> There is a big difference between Canonical and Oracle, between Zappos (before Amazon bought them) and Walmart Right up to the moment where there isn't. Som

> There is a big difference between Canonical and Oracle, between Zappos (before Amazon bought them) and Walmart Right up to the moment where there isn't. Some companies have great values, a great culture, an inspiring mission and they'll be relatively consistent in maintaining these things for quite extended periods of time: years, sometimes even decades. That's really easy to do during the good times: when you're hitting your numbers and all the trendlines are pointing upwards. However, when things get more difficult - when there's a downturn, competitors move in, or the market simply moves on - that equation changes a lot. Sooner or later under those circumstances every business has to start making hard calls that will make it very clear to all involved that it is not a family. We can all point to examples of businesses that have gone out of their way to look after their employees during the pandemic. But even they can't do so indefinitely (hopefully they won't have to try if the vaccination programmes work as well as we all hope). Sooner or later the values of a business will become subservient to commercial reality even if that doesn't happen to our values as individuals.