5 ms·

Also, what about the decision to stop licensing the MacOS to cloners in 1997? A decision this big has to be made by the CEO. At the time, Apple was dying, and

Also, what about the decision to stop licensing the MacOS to cloners in 1997? A decision this big has to be made by the CEO. At the time, Apple was dying, and Jobs was the one that made that call. It was quite unpopular at the time. But it was also absolutely the right thing to do! You might find this hard to believe, but Gil Amelio (Apple's CEO before Jobs) floated the idea of splitting Apple into two disintegrated companies - "Apple Hard" and "Apple Soft." Can you guess how that would have turned out? (You can't build an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac that way, because the entire point is to make the product better by integration.)

pmoriarty 9y ago
"A decision this big has to be made by the CEO." Or it could be made by the employees of the company as a whole, or their representatives. The currently popular hierarchical structure isn't the only or necessarily the right way to structure a company. Companies could be worker-owned and allow employees much greater participation in decision making. Anyway, even if one person's decisions are exceptionally consequential doesn't mean they have to be paid an exorbitant amount of money to do it. I'm sure plenty of other people would have taken a fraction of Jobs' salary to make the same decision. There's a cult of personality around Steve Jobs in SV, and I for one find it very hard to swallow.
- maxharris 9y ago
  Or it could be made by the employees of the company as a whole, or their representatives. The currently popular hierarchical structure isn't the only or necessarily the right way to structure a company. Prove it. Why don't you found a company and show us?
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    Because I find the business world to be incredibly boring. Founding a company would be just about the last thing I'd be interested in. Anyway, worker-owned and run businesses already exist. You don't need me to show you.
- maxharris 9y ago
  I'm sure plenty of other people would have taken a fraction of Jobs' salary to make the same decision. There were literally thousands of armchair CEOs - mostly classic Mac cultists - that were writing about what Apple should do to avoid bankruptcy in 1996-1998. None of the ones I read (and this is all I did back then) made the right calls! Tell me which one of these people - all of which chose to pontificate about the first iPod in 2001 - would have led Apple to its current heights: https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...
- davrosthedalek 9y ago
  If the hierarchical structure is inferior to a worker-owned structure, why aren't the most successful companies worker-owned? Same to your second point: It is obviously a market advantage if you get the same quality of CEO for less money. So why are the CEO's salaries so high? If the supply of cheaper but equally good managers is there, why does the usual supply-and-demand price finding system of the market not work? Is something stopping it? That being said, I really don't like the cult around Jobs. However, the cult was clearly an advantage for Apple, and it made him a rare manager. And thus, expensive.
  - eesmith 9y ago
    You are defining success as "large market cap" or "large number of product sales", yes? There are other definitions, like satisfaction of the employees, or corporate social responsibility. These are harder to evaluate, and empathy and humane interactions costs money - that's why company boards want robots. Suppose it takes something like Microsoft's policy of "embrace, extend, and extinguish", or the FUD policy associated with IBM, or the LBO-and-loot-the-pension-plan of KKR, for a company to become huge. These are rather cutthroat approaches, and not examples of what I would consider to be good corporate social responsibility. If a worker-owned structure is less likely to be socially irresponsible, because so many people are involved in the decision making instead of the dominating personalities that tend to be at the top of a hierarchical structure, then that would explain why the most successful companies are not worker-owned. I have no idea if this is true, but based on the lectures I've heard by pro-worker-cooperative people, it's not unreasonable. As to the second point, Richard D. Wolff's most recent "Economic Update", at https://youtu.be/KrPHl1s9MNw?t=864 https://youtu.be/KrPHl1s9MNw?t=864 , comments about the recent rejection by doctors in Quebec of a pay raise their union negotiated. Quoting from the translation of the rejection letter, given at http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=265449 http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=265449 : > "Contrary to the Prime Minister's statements, we believe that there is a way to redistribute the resources of the Quebec health system to promote the health of the population and meet the needs of patients without pushing workers to the end." Wolff comments (at t=1002) "the capitalist model: you pay the people at the top a great deal and part of that money is to keep down everybody else. Because you know something, it's been learned by capitalists that if you pay the top a lot you can avoid paying the mass of your workers what they ought to be paid. It's cheaper to pay those at the top a lot more than it is to give everybody a fair shake. So you're top-heavy, with overpaid folks at the top. And you know something? This happens everywhere. .... Remember, Apple was one of the many large tech companies involved in an anti-trust lawsuit that charged they colluded to avoid poaching each others' employees. Such a collusion would have the effect of depressing everyone's wages, and therefore increase corporate profit. Just like that model predicts.

pmoriarty 9y ago

"A decision this big has to be made by the CEO." Or it could be made by the employees of the company as a whole, or their representatives. The currently popular hierarchical structure isn't the only or necessarily the right way to structure a company. Companies could be worker-owned and allow employees much greater participation in decision making. Anyway, even if one person's decisions are exceptionally consequential doesn't mean they have to be paid an exorbitant amount of money to do it. I'm sure plenty of other people would have taken a fraction of Jobs' salary to make the same decision. There's a cult of personality around Steve Jobs in SV, and I for one find it very hard to swallow.

maxharris 9y ago
Or it could be made by the employees of the company as a whole, or their representatives. The currently popular hierarchical structure isn't the only or necessarily the right way to structure a company. Prove it. Why don't you found a company and show us?
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Because I find the business world to be incredibly boring. Founding a company would be just about the last thing I'd be interested in. Anyway, worker-owned and run businesses already exist. You don't need me to show you.
maxharris 9y ago
I'm sure plenty of other people would have taken a fraction of Jobs' salary to make the same decision. There were literally thousands of armchair CEOs - mostly classic Mac cultists - that were writing about what Apple should do to avoid bankruptcy in 1996-1998. None of the ones I read (and this is all I did back then) made the right calls! Tell me which one of these people - all of which chose to pontificate about the first iPod in 2001 - would have led Apple to its current heights: https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...
davrosthedalek 9y ago
If the hierarchical structure is inferior to a worker-owned structure, why aren't the most successful companies worker-owned? Same to your second point: It is obviously a market advantage if you get the same quality of CEO for less money. So why are the CEO's salaries so high? If the supply of cheaper but equally good managers is there, why does the usual supply-and-demand price finding system of the market not work? Is something stopping it? That being said, I really don't like the cult around Jobs. However, the cult was clearly an advantage for Apple, and it made him a rare manager. And thus, expensive.
- eesmith 9y ago
  You are defining success as "large market cap" or "large number of product sales", yes? There are other definitions, like satisfaction of the employees, or corporate social responsibility. These are harder to evaluate, and empathy and humane interactions costs money - that's why company boards want robots. Suppose it takes something like Microsoft's policy of "embrace, extend, and extinguish", or the FUD policy associated with IBM, or the LBO-and-loot-the-pension-plan of KKR, for a company to become huge. These are rather cutthroat approaches, and not examples of what I would consider to be good corporate social responsibility. If a worker-owned structure is less likely to be socially irresponsible, because so many people are involved in the decision making instead of the dominating personalities that tend to be at the top of a hierarchical structure, then that would explain why the most successful companies are not worker-owned. I have no idea if this is true, but based on the lectures I've heard by pro-worker-cooperative people, it's not unreasonable. As to the second point, Richard D. Wolff's most recent "Economic Update", at https://youtu.be/KrPHl1s9MNw?t=864 https://youtu.be/KrPHl1s9MNw?t=864 , comments about the recent rejection by doctors in Quebec of a pay raise their union negotiated. Quoting from the translation of the rejection letter, given at http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=265449 http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=265449 : > "Contrary to the Prime Minister's statements, we believe that there is a way to redistribute the resources of the Quebec health system to promote the health of the population and meet the needs of patients without pushing workers to the end." Wolff comments (at t=1002) "the capitalist model: you pay the people at the top a great deal and part of that money is to keep down everybody else. Because you know something, it's been learned by capitalists that if you pay the top a lot you can avoid paying the mass of your workers what they ought to be paid. It's cheaper to pay those at the top a lot more than it is to give everybody a fair shake. So you're top-heavy, with overpaid folks at the top. And you know something? This happens everywhere. .... Remember, Apple was one of the many large tech companies involved in an anti-trust lawsuit that charged they colluded to avoid poaching each others' employees. Such a collusion would have the effect of depressing everyone's wages, and therefore increase corporate profit. Just like that model predicts.