Corporations under a board and a CEO staffed by hired labor have very little in common with worker-co-ops and workplace democracy. My point is that a person competent enough to successfully run a business will almost certainly do so solo. The value-add of worker co-ops is moot if you already have the knowledge and capacity to run and staff a business, whereas the drawbacks and risk are monumental.

I've been in and started several worker cooperative businesses. I don't try to do it anymore because of what I perceive as a fundamental issue: the people that are the most explicitly attracted to worker co-ops are also the least business saavy or willing to put the business's existence ahead of ideological values. In my experience, it is a recipe for almost certain failure.

In the same way that anarchists point to Revolutionary Catalonia, workplace socialists point toward Mondragon, ignoring that these are both statistical aberrations rather than the normal state of affairs. The normal state of affairs is a bunch of naive ideologues that hand-wave away planning critical details. This isn't unique to worker co-ops; founders do it all the time, but the difference is that new ventures require flexibility and leanness, but worker-co-ops are exceptionally rigid and fragile.

Generally if worker co-ops "succeed" it's directly because they are being subsidized by similar ideologues rather than business efficiency. The actual product they sell is good feelings rather than products or services.

people are more annoying than anyone. you need a good set of rules for the game.

My funniest attempt involved 2 friends of mine who are both in a league of their own in their field. both of them kept sticking their nose in what the other was doing endlessly moaning that it couldn't be done. Eventually they just got angry that some noob would question their expertise.