4 ms·

People and companies peak for one or two generations at most. What happens long before the petro issue described here is people generally stop giving a fuck. T

People and companies peak for one or two generations at most. What happens long before the petro issue described here is people generally stop giving a fuck. There are few organizations that make it past any long range of time and when they do they’re well past their hay day, whether is Std Oil, Dutch East India, Exxon ,etc. Folks at Basecamp will lose their steam similarly when DHH leaves too and stops giving a fuck. It’ll happen to Apple, Amazon and Google. It’s the natural cycle.

criddell 6y ago
There are exceptions but it is hard to think of many. Nintendo, for example, is 120 years old.
- bombcar 6y ago
  Nintendo as everyone knows it is only a few decades old; a company can continue to exist for centuries if it becomes simply a "holding company" (Berkshire Hathaway is just a mutual fund, basically) or otherwise reinvents itself.
- detuur 6y ago
  Nintendo as a company is 120 years old. Nintendo as a video game company is 50 years old, more or less. The reason why it's held on for so long is not its brand , it's their properties. Nintendo is essentially the Disney of the video game world; they own immensely popular pop-culture trademarks which they can rehash and reboot over and over and over again. Nintendo isn't a tech company, they're a publisher which so happens to publish their properties mostly as games, and do a remarkably good job of producing consoles which you need to buy to enjoy their properties. This is why they'll still be around in 100 years, and Microsoft and Apple most likely won't.
  - phone8675309 6y ago
    Also, much like Disney, Nintendo is notoriously awful to its third party artist/developers and they are very litigious about fan art projects.
  - criddell 6y ago
    > Nintendo isn't a tech company I wasn't restricting myself to thinking about tech companies. > This is why they'll still be around in 100 years, and Microsoft and Apple most likely won't. You never know. Just like Nokia once made rubber boots, maybe 100 years from now Apple and Microsoft will be doing something entirely different than now. That's my point - companies survive by adapting.
2sk21 6y ago
There is also the issue of pay and a sense of having enough. Many tech workers are very highly paid. At some point, you have enough money so you don't really have to work. I myself reached "my number" last year and retired. My guess is that there must be many more people like me who will be retiring early in the future.
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  that doesn't jive with reality as I see it. for most people, any number is never enough, it would seem
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    According to self-reported income satisfaction levels across all classes, almost everyone thinks that if they only made 10% more, then they would be set. This creates the hilarious situation where most millionaires in the US don’t subjectively feel wealthy. Because we are taught that our subjective feelings are the truth, this creates an interesting political situation where we have a built-in assumption that no one will ever be satisfied.
    - xyzzy123 6y ago
      Here in Australia, being a millionaire just means you finally paid off your mortgage. :/ If you are supporting a family, you probably still can't stop working. If you've got no dependents and you're willing to go lean you could sell up, head out to the sticks and live off your capital. It would not grant you a lifestyle conventionally described as "wealthy" but you'd be doing OK. Or am I just in the trap?
      - cashewchoo 6y ago
        No, I think this is the same way in much of the US. Millionaires are just skilled labor around age 35-40 (depending on a lot ofc). And you're going to need about 4x that to retire, depending on the kind of lifestyle you want. It's expensive as hell to do the whole "2.5 kids, a house, and 2.5 college tuitions" thing while still having a life of your own. I also realize this comes from a place of privilege (many people can't even really expect to ever retire, much less retire comfortably or lavishly). The middle class has really eroded away to basically not having any lower or middle segment. You're either working poor (whether you self-identify that way or not) or you're upper-middle-class (where you might start to externally seem "rich" but if you lose your job you still have to find another one pretty fast.)
maurys 6y ago
Goldman Sachs is 150 years old and still kicking. I wonder if a part of that longevity is the org/incentives structure. And (cynically) maybe just that regulation entrenches existing finance players and there isn't anywhere near as much anti-trust conversation over there.

criddell 6y ago

There are exceptions but it is hard to think of many. Nintendo, for example, is 120 years old.

bombcar 6y ago
Nintendo as everyone knows it is only a few decades old; a company can continue to exist for centuries if it becomes simply a "holding company" (Berkshire Hathaway is just a mutual fund, basically) or otherwise reinvents itself.
detuur 6y ago
Nintendo as a company is 120 years old. Nintendo as a video game company is 50 years old, more or less. The reason why it's held on for so long is not its brand , it's their properties. Nintendo is essentially the Disney of the video game world; they own immensely popular pop-culture trademarks which they can rehash and reboot over and over and over again. Nintendo isn't a tech company, they're a publisher which so happens to publish their properties mostly as games, and do a remarkably good job of producing consoles which you need to buy to enjoy their properties. This is why they'll still be around in 100 years, and Microsoft and Apple most likely won't.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  Also, much like Disney, Nintendo is notoriously awful to its third party artist/developers and they are very litigious about fan art projects.
- criddell 6y ago
  > Nintendo isn't a tech company I wasn't restricting myself to thinking about tech companies. > This is why they'll still be around in 100 years, and Microsoft and Apple most likely won't. You never know. Just like Nokia once made rubber boots, maybe 100 years from now Apple and Microsoft will be doing something entirely different than now. That's my point - companies survive by adapting.

2sk21 6y ago

There is also the issue of pay and a sense of having enough. Many tech workers are very highly paid. At some point, you have enough money so you don't really have to work. I myself reached "my number" last year and retired. My guess is that there must be many more people like me who will be retiring early in the future.

metalliqaz 6y ago
that doesn't jive with reality as I see it. for most people, any number is never enough, it would seem
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  According to self-reported income satisfaction levels across all classes, almost everyone thinks that if they only made 10% more, then they would be set. This creates the hilarious situation where most millionaires in the US don’t subjectively feel wealthy. Because we are taught that our subjective feelings are the truth, this creates an interesting political situation where we have a built-in assumption that no one will ever be satisfied.
  - xyzzy123 6y ago
    Here in Australia, being a millionaire just means you finally paid off your mortgage. :/ If you are supporting a family, you probably still can't stop working. If you've got no dependents and you're willing to go lean you could sell up, head out to the sticks and live off your capital. It would not grant you a lifestyle conventionally described as "wealthy" but you'd be doing OK. Or am I just in the trap?
    - cashewchoo 6y ago
      No, I think this is the same way in much of the US. Millionaires are just skilled labor around age 35-40 (depending on a lot ofc). And you're going to need about 4x that to retire, depending on the kind of lifestyle you want. It's expensive as hell to do the whole "2.5 kids, a house, and 2.5 college tuitions" thing while still having a life of your own. I also realize this comes from a place of privilege (many people can't even really expect to ever retire, much less retire comfortably or lavishly). The middle class has really eroded away to basically not having any lower or middle segment. You're either working poor (whether you self-identify that way or not) or you're upper-middle-class (where you might start to externally seem "rich" but if you lose your job you still have to find another one pretty fast.)

maurys 6y ago

Goldman Sachs is 150 years old and still kicking. I wonder if a part of that longevity is the org/incentives structure. And (cynically) maybe just that regulation entrenches existing finance players and there isn't anywhere near as much anti-trust conversation over there.