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"This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits." So 51% of corporate profits are reserved for the employee bonus pool? And all em

"This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits." So 51% of corporate profits are reserved for the employee bonus pool? And all employees are eligible for said bonuses? It's not hard to come up with examples of where this fails. Don't give me aspirational pie in the sky. Give me operational policy.

travisoneill1 7y ago
This. Whenever someone calls for "fairness" without a formula to calculate I immediately disregard.
wormseed 7y ago
Should 51% of losses come out of employees pockets?
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Employees fired during a townturn will certainly have emptier pockets than they used to.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  losing $1000 hurts a huge amount of people more than a billionaire losing a billion does. How many billionaires are homeless after their ventures implode?
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    > How many billionaires are homeless after their ventures implode? Has this happened in recent memory, at all? Because when I was growing up and getting the pro-capitalist America view of things on the regular, I vividly recall that capitalism is all about your success individually, that you risk it all and if you lose, you lose. Even Elizabeth Holmes, an entrepreneur* who's business not only failed, massively, not only caused a man's suicide, not only lost fortunes both public and private, all without ever producing a SINGLE FUNCTIONING OR USABLE PRODUCT, she left a rich woman if I'm not mistaken. *I was gonna quote that word here but no, I'm not going to because the mythical status of these people in American society is a joke. Anybody can be an entrepreneur. There are no qualifications and no requirements and you cannot break someone's faith in the "mythical rich 1%" than having them work for one, directly for a year, and see how maladjusted, how emotionally vulnerable, and how utterly dependent they are on subordinates for even trivial tasks.
ohthehugemanate 7y ago
> Don't give me aspirational pie in the sky. Give me operational policy. See, there are three layers of decision making: vision, strategy, and tactics. You set large aspirational goals first (eg Microsoft "empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more"), then smaller component strategies ("build the a cloud provider that integrates business intelligence into everything you do"), then the concrete actions to make those srrategies happen ("integrate Active Directory authentication into kubernetes RBAC"). One "vision" level statement spawns many, many "tactics". When you're dealing on the level of "181 CEOs" from huge companies as diverse as JP Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, and Ford, it is impossible to talk about tactics and strategy. What Ford can do to better serve long term interests of all stakeholders is too different from what Vanguard should do. You are only able to agree on the big vision, and let the units (or whatever smaller more homogeneous group makes sense) work out the strategy level and below. This is leadership 101 stuff. There are several models of decision-making, but they are all hierarchical in this way. You won't find many media outlets pushing a collective of 181 companies to issue a single press release about the exact on the ground tactics they will all implement, because in this field that's a nonsensical request on par with "but how many packets can apache serve?"
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Why would all of these CEOs from random companies even be in the same room? In a free market leadership doesn't exist that high, companies aren't supposed to coordinate at that level.
  - greiskul 7y ago
    “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ― Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dsr_ 7y ago
    In the USA most companies and corporations are effectively feudal. This is a meeting of dukes and earls attempting to avoid a socialist revolution through coordinated PR, which has been quite effective for the last 75 years or so. Note that most public companies have institutional investors as the largest component of their ownership; such investors tend to own all the major competitors. GM: top 5 are Capital World Investors, Vanguard, BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway, and Harris Associates. Ford: top five are Vanguard, BlackRock, Newport, State Street, Franklin. Fiat-Chrysler: top five are Tiger, Harris, Baillie Gifford, Vanguard, Deutsche Bank, FMR. Looks like Vanguard is certainly in a position to encourage the big-three car manufacturers to work together. Intel: Tiger, Harris, Baillie Gifford, Vanguard, Deutsche Bank. AMD: Vanguard, BlackRock, Wellington, FMR, Invesco. Your CPU choices will make money for Vanguard. HPE: Dodge&Cox, Vanguard, BlackRock, Primecap, State Street. Dell: Temasek Holdings, Dodge&Cox, Elliott, BlackRock, Vanguard. Apple: Vanguard, BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway, State Street, FMR. When you buy computers, you make money for Vanguard. In summary, Tim Buckley at Vanguard can set up a meeting with any group of CEOs at minimal notice. He doesn't actually own much of anything, but the right of ownership for a large percentage of the USA's economy is a thing that he directs. Or maybe it's Robert Kapito at BlackRock; same deal.
sailfast 7y ago
I agree that operational policy is important, but you're not going to get that (and you don't want it, necessarily) from the Business Roundtable. Rather, you'd want each company to execute on that kind of policy and share experiences. It is easy to be skeptical here (and I am), but I think it would be folly to disregard the attempt as mere public relations fodder and instead see this as a starting point and continue to follow-up to ensure they're meeting their stated goals. If it's clear they're not, then happily disregard :)
- rectang 7y ago
  When would it be clear that these companies are not following up after their statement? How many chances would you give them? Would you ever stop giving them chances?
apple4ever 7y ago
Wake me up when this starts on Day 1: Health Insurance 401k (even non-match) PTO

travisoneill1 7y ago

This. Whenever someone calls for "fairness" without a formula to calculate I immediately disregard.

wormseed 7y ago

Should 51% of losses come out of employees pockets?

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Employees fired during a townturn will certainly have emptier pockets than they used to.
throwaway2048 7y ago
losing $1000 hurts a huge amount of people more than a billionaire losing a billion does. How many billionaires are homeless after their ventures implode?
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > How many billionaires are homeless after their ventures implode? Has this happened in recent memory, at all? Because when I was growing up and getting the pro-capitalist America view of things on the regular, I vividly recall that capitalism is all about your success individually, that you risk it all and if you lose, you lose. Even Elizabeth Holmes, an entrepreneur* who's business not only failed, massively, not only caused a man's suicide, not only lost fortunes both public and private, all without ever producing a SINGLE FUNCTIONING OR USABLE PRODUCT, she left a rich woman if I'm not mistaken. *I was gonna quote that word here but no, I'm not going to because the mythical status of these people in American society is a joke. Anybody can be an entrepreneur. There are no qualifications and no requirements and you cannot break someone's faith in the "mythical rich 1%" than having them work for one, directly for a year, and see how maladjusted, how emotionally vulnerable, and how utterly dependent they are on subordinates for even trivial tasks.

ohthehugemanate 7y ago

> Don't give me aspirational pie in the sky. Give me operational policy. See, there are three layers of decision making: vision, strategy, and tactics. You set large aspirational goals first (eg Microsoft "empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more"), then smaller component strategies ("build the a cloud provider that integrates business intelligence into everything you do"), then the concrete actions to make those srrategies happen ("integrate Active Directory authentication into kubernetes RBAC"). One "vision" level statement spawns many, many "tactics". When you're dealing on the level of "181 CEOs" from huge companies as diverse as JP Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, and Ford, it is impossible to talk about tactics and strategy. What Ford can do to better serve long term interests of all stakeholders is too different from what Vanguard should do. You are only able to agree on the big vision, and let the units (or whatever smaller more homogeneous group makes sense) work out the strategy level and below. This is leadership 101 stuff. There are several models of decision-making, but they are all hierarchical in this way. You won't find many media outlets pushing a collective of 181 companies to issue a single press release about the exact on the ground tactics they will all implement, because in this field that's a nonsensical request on par with "but how many packets can apache serve?"

whatshisface 7y ago
Why would all of these CEOs from random companies even be in the same room? In a free market leadership doesn't exist that high, companies aren't supposed to coordinate at that level.
- greiskul 7y ago
  “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ― Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dsr_ 7y ago
  In the USA most companies and corporations are effectively feudal. This is a meeting of dukes and earls attempting to avoid a socialist revolution through coordinated PR, which has been quite effective for the last 75 years or so. Note that most public companies have institutional investors as the largest component of their ownership; such investors tend to own all the major competitors. GM: top 5 are Capital World Investors, Vanguard, BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway, and Harris Associates. Ford: top five are Vanguard, BlackRock, Newport, State Street, Franklin. Fiat-Chrysler: top five are Tiger, Harris, Baillie Gifford, Vanguard, Deutsche Bank, FMR. Looks like Vanguard is certainly in a position to encourage the big-three car manufacturers to work together. Intel: Tiger, Harris, Baillie Gifford, Vanguard, Deutsche Bank. AMD: Vanguard, BlackRock, Wellington, FMR, Invesco. Your CPU choices will make money for Vanguard. HPE: Dodge&Cox, Vanguard, BlackRock, Primecap, State Street. Dell: Temasek Holdings, Dodge&Cox, Elliott, BlackRock, Vanguard. Apple: Vanguard, BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway, State Street, FMR. When you buy computers, you make money for Vanguard. In summary, Tim Buckley at Vanguard can set up a meeting with any group of CEOs at minimal notice. He doesn't actually own much of anything, but the right of ownership for a large percentage of the USA's economy is a thing that he directs. Or maybe it's Robert Kapito at BlackRock; same deal.

sailfast 7y ago

I agree that operational policy is important, but you're not going to get that (and you don't want it, necessarily) from the Business Roundtable. Rather, you'd want each company to execute on that kind of policy and share experiences. It is easy to be skeptical here (and I am), but I think it would be folly to disregard the attempt as mere public relations fodder and instead see this as a starting point and continue to follow-up to ensure they're meeting their stated goals. If it's clear they're not, then happily disregard :)

rectang 7y ago
When would it be clear that these companies are not following up after their statement? How many chances would you give them? Would you ever stop giving them chances?

apple4ever 7y ago

Wake me up when this starts on Day 1: Health Insurance 401k (even non-match) PTO