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Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#31

Post by drcode »

walterbell wrote: post #22
drcode wrote: post #19

I agree with everything in OP, and this admittedly makes me sound like a dreamer, but I think there's a good chance that computer-aided radical decentralization is going to have a major effect on these numbers in the next few years. The possibilities of blockchain technology (and other technology inspired by it) has barely even begun to percolate through society, and in theory it allows free agents to fill roles prev…

What about the lack of privacy in Bitcoin? Couldn't that be used to regulate the decentralized agents? http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~victor/bitcoin.html

It's easily to be arbitrarily anonymous with something like bitcoin. The only way the government could maintain attributability for bitcoin accounts would be to put in place extremely aggressive enforcement policies that (hopefully) would not be viable.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#32

Post by madengr »

sadface wrote: post #24

I have another suggestion for the decline in startup rates: health care and college expenses. The historically "prime" years for entrepreneurship are in one's late 30's to early 50's, years when one typically has a family in need of healthcare, college tuition, and hopefully retirement at some point down the line. In the 70's and 80's someone could leave the security of their big company, get relatively affordable pr…

You nailed it. I also add that the government (probably varies allot by state) makes it very difficult to hire employees. My wife and I hired a nanny a few years ago, doing everything by the book regarding taxes and insurance. Still got fined twice for some infantile amount owed on something, even after three calls to the state office resulted in three separate amounts of what we owed. I'll NEVER take on an employee again. The game is rigged to favor those who can afford the lawyers and accountants.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#33

Post by pyrrhotech »

sadface wrote: post #24

I have another suggestion for the decline in startup rates: health care and college expenses. The historically "prime" years for entrepreneurship are in one's late 30's to early 50's, years when one typically has a family in need of healthcare, college tuition, and hopefully retirement at some point down the line. In the 70's and 80's someone could leave the security of their big company, get relatively affordable pr…

I dunno, state schools are still pretty cheap. My sister's tuition with room and board is $10k per year. If you are someone smart enough to be an entrepreneur in your late 30s, you should have a corporate job paying 150k+ and can save all 4 years worth in a matter of months with a bit of determination.

And health care, while expensive, isn't as big of a deal as most people make it out to be. Get a high deductible plan and a family of 4 can be insured for <$700/month. If you are starting a business in your late 30s you should have a lot of savings already. While annoying, this shouldn't stop you.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#34

Post by GeneralMayhem »

brothe2000 wrote: post #15

I think the author of the article went looking for stats to support a title. Corporate America has been disrupted however I think this article was looking for financial failure versus adapting to the market pressures. The corporations below have faced massive disruption: Kodak, HP, GM, Ford, JC Penney, Sears, McDonalds, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Best Buy, Borders, Barnes&Noble, IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, and Target have…

>I have never heard somebody say "I'd totally build X but the tax incentives just aren't high enough".

I read it more as "I'd totally build X but I have no idea how to do it legally or even how to learn what the legal requirements are." Much easier to work for a big company that can afford full-time lawyers.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#35

Post by gohrt »

madengr wrote: post #32
sadface wrote: post #24

I have another suggestion for the decline in startup rates: health care and college expenses. The historically "prime" years for entrepreneurship are in one's late 30's to early 50's, years when one typically has a family in need of healthcare, college tuition, and hopefully retirement at some point down the line. In the 70's and 80's someone could leave the security of their big company, get relatively affordable pr…

You nailed it. I also add that the government (probably varies allot by state) makes it very difficult to hire employees. My wife and I hired a nanny a few years ago, doing everything by the book regarding taxes and insurance. Still got fined twice for some infantile amount owed on something, even after three calls to the state office resulted in three separate amounts of what we owed. I'll NEVER take on an employee…

1. Was the fine large enough to matter?

2. You can hire an "nanny tax" accountant for ~$500 a year (maybe was more expensive a few years ago)

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#37

Post by gohrt »

drcode wrote: post #29
nabla9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name any businesses where radical decentralization builds important revenue? As others have pointed out, technology seems to consolidate more than decentralize. Network effect is opposite force to decentralization. Companies like Airbnb, Uber consolidate previously small businesses under one huge company.

> Can you name any businesses where radical decentralization builds important revenue? Well, contrary to popular belief, making large revenue isn't the only viable business model: The other viable model is to build something that greatly hurts your competition's revenue. Here, "viable" means "it survives", I don't think CARD is about making huge profits, it's about commoditizing scalable parts of a business, removing…

> Only illegal business currently use this model, unfortunately (some parts of the online drug trade, and to some parts of the bittorrent scene.)

Which goes to show that the model is not competitive in the mainstraem market. It only works where big centralized orgs are barred from entry.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#38

Post by debt »

The compensation packages that tech companies are offering are outrageous. Coupled with the fact that money itself generates better returns than most startups.

Earning 10% a year over 10 years in some mutual fund is way better than investing in some startup that'll be around for likely less than two years.

The housing market in the Bay Area is exploding. The salaries are going to have to keep up somewhat with that explosion. Why would I run a startup making 50k in Chicago, when I can make more than triple that(with RSUs, options, ESPP, healthcare, etc.) in the Bay Area?

Also, keep in mind the ground beneath us is shifting constantly. Some web app written in Backbone yesterday may be slow as farts today. Objective-C, what's that? CSS? Use SASS. Chef? Use Docker. I mean use AWS. I mean use Digital Ocean.

I know it seems meaningless what technologies you use, but these are the margins which people win by; the ability to be fast and scale quickly. Those are just two aspects of probably a million other really important aspects in running a successful startup.

Again, though, you have to work normal hours(so as not burnout) while paying yourself enough to survive(forget the Bay Area). It's just not worth it to run a startup given the economics. Unless you can secure a shit ton of upfront investment. Which is unlikely unless the investor feels your startup idea could at least outperform some other investment vehicle like a mutual fund.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#39

Post by drcode »

gohrt wrote: post #37
drcode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you name any businesses where radical decentralization builds important revenue? Well, contrary to popular belief, making large revenue isn't the only viable business model: The other viable model is to build something that greatly hurts your competition's revenue. Here, "viable" means "it survives", I don't think CARD is about making huge profits, it's about commoditizing scalable parts of a business, removing…

> Only illegal business currently use this model, unfortunately (some parts of the online drug trade, and to some parts of the bittorrent scene.) Which goes to show that the model is not competitive in the mainstraem market. It only works where big centralized orgs are barred from entry.

Fair point.

Re: Corporate America Hasn’t Been Disrupted

#40

Post by _delirium »

schnable wrote: post #30

Much of what we are seeing is the effect of our insane visa and immigration policies. The traditional entrepreneurial spirit of the United States was driven by the culture of immigrants. Over 40% of the companies on the Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. These were once disruptive startups. Now we make it very difficult for talented and intelligent people to become permanent residen…

Has the number of people becoming U.S. permanent residents or naturalized citizens actually declined, relative to the times those Fortune 500 companies were founded? As far as I can tell, it hasn't: somewhere around 1 million new permanent residencies are granted per year in the 2010s, versus ~250,000 in 1960, which is actually about twice as many relative to population (~0.3% of population annually now, up from ~0.15% in 1960). Sure, there are many more people wanting to become PRs than are granted, but immigration has been gradually expanding since the low of the 1930s/40s, not contracting.

It's true that immigration was freer prior to the 1930s, but today is better than any other time post-WW2, in terms of the % of the population that is foreign-born, the # of naturalized citizens, the # of permanent residencies granted, etc.

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