7 ms·

Many large companies (f50) have fleets of jets and salaried pilots. Its not uncommon at all for commuting by jet to be the standard. Not sure why this is such a

by ct0 2y ago

Many large companies (f50) have fleets of jets and salaried pilots. Its not uncommon at all for commuting by jet to be the standard. Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way.

paulcole 2y ago
> Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way. Having read the article, what’s your best guess?
alephnerd 2y ago
> Its not uncommon at all for commuting by jet to be the standard Companies (F500s and below) are increasingly moving away from this for efficiency and cost reasons, but I agree with you that it's a bit of a nothingburger. Meanwhile the same HNers complaining about Niccols contract are the same ones who oppose the unrealized capital gains tax proposal that literally only affects people with $100M and above in undeployed capital
- cherrycherry98 2y ago
  First $100M, then when that's not enough it'll be $50M, then $10M, then $1M, then $500k. The definition of "rich" will keep being adjusted down. And for what? So politicians can spend it on some photo-op project for themselves? Maybe sending "aid" to other countries (bullets and bombs)? Using it to spy on it's own citizens and quell dissidents? Surely individuals can on average invest the money more productively.
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... You don't even have a moral argument for that stupid idea. Just a political belief.
dahdum 2y ago
> Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way. Starbucks pretends to care about the environment and sustainability much more than most. Or at least they used to, he may dial that back since his commute will be mentioned in news articles for at least the next few years.
- lagniappe 2y ago
  Starbucks cares about making money, a few years ago money loudly cared about the environment.
0goel0 2y ago
[dead]
goosedragons 2y ago
This shouldn't be the standard for anybody. It's insanely wasteful and polluting. We should call out this guy and anybody else doing it. Absolutely ridiculous, it would be far cheaper and better for the environment to pay for relocation and arguably C-suites don't even need the help. Don't want to move? Then you're the wrong person for the job.
- johannes1234321 2y ago
  Or just move the headquarters. ;)
- brandall10 2y ago
  The problem is the perception of a very rare skillset - ie. being a CEO that did x/y/z at companies in a similar space that the board would like to acquire to achieve for their own company. If they can accomplish the same, the value of that far exceeds the cost, environmental impact, and public perception of something like this. You might start with 5 or so candidates and then whittle it down to 1 or 2 that are the right person for a job. These people are already wealthy with all that goes along with it and the idea of relocating could be a hard ask. From a successful CEO's perspective, it's probably much easier for them to land another gig that caves to their demands than the other way around. At this comp level you could say it's similar to a sports star that gets traded to another team, and it is in a way, but that's part of what comes along with being someone like that... in the span of 20 years they may have to uproot their life 3-4x. Their career even starts off like that, where they get selected to a team and boom, they have to move to somewhere they may have never even visited before their life even gets somewhat calcified by having generational wealth.
- paulcole 2y ago
  > It's insanely wasteful and polluting. It’s pretty clear (by looking at actions, not words) that nobody cares about being insanely wasteful and polluting. Everybody believes some other person is being insanely wasteful and polluting but their lifestyle isn’t as bad so they don’t have to change.
  - goosedragons 2y ago
kkfx 2y ago
Having jets contrary to many believes it's not a bad thing, using it for stupid thing is. If you need to travel, for instance to expect a new remote production site, a potential acquisition, getting to know well something up somewhere where you have interests, it's not wrong at all. Travel just to show up in the office, like a religious act, a ritual probably to justify RTO policies needed by the company to stay alive not because they need people in the office but because they live on cities and with WFH as the default, having already lost industries with '80s globalization, cities are simply dead with their Barnum circus including therein Starbucks that have no substantial reason to exist in business without the "ritual, polite, city-stile suit and tie/tailleur" way of living. This act means a thing: Starbucks is a no future company, desperately attached to a past model that can't exists anymore, so having no substantial reason they switch to rituals, imposing them on their own, chiefs included, to trying keeping up.
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  We don’t know how often he will use this corporate jet. They are going to stand up a remote office with his own assistant. He could very well be in Seattle once a week and everything else handled via Zoom.
  - depr 2y ago
    We do know. He is expected to be in Seattle at least three days a week.
    - firesteelrain 2y ago
      Okay then seems reasonable to travel. I know plenty of execs that commute once a week
      - kkfx 2y ago
        That's not the point, is not a matter of frequency, how many miles or so, it's a matter of WHY showing up in a office if your work could be done from remote, even in the company jet, reading their news? Why having an office at all, if that's not needed in modern time, since we haven't paper anymore and so we do not need a unique physical place to work and keep a paper archive? My unproven response is that's simply a ritual because Starbucks will die without modern cities, or will die without mid/high income office workers with a certain mindset who like being in places like Starbuks. A cohort of people who will change mindset if WFH. Did you see the impact of the "covid" switch on airlines, hotels NOT due to the lack of tourist but due to the change in working travelers, with conferences moved to remote meeting, business trips much reduced due to remote meetings and so on? That's the point: could Starbucks live without the office, not it's own office, but the office model, or the modern city model, since most factories are not in cities anymore and in modern city the economy, at least in the west is essentially driven by the tertiary sector and could such modern city model live? My personal take it's a double no. I expect cities slowly evolve in ghetto's for poor and desperate people, a cohort not likely to buy Starbucks, and so despite the substantial ritual of "being in an office at least some days per week", their business model is doomed IMVHO, not tomorrow morning, things do change slowly, but in not much years in the future anyways, rituals do work only a bit, if the economy underneath is flawed they can keep things up for a bit more, but not save the game.
nunez 2y ago
It's not really about the jets. Rank and file employees are asked to RTO on their dime (usually) while executives have the choice of living elsewhere and having their transportation covered by the company. That's horribly unfair.

by ct0 2y ago

paulcole 2y ago

> Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way. Having read the article, what’s your best guess?

alephnerd 2y ago

> Its not uncommon at all for commuting by jet to be the standard Companies (F500s and below) are increasingly moving away from this for efficiency and cost reasons, but I agree with you that it's a bit of a nothingburger. Meanwhile the same HNers complaining about Niccols contract are the same ones who oppose the unrealized capital gains tax proposal that literally only affects people with $100M and above in undeployed capital

cherrycherry98 2y ago
First $100M, then when that's not enough it'll be $50M, then $10M, then $1M, then $500k. The definition of "rich" will keep being adjusted down. And for what? So politicians can spend it on some photo-op project for themselves? Maybe sending "aid" to other countries (bullets and bombs)? Using it to spy on it's own citizens and quell dissidents? Surely individuals can on average invest the money more productively.
AdrianB1 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... You don't even have a moral argument for that stupid idea. Just a political belief.

dahdum 2y ago

> Not sure why this is such a big deal or any different than the thousands of c-suites that commute this way. Starbucks pretends to care about the environment and sustainability much more than most. Or at least they used to, he may dial that back since his commute will be mentioned in news articles for at least the next few years.

lagniappe 2y ago
Starbucks cares about making money, a few years ago money loudly cared about the environment.

0goel0 2y ago

[dead]

goosedragons 2y ago

This shouldn't be the standard for anybody. It's insanely wasteful and polluting. We should call out this guy and anybody else doing it. Absolutely ridiculous, it would be far cheaper and better for the environment to pay for relocation and arguably C-suites don't even need the help. Don't want to move? Then you're the wrong person for the job.

johannes1234321 2y ago
Or just move the headquarters. ;)
brandall10 2y ago
The problem is the perception of a very rare skillset - ie. being a CEO that did x/y/z at companies in a similar space that the board would like to acquire to achieve for their own company. If they can accomplish the same, the value of that far exceeds the cost, environmental impact, and public perception of something like this. You might start with 5 or so candidates and then whittle it down to 1 or 2 that are the right person for a job. These people are already wealthy with all that goes along with it and the idea of relocating could be a hard ask. From a successful CEO's perspective, it's probably much easier for them to land another gig that caves to their demands than the other way around. At this comp level you could say it's similar to a sports star that gets traded to another team, and it is in a way, but that's part of what comes along with being someone like that... in the span of 20 years they may have to uproot their life 3-4x. Their career even starts off like that, where they get selected to a team and boom, they have to move to somewhere they may have never even visited before their life even gets somewhat calcified by having generational wealth.
paulcole 2y ago
> It's insanely wasteful and polluting. It’s pretty clear (by looking at actions, not words) that nobody cares about being insanely wasteful and polluting. Everybody believes some other person is being insanely wasteful and polluting but their lifestyle isn’t as bad so they don’t have to change.
- goosedragons 2y ago

kkfx 2y ago

Having jets contrary to many believes it's not a bad thing, using it for stupid thing is. If you need to travel, for instance to expect a new remote production site, a potential acquisition, getting to know well something up somewhere where you have interests, it's not wrong at all. Travel just to show up in the office, like a religious act, a ritual probably to justify RTO policies needed by the company to stay alive not because they need people in the office but because they live on cities and with WFH as the default, having already lost industries with '80s globalization, cities are simply dead with their Barnum circus including therein Starbucks that have no substantial reason to exist in business without the "ritual, polite, city-stile suit and tie/tailleur" way of living. This act means a thing: Starbucks is a no future company, desperately attached to a past model that can't exists anymore, so having no substantial reason they switch to rituals, imposing them on their own, chiefs included, to trying keeping up.

firesteelrain 2y ago
We don’t know how often he will use this corporate jet. They are going to stand up a remote office with his own assistant. He could very well be in Seattle once a week and everything else handled via Zoom.
- depr 2y ago
  We do know. He is expected to be in Seattle at least three days a week.
  - firesteelrain 2y ago
    Okay then seems reasonable to travel. I know plenty of execs that commute once a week
    - kkfx 2y ago
      That's not the point, is not a matter of frequency, how many miles or so, it's a matter of WHY showing up in a office if your work could be done from remote, even in the company jet, reading their news? Why having an office at all, if that's not needed in modern time, since we haven't paper anymore and so we do not need a unique physical place to work and keep a paper archive? My unproven response is that's simply a ritual because Starbucks will die without modern cities, or will die without mid/high income office workers with a certain mindset who like being in places like Starbuks. A cohort of people who will change mindset if WFH. Did you see the impact of the "covid" switch on airlines, hotels NOT due to the lack of tourist but due to the change in working travelers, with conferences moved to remote meeting, business trips much reduced due to remote meetings and so on? That's the point: could Starbucks live without the office, not it's own office, but the office model, or the modern city model, since most factories are not in cities anymore and in modern city the economy, at least in the west is essentially driven by the tertiary sector and could such modern city model live? My personal take it's a double no. I expect cities slowly evolve in ghetto's for poor and desperate people, a cohort not likely to buy Starbucks, and so despite the substantial ritual of "being in an office at least some days per week", their business model is doomed IMVHO, not tomorrow morning, things do change slowly, but in not much years in the future anyways, rituals do work only a bit, if the economy underneath is flawed they can keep things up for a bit more, but not save the game.

nunez 2y ago

It's not really about the jets. Rank and file employees are asked to RTO on their dime (usually) while executives have the choice of living elsewhere and having their transportation covered by the company. That's horribly unfair.