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Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

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Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#301

Post by dotnet00 »

necovek wrote: post #286
roflyear wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you do not have many employees that are costing you $1m a year...

Look at the cost of Zuckerberg's metaverse push to Meta, and Musk's work to Twitter: sure, that's currently sitting at a lot more than that, but they are hoping to turn that around in a number of years. Which is to say that cost/value proposition is never simple. I've been at companies where people were paid simply not to jump to competitors.

It isn't even limited to high profile cases like those. Same goes for a lot of hiring (in junior positions especially), it often takes some time for the employee to learn the ropes, during which time their cost (both in terms of direct costs like salary, benefits and equipment and indirect costs like the time of the people bringing them up to speed) is almost definitely higher than the value they're bringing to the business.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#302

Post by jaredandrews »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #221
spicymaki wrote: post #114

Feudalism without the serfs. What is in it for the plebs? The idea that concentrated wealth is great for everyone and will trickle down has been pretty much debunked to the point where the wealthy are openly stating we don't need the masses anymore. The crypto dystopian nightmare of generating money with zero utility backed by quantitative easing demonstrates that you don't actually need many employees to generate we…

What happens when the mass is struggling and has a lot of free time because everything has been automated? The billionaires seem to not have planned more than one step ahead.

Oh they are planning...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#303

Post by dotnet00 »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #278
mikrl wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you 100% and am not afraid of vocalizing similar things to a hyper capitalist audience. However, I don’t see the way out unless the social safety net is strengthened (not gonna happen) or we just ban rich people from starting companies (lol, lmao even) Edit: maybe there shouldn’t be a way out. Maybe the solution is just to educate and make transparent that rich founders have better odds and less to lose…

I’ve been toying with an idea where blockchain actually is interesting: imagine all currency is on the ledger - all of it. And every coin had an (rather short) expiry! You need to create value continously or fall back to UBI. Just something to play around with. :)

So... the role (controlled) inflation plays in an economy?

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#304

Post by necovek »

overrun11 wrote: post #273
yamtaddle wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The compensation for created value is based on market rate for both work and capital. This equivalence doesn't make much sense unless there's a widespread phenomenon of businesses "firing" owners in favor of other capital-providers who will accept lower returns.

Isn't this basically what a recapitalization is?

Usually driven by existing majority owners, with the goal still being to increase their own absolute wealth even if their relative ownership decreases.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#305

Post by wing-_-nuts »

toast0 wrote: post #236
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, this is achievable even at 10M. Hell, one can support the median household income at a reasonable SWR on ~ 2M. Underlying all of this seems to be paulg's assertion that billionaire founders 'deserve' their wealth and therefore our inequality and their relatively small contribution to the public purse is justified. I have no problem with founders being rich, but once you're earning 1%er income? You shoul…

> The thing is, this is achievable even at 10M. $10M does get you a nice time, and you would never have to say no to any reasonable expense, but it's also definitely possible to overspend. There's some higher threshold where you really can be 'wild and crazy' and the only way to run out of money would be through bad investments. There's a difference between always flying first class, always flying on a jetshare, and…

I have to remind myself that there are people comfortable with such a 'wild and crazy' lifestyle.

While I wouldn't mind being very well off, I have a visceral gut reaction to any of the sort of flashy spending that draws attention to myself. I also find that it isolates you from the experience of the common man, and life is lonely enough as it is.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#306

Post by danenania »

ryandrake wrote: post #207
spicymaki wrote: post #114

Feudalism without the serfs. What is in it for the plebs? The idea that concentrated wealth is great for everyone and will trickle down has been pretty much debunked to the point where the wealthy are openly stating we don't need the masses anymore. The crypto dystopian nightmare of generating money with zero utility backed by quantitative easing demonstrates that you don't actually need many employees to generate we…

It can be helpful to think of the USA as a giant factory that produces billionaires. Dollars and workers go into the factory as inputs, billionaires (and defects, millionaires) come out on the assembly line, and the system's waste product that gets discarded is the lives and livelihoods of working and middle-class people. So the system is working and producing what it is supposed to produce.

There is also the small matter of the goods and services produced that improve standards of living for everyone in the US and the world.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#307

Post by shadowofneptune »

overrun11 wrote: post #256
toast0 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, this is achievable even at 10M. $10M does get you a nice time, and you would never have to say no to any reasonable expense, but it's also definitely possible to overspend. There's some higher threshold where you really can be 'wild and crazy' and the only way to run out of money would be through bad investments. There's a difference between always flying first class, always flying on a jetshare, and…

10M would give you a safe withdrawal rate somewhere between 300-400k a year. A fairly common household income for people on HN. It affords a very nice quality of life but you're certainly not living the lifestyle that most people think of as "rich."

That's the average? There's no way to measure it, but that's around five times the US median household income, at a percentile of 97%. It could not be close to the median for HN just by probability, and it's a rich man's income.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#308

Post by wing-_-nuts »

overrun11 wrote: post #256
toast0 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, this is achievable even at 10M. $10M does get you a nice time, and you would never have to say no to any reasonable expense, but it's also definitely possible to overspend. There's some higher threshold where you really can be 'wild and crazy' and the only way to run out of money would be through bad investments. There's a difference between always flying first class, always flying on a jetshare, and…

10M would give you a safe withdrawal rate somewhere between 300-400k a year. A fairly common household income for people on HN. It affords a very nice quality of life but you're certainly not living the lifestyle that most people think of as "rich."

>It affords a very nice quality of life but you're certainly not living the lifestyle that most people think of as "rich."

I think maybe you're missing the perspectives of ...almost everyone outside of a very select few in VHCOL locations.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#309

Post by danenania »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #221
spicymaki wrote: post #114

Feudalism without the serfs. What is in it for the plebs? The idea that concentrated wealth is great for everyone and will trickle down has been pretty much debunked to the point where the wealthy are openly stating we don't need the masses anymore. The crypto dystopian nightmare of generating money with zero utility backed by quantitative easing demonstrates that you don't actually need many employees to generate we…

What happens when the mass is struggling and has a lot of free time because everything has been automated? The billionaires seem to not have planned more than one step ahead.

That's where basic income comes in, hopefully.

That said, it is no by no means a certainty that increased automation will reduce the overall number of jobs or rate of employment. It has never done so in the past.

Re: Automation enables founders to grow companies with fewer and fewer employees

#310

Post by riskable »

testmasterflex wrote: post #83
bluelightning2k wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give some examples? Congratulations on your success implementing this stuff

https://loodio.com - Hardware company - Solo founder - No employees and same here; I don't see the need for any in the forseeable future. Don't even need capital as my burn rate is ~$50/month except when I order new stock. Weird times.

How do you get the devices made and shipped to customers? Do you ship them yourself or are you paying someone for that too?

Asking because I might start selling hardware soon too and the prospect of turning my garage into a customer fulfillment center doesn't sound fun.

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