The $25 Billion Company Where Employees Pay to Book Conference Rooms

One way to make people think twice before scheduling a meeting? Make them pay for it.

That’s effectively what happens at Disco Corp., a Japanese manufacturing firm with a market capitalization of approximately $33 billion in July 2025. It uses a radical internal economy to help manage costs, whereby employees are charged in company scrip—called “Will”—for activities that might cost the company money.

Employees earn Will by taking on tasks that align with company needs or by proactively offering assistance to others. They spend it on anything that imposes a cost on the company—including requesting help from colleagues, reserving meeting rooms, or using perks like coffee machines and smoking areas.

The internal pricing is set by the teams themselves and varies across departments, but in general, higher-cost activities (such as pulling in a lawyer for a meeting or requesting technical help) require more Will.

This isn’t a literal out-of-pocket fee, but it may as well be. In one example from the Financial Times, an employee spent about 50,000 Will on using the smoking room, hanging up his umbrella, and calling a meeting. These actions, while seemingly trivial, were priced as costs to the company under the system’s logic.

The employee overspent their Will and ended up in the red. This could negatively impact their work record (which could affect a performance review or a bonus). They had to earn back to a positive Will balance by contributing value-adding work like joining hiring interviews (200,000 Will) and processing invoices (80,000 Will).

So is this a genius way to curb bloat and make workers consider the cost of their (and others’) time—or a new form of micromanagement?

Why Does Disco Charge for Meetings?

Disco’s system turns office interactions into market transactions. Instead of treating time and resources as free and unlimited, the company makes employees aware of their cost—even within the firm.

This approach falls into what economists call “internalizing the externality,” says Peter G. Klein, a professor of entrepreneurship at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business.

“Metering the use of all shared resources can lead to more effective use by forcing employees to bear the opportunity costs of their actions,” Klein explains.

“But if these opportunity costs are small … then the system adds a lot of administrative complexity for little benefit.”

Does This Create Efficiency or Friction?

At best, this kind of internal market motivates productivity and thoughtful time use. At worst, it introduces new inefficiencies.

Klein warns that pricing every employee action “imposes transaction costs—time employees spend learning the system, checking their balances, calculating the cost of this action”—all of which takes time and effort away from productive work.

He also notes that such systems can “impede cooperation” if participating in joint projects or activities doesn’t generate enough of the internal currency for each participant.

In other words, you might avoid unnecessary meetings. But the system could also prevent useful collaboration because employees are thinking more in terms of Will rather than about working effectively and efficiently.

Could It Work in the U.S.?

Though not necessarily incorporating internal currencies to control expenses, versions of this idea exist in the United States. “Plenty of companies around the world, including the U.S., have experimented with similar kinds of decentralized systems,” says Klein.

He cites examples of firms testing variations of market-based management or boss-less organization models—like tomato processing company Morning Star, where employees craft personal mission statements and negotiate responsibilities directly with colleagues.

Video game developer Valve also lets employees freely choose which projects to work on, eschewing traditional job titles or bosses entirely. Meanwhile, Koch Industries applies “Principle-Based Management,” empowering workers to make decisions based on mutual benefit, comparative advantage, and self-actualization rather than strict managerial oversight.

Whether these systems succeed often depends on the workplace culture and the broader cultural context, Klein says. Some environments—like tech companies or younger, more flexible teams—are more likely to embrace them.

But, of course, this depends on the specific model as well. For example, online publishing platform Medium tried to impose a halocratic system, which aims to replace traditional hierarchical structures with self-management, before stopping it altogether.

An executive wrote that the system “had begun to exert a small but persistent tax on both our effectiveness and our sense of connection to each other.”

The Bottom Line

Disco’s cost management experiment places a fascinating lens on what happens when you bring market mechanics into the office.

While charging employees to book a conference room might sound extreme, it may force everyone to reconsider how time is spent and the value of collaboration. Still, it’s not a perfect fix for bloated meetings or corporate inefficiency.

As Klein notes: “The use of internal markets, like any other organizational structure or policy, has benefits and costs—it is not a panacea.”

For companies tempted to follow suit? Consider this a reminder that sometimes, less management isn’t really less—it’s just management disguised as a new kind of game.