The Cooperators Podcast Episode 14 Neal Gorenflo Shareable

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Call this podcast a deep dive into platform cooperatives and more broadly the sharing economy. That’s what Neal Gorenflo, executive director of Shareable in San Francisco, spends his days noodling on. This is a wide ranging, largely unstructured conversation but there are headline moments strewn throughout, from Gorenflo’s Road to Damascus epiphany that prompted him to resign a corporate job and become a sharing guru through his bareful perspective on Uber – sizzling stuff – and musing about Emilia Romagna which he sees as something of a polar opposite of Silicon Valley because it’s a place where cooperatives really matter.

In many ways this is a challenge to what Gorenflo calls Silicon Valley orthodoxy where the true believers are convinced their way is the best way to build a business. Is it really? Gorenflo has real doubts.

Want some good news about cooperatives in the US? You’ll hear it here. We just may be on the cusp of a boom in cooperatives as more of us come to see that this is a flexible business format with lots of benefits for workers, communities, owners.

Like what you are hearing? The Cooperators Podcast seeks sponsors and supporters to help us spread the word about cooperatives and how they often are the better way. Contact Robert McGarvey to find out what you can do to sustain this podcast.