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Read Henry Ford's autobiography. You'd think he'd agree with you. He'd want to overwork his employees to produce more cars. But, actually, he was much more of a

Read Henry Ford's autobiography. You'd think he'd agree with you. He'd want to overwork his employees to produce more cars. But, actually, he was much more of a perfectionist around all the things that go into producing things efficiently. And over-working employees certainly wasn't efficient, partly because turn over is high and also work place injuries go up. (For example, he introduce a 40 hour working week https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/01/24/henry-ford/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/01/24/henry-ford/.) There is certainly a culture of over-working employees in some businesses. But is it really a _universal_ rule of capitalism that overworking people is profitable? Look at Germany. Highly productive economy, very strong labour laws and no (/limited) culture of overworking. Have you not missed the 'meta' the article is talking about: that it's an Americanism to think that more hours == more product. "Image 'slow productivity' in a startup" - what? How long did it take the inventor of bluetooth to invent bluetooth? How long did it take scientists to develop the internet? How long did it take the people to develop computers and electronics? People talk about "fast" productivity in start-ups because there's money involved and investors are greedy and no-one wants anything slowly. But, you know what, plenty of good products take 10 years to make or more. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/07/21/good-software-takes-ten-years-get-used-to-it/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/07/21/good-software-take... Successful businesses aren't merely defined by being profit maximising. It's fine to create a good business slowly that has a positive net impact on society. That's in some ways better than a business that abuses everyone to make a small circle rich. If you judge the success of a business merely by it's profitability, you're a fool. There's more to life than profit. "I can't help but think he's missing the meta we're all playing within: profit is the motive (not human flourishing)." No, we are not all playing within that 'meta'. We reject that. Playing purely for profit is often sick and deranged. Get a life. Experience something more meaningful than just profit. Reject those procrustean views. Yes, we all need to make enough to get by, and that means making some profit. But no, we don't have to define or constrain ourselves to being trapped in a pure-profit game. That's for the foolish.

wnolens 5y ago
Perhaps my tone was lost, but I was describing the typical American tech company, not what I think is right. I'm agree with your values, but I don't think the economy is setup to support those values. Looks like Henry Ford discovered that profit was affected by overworking. He was still maximizing that function, no? Sometimes that function includes making the worker happier, but sometimes it is inversely related. re: startups, my point was that they have near zero chance of succeeding against large incumbents by moving at a leisurely pace. Sure, great technologies can be invented slowly. But once great tech is given VC money, it's a race. That race has created such a lead between the US and every other country in the tech world.
- morelish 5y ago
  Sure. Yeah, I apologise if I was aggressive. I agree with you that yeah profit maximising has no necessary relationship to the happiness of workers. But, I was surprised when I read Ford's biography that a lot of (aggressive) practices I thought 'hey this is just bosses being bosses', actually might be poor management. Re, VC money creating a rat-race, I think you're probably right. Though I think there must remain a slice of the market that's not determined by the rat race. But it could well be the slice of the market that VCs aren't interested in funding because it's not big or fast enough. I guess I would cite something like Linux as an example. It's not really a start-up but by not being fuelled by money, and being open-source, it was able to under-cut and out-compete Microsoft and a bunch of other OSs in the hobbyists -> server -> mobile. But I suppose it became a platform that a bunch of other businesses like Redhat and Android were able to launch off. But yeah I guess the general trend is profit invites competition, and competition is amoral.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  > But once great tech is given VC money, it's a race. That race has created such a lead between the US and every other country in the tech world. Let's be clear, it's access to capital rather than technology that has made US startups more valuable (which is weird, given that the easiest way to make a startup more valuable is to invest more money at a higher valuation). If you look at (almost) all of the recent tech giants, it was the capital they got that allowed them to outcompete the rest of the world, not the technology (which is mostly available to the whole world).

wnolens 5y ago

Perhaps my tone was lost, but I was describing the typical American tech company, not what I think is right. I'm agree with your values, but I don't think the economy is setup to support those values. Looks like Henry Ford discovered that profit was affected by overworking. He was still maximizing that function, no? Sometimes that function includes making the worker happier, but sometimes it is inversely related. re: startups, my point was that they have near zero chance of succeeding against large incumbents by moving at a leisurely pace. Sure, great technologies can be invented slowly. But once great tech is given VC money, it's a race. That race has created such a lead between the US and every other country in the tech world.

morelish 5y ago
Sure. Yeah, I apologise if I was aggressive. I agree with you that yeah profit maximising has no necessary relationship to the happiness of workers. But, I was surprised when I read Ford's biography that a lot of (aggressive) practices I thought 'hey this is just bosses being bosses', actually might be poor management. Re, VC money creating a rat-race, I think you're probably right. Though I think there must remain a slice of the market that's not determined by the rat race. But it could well be the slice of the market that VCs aren't interested in funding because it's not big or fast enough. I guess I would cite something like Linux as an example. It's not really a start-up but by not being fuelled by money, and being open-source, it was able to under-cut and out-compete Microsoft and a bunch of other OSs in the hobbyists -> server -> mobile. But I suppose it became a platform that a bunch of other businesses like Redhat and Android were able to launch off. But yeah I guess the general trend is profit invites competition, and competition is amoral.
disgruntledphd2 5y ago
> But once great tech is given VC money, it's a race. That race has created such a lead between the US and every other country in the tech world. Let's be clear, it's access to capital rather than technology that has made US startups more valuable (which is weird, given that the easiest way to make a startup more valuable is to invest more money at a higher valuation). If you look at (almost) all of the recent tech giants, it was the capital they got that allowed them to outcompete the rest of the world, not the technology (which is mostly available to the whole world).