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i'm so glad that companies don't have feelings tho. Would you mind sharing with everyone else what you are talking about, its very vague with the descriptor of

i'm so glad that companies don't have feelings tho. Would you mind sharing with everyone else what you are talking about, its very vague with the descriptor of "something similar" doubly questionable with you use of calling humans leeches, when the only leeches i've seen in the business world were the companies that require labor to make money and then pay back a less than equitable amount to the people doing work.

Group_B 1y ago
not every company is some large mega corp
- bill_joy_fanboy 1y ago
  They all want to be, though. All business want to be big-time like Amazon, but not all of them are so lucky. I don't understand the making of excuses for small businesses as though they are somehow morally better than large businesses. Every business owner, regardless of the size of the business, wants free labor.
  - xp84 1y ago
    No they don't. This kind of mustachio-twirling caricature isn't a helpful mental model of how business works. Businesses are just large bunches of people, each trying to maximize various metrics given the incentives they interact with. None of those people, including the owner, is automatically pro-slavery, which is the other word for "wants free labor." Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible. This isn't evil nor is it specific to "businesses," "business owners," or "rich people" either.
    - bill_joy_fanboy 1y ago
      You're arguing with me, but this statement... > Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible. ...is exactly in agreement with what I said above. The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures. E.g., If you're a landlord, you want super high rent and no expenditures on maintenance or improvements. I would also accept the other direction. That is, a tenant wants use of a property for no rent, ideally. My point was that small businesses aren't noble somehow. They want money for free just like everybody else.
      - xp84 1y ago
        > The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures. > property but no rent I mean, I guess sure, but... only lunatics think that exists legally and sustainably. Certainly no one who has managed to get a business degree, or attain any leadership role, thinks so foolishly. Normal businesspeople know that if you pay minimum wage you can expect only a weak effort, and also they don't waste their mental energy fantasizing about anybody 'working for free.' As a manager, I fantasize about getting everyone under me paid enough to hold turnover very low (because turnover sucks), but not so highly that my team becomes a poor ROI that economically should be replaced with (AI, an offshore team, a couple people from a consulting firm, etc.) -- and I'm sure the CEO and any non-crazy shareholders want that equilibrium as well.
      - c22 1y ago
        I am a landlord. I charge below market rent because it is enough to meet my financial goals and turning over a new tenant is annoying. I spare no expense on maintenance because I value my assets.
        artifact_44 1y ago
        [dead]
        bill_joy_fanboy 1y ago
        You may have a more reasonable stance than most landlords, but that doesn't change the essence of the transaction. If you could get higher rent without getting punished by the market (turnover), you would do it. If you could spend less on maintenance without getting punished by the market (turnover and reduced resale value), you would do it. Many, if not most, landlords push both of these levers to their absolute limits. The essence of being a landlord is that you've got your name on the title of a scarce resource that is difficult or impossible in some cases to duplicate: real estate in a particular location. The fact that your name is on this title means that you can extract value from people who need a place to live and did not arrive there first so they could buy the cheap property, build the building, etc. Don't get me wrong, I hope to be a landlord too some day. Ownership is what matters when there's nowhere else to move. I look forward to the rent checks. However, I won't be pretending there's anything noble or fair about what I'm doing. It's just how the rules of our economy are set up.
    - tptacek 1y ago
      I find generally the most helpful thing you can factor in when trying to work out how a business is thinking is "what set of things would make my viable business predictable". If there's a factor HN threads tend to miss in these discussions, it's determinism.
  - t-writescode 1y ago
    > Every business owner, regardless of the size of the business, wants free labor. Yeah, no. I’m no longer an entrepreneur - ran out of runway - but it was always my goal to have aggressive profit sharing as part of my company. Acceptable salaries - years of those salaries saved “in the bank” and profit-share the rest. I never wanted free labor. In fact, the reason I didn’t have employees is because I couldn’t afford them at the rate they deserved. People deserve to be treated as people. People deserve to be treated well.
    - OldfieldFund 1y ago
      If you want these things, you're playing the wrong game
      - t-writescode 1y ago
        What game are we talking about? I want to play the “game” of creating things I want created and making enough money to comfortably sustain myself and help those I care about. If I’m hiring people, I want people that want the same things as me and are paid well, or people that are willing to exchange their labor for both a respectable base earning and also extra earning based on how we, collectively, are doing.
        TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
        Some people, curiously, believe that business is only valid if it operates as a caricature of the worst traits of modern corporate America. That’s the game, and some people believe it’s the only game. I’m with you though. For me business isn’t a channel for hoarding all possible resources and assets. It’s a combination of a craft and a means to an end. I’d still do it if I needed no profession, because it’s a craft I enjoy. It’s fun to share that craft, and it’s good to share that craft on generous terms. The subtle irony is that the version of the “game” as referenced in that other comment is the same, expect that all those niceties only apply to executives and people who already have lots of money. A socially perverse arrangement, to be sure.
    - csomar 1y ago
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Every business owner wants to minimize costs. Every employee wants to maximize their compensation. In other words, the Law of Supply & Demand.
    - nathan_douglas 1y ago
      I think you're leaving out a few "all things being equal" and other caveats. Compensation is not necessarily monetary (especially in the US), costs are more than just salary, etc.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  Ironically small businesses tend to be the most egregious violators of labor laws and humanity in general. Mega-corp isn't typically evil, it just wins a lot by being incredibly advantaged in whatever it pursues. Teams of lawyers, armies of engineers, rows of consultants. Small businesses on the other hand tend to be the ones dumping oil in the river, firing employees that they don't want to back pay, bankrolling family vacations with time clock funny business, etc. When I worked for my first mega-corp after years of small business jobs, I was blown away by how by-the-book it all was.
  - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
    As a small business owner, I spend a lot of my time doing things by the book. I get confused by other small business owners who complain about this because it’s all stuff you’d need to do anyway. I use a double entry accounting system in an ERP. This isn’t terribly complicated. I took courses on corporate accounting in college and I took the ERP training. Even if I didn’t have all of that, I’d still have to actually do the accounting in a double entry system because of the legal jurisdiction and corporate structure. I think that this is a byproduct of the economy being filled with small businesses owned by people who aren’t competent at operating their business as a business, which isn’t the same thing as being successful at making money.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - csomar 1y ago
      > As a small business owner, I spend a lot of my time doing things by the book. You are an exception. > I use a double entry accounting system in an ERP. Not only this requires someone knowledgeable enough but it is also time/energy consuming. If you force this on every small business, you'll probably kill something like 95% of hair-dressers. Honestly, I don't think this is a problem. If we are scrutinizing a bakery, I'd rather the scrutiny to be put on health/food concerns rather than employee hiring practices. That is assuming the bakery employs less than 6-7 people.
gruez 1y ago
>i'm so glad that companies don't have feelings tho. Nobody is concerned about companies being sad, they're concerned about making the labor market in an give jurisdiction hostile enough that companies opt out entirely. >when the only leeches i've seen in the business world were the companies that require labor to make money and then pay back a less than equitable amount to the people doing work. define "equitable".
- legacynl 1y ago
  > making the labor market in an give jurisdiction hostile enough that companies opt out entirely. At some point you'd have to realize that continuing to give companies what they want out fear of them leaving, will only incentivize companies to be scummier and scummier. Second of all, how would you imagine companies opting out of a jurisdiction? Wouldn't that create an enormous hole in the market for other less-scummier companies to jump in, albeit at perhaps lower margins?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    >Wouldn't that create an enormous hole in the market for other less-scummier companies to jump in, albeit at perhaps lower margins? If non-scummy companies realize that even trying in that region will lead to lawsuits by malcontents and losers, they'll leave too. You're left only with the scummy ones, because they figure they'll have skipped town before the lawsuits come rolling in. And if your regulatory framework discourages that heavily enough to dissuade them, they'll stay away too. When circumstances are hostile enough, no one wants a piece of it. Always lower-hanging fruit elsewhere.
  - SR2Z 1y ago
    > Wouldn't that create an enormous hole in the market for other less-scummier companies to jump in, albeit at perhaps lower margins? A certain amount of margin is required for the company to even try to do business. Unfortunately, when the "let's turn the screws on this company" discourse starts getting Old Testament, people stop considering that. If you want a good real life example of this, look at CA insurance companies. The state limited the rates they could charge to the point where many of them simply stopped signing up new customers and started dropping old ones. There were no new insurers to take their place because it wasn't profitable for them either. Companies ALWAYS pretend that this will be the result of regulation, but that doesn't change the fact that they're sometimes right.
Gormo 1y ago
"Companies" are organizational paradigms that people use to pursue their goals. Everything is people.

Group_B 1y ago

not every company is some large mega corp

bill_joy_fanboy 1y ago
They all want to be, though. All business want to be big-time like Amazon, but not all of them are so lucky. I don't understand the making of excuses for small businesses as though they are somehow morally better than large businesses. Every business owner, regardless of the size of the business, wants free labor.
- xp84 1y ago
  No they don't. This kind of mustachio-twirling caricature isn't a helpful mental model of how business works. Businesses are just large bunches of people, each trying to maximize various metrics given the incentives they interact with. None of those people, including the owner, is automatically pro-slavery, which is the other word for "wants free labor." Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible. This isn't evil nor is it specific to "businesses," "business owners," or "rich people" either.
  - bill_joy_fanboy 1y ago
    You're arguing with me, but this statement... > Everybody wants to maximize their money received and minimize their money and work expended to whatever degree possible. ...is exactly in agreement with what I said above. The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures. E.g., If you're a landlord, you want super high rent and no expenditures on maintenance or improvements. I would also accept the other direction. That is, a tenant wants use of a property for no rent, ideally. My point was that small businesses aren't noble somehow. They want money for free just like everybody else.
    - xp84 1y ago
      > The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures. > property but no rent I mean, I guess sure, but... only lunatics think that exists legally and sustainably. Certainly no one who has managed to get a business degree, or attain any leadership role, thinks so foolishly. Normal businesspeople know that if you pay minimum wage you can expect only a weak effort, and also they don't waste their mental energy fantasizing about anybody 'working for free.' As a manager, I fantasize about getting everyone under me paid enough to hold turnover very low (because turnover sucks), but not so highly that my team becomes a poor ROI that economically should be replaced with (AI, an offshore team, a couple people from a consulting firm, etc.) -- and I'm sure the CEO and any non-crazy shareholders want that equilibrium as well.
    - c22 1y ago
      I am a landlord. I charge below market rent because it is enough to meet my financial goals and turning over a new tenant is annoying. I spare no expense on maintenance because I value my assets.
      - artifact_44 1y ago
        [dead]
      - bill_joy_fanboy 1y ago
        You may have a more reasonable stance than most landlords, but that doesn't change the essence of the transaction. If you could get higher rent without getting punished by the market (turnover), you would do it. If you could spend less on maintenance without getting punished by the market (turnover and reduced resale value), you would do it. Many, if not most, landlords push both of these levers to their absolute limits. The essence of being a landlord is that you've got your name on the title of a scarce resource that is difficult or impossible in some cases to duplicate: real estate in a particular location. The fact that your name is on this title means that you can extract value from people who need a place to live and did not arrive there first so they could buy the cheap property, build the building, etc. Don't get me wrong, I hope to be a landlord too some day. Ownership is what matters when there's nowhere else to move. I look forward to the rent checks. However, I won't be pretending there's anything noble or fair about what I'm doing. It's just how the rules of our economy are set up.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    I find generally the most helpful thing you can factor in when trying to work out how a business is thinking is "what set of things would make my viable business predictable". If there's a factor HN threads tend to miss in these discussions, it's determinism.
- t-writescode 1y ago
  > Every business owner, regardless of the size of the business, wants free labor. Yeah, no. I’m no longer an entrepreneur - ran out of runway - but it was always my goal to have aggressive profit sharing as part of my company. Acceptable salaries - years of those salaries saved “in the bank” and profit-share the rest. I never wanted free labor. In fact, the reason I didn’t have employees is because I couldn’t afford them at the rate they deserved. People deserve to be treated as people. People deserve to be treated well.
  - OldfieldFund 1y ago
    If you want these things, you're playing the wrong game
    - t-writescode 1y ago
      What game are we talking about? I want to play the “game” of creating things I want created and making enough money to comfortably sustain myself and help those I care about. If I’m hiring people, I want people that want the same things as me and are paid well, or people that are willing to exchange their labor for both a respectable base earning and also extra earning based on how we, collectively, are doing.
      - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
        Some people, curiously, believe that business is only valid if it operates as a caricature of the worst traits of modern corporate America. That’s the game, and some people believe it’s the only game. I’m with you though. For me business isn’t a channel for hoarding all possible resources and assets. It’s a combination of a craft and a means to an end. I’d still do it if I needed no profession, because it’s a craft I enjoy. It’s fun to share that craft, and it’s good to share that craft on generous terms. The subtle irony is that the version of the “game” as referenced in that other comment is the same, expect that all those niceties only apply to executives and people who already have lots of money. A socially perverse arrangement, to be sure.
  - csomar 1y ago
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Every business owner wants to minimize costs. Every employee wants to maximize their compensation. In other words, the Law of Supply & Demand.
  - nathan_douglas 1y ago
    I think you're leaving out a few "all things being equal" and other caveats. Compensation is not necessarily monetary (especially in the US), costs are more than just salary, etc.
Workaccount2 1y ago
Ironically small businesses tend to be the most egregious violators of labor laws and humanity in general. Mega-corp isn't typically evil, it just wins a lot by being incredibly advantaged in whatever it pursues. Teams of lawyers, armies of engineers, rows of consultants. Small businesses on the other hand tend to be the ones dumping oil in the river, firing employees that they don't want to back pay, bankrolling family vacations with time clock funny business, etc. When I worked for my first mega-corp after years of small business jobs, I was blown away by how by-the-book it all was.
- TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
  As a small business owner, I spend a lot of my time doing things by the book. I get confused by other small business owners who complain about this because it’s all stuff you’d need to do anyway. I use a double entry accounting system in an ERP. This isn’t terribly complicated. I took courses on corporate accounting in college and I took the ERP training. Even if I didn’t have all of that, I’d still have to actually do the accounting in a double entry system because of the legal jurisdiction and corporate structure. I think that this is a byproduct of the economy being filled with small businesses owned by people who aren’t competent at operating their business as a business, which isn’t the same thing as being successful at making money.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - csomar 1y ago
    > As a small business owner, I spend a lot of my time doing things by the book. You are an exception. > I use a double entry accounting system in an ERP. Not only this requires someone knowledgeable enough but it is also time/energy consuming. If you force this on every small business, you'll probably kill something like 95% of hair-dressers. Honestly, I don't think this is a problem. If we are scrutinizing a bakery, I'd rather the scrutiny to be put on health/food concerns rather than employee hiring practices. That is assuming the bakery employs less than 6-7 people.

gruez 1y ago

>i'm so glad that companies don't have feelings tho. Nobody is concerned about companies being sad, they're concerned about making the labor market in an give jurisdiction hostile enough that companies opt out entirely. >when the only leeches i've seen in the business world were the companies that require labor to make money and then pay back a less than equitable amount to the people doing work. define "equitable".

legacynl 1y ago
> making the labor market in an give jurisdiction hostile enough that companies opt out entirely. At some point you'd have to realize that continuing to give companies what they want out fear of them leaving, will only incentivize companies to be scummier and scummier. Second of all, how would you imagine companies opting out of a jurisdiction? Wouldn't that create an enormous hole in the market for other less-scummier companies to jump in, albeit at perhaps lower margins?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  >Wouldn't that create an enormous hole in the market for other less-scummier companies to jump in, albeit at perhaps lower margins? If non-scummy companies realize that even trying in that region will lead to lawsuits by malcontents and losers, they'll leave too. You're left only with the scummy ones, because they figure they'll have skipped town before the lawsuits come rolling in. And if your regulatory framework discourages that heavily enough to dissuade them, they'll stay away too. When circumstances are hostile enough, no one wants a piece of it. Always lower-hanging fruit elsewhere.
- SR2Z 1y ago
  > Wouldn't that create an enormous hole in the market for other less-scummier companies to jump in, albeit at perhaps lower margins? A certain amount of margin is required for the company to even try to do business. Unfortunately, when the "let's turn the screws on this company" discourse starts getting Old Testament, people stop considering that. If you want a good real life example of this, look at CA insurance companies. The state limited the rates they could charge to the point where many of them simply stopped signing up new customers and started dropping old ones. There were no new insurers to take their place because it wasn't profitable for them either. Companies ALWAYS pretend that this will be the result of regulation, but that doesn't change the fact that they're sometimes right.

Gormo 1y ago

"Companies" are organizational paradigms that people use to pursue their goals. Everything is people.