4 ms·

Companies don't have souls. They're not intrinsically good or bad, but they may act good or bad depending on the leadership team. When the leadership changes th

by Joeri 8y ago

Companies don't have souls. They're not intrinsically good or bad, but they may act good or bad depending on the leadership team. When the leadership changes the company's behavior changes along with it. Nadella's microsoft is not the same as Ballmer's and Gates's microsoft. In Gates' day windows licenses brought in the money, and linux and the web were the dominant threats to microsoft's revenue, completely explaining microsoft's behavior around 2000 that earned them their reputation. Nadella's microsoft however is a cloud services company, with office 365 and azure bringing in an ever larger slice of the pie, and windows reduced to a single digit percentage of the revenue stream. Cloud services are built on open source. It makes complete financial sense for microsoft to be a strong open source backer now.

geggam 8y ago
Good or bad being relative. All companies are bad if you are the thing they consider expendable to make profit. All companies are good if you are a shareholder receiving profits. Business has parted with ethics a long time ago. Many don't even pay it lip service putting bribes as line items on budgets.
runarberg 8y ago
> Companies don't have souls Careful there. There is no consensus that humans do have souls. Personality might have been a better word to pick, since what you are describing better fits the idea of personality, but that is dangerous as well. But regardless of the specific term we want that separates individuals from companies, there is no denying that companies are more then the sum of the individuals they are made of. Group psyche has been proven to prevail through replacement of every member. Though one should not jump to the opposite conclusion either—that companies’s behavior remains static through a change in leadership.
- some_account 8y ago
  Let us know when scientists tell us we got a soul :) That will never happen. Nor because it's not true, we do (i think so anyway) but because it's not something you can find by digging around in the body. By definition, the soul is not physical.
- wwweston 8y ago
  > Careful there. There is no consensus that humans do have souls. "Soul" doesn't have to mean "immortal ghost." Humans have souls tautologically; the word is one way of trying to get at something about our experience with ourselves and others. Personality doesn't quite cover it, psyche might be closer, but soul has the depth. That said, I agree with the premise that human organizations can have a culture that starts to border if not overlap conceptually with "soul."

by Joeri 8y ago

geggam 8y ago

Good or bad being relative. All companies are bad if you are the thing they consider expendable to make profit. All companies are good if you are a shareholder receiving profits. Business has parted with ethics a long time ago. Many don't even pay it lip service putting bribes as line items on budgets.

runarberg 8y ago

> Companies don't have souls Careful there. There is no consensus that humans do have souls. Personality might have been a better word to pick, since what you are describing better fits the idea of personality, but that is dangerous as well. But regardless of the specific term we want that separates individuals from companies, there is no denying that companies are more then the sum of the individuals they are made of. Group psyche has been proven to prevail through replacement of every member. Though one should not jump to the opposite conclusion either—that companies’s behavior remains static through a change in leadership.

some_account 8y ago
Let us know when scientists tell us we got a soul :) That will never happen. Nor because it's not true, we do (i think so anyway) but because it's not something you can find by digging around in the body. By definition, the soul is not physical.
wwweston 8y ago
> Careful there. There is no consensus that humans do have souls. "Soul" doesn't have to mean "immortal ghost." Humans have souls tautologically; the word is one way of trying to get at something about our experience with ourselves and others. Personality doesn't quite cover it, psyche might be closer, but soul has the depth. That said, I agree with the premise that human organizations can have a culture that starts to border if not overlap conceptually with "soul."