Businesses should try to be the best, not the biggest • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by andrekandre » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

smcg wrote: post #237

Shareholders and worker are always in direct conflict. Shareholders are always prioritized first. If your company takes money from investors, their wishes are always going to take precedent over everything else. And they want money. (Not that being self-funded is immune to wage theft. What we really need is more employee-owned cooperatives.)

> If your company takes money from investors, their wishes are always going to take precedent over everything else.

i think this is a big part of where the "capital" in "capitalism" comes from. ownership and return on said capital ownership is the primary concern

> And they want money.

not just money, they want money as capital for further investments....

i am not an economist, but this seems to me where over financialization starts to loose the plot and go off the rails imo... eveything becomes about finanicial tools and "ownership" control to accumulate more capital, for capitals sake... this wrecks companies and economies alike

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

#252

Post by 3np » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

ROARosen wrote: post #159

3np wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone aiming for VC money should realize that this is what's coming, in the vast majority of cases, no matter how different expectations might be set initially.

Why only VC money? I don't understand, which person would invest their in your company so that the customer (rather than themselves) should get value from it?

From what I experienced (could be misrepresentative), larger banks don't tend to put that kind of pressure when they provide investment capital.

Could be that it's not that they don't care, just that they don't take that level of involvement with growth companies.

VCs tend to take a <5 y perspective, where banks and other investors can play more long-term games

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

#253

Post by shafyy » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #235

_qulr wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Earth is, or was, extremely hospitable to humans. Mars is, and will be for a very long time, extremely inhospitable to humans. If we can't even take care of the Earth, what hope is there of taking care of Mars? The more likely scenario is that greedy Martians destroy their own Martian environment very quickly and make themselves extinct. It's much easier to destroy Mars (for human life) than it is to destroy E…

Your mistake is thinking that the plan is to move humanity away into space, instead of bringing space (or more accurately mineral-rich asteroids and solar energy) to humanity. That way we can just externalize all industry & pollution to a lagrange point somewhere and let the earth take care of healing itself.

If we continue like this, humans will be long gone before we reach that point (IF we reach that point at all).

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

#254

Post by lnsru » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

going_to_800 wrote: post #114

lnsru wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Founder was doing fine. We worked on Dell laptops from thrift store with Ubuntu. And we were paid from government’s welfare program few months too. So I suggest to look very well at employers numbers from the past 5-10 years.

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

#255

Post by baron_harkonnen » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

scatters wrote: post #228

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the most practical method we have right now for efficiently allocating those resources. This is where true why is our way of life less sustainable today than it was 1000 years ago? Nearly all first nations tribes lived in a way of live that was sustainable indefinitely. In 250 years of developing capitalism we have destroyed most of the biosphere, and trigger climate change that has the potential to undo civil…

Because there are many, many more of us than there were 1000 years ago. Per capita, sustaining the lifestyle of a 21st century Westerner requires less land than that of an 11th century peasant.

It requires less land because of the heavy use of fertilizers and non-reproducing hybrid grains. It's literally and unquestionably and unsustainable process.

The CO2 emissions per person, which is a much better way to measure how much energy it takes to sustain a persons life style is unimaginably higher.

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

#256

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

One factor that plays an important role in justifying growth is scale. Scale provides lower costs so that sellers have more pricing flexibility. Pricing flexibility provides resilience. For example, Starbucks vs. Red Rock Coffee. Scale enables Starbucks to enjoy lower costs for just about all elements of their business and thereby withstand economic cycles. Scale enables them to introduce 'lifestyle' products into their stores. Scale enables them to experiment with more new ideas. It provides them with more data on customer behavior to guide pricing, product introduction, as well as on how to set wages and structure employee benefits.

To be sure, scale also presents business challenges that Red Rock will never see. Product consistency among stores, supply chain management, public financial reporting and all the associated liabilities are non-issues for Red Rock.

I'd also point out, as several others have, that electronics and computing introduce an element of ephemeris into all businesses. Drinking sake is almost a ritual. Ritual relies on heritage in order to be meaningful. Hence, by its nature, it's not to change and claiming an 850 year legacy makes it all the more meaningful. The smartphone in your pocket has the inverse attribute. The older it gets, the more likely you'll infer scorn from your colleagues.

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

#257

Post by antoniuschan99 » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

ghoward wrote: post #230

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #216

I agree with this article personally, but don’t economies (which comprise of businesses) have to grow to either compete or reduce inequality? Seeing how China is continuously growing at a higher rate, eventually that growth will outpace other economies proving the country a higher standard of living, technological advancement, and power. Vietnam just reported 3% growth which is good in 2020 when countries had negativ…

I'm no expert, so take what I say with a grain of salt. There are two ways economies can grow: * More customers. * More value. The first is obvious, just grow the population (and it's one reason a shrinking population is bad), but the second is more subtle. When someone invents a new product, say when the vacuum cleaner was invented, whether or not it adds value is determined by how much the product helps its user ei…

Very cool. Thank you for your explanation :)

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

#258

Post by stronglikedan » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #120

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"?

Because it's not their business!

(Sorry for the horrible joke, but it's Friday.)

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

#259

Post by lnsru » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #184

grumple wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses cannot and need not grow forever. I don’t buy your argument. Stable businesses can and do exist.

Let's take a natural monopoly. Like electric grid. Can these companies really grow forever? At some point they should have build transmission lines to everyone that they can profitably afford to. Then they can either expand to some other field or keep paying 5-20% to their owners as dividends each year... I don't see later option as bad one. Clearly they can provide service and invest to keep it running or even to op…

Assuming country is healthy with steady growing inhabitant number and this natural monopoly also grows naturally with it.

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

#260

Post by eternalban » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #250

eternalban wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can get our analogy ducks in order: - The economy is an ecology . - A company is an organism . - Rentiers are carcinogens . It would be interesting to know if there have been models of economies that disallow usury and rent seekers. I know Michael Hudson has made the distinction between industrial and rentier capitalism [1], and there is also CASSE [2] (but that seems to be aligned with the "too many people" ideol…

Historically, even societies that disallowed usary still needed financiers - they would just hunt them down and kill them when it came time to pay the piper. Not even attempts at communism have survived removing dynamic markets.

Market =/= Usury. Two entirely distinct concepts, with distinct names.