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The purpose of a for profit company is to provide a good or service and profit from doing so. You don’t need to be acquired to accomplish that.
by endisneigh 3y ago
The purpose of a for profit company is to provide a good or service and profit from doing so. You don’t need to be acquired to accomplish that.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoYes. But when you're driven by the idea of exit striving towards such things becomes ultra focused. Put another way, exit is the ultimate recognition that these purpose(s) have been acheived.
- endisneigh 3y agoThere are ways to exit other than being acquired, still.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoThose are still exits.
- capableweb 3y ago> provide a good or service > profit from doing so Is the first actually a requirement? I can think of plenty of companies that do the second part well, but have nothing to do with the first one.
- oblio 3y agoYou're misreading the text. They said "provide A good OR service", they're not saying "provide good service".
- capableweb 3y agoI don't think so, I read and understand the "OR" in there.
- endisneigh 3y agoYes? What company makes money without providing goods or services to someone?
- ceejayoz 3y agoComcast?
- endisneigh 3y agoComcast provides plenty of services?
- capableweb 3y agoPatent trolling. Domain flipping. Just two I can think of in 30 seconds, I'm sure there are more out there :)
- endisneigh 3y agoBoth provide services.
- capableweb 3y agoOk, lets hear you argue for what service a patent troll provides.
- endisneigh 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ianceicys 3y agoLook at the corporate raiders of the 1980s. Firing people, loading up a company with debt. And taking them bankrupt makes a ton of money for private equity. No product required, immensely profitable!
- ianceicys 3y agoYou are mistaken. The purpose of a company is to make a profit and provide a good or service. In that order. Everything else is a hobby.
- endisneigh 3y agoNope. Profit follows the goods and services, not the other way around.
- ianceicys 3y agoTell that to Too BIG to FAIL banks…look at the Billions given from the government to lobbying companies.
- dahart 3y agoWhy do you say that, and how does it work? Are you making a completely different statement than the point the parent was making? Sure you usually need to sell something in order to get the profit, but that doesn’t mean that the good or service or it’s quality was prioritized above getting any profit, which is what I think parent was talking about. Generally speaking, private non-subsidized companies that offer goods and services for sale cannot actually survive without any profit, right? They can bootstrap for a while with investment, but they tend to die, statistically speaking, if they prioritize goods and services over profit. The way companies tend to survive death is by doing everything they can to ensure that the sale of their goods or services generates a profit. You might also be temporarily forgetting that it’s also incredibly common for companies to pivot on what products they make and sell whenever they’re not making enough profit. TBH it actually seems really funny to me argue about which comes first, because the kind of company we’re talking about needs both, it doesn’t otherwise exist. But the idea parent shared, that profit takes the highest priority, is often absolutely true in practice, many companies will do everything they can to avoid not making a profit, from lowering the quality of their goods and services, to coming up with other more profitable products, to merging with another company that has more customers for your product and/or a longer runway.
- earthnail 3y agoDepends on your worldview. Historically, companies had a purpose first and profit second. You needed approval by the crown before you were allowed to start a company. Then, once your company fit the purpose as seen by the crown, you were allowed to make profit with it. That has changed, especially since the 80s, where the prevalent world view turned to "let's have the market figure out purpose", which equates to anything that is profitable is good. We've since learned that this isn't automatically true (as exemplified in this abandoned merger, for example), and my understanding is that right now there's no clear opinion in society whether profit or purpose comes first in companies.