Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

joanwestenberg.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 313 posts

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#71

Post by lm28469 »

sxg wrote: post #49
lm28469 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same with business: business is growing or dying I know plenty of people with small businesses that are neither growing nor dying, just paying the bills and making enough money to live happily. I'm kind of scared that people can't even imagine this is a possibility to be honest... Not everything has to be the next facebook and have 100% yoy growth

Maybe those companies don't have net growth, but they still need some sort of growth. Regardless of what industry you're in, every business will face inevitable losses—customers will decide to leave, inflation will occur, equipment will need to be repaired/replaced, etc. Those losses need to be offset by growth. While net positive growth isn't necessary, it is a major motivator for launching your own business. If you…

I wouldn't consider "replacing" a lost client or a broken tool as growing. A company with good finances should already have planned for that. Either way I highly doubt that's the "cancer" the article is talking about.

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#73

Post by reallydontask »

RivieraKid wrote: post #27
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes – until you bring the stock market and investors into the picture. Oftentimes, companies will have a legal obligation to their stockholders to (attempt to) maximise profit…

Maximizing profit is a good thing.

Sometimes, other times only if you ignore externalities

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#74

Post by bmitc »

szatkus wrote: post #37
sunstone wrote: post #3

To push the metaphor a bit further isn't humanity itself a kind of cancer of the earth?

It's expected that the population will stabilize around 10-15 billions.

At the cost of the destabilization of many other species and ecosystems.

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#75

Post by jeofken »

burlesona wrote: post #34
simon_000666 wrote: post #7

I'm not the biggest fan of this analogy. I find it reductionist to the point it loses it's meaning. Actually the whole human body is constantly growing, not just cancers. I'm am growing new skin cells as we speak, approximately every x3 weeks I shed old skin cells so need new ones. The problem with cancerous cells is that the body stops recycling them and so then they grow unchecked. Modern companies are more like sk…

Actually your skin cell analogy is a good one, in that companies should also be constantly recycled by the market. One of the major problems in the modern west, especially the US, is that when crises have hit we’ve conflated helping “the people” with saving their employer. Imagine how differently things would look today if in 2008 there has been no bailouts for corporations, only direct aid to affected individuals. T…

The same wrong incentives apply to individuals. It’d be better just not to tax people’s wages and also not bail failing companies or careers out, but let people and business find their own balance.

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#76

Post by jariel »

jspash wrote: post #36

I often question the motives of my company. It has only 100 or so employees. Has been in business for 25+ years. But we are on a continual drive to increase sales, hire new people, add size to the facilities. But it wasn't always this way. It only happened once it went public. Now we are working for the investors. They need to see an increasing return on their investment. Management choices are no longer about the cu…

"there IS no answer"

Sure there is.

'In the begging' it was was invariably led by some kind of founder/owners, and the values of the company were intimately related to their values. For better or worse.

A public or widely held company not led by founders tends to have a more political class of executives who are more likely to report to the board on the basis of 'making them money'. Maybe not, but probably a little more so than otherwise. Every situation is different.

So the answer to 'why' is simple: the board probably makes the expectation of the CEO, who requires that of the team, one way or another, and that trickles down into various plans of various kinds. It's really just that.

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#77

Post by freeflight »

simon_000666 wrote: post #7

I'm not the biggest fan of this analogy. I find it reductionist to the point it loses it's meaning. Actually the whole human body is constantly growing, not just cancers. I'm am growing new skin cells as we speak, approximately every x3 weeks I shed old skin cells so need new ones. The problem with cancerous cells is that the body stops recycling them and so then they grow unchecked. Modern companies are more like sk…

> I'm not the biggest fan of this analogy.

Personally I find it very fitting and apt analogy for a lot of modern business practices. If the goal is growth only for the purpose of growth then that's pretty comparable to cancer.

Possibly even down to the ultimate consequences: Usually it's not the cancer itself that kills people, what's killing them is being starved by the cancer as they can't keep up supplying their body, and aggressive cancer, with enough nutrients.

Imho this analogy holds similarly true for businesses that have as their main focus perpetual growth, just like an economic system that's based on perpetual growth, while being stuck in a place where resources are actually finite and as such can't even realistically sustain perpetual growth.

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#78

Post by fsloth »

lnsru wrote: post #16

There are 2 states in the forest: growing trees and rotting trees. Nothing in between. So this cancer analogy is a bit absurd. The same with business: business is growing or dying, I am not buying “we don’t want grow” argument.

A symphony orchestra does not grow or rot. It stays mostly the same. Of course the value of the institution and the quality of the output may fluctuate over time.

I don't think it's growth that is the key for healthy organization - it is the drive to deliver quality output. When that drive withers the rot start. I don't see the quality of output and the drive for quality necessary linked to a constant growth in terms of revenue and so on.

Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

#79

Post by bmitc »

sunstone wrote: post #3

To push the metaphor a bit further isn't humanity itself a kind of cancer of the earth?

I think of this every time I’m in an airplane looking down. I can’t see the effects of all the other animals, but the effects upon Earth by humans is drastic and very infectious looking.
Post reply on HN