Dear Linus, You Are A Failure

[YellowJersey]

Why yes, I would like to clarify that statement.

I'm currently watching yesterday's WANShow bit on google laying off a bunch of employees and Linus is expressing his frustration about how google still makes billions upon billions of dollars yet still needs to pinch this penny and reduce that cost.

 Under the current economic mindset, the goal is not long term viability. The goal is as much money this quarter through whatever means necessary. Who cares about next quarter? Shareholders want a return on their investment, and they demand a greater return each time. This puts executives in the mindset of "as much money now" while ignoring the mid to long term future of the business. After all, who cares about viability in 2030? The current executive team will have cashed out long before then. Fuck the future. It's not "my" problem, after all. It incentivises companies to make short-sighted short-term cash grabs for the sake of a 0.05% bump in share prices that week. Shareholders' thirst for returns cannot be quenched. If returns do not consistently go up, then the business is a failure. It's not about profit; it's about more profit each time.

Wendover did a great video talking about this very thing in relation to American freight rail and how companies are focusing more on short-term gains while deferring expensive maintenance and upgrades to vital infrastructure; because being the CEO who reigned during a time of record profits (even while the ability of the business to make money deteriorates) is the legacy that executives want. No executive wants to be the one to tell their shareholders that profits are down because they had to spend money to catch up on long-neglected infrastructure. (Link to Wendover's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQTjLWIHN74

 Linus, your problem is that you care about long-term viability. It's enough that you make a decent profit, can pay your employees, cover your costs, and have a decent life for yourself. Under the current economic mindset, that is failure. If you can make a dollar today even if it costs you a hundred dollars tomorrow, then you take that dollar every single time. That is why, in the eyes of google and their ilk, you are a failure.


 

[SansVarnic]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[Shimejii]

And look where that gets them every single time. This type of system is rife with abuse, corruption and overall it does not actually help people. Those CEOS have their time in the moment, after a few years they will be looked at as fools and their decisions being horrible. Short term gains for Long term systemic problems will always have MAJOR consequences, you are just putting that problem to the next generation. Guess who doesnt want to deal with those problems? The next generation of people. 

 

"Its just how it is" No it really doesnt have to be, but it wont change because the people who run it pay off politicians and they themselves could also be the politicians making these policies. 

[ToboRobot]

26 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

 Linus, your problem is that you care about long-term viability. It's enough that you make a decent profit, can pay your employees, cover your costs, and have a decent life for yourself. Under the current economic mindset, that is failure. If you can make a dollar today even if it costs you a hundred dollars tomorrow, then you take that dollar every single time. That is why, in the eyes of google and their ilk, you are a failure.


 

Short term thinking might prevent you from realizing the error of this way of thinking.

If you think Google executives would take the dollar instead of 100 in your economic example, you might want to rethink your assumptions.

[kirashi]

1 hour ago, YellowJersey said:

 Under the current economic mindset, the goal is not long term viability. The goal is as much money this quarter through whatever means necessary. Who cares about next quarter? Shareholders want a return on their investment, and they demand a greater return each time. This puts executives in the mindset of "as much money now" while ignoring the mid to long term future of the business. After all, who cares about viability in 2030? The current executive team will have cashed out long before then. Fuck the future. It's not "my" problem, after all. It incentivises companies to make short-sighted short-term cash grabs for the sake of a 0.05% bump in share prices that week. Shareholders' thirst for returns cannot be quenched. If returns do not consistently go up, then the business is a failure. It's not about profit; it's about more profit each time.

While you're not wrong about the world's existing socio-economic policies, these policies are unsustainable for the long-term well-being of humans.

 

That said, this forum is not the time or place to get into a discussion around politically-driven financial topics, so I'll say no more on this topic here.

[Guest]

Somebody's jealous..

[YellowJersey]

5 hours ago, kirashi said:

While you're not wrong about the world's existing socio-economic policies, these policies are unsustainable for the long-term well-being of humans.

 

That said, this forum is not the time or place to get into a discussion around politically-driven financial topics, so I'll say no more on this topic here.

This wasn't supposed to be an actual criticism of Linus, but rather a criticism of the world's socio-economic polies and that Linus' approach to having a sustainable business is the correct one. LMG is a success to me, but to the warped perspective of current economics, it would be seen as a failure; that's the whole point I'm criticising.

[kirashi]

4 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

This wasn't supposed to be an actual criticism of Linus, but rather a criticism of the world's socio-economic polies and that Linus' approach to having a sustainable business is the correct one. LMG is a success to me, but to the warped perspective of current economics, it would be seen as a failure; that's the whole point I'm criticizing.

Your thread title and post contents paint the opposite picture.

[711jrp]

99.9% of us work to pay for the 0.1% that's how is is and mostly everything in the media is a distraction to keep it that way.

 

[dalekphalm]

18 hours ago, kirashi said:

Your thread title and post contents paint the opposite picture.

While it may not be immediately obvious that he's using the term "failure" here in a loose sense, I'd say he did a decent job of it.

 

Hence the "tongueincheek" tag, letting you the reader know not to take the title too seriously.

[Fred Castellum]

For those that missed the tongueincheek this looked like bait on sight. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

I like the clickbaity title on this one. Better than on LMGs actual videos. And it's funny to see the reactions to a post that basically concludes with "capitalism ruins everything".

 

What's also amusing to observe is Linus grappling with that concept. On the one hand, he calls himself a capitalist, he likes the theoretical idea behind it that competition fosters innovation (though there is little evidence for that actually being true, but that's a story for another time), but he has massive problems with all the baggage that comes with capitalism by design. It's classic cognitive dissonance, he loves capitalism when it provides him with new shiny toys he can make videos about and thus generate revenue for himself, but hates it when someone else maximizes their revenue at the cost of his when he's the customer. 

[YellowJersey]

8 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

I like the clickbaity title on this one. Better than on LMGs actual videos. And it's funny to see the reactions to a post that basically concludes with "capitalism ruins everything".

 

What's also amusing to observe is Linus grappling with that concept. On the one hand, he calls himself a capitalist, he likes the theoretical idea behind it that competition fosters innovation (though there is little evidence for that actually being true, but that's a story for another time), but he has massive problems with all the baggage that comes with capitalism by design. It's classic cognitive dissonance, he loves capitalism when it provides him with new shiny toys he can make videos about and thus generate revenue for himself, but hates it when someone else maximizes their revenue at the cost of his when he's the customer. 

One can participate in a capitalist system (we don't have much choice) while still condemning it's flaws. This is why I often roll my eyes at the responses to people claiming that it's hypocritical to criticise capitalism using devices and services developed (at least in part) by capitalism. How else is one supposed to criticise capitalism? How is one supposed to criticise social media without using social media?

 "What is a capitalist" in this day and age is an interesting question since things have changed a lot since Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations." The notion that capitalism creates competition, which fosters innovation, is certainly a questionable assertion. It makes sense while philosophising, but reality and theory have a nasty habit of not overlapping as much as they're supposed to. I suppose part of the problem people will find ways to break or game any system you come up with.
 

3 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

While it may not be immediately obvious that he's using the term "failure" here in a loose sense, I'd say he did a decent job of it.

 

Hence the "tongueincheek" tag, letting you the reader know not to take the title too seriously.

Maybe I should apply for a job at The Onion (or Canada's version, The Beaverton). In all seriousness, though, I was a little bit surprised that people thought I was being literal and attacking Linus.

[RasmusDC]

that is also why stock owned companies always have issues, worked for a large Danish company that was on the marked, and we laid off plenty of people, just to "turn" the share price..

 

But there was also a logical reason for this, not just "short term gains" we were profitable, we had a LARGE orderbook of around 8 billion euro´s one years of orders in our back pocket, but all this needs money to do, and parts of this money was banks, because we did not have the 4 billion it took of "up front money" for the company.

 

But banks look at the traded value of a company, so interests (especially back then in the 2008 crisis) and the ability to take up loans was KEY for us to keep the lights on, even though we were HIGHLY profitable, we had cut away all the fat, but we had to cut muscle, to keep the lights on, so KEY persons where laid of in the 1000´s to show the marked that we rationalized, to ensure that focus where on investment, but just insane, when the actual order book value was like 8x bigger than what our company traded at.

 

I now work in a BIGGER company that is family owned, a GIANT company. you can go out end invest a whole years earnings in the company itself, it gives other issues, because this way of "investing" always in infrastructure, and having what looks like a GIANT piggybank that just never goes broke, it makes the company less sharp, rationalization is actually healthy. it really is.  although it is brutal. this company feels like working in molasses, because we carry a LOT of deadweight, so to be honest, i loved working in my older company MUCH MUCH more, even though i actually quit to work there, because i was tired after my project was hit with like 12 rounds of firering one year. 

 

but being in a company where failure was not an option, and you had to be GREAT at your job, was just so much more fun, having to carry around deadweight is just brutal for the joy of working.. and YES people need to be trained, i not talking about deadweight in the form of "people that just needs coaching" you have to have a way to learn, i am talking about 20 years old engineers, that have NEVER yet to deliver something, but they just KEEP wanting to discuss everything.