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> “It’s important that one day, maybe in 100 years, maybe in 300 years, a great-great-granddaughter of mine will walk into that room and say, ‘Hey, you don’t kn
by Hendrikto 7y ago
> “It’s important that one day, maybe in 100 years, maybe in 300 years, a great-great-granddaughter of mine will walk into that room and say, ‘Hey, you don’t know me; I actually control the place. The way you’re acting is not how we built it,'” he said.
> These may sound like more outlandish proclamations from Neumann, who has a flair for the dramatic.
- solidsnack9000 7y agoIt's interesting that he takes solace in the possibility of arbitrary exercise of authority by absentee owners.
- shmooty 7y agoI don't think beings will even be "walking" into "rooms" to "say" stuff in 300 years.
- gameswithgo 7y agodo you think we will have ascended to pure energy or all be dead? asking for a friend.
- deogeo 7y agoTo be fair, competition and investors tend to pressure corporations to place profit above any other values - the only way to maintain those values is to be forced by an external, 'arbitrary' force, like the law, or eccentric owner unconcerned with pure profit.
- meshr 7y agoDo you know any projects that try to solve this problem?
- deogeo 7y agoGovernment regulation solved parts of it - stuff like environmental protections or labor laws. But in general, it's a very hard problem, and I don't think a theoretical solution exists yet. You can read more about it here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- solidsnack9000 7y agoAn external, accountable force like the law can work but not a truly arbitrary one like heirs not subject to any constraints.
- deogeo 7y agoBut they are subject to constraints! They're subject to the law (ideally, anyway...), so the two options aren't in opposition. So yes, it can't work reliably, but still better than the pure profit motive, which is guaranteed to forsake any other values.
- katzgrau 7y agoHundreds of years later, company loses site of its mission, descendant of the great one (second coming) appears and steers company back to greatness. Kind of a strange fantastical vision out of the fiction category. Not something I'd expect the would-be CEO of a public company to seriously suggest.
- ipqk 7y agoHonestly, it's kind of insulting to himself. If I had as many delusions of grandeur as he does, I'd assume I'd instill the company from birth with such unwavering great culture, that it'd never go astray even 300 years in the future.
- dabbledash 7y agoIt seems like he’s pretty confidant he’ll be able to instill unwavering values in his family though. I wonder which of those is more likely, but they both seem pretty fantastical.
- heyflyguy 7y agoDamn, I mean what a family. The moral compass. Gosh, I hope I can achieve someday the level of moral righteousness that he has. Wow.
- nashashmi 7y agoIt often works and may even be required for corporations that exist for centuries. The United States was founded by a group of men based on ideals strongly influenced by a fraternity. That fraternity has steered America for much of its history. Otherwise common ideals fracture quite easily under duress. Probably that's what Adam had in mind. A family based institution culling certain ideals that serve as the guiding light for the company.
- _Nat_ 7y agoDoes anyone know what sort of "moral compass" Neumann may've been imagining his great-great-granddaughter imposing in 300 years? I mean, that's just a really weird scenario. Even ignoring the implausibility of modern offices being a thing in 300 years from now, much less being controlled by the same company, what exactly would've motivated Neumann's great-great-granddaughter to walk into an office space in which she'd apparently be an unknown stranger to critique the behavior of someone in it? To be clear, I'm not asking for someone to make this sound reasonable -- just, what sort of scenario, reasonable or otherwise, might Neumann have been imagining here?
- __i___ii____ 7y agoI think the simple explanation here is that he's just an idiot.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoI have another theory: he went from zero to a company valued $47,000,000,000. That's a drug...
- md_ 7y agoIn fairness, this is kind of how people expected great media dynasties (like the Bancrofts or Sulzbergers) to work. And this is also a bit weird, because while now the idea of publishers as having a critical democratic function—and being more than just profit-seekers—is well-established, fifty years ago they were also brash big businesses, a bit like tech companies now. I guess my point is that “changing the world” vs “making a buck” seem to be weirdly in the eye of the beholder. Neumann seems to have either believed or tried to convince others that WeWork had some sort of greater mission beyond merely short-term office space. I think it’s nuts, frankly, but this is the logical extreme of the more well-established phenomenon of trying to convince investors your food/cookie/pot-delivery website is a “tech company” to justify insane PE ratios. I don’t know my point. Maybe there are just a lot of idiots out there. But is it the founder, the VC, or the customer who’s the idiot? Seems to generally depend upon timing.
- 7y ago
- yalogin 7y agoSays the guy who used company money to buy real estate and then lease hem back to the company. Only a crook can say these kinds of preachy things.
- signa11 7y ago'Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.' - lazarus long (time-enough-for-love, r.a.h)
- gigatexal 7y agoLike what Christian Bale did in Batman begins?