Replicators using directed mutation to compete in a free energy medium will inevitably discover uncontrolled replication. Doesn't matter whether its viruses or cells or businesses or memes.
Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
101–110 of 313 posts
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#102I think one interesting way of looking at a company is as a power struggle between
- the owners
- the employees
- the managers
- the clients
- (and sometimes) the government / general public
The view that a company's sole duty is to provide value to shareholders (i.e. to grow) is blinkered and damaging. I'm tempted to heap blame for that way of thinking on the economics establishment and on anti-comunist sentiment from the 20th century but that's probably naive.
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#103But the universe is growing. OMG THE UNIVERSE IS A CANCER!
The article didn’t say “If a company is growing”, but “if the purpose of a company is merely growth”.
Fair enough, but to survive a company needs to aim to grow - existing customers will always leave (die or go out of business). Making products that make their customers lives better, providing a living for its employees, and a service to its community, are by-products of survival and of the process of growing.
A well run 'evil' company that just cares about growing may do more good because of the people it gives a good living to than a poorly run social enterprise.
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#104To push the metaphor a bit further isn't humanity itself a kind of cancer of the earth?
No, the current mainstream economic system is the cancer and it's killing the host.
Throughout history many civilizations based on endless growth started to collapse when they run out of territories to conquer or simply fuel. (e.g. the roman empire)
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#105I suspect the initial premise is incorrect. The purpose of a company that makes widgets is to make widgets. Nothing more. Some rent seekers realized that they could extract some of the wealth created by the company making widgets, and that they could manipulate various people involved in other enterprise to enhance and enforce their rent-seeking abilities. To that end, they have manipulated the various controls on th…
I think the purpose of a healthy company is to make widgets. A company that's unsuccessful or on the path to failure will thrash about and, I think, eventually decide their purpose is simply "to make money".
Clearly we should invest in the former companies but even the latter, in some cases, stumble on something worthwhile and become successful.
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#106I suspect the initial premise is incorrect. The purpose of a company that makes widgets is to make widgets. Nothing more. Some rent seekers realized that they could extract some of the wealth created by the company making widgets, and that they could manipulate various people involved in other enterprise to enhance and enforce their rent-seeking abilities. To that end, they have manipulated the various controls on th…
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Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#107That's a great article. I'd rather see a market full of small independent, ever growing operators than zombies drinking VC money before getting sold for a billion to some giant and become terrible. Those small independent companies are all people who traded a life of soul-less employment for the digital equivalent of a mom and pop store. That's the life and the society I want. An interesting question may be, how did…
> An interesting question may be, how did we get here?
I think a very important factor in getting us where we are has been the Friedman Doctrine[0].
Its essence can be basically described using Friedman's words: "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits".
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#108I 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 a growing body of thought that capitalism and, more specifically, continued growth, is unsustainable. A lot of the literature focuses around the environment [1], but we should also think about businesses that perform a useful community service or product to their community - must they always grow? If not, must their competitor?
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1558/jocr.v5i2.197
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#109I once worked at a company where I didn't understand why they took certain decisions. In the end, it all became very clear. My mindset from "these guys have no idea" shifted towards "wow, they are smart, I didn't get this part".
Basically, they were acquiring customers faster than anyone could follow. Our development goal was "fast and opportunistic". As you can expect, the product was full of bugs, and customer support had their hands full. It was a shitty product with a lot of customers.
I didn't see how this would ever turn into a success story. We were digging a grave. But I didn't realize 1 thing: we were not selling a product, we were selling the company.
In the end, a huge Canadian competitor wanted a foothold in the European market, and so they bought us (and our customers). They were going to introduce their own product to the customers, and so our product was thrown in the wastebasket.
In the end, it all ended as planned, and the founders walked away with a lot of money. Basically they built a customer base in EU, and sold that one to another company. Big eye opener for me.
Looking back, it is also very interesting to see how they positioned their company within that market, to be acquired.
Re: Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest
#110To push the metaphor a bit further isn't humanity itself a kind of cancer of the earth?
No. I feel like a lot of people aren't parsing the title correctly. IF the purpose of the company. Not the purpose of all companies. Humanity doesn't have purpose other than what we make of it. We can strive to maximize enjoyment while keeping population flat if we wanted to. Edit: The title was changed, it was something like: If a company's sole purpose is to grow, then it is no different from a cancer.
We can but we don't. Our biological drive, coupled with our lack of volition to reason about it, is to reproduce. Most people don't care if pumping out a unit is the worst thing contribution to the planet's environment, they'll do it just because.