Businesses also make those people. Once they align your incentives toward making the company the most profit, you will gradually become an out-of-touch weirdo that fetishizes productivity and thinks empathy is weakness.
Again, who sets those expectations and hammers them into employees?
It’s not “businesses”. It’s business people. It’s MBAs. It’s c-suits. Stop making it sound like some machine with no face. Whether you mean to or not, that makes it harder for some to actually see the problem.
This. Every single company which has done an IPO and sold shares has sold any chance they had of being respectable. Without exception. They might remain profitable, in the short term, but they have permanently rescinded all possibility of respect or virtue, and in most cases already signed the death certificate for their company. It is impossible for a publicly traded company to do the right thing. It is sometimes possible for a private company to do the right thing, and that is only possible because of the lack of fiduciary duty to shareholders. Once you have shareholders calling your shots, you’ve sold yourself to the worst kind of devil and you’re legally required to maximize the return on those shareholders investments, meaning that honest and virtuous business dealings are immediately out the window permanently. “Money now at all costs, NOW NOW NOW” becomes the sole focus of the business and every single other consideration is banished in favor of it.
Many businesses don’t actually survive this. I wish it killed more of them.
I dunno’, I’d kinda’ argue that’s a good reason not to let them near your company, but apparently not being evil is the minority opinion these days.
The moment companies opt for money at all costs, they become evil and inevitably fill themselves with people like him.
Companies are not separate entities with their own wills.
Who hires those evil people? It’s not the building. It’s not the business registration with the government. It’s someone like him.
Businesses also make those people. Once they align your incentives toward making the company the most profit, you will gradually become an out-of-touch weirdo that fetishizes productivity and thinks empathy is weakness.
Again, who sets those expectations and hammers them into employees?
It’s not “businesses”. It’s business people. It’s MBAs. It’s c-suits. Stop making it sound like some machine with no face. Whether you mean to or not, that makes it harder for some to actually see the problem.
This. Every single company which has done an IPO and sold shares has sold any chance they had of being respectable. Without exception. They might remain profitable, in the short term, but they have permanently rescinded all possibility of respect or virtue, and in most cases already signed the death certificate for their company. It is impossible for a publicly traded company to do the right thing. It is sometimes possible for a private company to do the right thing, and that is only possible because of the lack of fiduciary duty to shareholders. Once you have shareholders calling your shots, you’ve sold yourself to the worst kind of devil and you’re legally required to maximize the return on those shareholders investments, meaning that honest and virtuous business dealings are immediately out the window permanently. “Money now at all costs, NOW NOW NOW” becomes the sole focus of the business and every single other consideration is banished in favor of it.
Many businesses don’t actually survive this. I wish it killed more of them.