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by diggan 676 days ago
The playbook of "Do something legally gray > raise funding & expand > pivot away from legally gray OR employ lawyers to make it not legally gray" is basically the standard playbook of startups, the examples are countless: AirBnb, YouTube, Spotify, Uber, OpenAI, etc, etc...

I'm sure it isn't always a bad idea, but struggling to come up with good examples for when the outcome from doing so have been more than just "shareholder value went up".
2 comments
chucksmash 676 days ago
Airbnb, Spotify, YouTube and Uber wouldn't see shareholder value increase if people didn't find those services useful. The number doesn't just magically go up if you build something nobody wants.
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diggan 675 days ago
Sure, but also, "shareholder value go up" just isn't very interesting or overall helpful to the world. It's helpful to the shareholders, sure, but beyond that?
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sdoering 676 days ago
It’s the ideology of disruption. As if this were an inherently good thing.

They could go the democratic route and raise awareness, create enough support within the constituency for their idea and have the democratic institutions adapt the respective laws.

Or they can decide that they are above such trivialities as the law and democratic process, move fast and break things and grab the fortune they feel entitled to have.

That’s the ideology behind this anti-democratic capitalist system.

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