Technology people can truly own—private, durable, and local-first.

A world where people own their technology—their devices and their data—without surveillance, lock-in, or dependency on extractive companies.

We want consumer technology to feel like tools you can trust: local-first, repairable, understandable, and built to serve human life for decades.

Tech of Our Own exists to build non-extractive consumer technology that makes people more capable, more private, and more free.

• Ship local-first products that keep personal data and computation under the user’s control.
• Build in public with open-source, always-on practices, auditable security, and shared knowledge.
• Design for long life through repairability, upgrade paths, and long-term support.
• Refuse dependency business models: no subscriptions, no hostage mechanics, no data sales.
• Structure governance so users and workers are represented and benefit.

We’re mission-locked and built for two constitutional memberships: users and workers. They’re represented in governance and share in the upside—so the company can’t quietly drift into extraction.

Our constitution and board operations documents define non-negotiables, transparent governance, and long-term stewardship so the company cannot drift into extraction or lock-in.

OurBox is our starting point: a local-first personal server that runs at home, keeps data private, and stays useful without a subscription.

The mission extends to any future product category where people need technology that respects them—phones, appliances, robotics, and beyond—while keeping ownership and autonomy intact.

You are someone whose files, messages, photos, calendar, and attention have been pulled into systems designed to keep you dependent, distracted, and observable.

The problem is not that you failed to keep up. The problem is that modern consumer technology is built to make extraction feel normal.

You do not need to hand over your data, your habits, and your peace of mind just to use modern software. You can move toward tools that answer to you instead.

That starts with having a box in your own home that works for your life instead of a cloud company working on you.

• Self-host the data and apps that matter most to your daily life.
• Reduce your dependence on predatory companies and subscription traps.
• Reclaim your attention from platforms designed to keep you reactive.
• Build a calmer, healthier, more sovereign relationship with technology.

For this phase, the practical first move is simple: choose Matchbox or Woodbox and start building from a system you can understand, repair, and keep under your roof.

• Users and workers are the owners. The people who rely on and build the product hold the authority.
• Ownership means representation. Decisions answer to everyday use and day-to-day work, not distant shareholders.
• No exit windfalls. We are not built for liquidity events or sell-outs; stewardship stays with the community.
• Value flows back to the community. Surplus is returned to users and workers instead of being extracted.

Mission and good intention and ethos are almost always overcome by incentives. In modern tech, that incentive is almost always profit, for the owners and the workers.

By closing the profit feedback loop with users—returning value through dividends—a cooperative can escape the vicious cycle that reliably degrades even the most beloved products and companies over time.

By removing liquidity “exit events” from worker incentives, or "equity sales" to shareholders, the only ones left to serve are the users.