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> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time? E.g. Layoffs + micromanagement + cost focus etc... Is this truly about macroeconomi
by inetknght 1y ago
> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time? E.g. Layoffs + micromanagement + cost focus etc... Is this truly about macroeconomic forces that every business is responding to? Or is it just following the latest fad?
I thought about this a lot over the years.
I saw something that piqued my interest last year though, and kind've helped connect the dots. I was on a cruise, and most of the ship was available to guests. One day, one room was cordoned off to an invite-only meeting. The windows weren't blocked, but on the screen was a presentation about AI investments, number of jobs saved (reduced), and etc.
I found one of the attendants later during the voyage and chatted her up. She was head of HR in some big company, and the meeting was supposed to be private. But it contained a lot more than just spreadsheets about AI investments. There was homework and whatnot, but the attendees weren't all from a single company. It was "direction setting". I don't think it was Intel (topic under discussion) but certainly some loosely related tech industry.
I'm convinced that it was nothing less than business collusion.
So, back to your question:
> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time?
Because they're told to.
- mathgeek 1y ago> I'm convinced that it was nothing less than business collusion. Wonder if it’s “not illegal” if it’s done in international waters.
- inetknght 1y ago> Wonder if it’s “not illegal” if it’s done in international waters. I didn't ask. As I understand it, it's less about legality and more about plausible deniability; on a "party boat" with plenty of other public people to make it cheaper than renting a whole boat, plus the week for the cruise and time to relax -- seems plausible that these people "just happened" to book the same boat at the same time at peak tourist season and decide to throw a "private party". I should have asked more questions, but there were plenty of other people to chat up.
- ghaff 1y agoIt's very common for "million dollar clubs" (or whatever) to have a cruise or some other perk for top-performing sales reps.
- District5524 1y agoNo, because jurisdiction of the competition authority will still be based on the market activity (or place of registration etc.) of the companies colluding, not on the physical location of the colluding/anti-competitive activity itself. While such conspirative theatre may decrease the risks of discovery, collusions usually come to light by one participant notifying the authority in exchange for immunity or decreased fines.
- actionfromafar 1y agoThat argument mostly only works if you are the government, it seems.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoHeaven forbid the workers within or across any of these companies also consider coordinating on anything
- markus_zhang 1y agoThe elites definitely unite first.
- lbrito 1y agoThat would be (gasp) _communism_!
- cebert 1y agoUnionization isn’t necessarily communism.
- lbrito 1y ago[flagged]
- dingnuts 1y agothis isn't Reddit
- yunnpp 1y agoOr at least save such remark for when somebody actually makes the statement. Don't just assume that people on this forum are too stupid to understand the difference.
- br0ny 1y agoIt’s an open forum; any reason to believe everyone is a genius such as yourself? Your comment doesn’t come across as much more than usual grammar Nazi who then goofs up their own correction. So we see the difference. Are you smart enough to do anything? Yeah ok generating syntax to describe is easy. What next? if anything is the hard part
- DragonStrength 1y agoThe Capital Order lays out an argument that austerity measures are ultimately labor suppression, not necessary. Of course, that’s true of many pieces of policy wisdom: they start from an assumed good. In this case, the assumed good is the current winners should remain the winners despite, well, losing. https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Order-Economists-Invented-Austerity/dp/022681839X https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Order-Economists-Invented-Aus...
- cyanydeez 1y agoI agree that this definitely is labor suppression, but it has a real cause: the end of low interest rates and inflation. They can no longer "grow" their way into their 6 month bonuses, so they basically have to trim fat and if they all collude on doing it, it _can_ work. If they dont all collude, someone gets cheap engine for growth.
- saubeidl 1y agoThe capitalist class has always conspired to keep labor down. Meanwhile, a lot of laborers in our profession have fallen for their propaganda of markets and so-called meritocracy, not realizing they have more in common with the fruit picker than their common exploiter. Class warfare is real. It's time tech workers wake up to that fact and start fighting back instead of letting oligarchs walk over them.
- supportengineer 1y agoDon't they realize that if they raise the labor class up, they will correspondingly raise themselves up by a multiple?
- beezlewax 1y agoHow though? Unions or something else?
- baq 1y agoUnions are counterweight for HR. You want coops to get at least some pooled capital. Otherwise you need investors or debt and end up in the same place you started.
- Mistletoe 1y agoThe problem is every tech worker sees themselves as a temporarily embarrassed oligarch in waiting.
- LakesAndTrees 1y agoI’d say this applies to a far broader group; I’ll never forget when a professor asked for a show of hands on the first day of class: “how many of you will have more than 10 million?” More than half raised their hands immediately. It was a Philosophy 101 class.
- saubeidl 1y agoThis is exactly what I'm referring to when saying "they fell for the propaganda".
- figassis 1y agoProbably by majority portfolio owners
- michaelt 1y ago> I'm convinced that it was nothing less than business collusion. Are you sure you didn't just see a sales meeting? If you're a farmer in the market for a $200k combine harvester, sales guys will be happy to put you in a $200-a-night hotel so you can attend their invite-only presentation on how their latest models give you 10% more yield with 30% lower labour cost thanks to the new auto-steer mechanism and six-stage threshing mechanism. And they'll hand-hold you through all the calculations to write a business case.
- inetknght 1y ago> Are you sure you didn't just see a sales meeting? It's possible!
- dachris 1y agoIt is, but cui bono. I know that local software companies in my city had meetings coordinating the local software dev wage level. There's no reason to assume something like this isn't going on at a larger scale too.
- fzeroracer 1y agoGiven the whole Realpage stuff for price fixing, it would not surprise me if there are similar things going on at the csuite layer with various business consultants and backroom discussions. They're all rich assholes, and naturally gravitate to the same venues. It's all the more reason why labor needs to start being more aggressive and properly work together.
- astrange 1y agoThere is no "Realpage stuff for price fixing" that resulted in any price fixing. That is, it's true that they tried to do it and the software exists. But it doesn't matter, because nobody is actually motivated to join the cartel (defecting is more profitable) and they have no enforcement for it.
- fzeroracer 1y agoDid you spend any time looking at the RealPage lawsuits and the reason why it's a cartel, or the reason why people didn't defect?
- 8note 1y agoim not sure what context youre replying in, but plenty of building managers joined the real page cartel, and successfully raise prices across the board.
- astrange 1y agoThat's demand going up with fixed supply because the US made it illegal to build anything. In a market where supply goes up instead (Austin or Minneapolis) their algorithm is going to tell them to lower prices instead.
- DangitBobby 1y agoBig citation needed on "defecting is more profitable".
- 1y ago
- mandeepj 1y ago> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time? E.g. Layoffs + micromanagement + cost focus etc... They all work with restructuring companies!! So, I hope that tells you how smart they are :-)
- nyarlathotep_ 1y ago> They all work with restructuring companies!! So, I hope that tells you how smart they are :-) "When McKinsey Comes to Town" is an interesting read that covers a lot of this. It's worse than I thought.
- aeon_ai 1y agoBusiness leaders operate in overlapping networks. Conferences, advisory boards, private equity connections, etc. When McKinsey or Bain gives similar advice to 50 companies, you get synchronized behavior that looks coordinated. Labor categorization can be thought of in a more useful framework -- Category 1: Builders who don't know it yet. These people have the cognitive capability, work ethic, and problem-solving skills to create value independently, but they've been socialized to believe employment is the only viable path, or have yet to take the leap of starting "their own thing". They're retained and developed because they're essentially entrepreneurs who haven't discovered their own agency yet. Category 2: Consumers masquerading as producers. They extract more value than they create - through entitlement, minimal effort, or misaligned incentives. They're often the loudest about "worker rights" precisely because they have the most to lose from merit-based evaluation. The pattern you're seeing (layoffs + micromanagement + cost focus) targets Category 2 while trying to retain Category 1. The economy can no longer subsidize low-value labor. The interesting dynamic: Category 2 workers are often most vocal about collective action because individual performance evaluation threatens their position. Category 1 workers are more likely to focus on skill development and value creation, and frankly are the most to benefit from the evolution of AI tooling. "Labor solidarity" messaging often fails to resonate with the most effective and productive workers.
- kevinventullo 1y agoSo, say… airline pilots extract more value than they create?
- lovich 1y ago> The economy can no longer subsidize low-value labor Every year we get wealthier and wealthier as a society, so that means we are capable of less and labor has to take the haircut while capital keeps on as is. We could subsidize 10s of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people to do literally nothing and not be any worse off than we were 15 years ago
- lmm 1y ago> The interesting dynamic: Category 2 workers are often most vocal about collective action because individual performance evaluation threatens their position. Category 1 workers are more likely to focus on skill development and value creation, and frankly are the most to benefit from the evolution of AI tooling. > "Labor solidarity" messaging often fails to resonate with the most effective and productive workers. That's what the rentier class wants you to think. It's convenient if everyone is a temporarily embarrassed CEO, makes them much happier to act against their own class interests.
- jdlshore 1y agoAs someone else said, it was probably a sales meeting or other corporate training. You’re off in conspiracy theory land. No conspiracy theories are needed. Boards are incestious, most board members aren’t all that bright or forward looking, they have a lot of imposter syndrome about it, they worry about getting important trends wrong, and so they follow the herd. CEOs follow the board, companies follow the CEO, voila, everybody does the same thing at the same time. And yes, I think there is an opportunity to zig while everyone else is zagging. Also: major institutional investors (such as VCs) demand a seat on the board and then send their B team to actually sit through the board meetings of their less key investments. Those board members follow the investor company’s line, spreading it to lots of companies at once.
- 7thaccount 1y agoYes, it's most likely they saw some kind of sales meeting, but collusion also happens often. I watched a documentary not long ago about how smart they are about it now. For groceries the major chains just all report each product's price to the same company which then tells them how much they can mark up their products without being undercut. Is it illegal, almost assuredly yes. Is there anybody enforcing this anymore? No.
- pyuser583 1y agoLol. When I was a kid I worked at a gas station. My job was to arrive before the station opemed, drive around the neighborhood, and make a note of the gas price at our competitors. We then informed corporate of the numbers, and someone would quickly is how to price the gas that day. I thought it was about keeping the price competitive. No, I was told, it’s the exact opposite. We would gladly sell the gas at cost, if not less, because the real money came from coffee and other merch. But the state had a minimum mark up law. We had to charge the customers more. The idea was to protect small gas stations from corporate chains, but gas is a commodity. Everyone pays about the same. I later found out that the reason I was reason I was recording the competitors prices was to make sure they were following the minimum markup laws, so we could sue them if they werent.
- lumost 1y agoThere are a lot of venues through which collusion has become legal. Management consulting, private equity investments, conferences etc. The incentives to collude are powerful.
- 7thaccount 1y agoManagement consulting is a big one. It's illegal for companies to all tell each other their prices and costs. What isn't illegal? Apparently each firm hiring McKinsey who will tell you what your competitors costs and prices are because they have "industry knowledge". They'll then share your information too and then everyone can largely figure out how they can set prices above their marginal costs with some nice padding. It's probably still illegal, but it's what these firms do.
- dstroot 1y agoHere's an alternative take, but along similar lines. Many high level business leaders in large established companies loathe taking risks and sticking their necks out. Instead, they hire a management consulting company (think McKinsey) who do a study and make recommendations that said executive can take to the other execs, or to the board. If it works, executive takes credit. If not, it was those darn consultants. The thing is, the consultants are giving companies the same advice. In fact, it is even stronger when "competitor A and B" are already doing "strategy C" and they are ahead of you. I've seen this movie many times...
- firecall 1y ago>> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time? > Because they're told to. This is largely it. Consultants rule the earth!
- pyuser583 1y agoIsn’t this straight up illegal? Anti-trust laws are no jokes. Many conventions have strict rules to prevent it. I’ve been involved on layoff planning. It can be very cloak and dagger. But you never involve competitors. Ever.
- alecco 1y ago> Because they're told to. Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street.
- DebtDeflation 1y agoNotice how they stopped talking about this after the election? But yes, together, the Big 3 are the single largest shareholder in 88% of SP500 companies. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politics/article/hidden-power-of-the-big-three-passive-index-funds-reconcentration-of-corporate-ownership-and-new-financial-risk/30AD689509AAD62F5B677E916C28C4B6 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politic...