Boston Tech Collective brings bossless business model to tech support in Somerville – The Boston Globe

Summary

Traditional worker-owned cooperatives in the Boston area will remodel your home, fix your bicycle, or even dispose of your commercial waste. Now, a new contender in Somerville will repair your computer or configure your network following the same model. Unlike a typical business, Boston TechCollective is run democratically, by employees who are also stakeholders — so there’s no boss, a rarity in the regimented world of tech support. “Here, we’re collaborating,” said cofounder Yochai Gal, 31, who founded a similar organization, also called TechCollective but financially distinct, in San Francisco in 2007. Here in the shop near Davis Square, some of the five co-owners root out computer viruses, recover data, and diagnose dire computer problems. Others are out in the field, visiting client businesses on site to troubleshoot errors and perform network maintenance.