Honestly, I think trying to disable public stock trading altogether is the real solution. You can have a healthy, profitable company without constant growth, but shareholders want growth even if that means the health and profitability of the company suffers as a result
The current model is generally unsustainable unless the company ends up doing everything slightly related to its core business. Microsoft doesn’t just write operating systems any more. Google is now Alphabet. Amazon sells everything, not just books. Unless the business is in natural resources (or similar), the only way to keep showing growth is to buy other companies and split out multiple “core” businesses.
On second thought, “unsustainable” was a poor choice of word. The model encourages monopolies. Not only does the single employee become disposable, the customers opinion no longer matters either. The business can run on spreadsheets alone, in that case. Creativity and innovation are forgotten in order to drive volume and everything eventually turns into Soylent Green.
I was just gonna say don’t let shareholders form a board. Sometimes companies need money for investment, but there’s literally nothing that states they have to give investors any kind of control. Can you imagine letting some nub who inherited dad’s money at 22 to come in and tell you that he doesn’t give a fuck about your company, he just wants another 1% profit? Why would you let any of these toxic fucks near your brainchild?
It is oversimplified, so I wouldn’t look too deep into it.
Shareholders in the class that I am referring to have probably never really worked a day in their life. They play with institutional cash or went straight to an office after graduating from college paid for with daddy’s petty cash.
While looking at the raw numbers of profit/loss has its purpose in business, it’s never the full story of what drives efficiency on the front lines. The function and importance of an individual gets lost in a spreadsheet.
My main point is that I am a believer that someone who drives decisions should understand fully what they are decisioning. A secondary point is that some people need to understand that humans aren’t numbers. Hiring and firing is part of business, but both should be done with much more precision.
All jobs aren’t the same, I get it. Some companies have work that ebbs and flows. In those cases, the workers should understand this. Some jobs are seasonal. There are a million types of “gig” style jobs out there, and that is also cool.
However, if a company hires people as an investment people need to be treated as such. Having a shareholder whine because he only made $1MM instead of $1.5MM and then demanding layoffs is fucking stupid. That investor needs a reality check on how hard it can be to attract and maintain real talent pools. That fuck needs to see what it is like to work around real, field experts for a day and see what it took to get his measley $1MM payoff.
There is probably no way I could call out all the conditionals or sub-points I have about this subject so I summarized it with my first comment.
That investor needs a reality check on how hard it can be to attract and maintain real talent pools.
Unfortunately investors in publuc stock don’t give a shit about lingterm investment. They just want stock value to go up this quarter so they can sell their shares at a profit and move on to the next stock
True, but those types of investors don’t matter so much. Institutional investors and/or holders of preferred shares are the ones that have the power to push a company around. Much of that depends on how a company is structured, but in general, odds are usually against a public investor.
We should make it a requirement for a majority shareholder to work the lowest tier positions of a company for five years before they can sell shares.
*before they can own shares
Honestly, I think trying to disable public stock trading altogether is the real solution. You can have a healthy, profitable company without constant growth, but shareholders want growth even if that means the health and profitability of the company suffers as a result
The current model is generally unsustainable unless the company ends up doing everything slightly related to its core business. Microsoft doesn’t just write operating systems any more. Google is now Alphabet. Amazon sells everything, not just books. Unless the business is in natural resources (or similar), the only way to keep showing growth is to buy other companies and split out multiple “core” businesses.
On second thought, “unsustainable” was a poor choice of word. The model encourages monopolies. Not only does the single employee become disposable, the customers opinion no longer matters either. The business can run on spreadsheets alone, in that case. Creativity and innovation are forgotten in order to drive volume and everything eventually turns into Soylent Green.
I was just gonna say don’t let shareholders form a board. Sometimes companies need money for investment, but there’s literally nothing that states they have to give investors any kind of control. Can you imagine letting some nub who inherited dad’s money at 22 to come in and tell you that he doesn’t give a fuck about your company, he just wants another 1% profit? Why would you let any of these toxic fucks near your brainchild?
When every company is a democracy you might have a point, but until then you’re talking about eliminating the one oversight management has.
It seems like an oversimplified perspective. Could you elaborate on your reasoning?
It is oversimplified, so I wouldn’t look too deep into it.
Shareholders in the class that I am referring to have probably never really worked a day in their life. They play with institutional cash or went straight to an office after graduating from college paid for with daddy’s petty cash.
While looking at the raw numbers of profit/loss has its purpose in business, it’s never the full story of what drives efficiency on the front lines. The function and importance of an individual gets lost in a spreadsheet.
My main point is that I am a believer that someone who drives decisions should understand fully what they are decisioning. A secondary point is that some people need to understand that humans aren’t numbers. Hiring and firing is part of business, but both should be done with much more precision.
All jobs aren’t the same, I get it. Some companies have work that ebbs and flows. In those cases, the workers should understand this. Some jobs are seasonal. There are a million types of “gig” style jobs out there, and that is also cool.
However, if a company hires people as an investment people need to be treated as such. Having a shareholder whine because he only made $1MM instead of $1.5MM and then demanding layoffs is fucking stupid. That investor needs a reality check on how hard it can be to attract and maintain real talent pools. That fuck needs to see what it is like to work around real, field experts for a day and see what it took to get his measley $1MM payoff.
There is probably no way I could call out all the conditionals or sub-points I have about this subject so I summarized it with my first comment.
Unfortunately investors in publuc stock don’t give a shit about lingterm investment. They just want stock value to go up this quarter so they can sell their shares at a profit and move on to the next stock
True, but those types of investors don’t matter so much. Institutional investors and/or holders of preferred shares are the ones that have the power to push a company around. Much of that depends on how a company is structured, but in general, odds are usually against a public investor.