The Survival of the Anthropocene

Jose Leal (00:01):

Hi there, and welcome to rHatchery Live. I'm Jose Leal, and today's guest is Matt Perez. Matt, why don't you introduce yourself?

Matt Perez (00:12):

So, I'm the co-author of the book Radical Companies with our Bosses or Employees, which I wrote with Jose Leal and Adrian Perez. And I spent a lot of years in, I spent my whole professional life in computing software, hardware, software, again, hardware again. So, that's it.

Jose Leal (00:38):

So, Matt, we have a topic for today. You wanted to talk about a specific topic, the survival of the Anthropocene. Can you tell us what the Anthropocene is? Because that's the first question that comes to mind when that topic pops up.

Matt Perez (00:57):

Well, it's supposed to be the name of a geological age, like all the other geological, geological age where the dinosaur, where the big players and stuff like that. And this is where man, or mankind or humankind or whatever is a big player in this geological time. He hasn't been accepted yet, but he thought it was an interesting word because, it carried it put people at the center of what's going to happen in next whatever years. And that my concern was that if we didn't do something about it, we will, the engine will end and, or, all our accomplishments and progress is going to go down to, and I'd like for that not to happen.

Jose Leal (02:04):

And so how does that relate to the work that you're doing with rHatchery?

Matt Perez (02:10):

So let, let me back off it a little. It's not just rHatchery. The bigger realization came after we sold the, our, my peers company. So, I'm not anti-capitalism or anything I like money and all stuff, but there's something basically in fair about the system that we live in. And did it done me until very late in life. I was like 68, when that done me, because we sold the company and, you know, we got money and, I that was all very nice. But some people seemed to me should have gotten more because they did a lot of the building of the company. And so anyways, one thing led to another Jose who's interviewing, doing the interviewing here, dragged me to this co-op meeting in Sacramento, California. And I learned more about co-ops and stuff like that.

Matt Perez (03:22):

But there, what I saw, there was a movement of people that were looking for kind of the same thing. We want to be, you know, movement, the owners of our work. We don't want to have to come into work and kill up our essence and hang it up at the door and then do whatever the boss is for eight hours and then come out, pick it up and go home. Because it, we don't work that way. Human beings don't work that way. So, what doing me this, that the place to make the change is at the workplace. The workplace where we spend most of our working hours, we hang out with other people, we make friends, we make, you know, enemies or people that don't like or whatever, but it's a community, you know, is we're all working on a thing and the boss gives us general directions, you know, where things ought to go.

Matt Perez (04:30):

And then there's a lot of stuff that people do to make that ha that general direction happen. And usually the boss has at the end, well, that wasn't quite what I was thinking of, and you got to change it this way and that way. But the point is that where we hang out for eight hours a day, which is significant chunk of time or more. And we're fully awake. We go leave with those people. We do all those things. And the communities are, have the power to make a change. So, the individual is completely limited. That's why individuals have to form movements and to make a change and stuff like that. Because you need that community, you need that group of people all pushing in the same direction. And all the progress that we've accomplished as people, have been accomplished by movements sometimes for better since I'm sure not so good. And but it's always a group of people that put their head to make any change. And so, like companies are see, are the perfect companies, are the perfect avenue, the perfect platform for that to happen. And that's where I passion is.

Jose Leal (06:00):

And so, you said a lot there. I want to like take us back a little bit here. Sure. I want to sort of take a few steps. So, the fear is that we're going to kill ourselves, end our own era because of the things that we're doing.

Matt Perez (06:22):

Yes.

Jose Leal (06:23):

And your belief is, if I understand from what you said is kind of twofold. One people spend most of their time at work, so a lot of what they are doing that happens to be killing the earth and killing possibly humanity is happening at work. Yes. Is that a fair thing?

Matt Perez (06:48):

Yep. That's very fair.

Jose Leal (06:49):

And then second is part of why they're doing that. Why the things that they're doing are possibly killing ourselves and so forth is because they're doing the boss's bidding rather than doing what they feel is necessary to be done. Is that also fair to say?

Matt Perez (07:10):

That's also fair with one distinction, a lot of people say, like, I would've said, oh, you're not doing the boss's bidding. The body has boss's a vision, want to create this product and all that stuff. And oftentimes in technology particularly you propose that product. But your focus on the boss boss's purposes, his purpose, and it is usually not his purpose, it is his boss's purposes and it's his boss's purposes. It all comes down to how do we make more money? And, and that's fine. I'm not against making money, but what do, how do we make more money at all costs? So, we get involved in that. It doesn't feel like the boss is telling you anything arbitrary or out the blue. It's like, you know, making money's good, let's do more of that. And if we have to take the really lethal stuff and dump it in the river, well, you know, we'll drive the trucks and we'll do it that way.

Matt Perez (08:21):

So that's what we do. But one way or the other, if we go to another company who's not doing that and has a slightly different goal then we do things differently. Same people, you take me from here to there and they do things differently because again, that business was set up to do X and this business set up to y and you, you align yourself with X or Y depending on where you're at. And the boss every so often has to remind you that he's the boss. But he doesn't have to tell you all the time.

Jose Leal (09:01):

So let me ask you this question, because I think we're still playing with a little bit of a leap. Is it fair to say that for you, the idea that you can work for the boss and do the thing that you're doing and that is, if we don't fix that situation, we can actually save humanity from the pitfalls that we all recognize through other means, through changing the economic system or changing the political system or changing our, our use of electric, you know, of energy. Like what else? You know, all these other things are things that people are saying, that's the answer. We need to change those things. Right? Do you think we can change those things and not change work and, and have it be a viable way to survive?

Matt Perez (10:08):

Here's the thing, the analogy that I make is we, right now we're all our driving a gasoline-powered card. And you can do all kinds of things too. You can tweak it to death, you can make the season nicer, you can make the hybrids, no, but it's a gas car. No gas, no work, no nothing. Things will stop. And that's what we're driving. So, changing the economic system, changing this, changing that is tweaking in my view is tweaking the system. So, we need a different vehicle, like an old electric car that will allow us to go forward. Now what form will that take and all that stuff. I don't know, I'm anybody who claims to know what's a nice thing to say, is an idiot, that's a nice way to put it. Because, you know, I may have this clear vision of what's going to happen and then some anybody will come along and say, but what about this?

Matt Perez (11:22):

And you go. Yeah, I didn't think about that. So, we don't know. The reality is we don't know how we're going to get there. What I do know is that we have to move from a system that's based on hierarchical demanding control. The guy at the top determines vision, determines what we're going, and it's usually, it is a hundred percent related to making money. We can tweak that all we want and still we'll end up in the dumpster of history. Okay? We got to get rid of the hierarchy. One person emits commands to the people below and mean, and the people belong to the things or quit or whatever it is. But we need to get away from that and move to a non-electric system that will allow everybody who's involving building whatever it is that we're building or doing whatever it's that we're doing to have a voice, a real voice. I get really off when people say, own the place. Yeah, I'd like them to feel like they have hair. I don't, you know, so they have to have a voice, a real voice in the business.

Jose Leal (12:55):

No, no, that's important. The question that leads me to, to think of is because we've both been in that boss role.

Matt Perez (13:07):

Mm-Hmm.

Jose Leal (13:08):

Right? And part of what I think some folks in this future workspace, in this emerging space of changing how work works you know, it's the individual who's the boss? That's the problem is that what you're pointing to? I mean, at some point you directed a team, and you were the boss. Was it you that was the problem?

Matt Perez (13:45):

No, no.

Jose Leal (13:46):

Is bosses the problem? Like is it the individual that's the problem?

Matt Perez (13:50):

No, it is the hierarchy.

Jose Leal (13:53):

Explain that. What do you mean by the hierarchy? What the hierarchy?

Matt Perez (13:56):

So of course, that could never be wrong. You know, I, everything I did was wonderful, but I had to report to my boss who had to report to his boss who had to report to his boss. I think they were like three or four levels the place I'm thinking of. And he's all directed from there. And if you don't follow, if what you're doing does not result in profit to the company in some way, shape, or romance, doesn't have to money could be research, it could be all kinds of things. Okay? but if it doesn't translate to some advantage to the company, you are in the worst case, you're going to get fired in the 99% case, you get the message and you realign. This is where, I shouldn't even if you're doing something, you don't report it because, you know, it doesn't fit and stuff like that. So, it's not the individual in the hierarchy that is a problem. The hierarchy, the fact that we all take commands from a guy at the top and you know, it's been worse. We had slavery for a while and your life was on the line. You didn't do exactly what the slave owner wanted. This is not so bad now. So, you may say, oh, there's been a lot of progress there has.

Matt Perez (15:37):

But not for humanity, for us. We're running to the edge faster than ever before. The good, you know, the good of it is that we've had a lot of progress and, you know, medicine keeps surprising me every day, the kind of things that come up and stuff like that. And that's all find well and good. In the west, in the western type of governments decentralization, central decentralization of ownership has become more acceptable. So, it's not just the king that owns everything is us six or seven or 12 or a hundred people. It doesn't matter what the number is because that number right now does not include everybody. Okay? It includes a selected number of people. And that's the problem that all these people, it's a lot of people to agree on one thing, making money in this case, making a financial profit at the expense of everything else. And then if there's enough pressure and we as consumers put enough pressure and stuff like that, then there's some lipstick on the pig that has to do with going along with the pressure and stuff like that. Or, you know doing what the, where the pressure leaks you and stuff like that. But in the end, it's not worth good for environment.

Matt Perez (17:34):

It's taken so over the edge. And think of it as a gas car. You can do anything you want, but so long as it's a gas powered car, it is a gas power car no matter what you do. Okay? So, the pyramid is what gives all this stuff motion?

Jose Leal (17:57):

So, what I'm hearing is that the pyramid is really sort of disempowering people's autonomy. Is that a good way to describe it?

Matt Perez (18:08):

That's part of what they, what it does, it disempowers people autonomous. But if you ask a hundred people in western countries they will tell you, “No, I'm very empowered”. I would, what's wrong with you? And what you're talking about is idealistic and stuff like that because, and you mentioned before, you and I have been in that position when I was first told about self-management, which is only a portion of what we're talking about here my direction was, no, you can't operate without me as the boss, me as the manager. And so I didn't feel this empowered anybody who said that, you feel this empowered, no, I didn't feel this empowered because if I wanted to do something else, I quit and go do my own thing or go work for somebody else or what have you. So that it is not the problem of being disempowered. It's the problem of not having a real voice. It's not the autonomy. I have a lot of autonomy to quit and go somewhere. We go from, X place to Y place. I still don't have voice in X or Y.

Jose Leal (19:39):

Right? So, tell me about what rHatchery about in relationship to all of that? What's the role of rHatchery? And the second question, it is tied to that, why are we having these conversations? Why rHatchery live?

Matt Perez (20:04):

Oh, okay. So rHatchery is attempt. Jose's not in my attempt to help companies make transform, make transition to…

Matt Perez (20:26):

The solution towards the solution. It's not going to happen in one big step. But it is got to happen. So, we're trying to, that we're still learning the best way to do it and, and stuff like that. But the whole idea is you take a company that used to be commanding control, where people are called resources, and things like that. And you slowly transform it to a company where everybody has a voice, everybody has ownership of the work they do and the company that they build. And that's not a simple thing. You know, we've gone through the self-management stuff and have some experience there, but in the ownership thing, it's all, we don't, nobody has any experience there. Very few people have experience in that, in that regard. And that's what we're trying to do with rHatchery, rHatchery live is a way of talking to other people who are action oriented, not just want to talk, but are doing something with the same idea, with the same motivation. They recognize the problem; they recognize that we don't have voice. The lack of broad voice is a big part of the problem. That's driving us over the edge and they're doing their own thing about it. And then we want to talk about what they're doing, what's missing, what's not missing, and stuff like that. So that's what rHatchery live is about.

Jose Leal (22:17):

I wanted to just sort of clarify something that you just said, because I think that the folks our friends over in the co-op world would say we know how to run businesses that are owned that are co-owned. And they do for the most part it's a little different than what we envision, but what they're dealing with in many cases is not the combination of the co-ownership and the co-management together, right? Or what we like to call as co-managed and co-owned as well. So, I think that makes sense that it's really the combination that hasn't been really tried together and brought into one role. And so, tell me a little bit more about your hope for the conversations that we're going to have here with folks. You described them as people of action, people who want to be doing these things. People that are already in organizations, people that are already doing things that they recognize need to change, right? What, what else would you say?

Matt Perez (23:35):

Well, I didn't want to call them activists because that brings up a lot of baggage associated with that word. But that's where they are. They recognize the full extent of the problem, but they recognize the big chunk of the problem and they're doing something to fix it. I don't think those, I think those people are close enough that as we illuminate what else is in the works here, what else is we're missing that they'll be the first one to go. And I'm not doing anything about that until I get this fixed. I understand that. But those are kind of people that we're, that we're going to try to talk to the thing about the co-ops in general is you said it right, co-ownership is a thing that they move, you know, co-ops to fix a problem, but they fix it in a funny way.

Matt Perez (24:48):

They fix it in a one person won vote kind of way. They usually co-ops are mom on the management side, some elect their own bosses, some you know, we had the opportunity to look at a bunch of co-ops in Europe and the same guy has been in charge of the same, in many cases. Same guy has been charged of the same co-op for 35-40 years. So, you know I think that's part of the problem. But the thing is, they even the co-ownership side, they do it as everybody's equal and everybody's not equal. It is not, you know, sometimes they fill down, I don't do anything and sometimes I'm both full charged and I do stuff. And sometimes the contribution to what we're doing, sometimes it's not okay. Normally we rely on a boss to decide, this is a contribution, that's not a contribution, this is a good contribution, this is not a good contribution and stuff like that. But to say that everybody's equal and we're all equal and stuff like that’s not based on anything other, than existence, right? I exist, therefore I'm equal to the guy next to me, that's not true.

Jose Leal (26:30):

And I think that speaks, I was going to say, I think that speaks to what you said earlier about, you know, you like money and capitalism in general, it works. And I've heard you say this before and I didn't hear you say it today, so I'm going to say it, which is you like capitalism as long as it's for everybody.

Matt Perez (26:52):

Exactly. And they said the problem isn’t that capitalism, the problem is centralization. The really bad guy's, centralization is that guy at the top. That's the centralization thing. We like kings, you know, and we get rid of kings and then Europe get rid of kings and stuff like that. So, but look at companies now, companies are kingdoms or dictatorships, or you want to call them, but they ruled by one person. And the story that, well, it's the board that's the only, that's BS But even if we’re the divorce and oligarchy is fine, it's still the boss, oligarchy is still the boss. So instead of basing it on, I have this much money, therefore I own the big piece, and you have this much money, you own a little bit, instead of basing on that capital, why don't we base it on our contributions?

Matt Perez (27:54):

And in fact, why don't we do a mix, you know, I'll bring this much money to the whole thing. I'll expect so much money back from doing the same, from starting the company and stuff like that. That's fine, but from that point on, it should be based on contributions. And if I'm the only one making all the big sales and all the ones making all the big organizational contributions, I might as well fire everybody else and be the only one in the company. But that's not true. The other guys are building the company along with you. So how do we recognize your contributions without a boss, without a God-like person telling us that was good, that was not good. And the answer is everybody, we can all tell what the contribution is to us.

Matt Perez (28:54):

We don't have to agree that what you did was contribution for everybody, which says to understand that thing was contribution to me and my team. But the other guy looking at it goes “doesn't look like contribution to me”, but then I do something else. And that guy says, “oh, I recognize that a contribution”. And, and the person sitting here says, “they didn't look at the contribution to me”. So, by getting everybody to pitch in to say, what is a contribution, what is a conclusion? You end up with a more just system. It may not be the perfect system because we are not perfect, and we didn't aim for perfect, but it's a more just what it is now, which is the boss decide what your bonuses, depending on what he saw.

Matt Perez (29:59):

And he only has two eyes, or she only has two eyes, although it's mostly he is. And this way, if you have a hundred people, it's not just two eyes, it is 200 eyes looking at what's going on there and the determining, this is contribution, that's not a contribution, this is contribution, It's not a contribution, there's a big one, there's a small one. This is not equal, if you make a contribution, it affects a lot of people and they all give you that feedback and intangible ways, then that's good. You contribute to that. If you do something and nobody's sees a regular contribution, then it's not a contribution. And you may ask, “Hey, how come I did this? Nobody saw the contribution”. It may be that you're not communicating right, it may be that you are do, you are long wolf and you're doing it all in the back and nobody see what you're doing. It may be that what you did was very sat satisfactory to you, but it was not a contribution.

Jose Leal (31:15):

Good time to scratch my nose. Matt, you froze, Matt. You're still frozen

 Matt Perez (31:37):

Ownership and bone says, and all the rest of it.

Jose Leal (31:39):

You froze for probably 10 seconds, 15 seconds there, “about contribution” and then you froze. So, oh, you're on mute Carlos, do you want to flip us around?

Carlos Ponce (32:06):

Yeah, no, I was just saying that I'm going to trim this part, so I'm going kick myself out for the wrap up.

Jose Leal (32:13):

So Matt, I was going to suggest that we do 30 minutes.  Cause I think that's a good size. And we're going to have a little chop here and there. So, we're at 32, so that, that should be okay. So, do you want to do a, you know, a wrap up? I'll ask you a question. You say, here's what I think and then just do it short and then I'll say, come and visit radical rHatchery live and we'll see you next week for another event. Another okay, another conversation.

Matt Perez (32:50):

Okay, let's do that.

Jose Leal (32:53):

Okay, Matt. Well so you've described a little bit of the radical model in this conversation but has been really more about introducing the fact that we want to have conversations with new folks. So, any last words on that part?

Matt Perez (33:11):

No, just a quick summary that we're, what we are doing is in addition to what everybody else is doing, we're not doing anything new or anything you know, world shaking or anything like that. Is again the difference between the gas car and the electric car. They both look at cars, right? They both have headlights and seats and all the rest of it, but it's a fundamentally different system inside. And one that, as we hope can take us forward for a long time. And one that is clunking out and is going to kill us. And what we want to do is get involved with other people that are working in the same direction and see how much we have in common if we can get things going and do more together. Because together is the key word here. And that's it.

Jose Leal (34:18):

Awesome. Thank you for joining us today. And I want to just remind folks that rHatchery live will be live every week moving forward, and that we're looking for guests. So, if you know someone who you think is doing something radical, that is doing something that will benefit, what was it called “The Anthropocene”?.

Matt Perez (34:49):

Anthropocene

 Jose Leal (34:51):

Then let us know visit rhatchery.live and you'll see future folks there. Reach out to us on radical companies.com. And you'll be able to contact us there as well. So, hope to see you again next week. And we'll say goodbye for now.