4 ms·

I always wonder how companies like this get founded. So i checked their own history page which includes this statement which reads so dry, i have to blow the sa

I always wonder how companies like this get founded. So i checked their own history page which includes this statement which reads so dry, i have to blow the sand out of my eyes by the bucket: "Our business started as part of a subsidiary of a construction company that created one of the first competitive local exchange carriers, MFS Communications." If you follow that trail of companies, you feel like you've hit "deep corporate america" where nothing has a founder and everything is a subsidiary of some larger corporate division of something.

chimeracoder 10y ago
> If you follow that trail of companies, you feel like you've hit "deep corporate america" where nothing has a founder and everything is a subsidiary of some larger corporate division of something. A corporation is literally just a group of people acting together. Much as the tech world likes to maintain the image of the visionary individual put forth by the ideology of creativity, that's of actually how the world usually works. Most innovation happens when groups of people leverage their existing collective abilities together well.
- kerbalspacepro 10y ago
  A corporation is a collection of assets owned by stockholders.
  - chirau 10y ago
    Someone has been reading Bhandari and Weiss' "Corporate Bankruptcy'. This view ignores a very important aspect of who/what carries the liability of say violations made by the corporation.
    - djsumdog 10y ago
      What do you think about the book Debt: The First 5,000 Years?
      - chirau 10y ago
        With regard to what specifically? I think it's a great book, it touches on several subjects so you might have to ask more specifically.
SysArchitect 10y ago
Friend of mine who worked at Qwest in the early days and worked with Level3: "Interestingly enough, Level3 started out by building out the Qwest network as a contractor building out the fiber. Level3 in exchange for some of the work L3 was given long-term IRUs on the fiber and heavily discounted conduit leases. Level3 to this day still leases a lot of fiber from CenturyLink (ala Qwest)..." CenturyLink buying Level3 means that they are basically leasing to themselves :P

chimeracoder 10y ago

> If you follow that trail of companies, you feel like you've hit "deep corporate america" where nothing has a founder and everything is a subsidiary of some larger corporate division of something. A corporation is literally just a group of people acting together. Much as the tech world likes to maintain the image of the visionary individual put forth by the ideology of creativity, that's of actually how the world usually works. Most innovation happens when groups of people leverage their existing collective abilities together well.

kerbalspacepro 10y ago
A corporation is a collection of assets owned by stockholders.
- chirau 10y ago
  Someone has been reading Bhandari and Weiss' "Corporate Bankruptcy'. This view ignores a very important aspect of who/what carries the liability of say violations made by the corporation.
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    What do you think about the book Debt: The First 5,000 Years?
    - chirau 10y ago
      With regard to what specifically? I think it's a great book, it touches on several subjects so you might have to ask more specifically.

SysArchitect 10y ago

Friend of mine who worked at Qwest in the early days and worked with Level3: "Interestingly enough, Level3 started out by building out the Qwest network as a contractor building out the fiber. Level3 in exchange for some of the work L3 was given long-term IRUs on the fiber and heavily discounted conduit leases. Level3 to this day still leases a lot of fiber from CenturyLink (ala Qwest)..." CenturyLink buying Level3 means that they are basically leasing to themselves :P