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Yet at the same time, GE Digital was given a P&L and had to make quarterly commitments on performance. The revenue was tied to the work it was doing with intern

Yet at the same time, GE Digital was given a P&L and had to make quarterly commitments on performance. The revenue was tied to the work it was doing with internal GE business units and one-off partnerships with outside software companies. So when Predix integrated with a new partner, the focus was usually on generating short-term revenue and not long-term value to GE's end customers. Short term profit seeking is a cancer upon us all, is there no way out of this hell?

acjohnson55 8y ago
Venture capital?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Out of the frying pan, into the fire. You'll be trading the focus on reasonable but short-term returns for a focus on 10x mid-time returns.
- sgt101 8y ago
  Worked for Twitter! oh...
toomuchtodo 8y ago
> Short term profit seeking is a cancer upon us all, is there no way out of this hell? Take your firm private with investors that are focused on long term goals, not short term profits. Why bother with public markets if private markets provide sufficient capital to execute?
- sah2ed 8y ago
  Private markets is also the route that Elon Musk is considering with Tesla, similar to how SpaceX is structured where employees and sophisticated investors can sell shares every six months [0]. This will also solve his constant antagonism towards short sellers. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/how-elon-musk-s-spacex-may-be-a-road-map-for-tesla-going-private https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/how-elon-...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lkrubner 8y ago
The more original the technology, the more insane it is to draw up sales schedules before the technology works. I've written about this before. -------------------- Tuesday, June 9th, 2015 John told me that the board of directors had drawn up monthly sales goals for him. Starting in August, he would be expected to hit his quota. I thought this was insane. Once a product exists and is stable, then a company can draw up a sales schedule. How can one reasonably do that when the product does not even exist yet? Especially if the product is a cutting-edge technology which carries a lot of unknowns? For a stable company with an existing product, deadlines need to be more than mere aspirational goals, but when building truly original technology, then the entire company is aspirational — until the technology is working, there is no proof that the technology can work. Even if the glorious day arrived when we would finally have an app customers could install on their iPhones, that would only be the beginning of a long process. Customers are an endless surprise. I’ve worked with startups for sixteen years; I know this well. Whenever I have shown people new software, the features that seemed intuitive to me were counterintuitive to them. Real-life needs that seemed intuitive to them seemed strange to me. If John thought that we could create our apps and have them working by mid-August, and he could immediately go out and start making tons of money, then he was sadly mistaken. If the board of directors thought that, then they were being badly misled. https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/0998997617/ https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...
jforman 8y ago
The only way out is leadership with a longer-term plan that has credibility from both investors and employees. The stock market doesn't require short-term thinking. But it does create a default focus on short-term performance when leadership does not articulate a plan.

acjohnson55 8y ago

Venture capital?

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Out of the frying pan, into the fire. You'll be trading the focus on reasonable but short-term returns for a focus on 10x mid-time returns.
sgt101 8y ago
Worked for Twitter! oh...

toomuchtodo 8y ago

> Short term profit seeking is a cancer upon us all, is there no way out of this hell? Take your firm private with investors that are focused on long term goals, not short term profits. Why bother with public markets if private markets provide sufficient capital to execute?

sah2ed 8y ago
Private markets is also the route that Elon Musk is considering with Tesla, similar to how SpaceX is structured where employees and sophisticated investors can sell shares every six months [0]. This will also solve his constant antagonism towards short sellers. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/how-elon-musk-s-spacex-may-be-a-road-map-for-tesla-going-private https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/how-elon-...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lkrubner 8y ago

The more original the technology, the more insane it is to draw up sales schedules before the technology works. I've written about this before. -------------------- Tuesday, June 9th, 2015 John told me that the board of directors had drawn up monthly sales goals for him. Starting in August, he would be expected to hit his quota. I thought this was insane. Once a product exists and is stable, then a company can draw up a sales schedule. How can one reasonably do that when the product does not even exist yet? Especially if the product is a cutting-edge technology which carries a lot of unknowns? For a stable company with an existing product, deadlines need to be more than mere aspirational goals, but when building truly original technology, then the entire company is aspirational — until the technology is working, there is no proof that the technology can work. Even if the glorious day arrived when we would finally have an app customers could install on their iPhones, that would only be the beginning of a long process. Customers are an endless surprise. I’ve worked with startups for sixteen years; I know this well. Whenever I have shown people new software, the features that seemed intuitive to me were counterintuitive to them. Real-life needs that seemed intuitive to them seemed strange to me. If John thought that we could create our apps and have them working by mid-August, and he could immediately go out and start making tons of money, then he was sadly mistaken. If the board of directors thought that, then they were being badly misled. https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/0998997617/ https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...

jforman 8y ago

The only way out is leadership with a longer-term plan that has credibility from both investors and employees. The stock market doesn't require short-term thinking. But it does create a default focus on short-term performance when leadership does not articulate a plan.