I love to see discussion on specific ideas for how to make socialism happen! I agree, workplaces where workers vote on leadership, and share in profits could make a big difference. Someday I'd like that kind of structure to be mandated. But yes, in the meantime why not start implementing it?

Have you heard about cooperatives in Italy? They have been around for decades, and have seen success - especially in Emilia-Romagna. I learned about this via a Youtube video, so I'll link that. Italy's Radical Solution to Extreme Inequality by More Perfect Union.

The idea of building a better system from the bottom up is sometimes called "dual power". The idea is to create a counter to top-down state power, or oligarchic control. It can be a check on top-down power, fill in gaps where the state doesn't meet people's needs, build up a better system that can eventually replace the old system when it's ready, or all of the above. I did some quick searching and came across this document. But I'll admit I've only skimmed it at this point to verify that put also puts an emphasis on cooperatives.

I've talked a tiny bit to people who have worked on starting cooperatives in the California Bay Area. What I've heard is that it's difficult to get business loans because banks are wary of business structures that they don't have experience with. But more specifically banks want to know who owns what: who owns the building the business operates from? Who owns the equipment? The people I talked to want shared ownership, which is at odds with what the banks want. I suspect there is some way to resolve that - probably with a corporation with shared ownership (like you described) that is the legal owner of capital. So that's an issue that's related to the legal question you brought up of what legal corporate structure would be best.

You talked about The Owners electing a president and a CEO. Are The Owners shareholders? As in, people who own one share each? And workers would generally be owners?

I think I've heard the idea that a company should have equal profit sharing for all workers. Personally I've also thought about the idea of automatic equity proportional to the time you've spent working with the company. Like every month or so shares would automatically rebalance. That could mean that if you've put in 1% of the total working months (including types of leave like parental leave), you get 1% of the shares. But I think it would be better to scale on a logarithmic curve, or something like that, so that it takes a little bit of time for new workers to ramp up their shares, but they get a boost to "catch up" to people who have been at the company longer.

I like your ideas about payroll vs surplus incentives! I had some thoughts along the lines of CEO pay being capped at some multiple of the lowest paid worker, or leadership raises being capped based on a ratio of total payroll between the current and previous year. But to some extent I was thinking about possible external legislation, vs internal charter rules.

I happen to be trying to start a business now. I don't know if I'll succeed. If I do, I don't know if I'll bring on more people. But if I do, I want to use a cooperative model.