Mondragon Corporation

Mondragon is the world's largest worker-owned cooperative - 80,000+ worker-owners, €11.2 billion annual revenue, founded in Spain's Basque Country in 1956 - and a living experiment in whether democratic governance can scale. The organization operates on quorum sensing: major decisions require cooperative member votes with explicit participation thresholds. Ordinary decisions require 50%+ participation with simple majority; extraordinary decisions require 66%+ participation and 66%+ supermajority approval.

This democratic governance enforced by quorum requirements creates remarkable resilience - 90% survival rate compared to ~50% for conventional businesses. The founding quorum (5 founders with significant capital commitment) filters non-viable cooperatives through costly signals. But Mondragon also demonstrates a boundary condition where fractal hierarchies don't work: egalitarian cultures requiring extreme transparency where hierarchical authority conflicts with organizational values necessitate non-hierarchical governance structures where decisions emerge from community consensus.

The lesson: quorum mechanisms create collectively aligned organizations that survive longer, but at the cost of decision speed. Mondragon proves that democratic business governance can work at scale - if you're willing to accept that alignment and resilience matter more than agility.