4 ms·

That and Welchism are two big reasons why the business culture in the valley sucks.

by __loam 3y ago

lenerdenator 3y ago
I see Welchism (I assume we're talking about Jack of GE) as the opposite of lots of SV culture. They both suck, but for completely different reasons. GE actually had real business units. Energy, aerospace, consumer, industrial, healthcare, you name it, they had a presence. Welch couldn't squeeze enough money to meet Wall Street's expectations out of these units, and didn't innovate when microcomputers were coming onto the scene in the 90s, so he cannibalized the company to boost share price at the expense of the business being able to continue long-term. Of course, he would be dead by then. The guys in the valley are the opposite because many of them don't actually have a product, or even business, to sell - or they do, and the product itself is realizing it doesn't want to be sold. We've had social media and ad-based online services for 20+ years now and it's generally seen as a net negative for society. The subscription-based business model wouldn't work for most social media companies as it would limit the network effect and thus the TAM of the company's business. They're having to find more and more creative ways to monetize eyeballs when the eyeballs don't want to be monetized anymore. Then you have the people who are swapping out their FLOSS licenses for proprietary ones on software offerings (looking at you Redis) because they realize if you just give stuff away for free, there is no monetization route, and dammit, they want - nay, deserve - their massive payday like the Steves and Bill and Larry got. TL;DR Jack had a lot to sell at the expense of GE as a long-term going concern; SV has nothing to sell but wants to be a long-term going concern.
- __loam 3y ago
  Yeah I do mean the same Jack Welch who looted GE and permanently sent American business culture into a seemingly unrecoverable decline. Maybe GE was just way too unfocused of a company to exist, but if you squint enough, you can see the trail of shit leading from his leadership at GE to places like Boeing and now Google, where employees are discarded even when you're making billions in profit every quarter and you have a near monopoly on your industry. Welch taught the American business elite to ride that horse hard until it collapses from exhaustion and you can move on to the next company to loot.

That and Welchism are two big reasons why the business culture in the valley sucks.

by __loam 3y ago

That and Welchism are two big reasons why the business culture in the valley sucks.

I see Welchism (I assume we're talking about Jack of GE) as the opposite of lots of SV culture. They both suck, but for completely different reasons. GE actually had real business units. Energy, aerospace, consumer, industrial, healthcare, you name it, they had a presence. Welch couldn't squeeze enough money to meet Wall Street's expectations out of these units, and didn't innovate when microcomputers were coming onto the scene in the 90s, so he cannibalized the company to boost share price at the expense of the business being able to continue long-term. Of course, he would be dead by then. The guys in the valley are the opposite because many of them don't actually have a product, or even business, to sell - or they do, and the product itself is realizing it doesn't want to be sold. We've had social media and ad-based online services for 20+ years now and it's generally seen as a net negative for society. The subscription-based business model wouldn't work for most social media companies as it would limit the network effect and thus the TAM of the company's business. They're having to find more and more creative ways to monetize eyeballs when the eyeballs don't want to be monetized anymore. Then you have the people who are swapping out their FLOSS licenses for proprietary ones on software offerings (looking at you Redis) because they realize if you just give stuff away for free, there is no monetization route, and dammit, they want - nay, deserve - their massive payday like the Steves and Bill and Larry got. TL;DR Jack had a lot to sell at the expense of GE as a long-term going concern; SV has nothing to sell but wants to be a long-term going concern.

__loam 3y ago
Yeah I do mean the same Jack Welch who looted GE and permanently sent American business culture into a seemingly unrecoverable decline. Maybe GE was just way too unfocused of a company to exist, but if you squint enough, you can see the trail of shit leading from his leadership at GE to places like Boeing and now Google, where employees are discarded even when you're making billions in profit every quarter and you have a near monopoly on your industry. Welch taught the American business elite to ride that horse hard until it collapses from exhaustion and you can move on to the next company to loot.