>
>>><br>
>>> in theory, a B Corporation is not such a bad thing, no, as it is and remains<br>
>>> dedicated to a social good?<br>
>>><br>
>><br>
>> I don't know. I haven't researched much into this B-corp thing.<br>
><br>
> Though there is something interesting here in my opinion, which is<br>
> that CS will be employee-owned. But how this will relate to<br>
> voting-power we don't know yet.<br>
><br>
> The employees will have more voting power than the two investors, but<br>
> how the division will be and how much they can vote for (if it is only<br>
> the board or example) is publicly unkown.<br>
><br>
> And we don't know either how the shares are distributed among the<br>
> employees (equally among employees or not, etc).<br>
><br>
> As always has been the case with Couchsurfing, there is more we don't<br>
> know than what we do know :s<br>
<br>
The 5-year sage of Couchsurfing purposely misinforming the community continues:<br>
Couchsurfing: "This structure legally allows us to put our ideals<br>
before our profits."<br>
(try to read that sentence again).<br>
<br>
And yet Couchsurfing is not even a registered Benefit Corp<br>
(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcorp" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcorp</a>), but still a normal C-corporation<br>
<a href="http://www.bcorporation.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/company.report/ID/5e086197-f44e-4448-9519-5e35d5bde1e2" target="_blank">http://www.bcorporation.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/company.report/ID/5e086197-f44e-4448-9519-5e35d5bde1e2</a><br>
<br>
Corporate Structure: C Corporation<br>
Ownership: Private<br>
<br>
See als: B Corps is Not a New Legal Form<br>
<a href="http://charitylawyerblog.com/2011/01/15/b-corps-is-not-a-new-legal-form-by-keren-g-raz/" target="_blank">http://charitylawyerblog.com/2011/01/15/b-corps-is-not-a-new-legal-form-by-keren-g-raz/</a><br>
<br>
See also the discussion on the CS-group<br>
<a href="http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=45507&post=10059584" target="_blank">http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=45507&post=10059584</a><br>
<br>
Robin.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
--<br>
Life happens at the level of events, not of words<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br></div>