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Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest

joanwestenberg.medium.com

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

#111

Post by Kbelicius »

mrkramer wrote: post #96

The purpose of every living being is to spread and grow. Bacteria, virus, animal, human even universe and unfortunately cancer. Companies are no different. Author's statement reminds me of Agent Smith's statement about humans, virus and cancer. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5foZIKuEWQ&t

> The purpose of every living being is to spread and grow. Bacteria, virus, animal, human even universe and unfortunately cancer.

The purpose is to spread their genes and not to spread and grow themselves.

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

#112

Post by hef19898 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #59
sweetheart wrote: post #6

Do lifestyle businesses really have the negative connotation that I’ve been told they have? I’ve heard about this stigma of a lifestyle business numerous times, but everyone Ive ever actually talked to has said they sound lovely: you maintain a lot of control over your life and business, at the expense of perhaps more (unnecessary) money. I had thought for a long time that lifestyle businesses which weren’t optimizin…

> Do lifestyle businesses really have the negative connotation that I’ve been told they have? My cynical hypothesis is that it's 50/50 of a good chunk of tech community feeling FOMO ("I want to get rich quick too!"), and VCs creating this perception. VCs need fresh young blood to push through the startup grinder. That said, I haven't noticed much of this connotation here on HN (which is ironic, this being ex-Startup…

I never thought about the regional bias of HN. But it sounds reasonable. And being from the EU, I probably wouldn't notice.

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

#114

Post by going_to_800 »

lnsru wrote: post #70
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

It’s weird when 30 years old company has only 10 employees while working in wide industrial automation field. The owner is just too lazy to go out of town and look for some new customers.

What an ignorant comment! Life is not only business struggle. Growing a company as a founder means you need to sacrifice some part of your personal life for the company, either stress, free time or money. There are people happy with their lives that don't want more stress or to lose more free time... and for what? a bit bigger bank account? i'm sure the founder is doing just fine financially already

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

#115

Post by vharuck »

jeofken wrote: post #75
burlesona wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure which careers you think have been bailed out. Politicians talk about saving certain professions (e.g. coal miners), but those bailouts end up being for the company.

Do you have a different example?

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

#116

Post by zpeti »

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…

Then your management aren't very good.

The reason is that every business, or system gets worse if you don't improve it. Call it entropy in physics.

If you don't try and improve, pay attention to the market, adapt, move, change, or at least maintain or build a moat, competition will inevitably want to have what you've got. It's why capitalism works. If you get old, and don't satisfy your customers, someone else will.

Now, if you plan on keeping your job for 1-2 years, then you don't really care. Fine, that's your point of view. But management and shareholders certainly would like the business to be around for as long as possible. And for that you always need to develop and change.

And this is not about some crazy capitalist mentality that destroys the planet. Nature is the same. Inevitably the tribe leading lion will get challenged and taken down. It's just what happens. Unless you at least try and work against it.

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

#118

Post by hh3k0 »

dm319 wrote: post #108
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 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

"We have a finite environment—the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist." David Attenborough

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

#119

Post by chii »

zpeti wrote: post #116
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…

Then your management aren't very good. The reason is that every business, or system gets worse if you don't improve it. Call it entropy in physics. If you don't try and improve, pay attention to the market, adapt, move, change, or at least maintain or build a moat, competition will inevitably want to have what you've got. It's why capitalism works. If you get old, and don't satisfy your customers, someone else will.…

> If you don't try and improve, pay attention to the market, adapt, move, change, or at least maintain or build a moat, competition will inevitably want to have what you've got. It's why capitalism works. If you get old, and don't satisfy your customers, someone else will.

only in a competitive market. There are markets which don't behave freely, and some would call those market failures. Health insurance, and healthcare, for one, is like that.

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

#120

Post by chii »

koonsolo wrote: post #109

I 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 supp…

> 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.

why don't the executive making this goal clear to the "underlings"?

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