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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" lab

by 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.
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  I was writing a really long, researched comment with citations about income disparity, labor regulations(vacations, compensation, etc), comparisons with other first world countries and then just deleted all of that. There is no way I'll be able to change your mind. "Free market" capitalism in US is a religion at this point and arguing with its proponents, you certainly among them, is an exercise in futility.
  - rebootthesystem 12y ago
    I would think few are delusional enough to think that true free market capitalism exists in the US. I am certainly not one of those people. The use of "free market" in my case is just a term of trade to mean a "mostly free market with lots of caveats". That said, no need to waste your time with a long reply. I really don't think it is worth anyone's while to engage in a typical HN battle of minutiae. You know: What is the meaning of "is" type discussions. My only point is that businesses are not driven or managed by greed. That is very, very rare. As an entrepreneur yourself I would hope you can agree with this simple statement without looking for corner cases that could support a 300 comment thread.
rebootthesystem 12y ago
> 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" I have to address this one separately because it is dead wrong. Nobody just optimizes for profit. You can't do that. At least not if you want a business that will survive the test of time and shifting consumer needs and markets. You optimize for exactly what I said: profits and the right value/quality ratio for your customer base. Example: Harbor Freight sells cheap tools. Quite a bit of it is crap. Their audience wants cheap tools. Harbor Freight optimizes for profits within the value/quality ratio their audience demands (or in their case, tolerates). Home Depot does not focus on cheap tools. I think most tools I've seen there are of good quality. They offer tools covering a range of value/quality ratios. You can buy a less or more expensive power drill. In no case does the quality drop down to what you might buy at Harbor Freight. They optimize for profits in the context of what their audience expects for value/quality. The reason one can't just optimize for profits is free market competition. Home Depot can't squeeze profits beyond what, for example, Lowe's might allow them to. They are just a few blocks away and offer tools in similar value/quality ranges. Therefore, Home Depot management can't be greedy and push for nothing but profits. They don't exist in a vacuum. Again, monopolies are a different story. Not part of this discussions except to say that it is highly unlikely that companies with real or virtual monopolies are "greedy", again, in the sense of management rubbing their palms while singing pirate songs about how they are going to screw their customers for all they are worth. That's utter nonsense. Companies that have strong market positions will get as much as they can out of the market as possible. Apple is an example. Yeah, they compete with other phone makers, but they really don't. And they get four times what anyone else is getting for their phones (or whatever the ratio might be). They go right to the point where they'll generate the most profit per quarter without losing too many buyers to the competitors due to pricing. Not greed at all. That's just good business management.

by vdaniuk 12y ago

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.

vdaniuk 12y ago
I was writing a really long, researched comment with citations about income disparity, labor regulations(vacations, compensation, etc), comparisons with other first world countries and then just deleted all of that. There is no way I'll be able to change your mind. "Free market" capitalism in US is a religion at this point and arguing with its proponents, you certainly among them, is an exercise in futility.
- rebootthesystem 12y ago
  I would think few are delusional enough to think that true free market capitalism exists in the US. I am certainly not one of those people. The use of "free market" in my case is just a term of trade to mean a "mostly free market with lots of caveats". That said, no need to waste your time with a long reply. I really don't think it is worth anyone's while to engage in a typical HN battle of minutiae. You know: What is the meaning of "is" type discussions. My only point is that businesses are not driven or managed by greed. That is very, very rare. As an entrepreneur yourself I would hope you can agree with this simple statement without looking for corner cases that could support a 300 comment thread.

rebootthesystem 12y ago

> 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" I have to address this one separately because it is dead wrong. Nobody just optimizes for profit. You can't do that. At least not if you want a business that will survive the test of time and shifting consumer needs and markets. You optimize for exactly what I said: profits and the right value/quality ratio for your customer base. Example: Harbor Freight sells cheap tools. Quite a bit of it is crap. Their audience wants cheap tools. Harbor Freight optimizes for profits within the value/quality ratio their audience demands (or in their case, tolerates). Home Depot does not focus on cheap tools. I think most tools I've seen there are of good quality. They offer tools covering a range of value/quality ratios. You can buy a less or more expensive power drill. In no case does the quality drop down to what you might buy at Harbor Freight. They optimize for profits in the context of what their audience expects for value/quality. The reason one can't just optimize for profits is free market competition. Home Depot can't squeeze profits beyond what, for example, Lowe's might allow them to. They are just a few blocks away and offer tools in similar value/quality ranges. Therefore, Home Depot management can't be greedy and push for nothing but profits. They don't exist in a vacuum. Again, monopolies are a different story. Not part of this discussions except to say that it is highly unlikely that companies with real or virtual monopolies are "greedy", again, in the sense of management rubbing their palms while singing pirate songs about how they are going to screw their customers for all they are worth. That's utter nonsense. Companies that have strong market positions will get as much as they can out of the market as possible. Apple is an example. Yeah, they compete with other phone makers, but they really don't. And they get four times what anyone else is getting for their phones (or whatever the ratio might be). They go right to the point where they'll generate the most profit per quarter without losing too many buyers to the competitors due to pricing. Not greed at all. That's just good business management.