Real question here: is it possible to walk all this back from the edge with more ethical companies? I’m thinking co-ops, Mondragon corps, union shops, etc. Basically build businesses that have motivations other than deepening the pockets of VC’s and the like, yet have some kind of growth trajectory (or federate with other corps) to gradually subsume the market.
I get that massive funding makes certain things possible, like disrupting the market, or aggressively buying your competitors. And yes, the company charter would have to be bulletproof against hostile takeover, buyouts, and enshitification, in order to go the distance. But is that really all it takes, or am I missing something huge here?
Problem with a lot of those companies is how long they can remain privately funded and stay in business. The modern capitalistic markets inherently select for short term thinking. Think about this. Does it make any sense to destroy 90% of your profitability in 5 years to get a 20% boost in profits next quarter? In modern capitalistic markets it does, because that’s 20% more profit with which to capture more market share. That’s where the competition is.
As someone else said, you have to remain 100% private. The second you become publicly traded, that’s it.
Even then, if you want to make a difference in an established industry, you all but require preexisting deep pockets or some extremely disruptive technology that can’t be easily copied.
You then have to remain steadfast in the face of the ridiculous money that will be dangled in front of you to be bought out.
Boeing leadership used to be exclusively the engineers who have worked their way up. They knew the ins and outs of every step, what works and what doesn’t work, and therefore had a huge focus on safety because they weren’t profit driven.
Then they brought in someone who wasn’t an engineer and things immediately went south. I want to be cheeky and say that MBAs ruin everything because that way of management takes everything human out of management. Making that line constantly go up forever is the issue.
So, for a company to produce products that actually work, you need leadership who isn’t profit driven and who actually has experience at all levels of production.
Real question here: is it possible to walk all this back from the edge with more ethical companies? I’m thinking co-ops, Mondragon corps, union shops, etc. Basically build businesses that have motivations other than deepening the pockets of VC’s and the like, yet have some kind of growth trajectory (or federate with other corps) to gradually subsume the market.
I get that massive funding makes certain things possible, like disrupting the market, or aggressively buying your competitors. And yes, the company charter would have to be bulletproof against hostile takeover, buyouts, and enshitification, in order to go the distance. But is that really all it takes, or am I missing something huge here?
Yes, by staying privately funded and not throwing everything away chasing quarterly profits
Problem with a lot of those companies is how long they can remain privately funded and stay in business. The modern capitalistic markets inherently select for short term thinking. Think about this. Does it make any sense to destroy 90% of your profitability in 5 years to get a 20% boost in profits next quarter? In modern capitalistic markets it does, because that’s 20% more profit with which to capture more market share. That’s where the competition is.
As someone else said, you have to remain 100% private. The second you become publicly traded, that’s it.
Even then, if you want to make a difference in an established industry, you all but require preexisting deep pockets or some extremely disruptive technology that can’t be easily copied.
You then have to remain steadfast in the face of the ridiculous money that will be dangled in front of you to be bought out.
There’s a lot of stars that need to align.
Basically, it’s about the leadership.
Boeing leadership used to be exclusively the engineers who have worked their way up. They knew the ins and outs of every step, what works and what doesn’t work, and therefore had a huge focus on safety because they weren’t profit driven.
Then they brought in someone who wasn’t an engineer and things immediately went south. I want to be cheeky and say that MBAs ruin everything because that way of management takes everything human out of management. Making that line constantly go up forever is the issue.
So, for a company to produce products that actually work, you need leadership who isn’t profit driven and who actually has experience at all levels of production.