While reading stories like these, one thing that depresses me the most is this - how little humanity/empathy these suits at corporations have. Sure, their primary (probably only) goal is to make money, but that doesn't mean they have to treat their employees/contractors like trash.
Costco has shown repeatedly that it is possible to build a good business, while treating employees/suppliers etc decently. If Costco can do it in retail business (where the margins aren't as lucrative as software business), why can't Meta?
This seems like two different questions being interwoven, asking both why high-turnover business models exist and why the management culture in those business models is the way it is.
I can't answer the first, but AFAICT the latter is just an evolutionary pressure of a sort: as more ruthless cultures are selected for, the successful individuals in those cultures become those who embody ruthlessness all the time instead of people who adjust their level of compassion up or down as the situation dictates.
Yup. Having an authority figure able to adjust compassion appropriately up or down can leave a failure mode where someone manipulates the authority figure into being more compassionate than appropriate, getting the manipulator benefits at the expense of the authority figure or organization.
In a very competitive situation where those expenses hurt competitiveness, eventually that can result in the authority figure/organization losing the competition - which removes that authority figure from authority (or destroys the entire organization) and hence the benefits to the manipulator.
Having an authority figure who is always ruthless and selfish doesn’t have that failure mode.
The failure mode in that situation is one where the authority figure is inappropriately ruthless and selfish to the point it is harming their effectiveness/destroying the organization. However, the system is able to handle that better - as long as the authority figure follows the codified rules and delivers results, that’s ’business as usual’, and if they don’t, there are penalties - up to removing the authority figure or ruining them. It tends to be more obvious than excess manipulators, as by their nature assholes leave more obvious marks.
And the authority figures selfishness here helps prevent them from doing anything to that extent that can be documented.
In a brutal environment, a consistently ruthless and selfish authority figure (as long as they are effective in their goals) can be the easier and more stable option.
Near as I can tell, it’s why ‘dark triad’ traits are evolutionarily advantageous in the right mix.
Too much of them destroys what is needed to actually produce value and grow. Too little makes one susceptible to predators.
One thing I feel important to make clear is the only reason why these people seem to thrive is because corporate culture has chosen to believe social darwinism to be true. (despite all evidence and history showing how dangerous this ideology actually is)
Until we see a culture shift corporate leadership, these type of people are going to continue to be rewarded and go on mentor the next generation to do the same.
I don't understand why everyone is hating on this guy. He didn't say it in a "can you believe it?!!!" way. It was a matter of fact statement about his understanding of motivation of his employees. The tiktokers are satirizing an attitude which was never displayed.
"So much of what running a business is about is figuring out 'how do I connect with people?'" Shaich told BI. "What motivates them, and how do I help them decide to affiliate with what the mission of the enterprise is?" He said therapy is about better understanding ourselves, where we come from, and our own motivations. In turn, that can build our ability to form alliances and find commonalities with other people. "And that makes you a much more powerful manager," Shaich said. "Every one of us brings our own humanity to it. Similarly, I think it makes us more empathetic if we start by being empathetic to ourselves and learning and thinking about ourselves. We're able to be more empathetic, not just to our team members and the people we work with, but also to our customers."
I'm actually missing the point as well. It sounds to me like he is agreeing with the sentiment in those memes, that employees aren't motivated by making owners richer -- and you need to empathize with them to understand them.
Fame-hungry microbloggers are lying about an acceptable class of target to clickbait lazy users and ride an elevated engagement bandwagon? Say it ain't so!
>but that doesn't mean they have to treat their employees/contractors like trash.
Apparently, CEOs are disproportionately likely to be sociopaths (with some psychopathic tendencies as well). I've heard numbers from 15-25%.
>Or live in some kind of weird bubble - like this arsehole for example
The Panera founder? He seems to understand his place pretty well. May be in a bubble (a bit too idealist of what he hopes for from what are just entry level workers, likely with no growth prospects) , but I can't really call him an ass for attempting to understand. Most others just don't seem to GAF.
Personally I think most C-levels are sociopaths. The good ones have learned how to fake empathy and compassion, but they will have no trouble switching that off and showing their true colors.
I say that because I have yet to reconcile how any good person could step up to run a business in a world where the sociopaths almost always win.
Good people cannot fake being evil, but evil can fake being good. Consequently, good people have an inherent disadvantage that will lose in the marketplace when faced with evil adversaries.
> I have yet to reconcile how any good person could step up to run a business in a world where the sociopaths almost always win.
Not-being-a-sociopath is a USP itself: users/customers of a product/service/system/platform that resists _enshitification_ will likely stay loyal, especially when the service offered relies on network-effects; I read this why Craigslist is still around, for example; similarly, Apple's tight control over their own platform (for better and for worse) keeps people (like myself) attached to iOS, after-all, the iOS home-screen doesn't show you ads for CandyCrush or Evernote when you get a brand new phone, but Windows 10 does - so both Apple and Craigslist are examples of when not-being-sociopathic results in a solid business, faithful customers, and a decent public reputation.
Of course, this doesn't apply when the bad eggs are able to simply buy-out any civic-minded competition (e.g. if Craigslist was publicly traded, they'd have been acquired by a major legacy publisher by now).
On a related note, I don't suppose you've heard of "B Corporation"? https://www.bcorporation.net - apparently companies are now advertising that they're not optimizing for shareholder value - it's something I've seen an increasing amount over the past year - though I'm not-yet-convinced it isn't something like a greenwashing campaign or a fig-leaf like BBB. We shall see...
Suits having, or at least acting on, humanity/empathy is illegal. The suit is an instrument of the shareholders to maximize their profit by any means necessary and the person wont stay in the suit (or the company won't survive the competition) if they don't do this.
This is fake dogma that was invented 50 years ago by neoliberal economists and has never actually been a legal or even contractual truth. A company exists to do Company Things. Often, that is, "Make money," but it can also (should primarily) be, "Provide service/product and break even so I don't cease to exist." Ironically, championing "shareholder value" over all else leads to a paperclip apocalypse economy.
It is the law in most countries and enforced also by international treaties. And something that private capital market selects for automatically.
Edit: A summary quote for those not wanting to read the rather lengthy and thorough essay:
"Instead of recognizing that for-profit corporations will seek profit for their stockholders using all legal means available, we imbue these corporations with a personality and assume they are moral beings capable of being “better” in the long-run than the lowest common denominator. We act as if entities in which only capital has a vote will somehow be able to deny the stockholders their desires, when a choice has to be made between profit for those who control the board’s reelection prospects and positive outcomes for the employees and communities who do not."
No, it isn’t. Try looking for these alleged laws and you’ll see how badly you’ve been lied to. There’s a small industry pushing this idea because it exonerates a bunch of rich people from being accountable for their decisions, but that doesn’t make it true.
What you’ll actually find is that executives are expected to act with the best interests of the company in mind but are given broad discretion for what that means. This is because there’s no way to reliably predict the future and any non-trivial business decision requires a gamble on multiple conditions and the outcome is hard to judge over a non-trivial timeframe. You can replace an executive if you’re unhappy, but there’s no way you’re getting any money back unless you can show something like fraud or gross nepotism.
As a simple example, during the 90s and early 2000s some analysts said Apple should switch to Windows or license macOS to PC manufacturers. At the time, they had a fair argument that this would boost profits and if your fictitious law really existed, Jobs might not have been able to ignore them – and shareholders would have missed out on many billions in value which was created later. If you measured his performance over a single year, you’d have been disastrously wrong over a decade.
I'm not well versed in US corporate law, and few of us probably are given the complexity of common law systems. Leo E. Strine, Jr. I linked to definitely is:
"By so stating, I do not mean to imply that the corporate law requires directors to maximize short-term profits for stockholders. Rather, I simply indicate that the corporate law requires directors, as a matter of their duty of loyalty, to pursue a good faith strategy to maximize profits for the stockholders. The directors, of course, retain substantial discretion, outside the context of a change of control, to decide how best to achieve that goal and the appropriate time frame for delivering those returns."
In Finnish law I'm more familiar with it's very clear: "The purpose of a company is to make profit for its stockholders, unless otherwise prescribed in the company bylaws." (my translation)
My claim is that the idea that for-profits somehow have some benevolent interests is the main lie that keeps the populace from demanding more control over the corporations.
Again, that’s a suggested interpretation which is not legally binding and, you’ll note, it includes broad latitude for exactly the reasons I mentioned. It would be quite easy to find, for example, one person who says they’re maximizing profits by reducing labor costs as much as possible and another who thinks that a well-paid, stable workforce will be more productive and resilient to challenges long-term. Both of them can be completely serious, acting in good faith, and neither would have any fear of legal consequences.
It would help you to make your point if you could refer to the specific legal doctrine outlining exactly what management owes stockholders. It's called 'fiduciary' and, is broadly defined in the US by Delaware state law.
You probably didn't read the essay I linked? It shows through numerous court decisions that maximizing shareholder profit is the legal duty.
Yes, there's a lot of leeway for HOW to maximize the profit and on what timescale, but the purpose still has to be profit maximization. For example a court ruled against Henry Ford rising workers' wages for the benefit of the workers and the society.
I don't really understand why people struggle with this IMHO plain fact that for-profit is for-profit. Maybe it challenges the idea that "free market" will benefit us all?
Costco has shown repeatedly that it is possible to build a good business, while treating employees/suppliers etc decently. If Costco can do it in retail business (where the margins aren't as lucrative as software business), why can't Meta?
It feels as though they go out of their way to be as nasty as possible. Or live in some kind of weird bubble - like this arsehole for example https://www.businessinsider.com/panera-founder-workers-not-m...