Decentralization: The Story of Successful Companies Is About to Change The future is decentralized ventures, where everyone works together to steer the business forward and everyone has a voice.
By Torrey Tayenaka Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Most success stories of companies in the 21st century tell the tale of an en entrepreneur and their team. The story usually goes like this: the founder saw an opportunity, gathered a small team of people, headquartered the business in an office, and kept working until the business skyrocketed into a successful enterprise. In our day and age, however, things are changing due to the power of the Internet with decentralization becoming more and more popular.
What is decentralization?
It's simple. In decentralized companies, everyone has a stake — from the founder to the users. These companies no longer revere any one person as a metaphorical God who makes all the decisions. In decentralized ventures, everyone works together to steer the business forward and everyone has a voice.
Related: 3 Ways to Decentralize Management and Boost Productivity
What's more, with the power of the Internet and various connection tools such as Slack, Zoom, and Asana that allow an instant connection, those who work on decentralized companies no longer have to live within the same geographical area or even see each other. Decentralizing a company has its benefits and drawbacks.
In 2020, the economy is all about sharing. We share our cars and homes in order to gain more freedom and make money. With the rise of the digital nomad, decentralizing is only expected to gain more and more traction.
Digital nomads and decentralization
Digital nomads are professionals who decide to forego the conventional understanding of nine to five jobs, pack up their laptop, and move to a beach in Thailand, for example. The trend is soaring among Millennials and Gen Z, who happen to be the most technologically-advanced generations.
Related: 5 Decentralization Trends to Watch This Year
With decentralization, successful entrepreneurs no longer need to worry about their age. While talent can be undisputed, founders are often at a disadvantage when they happen to be too young for their own business. With decentralization, however, the age no longer matters because the founder is no longer in the spotlight. Instead, the business is one big joint venture.
The inherent risks
In 2017, the decentralized company Equifax suffered a major security breach. Since the company owned massive amounts of user data stored online, hackers took advantage and effectively stole personal data from over 143 million Americans. While fraud is always a problem, in decentralized companies, those involved are encouraged to uphold transparency because a few bad apples can bring down the entire business and this goes against everyone's efforts.
Currently, decentralization is a successful business model that is only expected to get bigger in the coming years. Even Mark Zuckerberg plans to decentralize quite a few aspects of Facebook, showing that the trend is here to stay.
