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by insanitybit 937 days ago
No one I've ever had as an investor would be OK with me enslaving the planet for 1 Trillion dollars...

You're talking about investors and shareholders like they're just machines that only ever prioritize profit. That's just obviously not true.
1 comments
jampekka 937 days ago
Have you heard of e.g. East India companies? Or United Fruit?

Most of stock is not owned by individual persons (not that there aren't individuals that don't give a shit about enslaving people), but other companies and institutions that by charter prioritize profit. E.g. Microsoft's institutional ownership is around 70%.

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insanitybit 937 days ago
The presence of unethical people does not imply that all people are unethical, only that people are different. And that's my point. Reducing a company to "they will always maximize shareholder value" is incorrect - for many, many companies that is simply not true.
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jampekka 937 days ago
My point is that in the big picture ethics don't even matter, companies become something that transcend the individuals. Almost like algorithms that just happen to be implemented by humans (and exceedingly machines). There are no "they".
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insanitybit 937 days ago
That's just not true. Companies have individuals in charge with considerable power. Those individuals can absolutely make ethical decisions.
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jampekka 937 days ago
E.g. Henry Ford tried to make an ethical decision for the company to cut some dividends to benefit workers and make the products cheaper. It was ruled illegal. His mistake actually was to say that the benefits would about more than profit; arguing the investment on shareholder profit grounds could well have passed.

Probably safe to say Henry Ford had considerable power in Ford Motor Co compared most executives today?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

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insanitybit 937 days ago
> Probably safe to say Henry Ford had considerable power in Ford Motor Co compared most executives today?

That is not actually true, necessarily. Your power is typically very term dependent. A CEO who is also president of the board, and a majority shareholder, has far more power than a CEO who just stepped in temporarily and has only the powers provided by the by-laws.

Regardless, the solution to "I want to do something ethical that is not strictly in the company's best interest" is to make the case that it is the company's best interest. For example, "By investing in our employees we are actually prioritizing shareholder value". If you position it as "this is a move that hurts shareholders", of course that's illegal - companies have an obligation to every shareholder.

That also means that if you give your employees stock, they now have investor rights too. You can structure your company this way from the start, it's trivial and actually the norm in tech - stock is handed out to many employees.

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