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jchrisa 5y ago
The myth of shareholder value is roundly rejected by the people who's job it is to think about these things: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
whatshisface 5y ago
>Ie why would Blizzard be okay with workers unionizing for better work conditions? It seems unlikely that would favor Blizzard in the short term[1]. Well, if everyone reading about Blizzard's malfeasance decides to not do business with them, as some commenters in this thread are doing, then they will suffer a problem in the short term as well.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
autokad 5y ago
the problem you have is that you think fighting the unionization is amoral, when in fact doing what is right bye shareholders is the moral thing to do. shareholders is small private investors like me (although I don't invest in Blizzard), your 401ks, etc, to whom they are managing our money for us. unions sounds nice, but we are just giving up money and freedoms for another layer of corrupt bureaucracy. I don't know much about this particular story, but more often than not I find these union pushes are done by people looking to increase their own power. its a very lucrative career move.
brainfish 5y ago
My hope is that I can contribute in my small way to making moral behavior more profitable than immoral. IE voting with my wallet. I'll also vote for policies and representatives to enact sensible (opinions will differ, obviously) legislation to enforce better morality and better safeguarding of the commons, especially with respect to externalities -- as I see those as a major source of the failings of capitalism. Beyond that, I don't really know. And I'll readily admit that looking around at where we as a society are and where we seem to be headed, especially with respect to things like climate change, those seem like very small measures. I just don't know what else to do.
- brainfish 5y ago
  Edit: parent deleted their comment, but it was a question about isn't union busting the logical capitalist move and what can we do about it.
RangerScience 5y ago
AFAICT, this is one of those counter-intuitive cases. Mission-driven companies tend to (AFAIK) do better than pure profit-driven companies; similarly, AFAIK, companies that take morality seriously tend to do better. A significant aspect of this (IMHO) is employee empowerment, which relates to the common theories as to why Silicon Valley happened rather than the Boston corridor (legal situation advantageous to employees). Other things that come to mind: "Ask for money, get advice. Ask for advice, get money twice." https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ags https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ags - "If the stock market made any sense, you'd be able to exploit that sense and capitalize on it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law So it makes "logical sense" IFF short-term improvements/non-losses of control, power, and position lead to profit, and that's not something that's logically provable. Rather, that's something that's got to be observed experimentally, and AFAIK it ...isn't. If your goal-metric is money, you run into both what SMBC is pointing out, and Goodhart's law. If your goal-metric is something else, money is an "easy" by-product. > how can we work to promote moral behavior? IMHO sociological studies examining this. "Seek money, make nothing. Seek to make, get money twice", or something.
- kelnos 5y ago
  > Mission-driven companies tend to (AFAIK) do better than pure profit-driven companies; similarly, AFAIK, companies that take morality seriously tend to do better. Do you have links to any studies backing this up? The idealist in me really wants this to be true, but the cynic in me believes capitalism is set up to reward the most ruthless, unscrupulous people.
  - RangerScience 5y ago
    I do not :/ It's a soundbyte that I've heard within the startup space (probably HN, ages ago). But - what's be your top 10 list of successful startups? How many of them are either directly mission-driven, or have a strong mission?

The myth of shareholder value is roundly rejected by the people who's job it is to think about these things: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

whatshisface 5y ago

>Ie why would Blizzard be okay with workers unionizing for better work conditions? It seems unlikely that would favor Blizzard in the short term[1]. Well, if everyone reading about Blizzard's malfeasance decides to not do business with them, as some commenters in this thread are doing, then they will suffer a problem in the short term as well.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

autokad 5y ago

the problem you have is that you think fighting the unionization is amoral, when in fact doing what is right bye shareholders is the moral thing to do. shareholders is small private investors like me (although I don't invest in Blizzard), your 401ks, etc, to whom they are managing our money for us. unions sounds nice, but we are just giving up money and freedoms for another layer of corrupt bureaucracy. I don't know much about this particular story, but more often than not I find these union pushes are done by people looking to increase their own power. its a very lucrative career move.

brainfish 5y ago

My hope is that I can contribute in my small way to making moral behavior more profitable than immoral. IE voting with my wallet. I'll also vote for policies and representatives to enact sensible (opinions will differ, obviously) legislation to enforce better morality and better safeguarding of the commons, especially with respect to externalities -- as I see those as a major source of the failings of capitalism. Beyond that, I don't really know. And I'll readily admit that looking around at where we as a society are and where we seem to be headed, especially with respect to things like climate change, those seem like very small measures. I just don't know what else to do.

brainfish 5y ago
Edit: parent deleted their comment, but it was a question about isn't union busting the logical capitalist move and what can we do about it.

RangerScience 5y ago

AFAICT, this is one of those counter-intuitive cases. Mission-driven companies tend to (AFAIK) do better than pure profit-driven companies; similarly, AFAIK, companies that take morality seriously tend to do better. A significant aspect of this (IMHO) is employee empowerment, which relates to the common theories as to why Silicon Valley happened rather than the Boston corridor (legal situation advantageous to employees). Other things that come to mind: "Ask for money, get advice. Ask for advice, get money twice." https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ags https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ags - "If the stock market made any sense, you'd be able to exploit that sense and capitalize on it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law So it makes "logical sense" IFF short-term improvements/non-losses of control, power, and position lead to profit, and that's not something that's logically provable. Rather, that's something that's got to be observed experimentally, and AFAIK it ...isn't. If your goal-metric is money, you run into both what SMBC is pointing out, and Goodhart's law. If your goal-metric is something else, money is an "easy" by-product. > how can we work to promote moral behavior? IMHO sociological studies examining this. "Seek money, make nothing. Seek to make, get money twice", or something.

kelnos 5y ago
> Mission-driven companies tend to (AFAIK) do better than pure profit-driven companies; similarly, AFAIK, companies that take morality seriously tend to do better. Do you have links to any studies backing this up? The idealist in me really wants this to be true, but the cynic in me believes capitalism is set up to reward the most ruthless, unscrupulous people.
- RangerScience 5y ago
  I do not :/ It's a soundbyte that I've heard within the startup space (probably HN, ages ago). But - what's be your top 10 list of successful startups? How many of them are either directly mission-driven, or have a strong mission?