Don't fall prey to the fallacy of rose colored glasses. Greed and unethical behavior has existed perhaps since the dawn of human civilization. The richest man i

Don't fall prey to the fallacy of rose colored glasses. Greed and unethical behavior has existed perhaps since the dawn of human civilization. The richest man in ancient Rome (Marcus Licinius Crassus) operated like something in between a private equity investor and a gangster: "The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants." [0] Business ethics and morality have varied widely across history. Of course there are stories like this from a similar time frame (Salk not patenting the Polio Vaccine and Florey not patenting Penicillin come to mind), but there are also plenty of counter examples. I'd actually say that there's an argument to be made that we're living in a period of the best business ethics ever. This is mostly driven by regulation, empowered consumers, the current state of tort law (at least in the US) and wide availability of information. Stuff like Martin Shkreli bragging about cranking the price on live saving medication and then ending up in jail is a powerful signal to other business people not to behave like that. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus#:~:text=The%20first%20ever,19%5D%5B3%5D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus#:~:tex...