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Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

businessroundtable.org

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Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#181

Post by rewgs »

pdonis wrote: post #167
pmiller2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the kind of short sighted thinking that’s going to kill most of us. I say most, because, while I expect humanity will adapt, civilization as we know it may not.

> That’s the kind of short sighted thinking that’s going to kill most of us. No, the kind of short sighted thinking that might cause civilization to collapse is trumpeting gloom and doom based on inadequate knowledge and failed predictions. The climate models on which the alarmist hype is based have been falsified by the data. And nobody even has predictive models for economics on that time scale.

You couldn’t be more wrong (the only ways the models tend to be wrong is that reality tends to be worse), but right on.

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#182

Post by apple4ever »

RockIslandLine wrote: post #33
wiremine wrote: post #23

You can be cynical about this, and a healthy amount of skepticism is warranted given the authorship. That said, it would be interesting (healthy?) to discuss/debate the merits of the actual statements: * Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or exceeding customer expectations. * Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them f…

"This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits." So 51% of corporate profits are reserved for the employee bonus pool? And all employees are eligible for said bonuses? It's not hard to come up with examples of where this fails. Don't give me aspirational pie in the sky. Give me operational policy.

Wake me up when this starts on Day 1:

Health Insurance 401k (even non-match) PTO

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#183

Post by alexeldeib »

joshuamorton wrote: post #115
ditonal wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more strongly. I tend to get harshly downvoted when I bring up Google on Hacker News (since it employs a disproportionate amount of Bay Area engineers that hang out here and then get defensive about it), but no other company did I see quite the disconnect between what they SAY they aspire to and how they ACT. Google has built an incredibly strong PR brand on being the "good guys", a "not a convention…

I feel like your argument about maven falls apart because google really did stop working on maven, while amazon didn't. In other words, execs said "here are our values", employees came back and said that maven didn't live up to those values and begrudgingly, kicking and screaming even, execs agreed, or at least capitulated. It would certainly be better if employees didn't have to remind executives of the values they…

Didn't that contribute to the following leadership churn? Seems hard to pat them on the back for backing down when the leadership who decided to do that were shuffled out.

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#184

Post by rewgs »

skybrian wrote: post #173
generaljelly wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. Some San Francisco new hires for JPMorgan get paid $86,000. This is criminally underpaid. Action matters. First hand source here.

Oh come on, that doesn't sound illegal. What do you mean by "criminally?"

It’s a common figure of speech. He/she is exaggerating.

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#185

Post by pdonis »

rewgs wrote: post #181
pdonis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s the kind of short sighted thinking that’s going to kill most of us. No, the kind of short sighted thinking that might cause civilization to collapse is trumpeting gloom and doom based on inadequate knowledge and failed predictions. The climate models on which the alarmist hype is based have been falsified by the data. And nobody even has predictive models for economics on that time scale.

You couldn’t be more wrong (the only ways the models tend to be wrong is that reality tends to be worse ), but right on.

> the only ways the models tend to be wrong is that reality tends to be worse

I don't know where you're getting that from. The models have been significantly overpredicting warming for quite some time now.

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#186

Post by jaxn »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #71
RockIslandLine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits." So 51% of corporate profits are reserved for the employee bonus pool? And all employees are eligible for said bonuses? It's not hard to come up with examples of where this fails. Don't give me aspirational pie in the sky. Give me operational policy.

> Don't give me aspirational pie in the sky. Give me operational policy. See, there are three layers of decision making: vision, strategy, and tactics. You set large aspirational goals first (eg Microsoft "empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more"), then smaller component strategies ("build the a cloud provider that integrates business intelligence into everything you do"), then the concret…

One specific and highly relevant tactic a group of 181 CEOs could include would be limits to Executive Compensation. Or are they going to continue to receive historically outsized comp packages while redirecting profits from shareholders to things like employee pay and training?

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#187

Post by [deleted] »

pdonis wrote: post #185
rewgs wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn’t be more wrong (the only ways the models tend to be wrong is that reality tends to be worse ), but right on.

> the only ways the models tend to be wrong is that reality tends to be worse I don't know where you're getting that from. The models have been significantly overpredicting warming for quite some time now.

[deleted]

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#188

Post by dwaltrip »

pdonis wrote: post #167
pmiller2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the kind of short sighted thinking that’s going to kill most of us. I say most, because, while I expect humanity will adapt, civilization as we know it may not.

> That’s the kind of short sighted thinking that’s going to kill most of us. No, the kind of short sighted thinking that might cause civilization to collapse is trumpeting gloom and doom based on inadequate knowledge and failed predictions. The climate models on which the alarmist hype is based have been falsified by the data. And nobody even has predictive models for economics on that time scale.

If this isn't standard-issue denialist ignorance, misdirection, and spouting of repeatedly debunked claims... then show us your reliable and qualified sources for this ground-breaking information.

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#189

Post by malandrew »

wiremine wrote: post #23

You can be cynical about this, and a healthy amount of skepticism is warranted given the authorship. That said, it would be interesting (healthy?) to discuss/debate the merits of the actual statements: * Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or exceeding customer expectations. * Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them f…

There is nothing specific and thus nothing measurable so it's handwavvy and subjective.

For example, take "This starts with compensating [our employees] fairly". What criteria will they use to determine if this if being achieved? Without any additional revenues/profit, the only option you have is to change the distribution of revenues/profit. You could reward investors less and employees more, but investors will defect to those investments that pay them more. You could pay individual contributors more and management less, but management will defect to employers willing to pay them more.

I just don't see how any of these goals are achievable since they are so subjective. Depending on who you ask, someone people will say American corporations are a long way from achieving these and some will say American corporations already do these things.

Re: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

#190

Post by FussyZeus »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #96
wormseed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should 51% of losses come out of employees pockets?

losing $1000 hurts a huge amount of people more than a billionaire losing a billion does. How many billionaires are homeless after their ventures implode?

> How many billionaires are homeless after their ventures implode?

Has this happened in recent memory, at all? Because when I was growing up and getting the pro-capitalist America view of things on the regular, I vividly recall that capitalism is all about your success individually, that you risk it all and if you lose, you lose.

Even Elizabeth Holmes, an entrepreneur* who's business not only failed, massively, not only caused a man's suicide, not only lost fortunes both public and private, all without ever producing a SINGLE FUNCTIONING OR USABLE PRODUCT, she left a rich woman if I'm not mistaken.

*I was gonna quote that word here but no, I'm not going to because the mythical status of these people in American society is a joke. Anybody can be an entrepreneur. There are no qualifications and no requirements and you cannot break someone's faith in the "mythical rich 1%" than having them work for one, directly for a year, and see how maladjusted, how emotionally vulnerable, and how utterly dependent they are on subordinates for even trivial tasks.

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