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> and greed You need to stop reading/watching material that promotes this nonsense about business and, perhaps, try running a business for a while. What this

> and greed You need to stop reading/watching material that promotes this nonsense about business and, perhaps, try running a business for a while. What this ideology calls "greed" is what every business, from the local small bakery shop to a multinational has to do: Optimize for profits while delivering product that satisfies customer needs at the right value and quality level. If they miss either or both of the last two they lose business to competitors who do a better job. Was Steve Jobs greedy? It's funny how when that example is brought up those characterizing big business as being greedy suffer a short circuit in the brain. Now, wait a minute, before you down-vote, Steve Jobs and Apple sell some of the most grotesquely overpriced tech in the world and the company is exploding with cash. Ain't that greedy? Oh, you say their hardware isn't grotesquely overpriced because of the value and quality it offers? BTW, I own a bunch of it myself. PC's as well. Not overpriced? OK. I guess the company OPTIMIZED their offerings to FIT WHAT THEIR CUSTOMERS WANT. How about that? They are not greedy after all. They are doing what every company large and small has to do: Optimize for profits while delivering product that satisfies customer needs at the right quality level. If they miss either or both of the last two they lose business to competitors who do a better job. Yup. Greedy bastards.

bnegreve 12y ago
> What this ideology calls "greed" is what every business, from the local small bakery shop to a multinational has to do: Optimize for profits while delivering product that satisfies customer needs at the right value and quality level. I don't believe that every single business in the word cares about "delivering products that satisfies customer needs at the right value and quality level", and I doubt that you can find evidence that would convince me.
- rebootthesystem 12y ago
  You misunderstand how this works. They don't have to care. A business isn't some unified organism that cares. Some will explicitly go after a market segment interested in a certain value/quality proposition while others migt not target a specific ratio bit are placed there by the market itself. Apple and Mercedes are not interested in the buyer looking for the lowest price who cares not about quality. They specifically put out product designed for a high end audience. They, we might be able to say, care. Harbor Freight either aims for the low end or is taken there auto-magically by the audience they have cultivated. Most people I know think of them as providers of cheap crap that won't last. Once people classify a business on a value/quality scale it is virtually impossible for that brand to do well at a higher value/quality level. Hence companies such as Honda launching upscale brands like Acura. Today nobody would pay Acura prices for a Honda even though there probably isn't a significant and objective quality difference between the two. The point is that every company optimizes for profits in the context of the value/quality their audience wants. Some do it explicitly and others do it as a result of their audience pushing and pulling them there.
vdaniuk 12y ago
Disclaimer: I have been running my own businesses nearly whole adult life with the exception of a short period in a tech corp. Your offense to the "greedy" label is misguided at best and manufactured at worst. You do correctly identify that the current state of markets have locked most agents whose only goal os to make money into Nash equilibrium, where "everyone has to optimize for profits". Duh. However, this quote of yours is demonstratably false in general: "satisfy customer needs at the right value and quality". See: Comcast, HSBC, 90-s Microsoft, Enron, MPAA etc etc. That is the main point of the ideology that you were so quick to rage at: current market and financial policies mostly do not incentivize generation of social good. Most profits are made when corporations are in a monopoly position with significant power imbalance. Your diatribe also completely ignores negative externalities that many large megacorps are offloading on the society. See walmart with a significant chunk of its employees receiving food stamps from the government. Many non-profits compete with for-profits and they are "non-greedy" by definition. Conveniently missing from your rant. Your comment is so wrong, yet so full with righteous anger.
- rebootthesystem 12y ago
  The points you make are correct but have nothing whatsoever to do with greed. As in, a board meeting where everyone sits around the table rubbing their palms proposing to squeeze more money out of the poor bastards. That is what I object to. This brainwashing of the American public to create this image that busimesses are driven by not much more than greed. Almost like it's a bunch of pirates out to fleece everyone. Why does it bother me? Because it drives an ideology that is actively damaging our country. It drives political rethoric used to push nonsense like $15 per hour minimum wage and absolutely insane union rules and compensation packages. It is a destructive ideology that does not promote cooperation between management and labor or government and businesses. It assumes the guys at the top are all crooks, which starts of the conversation from an entirely distorted perpective. I remember congressional hearing of the top three automakers where an ignorant-as-fuck congressman was pounding Ford to promise not to buy foreign-made fasteners "to try to make more money". This, completely ignoring the fact that we don't make shit in this county any more and a lot of the shit we do make is grotesquely overpriced either because it is made for gov/mil applications or because our regulatory and labor framework (or both) simply make doing business far more costly. And so, this highly refined moron of a congressman was focusing on a "greed" angle -because it plays well to his base to promote the idea that all businesses are greedy bastards- rather than understanding that cost optimization is pretty much forced upon you in the context of a global economy. In terms of monopolies, we have laws for that. Bad players ought to be dealt with accordingly. Let's not promote the idea that all businesses are greedy because of the few that might misbehave. Business is hard. I've been at it for over 35 years. I've had some monumental failures and notable successes. Those who might point my way and call me greedy never sat with me in a dark garage or office 16 hours per day woking hard to make the thing go. Yes, I am passionate about this because I hate the mentality being promoted in our country. We are destroying ourselves fromthe inside out. Instead of creating a society where rabid entrepreneurship is actively promoted and supported we are brainwashing people with an anti-business mentality that will eventually implode us. Sad.

bnegreve 12y ago

> What this ideology calls "greed" is what every business, from the local small bakery shop to a multinational has to do: Optimize for profits while delivering product that satisfies customer needs at the right value and quality level. I don't believe that every single business in the word cares about "delivering products that satisfies customer needs at the right value and quality level", and I doubt that you can find evidence that would convince me.

rebootthesystem 12y ago
You misunderstand how this works. They don't have to care. A business isn't some unified organism that cares. Some will explicitly go after a market segment interested in a certain value/quality proposition while others migt not target a specific ratio bit are placed there by the market itself. Apple and Mercedes are not interested in the buyer looking for the lowest price who cares not about quality. They specifically put out product designed for a high end audience. They, we might be able to say, care. Harbor Freight either aims for the low end or is taken there auto-magically by the audience they have cultivated. Most people I know think of them as providers of cheap crap that won't last. Once people classify a business on a value/quality scale it is virtually impossible for that brand to do well at a higher value/quality level. Hence companies such as Honda launching upscale brands like Acura. Today nobody would pay Acura prices for a Honda even though there probably isn't a significant and objective quality difference between the two. The point is that every company optimizes for profits in the context of the value/quality their audience wants. Some do it explicitly and others do it as a result of their audience pushing and pulling them there.

vdaniuk 12y ago

Disclaimer: I have been running my own businesses nearly whole adult life with the exception of a short period in a tech corp. Your offense to the "greedy" label is misguided at best and manufactured at worst. You do correctly identify that the current state of markets have locked most agents whose only goal os to make money into Nash equilibrium, where "everyone has to optimize for profits". Duh. However, this quote of yours is demonstratably false in general: "satisfy customer needs at the right value and quality". See: Comcast, HSBC, 90-s Microsoft, Enron, MPAA etc etc. That is the main point of the ideology that you were so quick to rage at: current market and financial policies mostly do not incentivize generation of social good. Most profits are made when corporations are in a monopoly position with significant power imbalance. Your diatribe also completely ignores negative externalities that many large megacorps are offloading on the society. See walmart with a significant chunk of its employees receiving food stamps from the government. Many non-profits compete with for-profits and they are "non-greedy" by definition. Conveniently missing from your rant. Your comment is so wrong, yet so full with righteous anger.

rebootthesystem 12y ago
The points you make are correct but have nothing whatsoever to do with greed. As in, a board meeting where everyone sits around the table rubbing their palms proposing to squeeze more money out of the poor bastards. That is what I object to. This brainwashing of the American public to create this image that busimesses are driven by not much more than greed. Almost like it's a bunch of pirates out to fleece everyone. Why does it bother me? Because it drives an ideology that is actively damaging our country. It drives political rethoric used to push nonsense like $15 per hour minimum wage and absolutely insane union rules and compensation packages. It is a destructive ideology that does not promote cooperation between management and labor or government and businesses. It assumes the guys at the top are all crooks, which starts of the conversation from an entirely distorted perpective. I remember congressional hearing of the top three automakers where an ignorant-as-fuck congressman was pounding Ford to promise not to buy foreign-made fasteners "to try to make more money". This, completely ignoring the fact that we don't make shit in this county any more and a lot of the shit we do make is grotesquely overpriced either because it is made for gov/mil applications or because our regulatory and labor framework (or both) simply make doing business far more costly. And so, this highly refined moron of a congressman was focusing on a "greed" angle -because it plays well to his base to promote the idea that all businesses are greedy bastards- rather than understanding that cost optimization is pretty much forced upon you in the context of a global economy. In terms of monopolies, we have laws for that. Bad players ought to be dealt with accordingly. Let's not promote the idea that all businesses are greedy because of the few that might misbehave. Business is hard. I've been at it for over 35 years. I've had some monumental failures and notable successes. Those who might point my way and call me greedy never sat with me in a dark garage or office 16 hours per day woking hard to make the thing go. Yes, I am passionate about this because I hate the mentality being promoted in our country. We are destroying ourselves fromthe inside out. Instead of creating a society where rabid entrepreneurship is actively promoted and supported we are brainwashing people with an anti-business mentality that will eventually implode us. Sad.