The International Corporation….of One.

John Paller
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

The gig economy continues to grow and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Forbes estimates 50% of the labor workforce will be participating in freelance/gig work by 2025. Lyft recently announced they had 1.7 million drivers in the US, which doubles the amount they had in 2017 according to the Brookings Institute. This figure skyrockets when you consider the millions of freelance/gig workers contracting with Uber, AirBnB, Postmates, Rover, Fiverr, Lime, and other gig economy startups. And this is just the beginning…

The trend of companies transitioning towards a contingent/flexible workforce isn’t limited to sharing economy businesses. More and more large companies like Proctor and Gamble, General Electric, and Nintendo are also using “flexible” labor models to fill the talent gaps and stay agile. This workforce trend makes sense when considering the average W-2 tenure is now under 2 years (and decreasing) and over 70% of traditionally employed W-2 workers have job dissatisfaction according to Forbes and CNN. Consequently, nearly 50% of W-2 workers look for new work after just 12 months on the job. As Uber-like companies have demonstrated, there’s also a significant financial incentive for companies to utilize a freelance workforce. If done correctly, companies do not pay for employee benefits, such as a minimum wage, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off.

With these cost savings, companies are able to have the flexibility to grow faster and leaner without the costly burdens of W-2 employees. However, risks and financial burden don’t go away; they’re passed onto the independent contractor. The price of individual health care premiums is expected to grow as a result of the current administration’s policies. Additionally, as premiums continue to rise, the coverage is also becoming less comprehensive. This leaves a large percentage of US-based independent contractors unable to afford individual health care and traditional benefits. And with growing controversy around the employment classification of many freelance/gig workers, it is clear that the current framework of employment is out of date.

Opolis believes in an employment architecture that provides workers with the freedom and flexibility of freelancing AND the safety & security of traditional W-2 employment. Opolis’ vision is to redefine the traditional employee<>employer relationship by enabling both companies & workers to have aligned incentives and mutually benefit from the growing freelance/gig worker model. As a result, Opolis is #buidling an open-source protocol that allows for the creation of Decentralized Employment Organizations (DEOs). A DEO allows members to self-organize an employment entity. Through a DEO, workers will have access to portable benefits that are cheaper and more comprehensive than what is available to them as individuals on the open market. Individuals have complete self-determination and can join a DEO that best fits their personal needs & goals. In the end, workers will have portable employment & benefits that follow them whether they contract with one or multiple companies. This is the vision for self-sovereign employment.

It is a solution that works for the companies AND workers. Companies utilizing the Opolis ecosystem would continue to benefit from an agile freelance workforce, and be 100% compliant with state and federal labor laws. They won’t have to look over their shoulder and worry if they’ve appropriately classified their employees or if a co-employment lawsuit is in the works. They’ll also have optimal flexibility and agility to make labor decisions quickly, keeping costs down.

Similarly, with Opolis, workers have a democratically governed and fully transparent “digital union/co-op” (without the corruptibility of centralized leadership) that enables them to have self-determined, portable benefits and features that they wouldn’t have had access to as individuals.

Opolis is taking a calculated and structured approach to achieve our vision of decentralized employment organizations. To begin, we are providing US based companies with the services of a Professional Employment Organization (PEO), with a crypto twist. In early July, Opolis launched the first of it’s kind Crypto-Friendly PEO. Our beta customers are blockchain companies who may want to pay their employees in cryptocurrency. Opolis allows workers to receive one paycheck in denominations of crypto and/or USD while staying 100% compliant with US tax and labor laws.

The next phase of the evolution will entail the launch of the DEO open-source framework. The DEO technology will allow individuals to self-organize and democratically vote on the features and benefits of the group (i.e. Health insurance, retirement plans, investment pools, social safety nets, etc.). The workers’ chosen DEO then becomes their employer.

DEOs present some rather exciting possibilities. A few examples are:

  1. Universal Basic Income (UBI). A DEO could determine what is considered a livable income for its members, particularly if they’re between jobs or gigs. The DEO could vote to provide a solution like this vs. depending on a government to do so.
  2. Borderless Workforce & Payrolling: The Opolis solution also supports the growing trend of a dispersed and distributed workforce where individuals can work on multiple projects from any geocentricity and receive one paycheck in the currency (or currencies) they desire.
  3. Investment Pools. Workers can pool fractions of their wages into an investment pool to invest in themselves or outside projects that interest the group.
  4. Equity Compensation. Workers will be able to determine how they would like to be compensated. Tokenized equity will be a currency available from some companies looking for services.

The governing structures provided through Opolis’ open source DEO technology will indeed have the power to redefine the employee<>employer relationship in a way that creates equality and aligned incentives for both the worker and company. In the end, what will result is individual control over one’s employment. The international corporation….of one.

This future of self-sovereign employment is worth #buidling.

To learn more about the team or to get involved, please visit opolis.co or email us at hello@opolis.co.

John Paller

Written by

Entrepreneur, investor, futurist. Blockchain builder. Founder, Opolis and Chief Steward, ETHDenver Hackathon. Believer in humans.

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