The Drivers Cooperative: Go Where Workers Are and Organize With Them
The Drivers Cooperative is a ride-hailing platform similar to Uber except owned by the workers not venture capital starting in NYC. They are currently having a fundraiser here where you can invest in and support the workers' movement in the US directly while receiving potentially a 2.5x return. For this interview, I spoke with Jason Prado (@jasonpjason), an ex-Silicon Valley developer and startup founder who left the Silicon Valley dream to assist the 2020 Bernie Sanders presidential ...
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Transcript
Hello everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. And for today's interview, I have Jason Prado. He is an ex Silicon Valley believer working at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook before, and even founding his own company and selling it, who actually, in the twenty twenty presidential election, actually left his job to help the Bernie Sanders campaign in their technology efforts, and is now the chief technologist at the Drivers Cooperative in New York City. So hey, Jason. How are you doing? Hi. Doing great. Really happy to be here. Maybe as a as a starter, you have a really, really interesting story. So I really want to hear, you know, what that was like. From what I understand, you sort of transitioned from being I mean, if you kinda, like, look at the resume, it's sort of, like, you know, quintessential, like, Silicon Valley founder, startup founder, like, working in big tech. But then you left and, you know, went to go work on a Democratic socialist presidential candidate's presidential campaign. That's a pretty big deal. To being now, you know, pretty active, on the left of the tech workers movement and then now with the drivers cooperative. So maybe could you give a little bit of a introduction to your to your story and how your how how you ended up here?
Sure. Thanks. Totally. Thank you. So I had definitely had kind of a typical Silicon Valley experience for for many years. I went to Stanford for my undergraduate, studied computer science. From there, I got a job in big tech, left and started a startup of my own that got acquired by more big tech. So I spent another rotation in in in the big tech companies, then spent, the past seven and a half years, in at Facebook, working on mobile software, system software, kind of kind of everything in the whole stack. I was also an engineering manager, for some of my time at at those companies. And I I really bought into the Silicon Valley mythos for a few years. You know, I I my my personal background is I'm, like, the first person in my family to go to college and and have, like, the, professional career path. So I was very enamored with with the Bay Area, like, Silicon Valley ethos. Really thought these people had it had it all figured out. And, but then, you know, they're living in San Francisco, you you see the cracks in the system a little bit. Like, there's massive wealth inequality here. This is maybe something always didn't sit quite right but, you know, things are going great for me and, people around you are so smart you kind of have to assume that they have it all figured out. Then 2016 was a big turning point for me like it was a lot of people. After we saw the Brexit vote go through and then, Trump, like, seeming like he was gonna win, and then winning, I started to realize, oh, maybe maybe, my foundations aren't so solid. Maybe I'm not even just a little bit wrong, but maybe I'm I'm pretty wrong. So that caused that drove me to really reevaluate, some of my, like, basic beliefs and do a lot of research. So in 2016, I was a fan of Bernie, like, was excited to see him, like, run-in the primaries and do so well. Then after the the general election in The US in 2016, the next day basically Googled democratic socialism because that's what Bernie was, and I was like, okay. Like, like, I gotta figure this out. There's this organization, Democratic Socialists of America. I'm just gonna join that because it's the first result in Google. Started going to those meetings, and and five years on, things have changed for me pretty pretty deeply. A big part of that was definitely, like, kind of awakening of the labor movement and the tech industry. So, like, for instance, after the twenty sixteen election, a lot of tech workers were looking for ways to get politically active and start educating themselves and each other. So one way that I did that is I started meeting with other tech workers and discussing labor issues and and learning about the labor movement. So we do this at a union hall in San Francisco. And, one day, a few months into that, some union organizers pulled me aside and said like, so Jason, we're, you know, we're organizing service workers in the tech industry. We're organizing, cafeteria workers in particular these big companies. And the next target is Facebook. It's it's underground right now, but, like, we want to organize these 600 plus, cafeteria workers at Facebook, get them a union, get them a union contract so they can stay in their homes, stop being displaced by, you know, this behemoth, can't tech campus in Menlo Park that has pushed out so many people. So I got super involved with that and, like, you know, helped in small ways, basically. I would go to, workers' houses with, like, an organizer and other workers and say and tell them about the union and, like, learn get to know these people and, you know, meet their families, see their homes.
Is this during, like, while you're an employee at Facebook? Yeah. Definitely. So it's a little bit I mean, it's a little bit it takes a bit of bravery to do something like that. I mean Yeah. I I think,
Facebook didn't really mind this too much. Later they found things they minded for sure, and then I had some conversations with HR, about things I did. But, on this one, they they kind of looked the other way. I would try and, like, build solidarity between full time employees and and these service workers. So, like, we set up a Facebook group where we would share stories from from the, service workers who are unionizing, and get their support from full time, employees. I'd also, like, arrange, like, round tables where we'd all just sit sit around and, like, get to know each other's stories and and learn about it. The goal of that is, you know, if it comes down to, like, militant labor action, like, they go on strike, all the full time employees need to understand, like, we're not mad at these workers who are fighting for for, like, their lives here. We're mad at management for not giving them what they want. So to make sure, like, those bonds solidarity are like ready to go if if a push comes to this job. And that went really well. They want a union. They want a contract that was like, I I my understanding is it's like among the best that like this kind of group of workers has gotten and kind of set the the standard for other groups of workers who were organizing. While while I was at Facebook, I I was a small part of, like, security officers, cafeteria workers, and even, like, bike share workers, like, winning a union. So that taught me a lot about labor very quickly. And the question is, like, well, well, I'm a worker too. Like, are there things I want? Do I need a union? And, like, efforts there have gone slower. You know, tech workers are they're very well paid and and have very nice lives, and it's hard to convince somebody making 300 k a year to, like, jeopardize that. But I'm still very interested in the tech worker movement.
It I I sound I found your, your substack. It's Venture Commune. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It was super super interesting, super interesting writing and, like, seeing your perspective on because there's a lot of, like, I mean, peculiarities when it comes to the tech move or, like, the the tech industry when it as compared to maybe, like, more traditional, industries that already have labor movements or have some sort of, like, sort of sort of history that you can look back on for, like, how you go about creating a union or, like, how you, you know, improve workers' rights, in that particular industry. So I think there's a there's a lot of really interesting stuff that yeah, people should definitely check out the VentureCommune. But maybe, yeah, from there, I guess, can you give us a story? How do you get all the way to starting the drivers cooperative?
Yeah. I, actually joined the drivers cooperative about five months ago. The the workers the drivers who had started it had been working on it for for over a year. So which is kind of, part of my thesis about why about how tech workers should find problems and go help them rather than, imagine solutions in a vacuum, but we can talk more about that later. Yeah. So after, my seven and a half years at Facebook, like, I'd kinda burned out on organizing, doing my job, being in DSA all at the same time, and I I needed a break. So I decided to leave at the start of 2020. I've been working on, DM, which was called Libra at the time for about a year and a half then. So, I was on the cryptocurrency project. But, yeah, I decided to leave, and it was the height of, primary season. I've been volunteering for the Bernie campaign a lot. So I decided to try and see if my skills would be useful, to the campaign. So I, like, talked to some people and got just a short term contract, going to DC to work on the data engineering stack for for the campaign. I data is not exactly my background, but, like, I think what they needed was, you know, somebody with, like, engineering chops to, like, go and help people use source control and and, like, kinda just solve the very, like, brass tacks problems that they were facing. So worked on that for a while then, the campaign wound down as as it became clear Bernie wasn't gonna win the primary and then lockdown started. So I went home and, just kinda took it took it easy for a little while and tried to figure out what my my next move would be. I started researching I started reading a lot and, one of the things I researched a lot was the cooperative movement. And I'd always known about cooperatives. I mean, my local grocery store is a is a co op, a worker owned co op and I I like, you know, prefer shopping there and stuff. But, I learned about the platform cooperative movement, which is kind of up and coming. It's kind of an academic idea. I'm sure a lot of your listeners know have heard about it, but it's, it's it's a cool idea. It's like, you know, what if Uber, but it's owned by the drivers? Or what if Facebook but it's owned by, like, everyone who creates content? It's it's definitely an enticing idea. So I took that class at the new school co taught with Mondragon Corporation in, from Spain. And that was a cool experience. There were three or 400 people in the class of varying levels of, like, you know, commitment and and, like, and experience, but it was a great way to build community, and find other people who are interested in the space. So I'm still in contact with a lot of people I met in that class. Through that class, I found, the startup accelerator start dot coop, which is a small startup accelerator focused on, cooperatively owned businesses, and became an investor through start dot coop because I've done some angel investing in my tech days, and this was a a cool way to, like, blend those two parts of my experience. Then through Start dot Coop, one of the portfolio companies is the driver cooperative, the driver's cooperative. So, we we're having a kind of a mentoring, mixer session between investors and, and portfolio companies. And, Alyssa, one of the founders of the drivers cooperative, pulled me aside and was like, oh, we have we have some questions about technology. Do you think you could, help us out? So I got to know them and their problems and got a lot of questions about technology. It turned out they didn't have a full time technologist. They had, a founder from the labor movement, a founder who'd been driving and and working in, like, transit logistics for for decades, and a founder who had been a GM at Uber, all relative really relative experience, relevant experience rather. But they didn't have a tech founder, which is so refreshing. After I remember after, like, 2016 seeing all these, like, high profile tech, you know, CEOs saying, oh, I'm starting this this nonprofit. It's gonna solve, like, electoral politics. We're gonna, you know, empower people through through an app or whatever. And then, like, two or three years on, those things have all just fallen by the wayside because they were not built on a foundation of of of struggle, of people trying to solve their problems. So it's like, wow, these people, like, they've organized thousands of drivers. They're really trying anything they can to get into operations, but the they're struggling with technology. Like, this is kind of a golden opportunity for for me to test out this thesis that, you know, rather than starting an app, like, the like, technologists should find workers, you know, working together to solve their problems and go make them successful.
Yeah. It it's sort of like, I guess, from what it sounds like is the drivers cooperative, by the time you showed up, they had solved more or less what's I I think I would argue is a little bit of the more difficult problem is, like, having the people who have the right idea on, like, how they want to, how they want to tackle the problem, and then thinking about, like, the technical technological solution that would, like, help facilitate that. When a a lot of times, I mean, we're just sort of, we're we're given it the opposite where some, like, technology nerd comes up with, like, this perfect solution, and then, like, vultures sort of, like, come in and, like, try to, you know, mass, mass market it, and, you know, do whatever they can to make money off of it.
Yeah. 100%. And I think the the kind of tech app in a vacuum approach, has those vulnerabilities where, you know, if you're not owned or empowered by by the people you're trying to help, then, like, yeah, you can fall prey to, you know, just being another VC owned company. Or even more likely, you'll just build the wrong thing. Right? The the, like, agile development approach in software is that you stay as close as possible to your customer. You, provide them value in a, like, kinda constant basis, so that you spend as little time as possible building the wrong thing. Because, you know, if you're a really, like, accomplished technologist, you can probably build whatever you set out to build. So the real risk is you build the wrong thing, and that's why companies fail. Right. Right.
Maybe, like, a side question because when you said you were working at, the Bernie Sanders campaign, did you feel like there was any lack of, like, good technological chops at, like, in the campaign or, like, in in left wing movements? I guess the the general feeling is maybe that I don't know. You it just seems like the right wing in general sort of just tends to have more technology nerds on their side that somehow are able to, like, get them to make technological weapons for, you know, whatever they so desire. Did you get that any, like, any any impression or thoughts on, like, on in that area for the for the campaign? Just thinking it might be relevant for, like, the general left wing movement and, you know, how do we think about technology and, like, the fact that there's maybe, like, maybe a small gap in our technological abilities?
Yeah. I I only spent, I I only spent a while working in in elections, so I volunteered on on lots of campaigns, like, of of various sizes. I would say it's not a difference necessarily in talent and certainly not in passion. I think there are structural problems there around, the way software for, say, electoral campaigns gets built and and thrown away, basically. You know, if you're building something for the next three months, then you just take short term decisions, and you're not building a foundation for the long the long struggle. I don't know why the right has figured that out so much better. I mean, in a way, the right, is just better at being cohesive. Like, they tolerate their their extremes and and leverage them even in the way that, you know, say the Democratic party is pretty determined to to quash any, anything that they see as too radical. So, there's there's, like, inklings of of things that I think are pretty cool there. There's even, like, a worker owned cooperative I wanna shout out that does I think is building some really exciting, campaign technology called Politics Rewired. I think that they're going there's some people from the ex, expert people there. I think over the next few years, like, that model might make a, might make a splash where it's, people finally realizing, like, building a code base to throw away after three or six months is not really the way we're gonna win. So we need to to build, like, a a a foundation for for, like, democratic participation, which is a way I'm viewing the drivers cooperative as well. I think the the software we wanna build, I hope it moves beyond New York. I hope it moves beyond ride share. I hope it's a foundation for, like, logistics and labor for for many years to come.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. I I feel like because in the past, I mean, several decades, during the time when technology has advanced quite quickly and with the, you know, the Internet and it becoming more and more part of our lives, it's like, during that time it just so happened that the Left was also fairly weak, especially in The US and especially in the West. And so it just sort of missed the boat. And so the only people who were sort of building that software were, you know, people with money who probably tend to be a little bit more right wing, to be able to build those things. So you mentioned you also worked on the crypto cryptocurrency project Diem. Maybe you could explain a bit about, your experience on working in that on that project since, it got quite a lot of media attention.
Yeah. Sure. So, I was on a kind of research operating systems project for several years at Facebook, and it was winding down. And I kind of had to make a decision, do I wanna is it time to leave Facebook and figure out what I'm doing next? Or am I am I not quite ready? Or am I excited about things that are still happening here? So a new not a brand new project that I'd gotten wind of at Facebook was this new cryptocurrency or blockchain effort. It was called Libra at the time, and they were hiring their first, like, product engineer, basically. So I I, talked to the team there and was excited enough about the vision. Like, I I've been dabbling in blockchain and cryptocurrency since, I guess, 2010, like, since I first, you know, set up my first Bitcoin miner. And I've, I guess I'm something of a blockchain skeptic, but I've also just been excited about parts of it for for so long, that I think I thought the mainstreaming of, blockchain would be, like, worth whatever whatever tax Facebook Just like we would no matter what happened with Libra, we would move the the football forward. And, even if it's not the blockchain solution forever, then at least, like, we'll have, you know, mainstreamed it in a way that means, like, the next the next, entry entrance to the, competitive space would do something really amazing with it. So I went and worked mainly on the product experience. I didn't I didn't contribute to, the blockchain itself, which is like the Libra blockchain written in Rust and and also a very impressive piece of technology, especially like the, the smart contract language there I think is, as far as I've seen, like, the the most innovative and coolest one out there. So I worked on the the product experience, which is like an easy to use wallet, with a focus on, international remittances. And this hasn't shipped yet, but there's still like, there's lots of marketing information about it. So I can, you know, talk about what it does, which is, you know, lets people easily send money, using their wallets on the, DM blockchain. And that was a cool experience. Like, Facebook assembled just a genius team of people to to, to build that that product and that blockchain. Yeah. So over over the years at Facebook, my politics changed and I I was learning more about, imperialism and the role of finance and imperialism kind of from a left perspective. So, this kind of internal rhetoric of that we had on on the Libra team about, the importance of cryptocurrency and stablecoins to help the developing world who don't have, stable currency, and that's, like, their main problem. And I started to think, like, maybe that's not really true. Maybe the real problem is is, you know, oppression with The US militarism and the the supremacy of, like, the US dollar being, like, sacris being, like, tantamount to all US, foreign policy. So I really, like, didn't didn't buy the rhetoric anymore, and that that was around the time I decided to leave Facebook.
Yeah. Yeah. It it's really interesting how much that narrative, yeah, just how much it's sort of, like, abused, to be honest, by the cryptocurrency community. Sort of, like, a bunch of, you know, fairly wealthy people saying, like, oh, these people, they just need, like, remittance solutions, you know. Which I mean, okay. Maybe you can you can make some sort of arguments that, it would probably be very helpful for these migrant workers to be able to send money back home. But it's, like, it's not within, like, a particular it's not it's not, like, a part of, like, a broader vision of actually fixing the problem. It's sort of like a hodgepodge. It's a patchwork of technological solutions to, like, try and limit to a certain extent maybe the damage, but it also ends up just, like, complicating things a lot for these people, I think.
Right. Yeah. Like I I say in my my piece in my substack letter, it's there's always interest in coming up with new remittance solutions and new new payment technologies. But, why aren't we instead just kind of asking the question, why do we need why do workers need to move around the world to work and remit money home? Like, what is driving that phenomenon?
Hey, everyone. If you're enjoying this episode so far, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord or Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. If you're enjoying the interview or find the content I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist to help me out and join the newest patrons like Ruan and Tobias. Any amount really helps since making this stuff isn't free in terms of money or time. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did, and access to Patreon exclusive contents like Q and A episodes where you can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer, and I'll give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. Of course, I'll still be making free content like this interview to help spread the message that Blockchain does not need to be used to further entrench capital's exploitation if we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. Also, if you're interested in helping out in some real projects that I'm working on, then I hope you'll consider checking out the open collective page for the Breadchain Cooperative project that I've been working on with a few others from the community. We're currently working on our first application, which is the Breadchain Crowdstaking Protocol, and I think it'll be a really cool real life working product that we can show an actual use for the left. But that's it for me. Let's get back to the interview. So I I wanted to get to talk about actually your latest piece on your Substack, which is called, I believe, go where workers are and organize with them. And I really like the premise of it since I think it really gives a very clear call to action for those out there who may be in, like, slightly more privileged positions in terms of, like, technology and wealth, and knowledge, and gives them, like, a clear it has, like, a clear theoretical basis on, like, the relationship between between technology and capitalism. So maybe I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about, like, what inspired you to write that and, like, where from your experience that you got to, to the conclusions that you made.
Yeah. Totally. So, it's kind of why I've been talking about this this whole interview that my approach has been, like, try to try and get down in the trenches and see what workers are doing and what they need, rather than thinking abstractly, like, coming up with a theory of of what workers need or something and then, like, not really testing it. The kind of practice approach is to to come up with, like, a thesis or a hypothesis and then go test it and practice and then, refine it and iterate. That's that's how you, like, scientifically approach a problem. And I see a lot of people not doing that. I see, you know, people, kind of, like I've been saying, think of solutions in a vacuum, thinking like, well, I'm such a, you know, brilliant special technologist. You know, maybe when I'm at work, I, like, talk to the customers and do, like, a a a deep process to understanding customer needs and developing customers. But, like, you know, these problems, these social ills are such easy problems compared to my my, like, big tough Silicon Valley problems. I don't need to do that. Like, I'll just, like, waltz in with my genius and, and, like, you know, sprinkle some tech on it and and fix all everyone's problems. So, I guess I've seen that enough, especially by high profile tech people, but, you know, probably trickling down to to, lots of of tech workers who who do care about social impact. But I wanted to take a very different approach and always stay, like, as as close as possible to, the workers and their actual actual struggles. And that was just definitely inspired by the the my fortunate experience of of getting to, organize alongside, workers in in these various labor struggles, like, in in tech campuses. And the thing I took away from that was that, you know, I I learned so much by by being educated by the workers who are organizing and alongside them. So there were union organizers who, of course, had some expertise, but, like, a union campaign doesn't succeed unless the workers are are empowered and become leaders and and drive it themselves. So I similarly, I whenever I worked on campaigns, I tried to get, like, you know, on electoral campaigns, I tried to get as, like, down in the muck as possible. So that meant, like, knocking on doors and and, you know, walking people to their, polling locations or phone banking or text banking or whatever. Just doing like, understanding the actual scale of making a a change, by doing, like, every part of it or doing, like, the leaves of the project, because, you know, I think there's a a tendency for tech people to think, like, I'm I'm up above or something or, like, I I'm, like, you know, an ideas guy, I think is how I criticize these people sometimes. And, I I'm very resistant to that. So, like, even in in organizing in DSA, like, I try and do, like, the spreadsheets that need to get done or whatever. It's it's always about, about, like, the real, like, nuts and bolts of of organizing.
The extremely practical. Exactly. Yeah.
Because you just you know, it's important to have this theoretical component where you have this idea, then you test it in practice. But my idea that I'm I'm testing here is, like, should tech workers just go and find existing struggles and and, like, accelerate them and join them? So that's been, I I think there's there's been something something positive there. Like, the Bernie campaign is not was not built by technology. Obviously, it was built by material conditions and and workers organizing and and this, like, hopeful message. And what they needed was, campaign technology. And there's these drivers in New York City who are getting a raw deal from the ride share monopolies, and they want, to take power back and and control their economic destinies themselves, and they need technology to do it. So I want to test this thesis and see if we can be successful or at least more successful than than other attempts that that came out of from a different approach. And if so, I want people to, think about that in their own lives and think like, well, what should I be doing? What is, like, my unique talent? And if you're a tech worker, you know, you probably have lots of very valuable talents. And the thing you should be doing is taking those talents and and finding these, these struggles and being on the right side of them in a very active on the ground, just hands on way.
Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, I'm making this connection, but, like, you talk about, I think I'm looking at the quote here. Here. If you are a technologist or otherwise a person possessing skill and talent, which you most almost certainly are, and if you are the if you have the means to do so while sustaining yourself, which if you worked in tech long enough, you likely are, and if you have come to understand that the problems facing our planet are primarily political, not technological, Technological, then what you need to do is find a group of people who are struggling collectively to shift power from entrenched tyrannies towards the masses, then you need to use your skill and talent to make the group successful. This is like, I mean, it's very, like, maybe because you you said you were, half Argentinian and, and, like, that that's basically, like, Che Guevara. Like, that's sort of kind of what he did. I mean, he just, like, was going to be a doctor, and then he, like, went out and found the struggles and worked on them, actively. And it sounds very, like, not to be, like, super, I don't know, like, LARP y, but, like, you know, it's it's something like it it is actually a very practical thing to do and a practical thing to do. If you have the skills, you have the means to do so, then, like, you can do that if you sort of the secret to life is that, you know, you can you actually do have the ability to change it if you go around, go and do it kind of thing. Exactly.
I don't know if I'm a Che Guevara figure yet, but maybe there is there are some of those lurking out there, and and hopefully, they can be inspired and and move motivated to action. And in in my piece, I try and, draw that connection again to agile software development, which is, you know, something that any software developer knows where you're you're entrenched. That's the thing that makes you makes, you make the right decisions, being as, like, close to the problem, as close to the people in need and the stakeholders as as
possible. Mhmm. Yeah. I guess taking taking all this that you've said and, like, yeah, this type of approach, do you have any thoughts on, like, what are the, like, goals of the drivers cooperative in, like, some sort of tangible sense? Like, what maybe short term, maybe long term, how do you see that?
So, you know, short term, we need to become sustainable, in New York City. So that looks like doing, you know, thousands of rides a day, having, like, robust internal processes and operations, democratically empowering our our workers to to, make decisions and really own the cooperative. That's that's gonna take, you know, a year or two just to to, like, build a successful business with thousands and thousands of of drivers. We have, you know, sky's the limit though. Like, the the gig labor revolution has kind of moved really fast and taken, taken up a lot of territory around the world. So, like, you know, more and more jobs are being gigified. More and more services are being offered to, like, the middle class or the the the wealthier classes. And these are mostly a raw deal for labor. So anywhere that there's gig labor happening, I think that this model, should be experimented with. And whether that looks like the the driver's cooperative expanding to other cities or other verticals or, this the code that we're building, the the platforms that we're building becoming something we can share either through open source or collaboration with other cooperatives. There's there's kind of a lot of open questions there. So the short term goals are we have to become sustainable, but the the medium and long term goals are, like, can this be a tool can we build tools that the cooperative movement and workers around the world can use to, take control of over their own labor. And there's there's a lot of ways that can go. I'm a fan of this, like, kind of cooperative of cooperatives idea where, like, the the platforms themselves can be governed by, like, congress of, cooperatives of some kind. But then, you know, local services, like, you know, actually organizing thousands of workers on the ground in in a given city can be done in a in a more local way. And and but we need the the platforms that that build that kind of collaboration.
And I guess in in trying to, like, go for that, have you guys had any sort of, like, serious, obstacles or difficulties that you've, come across?
Gosh. Yeah. I mean, we're doing this with, like, not a ton of resources. So, there's about six full time staff members, and, all of us have been volunteers at some point or another. Like, I I haven't written myself a paycheck yet. We're we're fundraising right now. So I I will be able to pay more staff, and I'm I'm hiring engineers as as fast as I can right now, which is feels so good after doing this on my own for five months with, like, no other other full time tech people. But we do have a a cloud of volunteers who have been super helpful, and I've called in favors from just about everyone I know to help set up our Kubernetes cluster or write some SQL queries for us or something. But, having some some more tech staff is gonna help a lot. So we're able to do that because we're fundraising right now. We've gotten a few $100,000 in things like loans and grants already. And then our our big fundraising campaign is a crowdfunding campaign right now where we're aiming to raise a million dollars, on a crowdfunding platform. But we're not we're not selling equity. Right? We're not a venture capital backed startup. So we're not we don't take the traditional structure of, you know, sell 70% of your your company to to investors so that you can, give them some board seats and they can decide the future of your company. Like, that's not that's not what we're doing. Technically, you're a cooperative if, like, 50 you want 50% plus one of votes are held by members or workers or whatever. And you you cancel equity as a cooperative, and I think that's great for people who do it. It makes makes perfect sense. We haven't done that yet. We all of our voting members are our drivers. So we're raising on something that looks more like a debt structure than an equity structure.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. So so, I mean, definitely share. People can find that on WeFunder, I believe. Right. Wefunder.com/driverscoop.
Also, drivers.coop
will have a link to it at the very top. Yeah. Sure. And I'll put that in the, in the show notes. But I guess the the sort of call to action there, I guess, is if you are a, a technologist or you you have the time to volunteer your resources or maybe, want to contribute, then probably apply to these positions that you guys have posted, for developers. And if you have the money, then already, start sending them money on WeFunder. I've already given a couple $100, So it's sort of like, you know, there's a real chance, I think, with you can do something with your money and, like, you know it's going to, something that's actually contributing to worker power and is in investment in, in the labor movement in The US. Thanks. I I really appreciate you giving and, or investing really because it's not a donation. We we hope to to return and then some for for our investors.
But thank you so much for your your faith in us, and, we'll try and make good on it. As far as, like, what we're asking for tech workers out there, like, your time as a volunteer. We have a volunteer sign up page. Definitely, we're interested in hiring from big tech. I think, like, there are ideas and knowledges that are stuck in people's heads, and you only get them if you worked at at a FAANG company. And we want people like that because we our our goal is to scale, and and, like, scaling is something that that Silicon Valley has figured out how to do better than anyone else. So we we want that knowledge. We're also thinking about, we haven't announced this yet, but I'm I'm really stoked about this this plan we will hope to roll out this year. So one one problem having in, like, hiring tech workers is, you know, we're just not paying a market salary at all. So if you are really comfortable in your career, like, you know, I I worked for a dozen years at these companies, and I can I can afford to work for a low pay for for several years? But if you're, not in that situation, you might be scared to, like, reduce your pay rate for a couple of years, and that might have, like, a permanent impact on your earning potential. And and, you know, that's, like, I I don't wanna discount that. That's important to people. So a program we're thinking about is, Southbank is, like, a fellowship, like, a three month or six month rotation where, you know, people change jobs every two years anyway. So in between working at Google and Square or whatever, come hang out with us instead of, like, going to the beach for three months. Come work for us. We'll pay a stipend, give you an education on the cooperative economy and social impact and, while you do some engineering and impart your, like, valuable wisdom, upon our our org.
So if you're interested in that, I'd be really, really interested in, in talking to you about the program. And like I said, we're gonna announce it sometime, pretty soon. Nice. That'd be very cool. Yeah. Are you guys, like, working with these big tech companies to, like, have systems inside them to to try and get it going, or are you just sort of, like, trying to pick off them for pick off the programmers for a little bit of time and then, you know, I guess they would you would have to send them back. Yeah. Right now, it's just opportunistic.
But I think, you know, people negotiate when you're, like, switching companies, like, you usually will negotiate, like, your start date, and there's usually flexibility in that. So, like, why not put your start date, like, three or four months out and then come work with us for three or four months? And, you know, we're working with, like, cutting edge edge technologies and and, like, we have we're,
Kubernetes clusters. That's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I know those. Yeah. And we're, I I think it'll be pretty beneficial to everyone around to see, like, what, you know, what does a small startup scaling look like? You know, that's experience that's you only get, by working in a in a in a startup. And and we are we are actually a startup despite being, you know, not the the traditional template of a VC company.
Yeah. Yeah.
A cooperative startup. I wish there was, like, a better word for that, but I guess it's cooperative startup. Yeah. I kinda just wanna take over the word startup. And and, like, the the VC startups are the weird thing, and and cooperative startups are the normal thing. They're the normal ones. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Start trends. Do you have any thoughts on, like maybe to entice some of these, developers? Any thoughts on, like, future features that you can imagine for the drivers cooperative that they could have? I mean, the cool thing about software you haven't written yet is they can do anything.
So sure, I can talk about all the the things we are interested in. So, like, one one thing we're thinking about is, like, what is, like, scaling horizontally look like, in terms of the product? So we're we're these drivers in New York City, but there's taxi cooperatives and gig worker cooperatives around the world. How do we interoperate between those things? So this is very early, but, like, we're thinking about, like, what is the API and the, like, communication platform between, various, like, front end user applications for for gig labor, and various, like, fulfillment and logistics platforms on the back end, to to do that matching. So this might look like you open up your co op rideshare app, in New York City, and it says, like, welcome to the driver's cooperative. You know, our logo is this. And, like, these are the people, fulfilling your your your, service requests here. And then you open the same thing in Italy, and it's it's like, here's your local taxi cooperative, and here's our logo, and here's, you know, how the rates and how it works here. And, like, that's, you know, that's not a problem you have if you're the big ride share monopolies. You just, like, centrally own and control all of it. But that probably isn't gonna work for us because we don't get to raise 9,000,000,000 in equity funding. We need to figure out how to empower, like, every small organization and then interoperate between them. So it's more like of, an open source versus a closed source kind of approach.
Maybe if, like, everyone who's listening gives money, then you guys will have you guys will have enough funding. Yeah. Then we can start to crack that billion dollars. And,
yeah, man, I've been, like, reading interviews and doing research on, like, the early founding of these gig monopolies. And, like, it's it sounds so exciting because they just have all the money they could possibly want coming in. So, like, they have you know, famously, they'd have these decisions around, like, build versus buy. And every time, it was just like, oh, hire and build because we want, like, the perfect thing that we own. And we can do that because there's always more free money coming in. And that's rational in the VC world. If you read, like, a book like Blitzscaling, for instance, which, I read recently, it's the rational behavior is to take huge risks, consume tons of capital because if you're not doing that, your competitors are, and these win these markets are largely winner take all. So that's the right move in a in a purely capitalist economy. That's not gonna make sense for us. So, like, the the driver's cooperative, one of our, you know, selling points about why we think we can become sustainable is that we're just, like, we make money on every ride. We're we only stick to positive unit economics. Whereas, like, you know, the the traditional gig monopolies are happy to, like, lose money for a long time to win that monopoly, and they have to do that to justify their valuation. We're just going to grow. We're gonna become sustainable and then grow from there. And it's a different approach, but that we we think we can, like, gain a foothold by doing so.
Yeah. It's, it's sort of like, like, with in in the case of, like, Uber, I mean, basically, what they did is all the rides were subsidized. They gave way lower rides way lower prices than they could actually afford to, you know, actually give, but they were just so much money is being pumped into them. And then now we're seeing sort of the effect of, like, okay. Now they've killed a lot of the competition, and now, I mean, rates are going up. But here, I guess, if if you're starting with a driver's cooperative type of structure, you know from the beginning, the prices are probably not going to, like, increase like they had to for Uber because they need to make profit at some point. Right. Right. Our goal is sustainability
and and, like, rational growth, versus, like, the the blitzscaling, winner take all and then charge monopoly rents approach.
Any thoughts? Because, I mean, you're on this podcast, so I have to ask. But, can you imagine, of course, any type of, like, blockchain capabilities, to augment maybe, like, some of the, I guess, the ability for workers to be able to, like, democratically vote on certain things or to, like, I don't know. I don't wanna say token or tokenize stuff because sometimes it's not always, like, really the thing to do. But, like, do you have any ideas about, potentially using that technology? Yeah. Well, first, I'm I'm Especially with especially with DAOs.
I don't know if you've been watching, but DAOs have become incredibly popular on, around, Twitter world. Well, I'm stoked. It, it took over forty five minutes to mention the d word. In a lot of these conversations I have, it's literally the first question. Like, I talked to venture capitalists sometimes, and, you know, we're not we're we don't really fit the VC model because, like, we're not giving the the venture profile of of high risk, high return possibility. So VCs, like, love to tell us they're big fans, but, like, they can't ultimately invest, like, on behalf of their LPs because it doesn't doesn't really make sense. But they they love to ask if we're starting a DAO. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm very excited about the potential of DAOs. I would love to see it succeed. I'd love to see DAOs succeed in something that has end users that are not, like, financial speculators or early adopters or, like, just just, you know, like tech people. I don't know if we'll be the first to do that. If there were models for us to follow that, I would feel a lot better about it. Because our our, challenges right now are very, like, operational, like, getting drivers on the road, getting them improving an app for them to use. Like, our drivers are excellent at what they do, and they have all kinds of interesting backgrounds. Some of them have been engineers or worked in in IT in various ways. But, like, you know, most of them are not English as a first language. Most of them are immigrants. They have they they drive for a living, and that's a very taxing job that takes up a lot of time. So that the, they're they're excited about the democratic participation and and self ownership of of a worker cooperative, but they're not looking for tech to solve their problems. They're looking or they're not looking for tech for its own sake. They're looking for solutions to their problems, and tech is one of them. So, in the long, long term, like, we wanna have democratic participation built into the very structure of of, like, the user experience of our application. That can look like surveys or or, like, voting or, there's a lot of ways that can go, and I think that's or, like, you know, discussion just like peep making people feel like they're very connected and and actually own the the platform that they're working with. That's super important to us. I'd I'm not looking for anyone to install MetaMask, basically. So we need to close that gap between, like, you know, what is the value, that, like, a a DAO like structure, an audible transparent structure on a blockchain would would give us, versus, like, how easy is it to use. I think when we scale to if it when this this kind of idea, this kind of platform scales, like, beyond one city to, like, many organizations that need to come together to make, like, decisions or achieve consensus, collectively, a DAO starts to look kind of interesting there. But it's it's it's super early, and I don't know if we'll be the innovators,
until we, you know, higher up and and achieve some of our sustainability goals. Yeah. Yeah. I think, to be fair, it's it's it's the right approach in the sense that you have to sort of which I think I'm getting ahead of myself. Like, DAOs are sort of trying to are sort of figuring this out at the moment, but, like, you sort of have to build the community first. You're, like, have you have to have right now, I don't know if you've seen it, but, like, a lot of people are really into, like, building the culture of, of, like, your DAO. So it's always like I don't know. You have plenty of different memes, like, you know, having a win win situation or, like, doing the they use a lot of, like, game theory type of, type of analogies. But, but, yeah, I mean, in order to build something that is beyond, like, some sort of financial speculative game or some sort of, like yeah. Solely for for the ends of, like, financial speculation and, like, wealth accumulation, then you sort of have to have that culture already ingrained. And a cooperative is sort of, like, the appropriate organizational structure to sort of, I think, facilitate that, which is why I think at the same time a lot of DAO people are becoming very interested in cooperatives as well. Totally. And I think, if you're thinking about DAOs and not thinking about cooperative ownership,
then I'm I'm not sure what your approach is. It seems like another form of speculation to me then. So I I think, yeah, the approach that I I hope to take is, like, we're gonna build out our democracy democratic structures as a cooperative. And at the point that they're no longer scaling, like, I hope DAOs are ready to be a solution
then. No offense to, like, Uniswap, but, like, you know, their governance token is, like, you know, it's entirely owned by VC, basically, at least, like, half of it or something like that. And it's it's purely I mean, it's it's revolved around, like, financial speculation and, like, financial accumulation, but, you know, it's a it's an exchange. So what what are you gonna expect? Totally. Totally. Not gonna expect, like, a, some sort of, like, social, social impact type of thing out of an exchange, I guess. Totally. But yeah. No. I think, yeah, I'm really looking forward to the future, and I think yeah. Thinking about DAOs, some point in the future, would be very cool. Totally. Any advice for those who may be listening at the moment and who may have a similar background to you, who may be considering, like, getting out of these, like, golden handcuffs, in big tech or in some sort of, like, well paying job and to work something towards something with maybe a little bit more purpose.
Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's gonna look different for everyone, and and your level of of, like, comfort and risk seeking is gonna depend on your situation. But I would say, like, it's it's actually probably more okay for people to take a risk than they might think. The golden handcuffs, like, kind of make you think about this in, like, four year chunks or something, but people still switch jobs all the time. And, you know, it we have the story that you're taking a risk when you join, like, a seed stage startup or something, but it really doesn't actually feel like that right now. I think there's soft landings available for, like, you know, most serious teams, working in in Silicon Valley. So, like, you're not really taking a risk when you take, when you when you join by the early stage start up. You might if you're really thinking of yourself as risk taking or or ready to take a risk in your career, then, finding a startup that is actually doing something pretty different that doesn't take VC funding that, that is, like, working much closer to workers might be the right risk for you to take. That being said, like, you know, I I am in this position, like I said, because I've been working in tech for for long enough that, I can afford to take a few years to to experiment this thesis. So I would say, like, look around and think, like, is it is it a time for you to do that? I would also, like, kind of encourage you to find a community of people thinking similarly. That was a big part of of, you know, my story as I I started meeting with different kinds of of tech workers, tech workers who are interested in labor, who, were interested in entering a struggle of some kind. And, by doing that, being surrounded by these people in in groups like DSA, it really changed, like, my attitude. But, like, suddenly, it wasn't like, oh, it's kind of an abstract thing I could do in the future. Like, it'll work for for something with an impact I like more. It became like, why am I not doing this yet? And I had to kinda continually justify it to myself, like, why I hadn't taken the plunge. And I think that helped, a lot when it was when, you know, there is a rupture, like, 2016 and then with the there is an opportunity like the Bernie campaign in 2020, or, you know, the lockdown to to step back and think about, about different features you might pursue. So, yeah, it just it might be time. So find your community of people to do that with and, start thinking about how to do it. I'm always happy to talk to folks if you smile, like, shoot find me on Twitter or something. And, I have a lot of, like, really interesting conversations with people who have really awesome backgrounds, who have have have worked at at FAANG for, like, five or ten years and are ready to to try something else. I'm I'm really happy to talk to people like that. Nice. Cool. So maybe to end it, where can people go and and keep up with you and and potentially talk to you about that if they're if they're thinking about making the plunge and keeping up with your work, of course? Sure. Yeah. I, you can find me on Twitter, Jason p Jason. So follow me there. It's a mix of shit posting and talking about cooperatives depending on, on the day. And then, I try and write, it's sporadic by, I write, longer pieces on my Substack that you mentioned. That's venturecommune.substack.com. You know, the few As opposed to venture capital. Exactly. Exactly. We need more venture communists and fewer venture capitalists out there. And so think about, like, what that means and and how you can become a venture communist.
Yeah. Nice. Well, thanks a lot, Jason. It's been really great to to hear your story and for you to share everything about Drivers Go Up. People should definitely go to WeFunder. They should fund it. They should send their money and invest in the in the labor movement. Alright. Thank you so much. It's been really nice talking to
you.