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

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

#271

Post by duckfang » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #262

grishka wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a company that started with a passionate founder who respected his users. Then he was ousted by the investors. Then the company was acquired by a giant corporation. It all went downhill from there. At some point I couldn't take it any more and quit. I couldn't bring myself to betray my users, I felt personally responsible for what I put out. Now, it's increasingly a money-making machine. Many sane people…

This is why I've been looking at how worker-owned cooperatives can be formed and work. The entry moats for tech businesses is low enough, and tech worker wealth is high enough that it really should be possible - or even common. One difficult part is that for the structure not to decay in the same way you're describing, you need truly shared ownership coupled with democratic decision making and that might be slower an…

I would absolutely be interested in joining a worker cooperative in the tech industry.

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

#272

Post by spaetzleesser » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

lnsru wrote: post #16

There are 2 states in the forest: growing trees and rotting trees. Nothing in between. So this cancer analogy is a bit absurd. The same with business: business is growing or dying, I am not buying “we don’t want grow” argument.

A lot of successful businesses adapt constantly but they don't grow in size. If you define "growth" as constantly changing to adapt to circumstances then you are right. But if you define "growth" as becoming bigger in size, I don't agree.

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

#273

Post by lazide » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

MarkusWandel wrote: post #202

"Go big or go home". This seems to be a uniquely north-American attitude. Germany, or maybe Europe, is full of so-called "Mittelstand" companies that are good in what they do, have 500-ish employees, have been in the same family ownership for generations and provide a good solid living for everyone involved. What is wrong with that? It goes without saying that staying mid-sized doesn't mean staying complacent, but yo…

Per my comment above - those industries tend to be government protected in a variety of different ways, and with all the fundamentals (sustainable company culture, most capital expenditures done, capital available as needed). It's essentially a sheltered niche.

Germany is also quite 'stodgy' and not adopting many of the changes (social, technical, etc.) until things have been worked out. Which just isn't the way the US works.

For better or worse, the US is the wild west in these issues. You end up with companies overextending themselves and blowing up (not just here of course), or companies not pushing hard enough and getting swallowed by or crushed by competitors - churn is harder, faster here, as is the adoption of new ideas.

There is a reason Germany has essentially zero interesting tech companies, and it isn't because engineers don't like beer.

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

#274

Post by quercusa » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #245

duckfang wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I work is in the similar boat. Except we're 130 people and still private. The company recently took a large cash infusion from a venture capital firm. The company said "yadayada you'll see small improvements how we work" - what that translates to is: 1. adding a new C level for sales 2. doubling the sales department 3. Metrics now for new customers is doubled But... The rest of the departments - we have stagnat…

I worked at a company that started with a passionate founder who respected his users. Then he was ousted by the investors. Then the company was acquired by a giant corporation. It all went downhill from there. At some point I couldn't take it any more and quit. I couldn't bring myself to betray my users, I felt personally responsible for what I put out. Now, it's increasingly a money-making machine. Many sane people…

I had a SaaS vendor that followed that trajectory. The technical team was very dedicated but the president didn't even pretend to care about existing customers. The cost of leaving was assumed to be so high that he said out loud that they added features only to attract new business.

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

#275

Post by lazide » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

3np wrote: post #252

ROARosen wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

VC also tends to be looking for big, long tail wins. If you blow up 9 companies, but the 10th is a huge success - you're gold. If 10 of your companies are middling successful? You're not going to have the returns your investors were looking for, and you're toast.

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

#276

Post by cillian64 » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #262

grishka wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a company that started with a passionate founder who respected his users. Then he was ousted by the investors. Then the company was acquired by a giant corporation. It all went downhill from there. At some point I couldn't take it any more and quit. I couldn't bring myself to betray my users, I felt personally responsible for what I put out. Now, it's increasingly a money-making machine. Many sane people…

This is why I've been looking at how worker-owned cooperatives can be formed and work. The entry moats for tech businesses is low enough, and tech worker wealth is high enough that it really should be possible - or even common. One difficult part is that for the structure not to decay in the same way you're describing, you need truly shared ownership coupled with democratic decision making and that might be slower an…

I’ve been thinking about the same. Starting a company with good intentions is all well and good but the founders won’t want to or be able to run it forever, and then it seems like your options are either selling to a big company or going public. I’m interested to know more about experiences and practicalities of handing ownership to the employees in a tech company.

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

#277

Post by swagasaurus-rex » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

vharuck wrote: post #124

LockAndLol wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can but we don't. Our biological drive, coupled with our lack of volition to reason about it, is to reproduce. Most people don't care if pumping out a unit is the worst thing contribution to the planet's environment, they'll do it just because.

This idea doesn't grok with falling birthrates in wealthy nations. People don't just live to reproduce. There is a biological drive to reproduce, but it is not unchecked. So the cancer metaphor is apt.

Island nations have always had to deal with the realities of Malthusian limits.

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

#278

Post by ghoward » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #257

ghoward wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

You're welcome. :)

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

#279

Post by munificent » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #195

indymike wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think capitalism is being misused in this sentence, and that is making it hard for people to make sense of. Capitalism is simply an economic system where the means of production are privately owned. Growth is not a requirement or even feature of capitalism. Being able to own companies, property and hold currency are all features of capitalism. If you are trying to say "infinite growth is unsustainable" that stands…

A problem with capitalism may be that it is a very broad category, and that currently we have a particular nasty flavour of it, that deserves its own name (e.g. hypercapitalism?) to avoid the endless discussion & confusion whether its all good and natural, or utterly broken (at least for the common folks participating in it). It seems to me we had a form of capitalism that flourished (piggy-backed) well on top of dem…

> currently we have a particular nasty flavour of it, that deserves its own name (e.g. hypercapitalism?)

Corporatism.

It's publicly-traded corporations that cause many of these negative effects:

* Since investors treat corporations as black boxes that are just numbers going up or down, they are separated from the non-financial ethical consequences of what the business does. We all, through our 401ks, probably own stock in companies doing outright horrendous things to human rights in developing countries or harming the environment.

* Investors put pressure on corporations to grow at the expense of all other things. Corporations that fail to prioritize that will be replaced by better-capitalized corporations that do. It is an evolutionary environment where the primary selection pressure is growth.

* An effective way for a corporation to grow is, instead of competing, simply acquire competition to reduce selection pressure and then do things like regulatory capture to rig the system.

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

#280

Post by munificent » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 6:43 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"?

No one wants to be a resident in a Potemkin village.