[bill_joy_fanboy]

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]

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.

[tptacek]

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.

[bill_joy_fanboy]

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.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>If you're a landlord, you want super high rent and no expenditures on maintenance or improvements.

No, I'm in the landlord business, and they do not want this. They want mildly-high rent that covers overhead plus a healthy (maybe even a little fat) overhead. They want to do maintenance, because apparently the biggest paydays come 10 years down the line when they sell to some other investor... and if it's a slum they won't get a good price or even a sale. They want good reviews from people who pay rent on time (or hell, even the people who are occasionally late but come through in the end), and they just want to be a trillion light years away from the hoarders, squatters, and apartment-destroyers.

Seen from the other side, you'd come to realize that almost all the horror stories you've heard are, at minimum, far more nuanced than you were led to believe, and that some large fraction were just fabricated entirely by people you'd never want living next door to you.

>My point was that small businesses aren't noble somehow. T

That's the thing though. There's this gigantic middle ground between nobility and villainy which is people just trying to get along and do what they're obligated to do, but you have leftists everywhere constantly slandering them because a German miscreant two centuries ago liked to mooch off his rich friends.

I don't want money for free. I want to be able to earn it, and earn well. I want to feel like I've accomplished something. Only children want things for free (because they know no better), and it's what separates them from adults.

[tptacek]

I believe all of this but also want to say that in my life as a renter I never once had a landlord return a security deposit without me taking them to court. There's definitely some ruthlessness.

[xp84]

Interesting, but on the other side of the coin I can tell you that in 10 years of renting I've only foregone small fractions of my deposits and always by choice (pre-departure inspection tells you what they'd charge for anything amiss, and you can choose to clean/fix/etc. or pay them out of your deposit). If you don't get a pre-departure inspection you're definitely set up for ambiguity and shadiness.

In one apartment, I even spilled some bleach in a closet, and sneakily replaced the piece of carpet from the scraps I found when they were recarpeting a nearby unit. They didn't notice or care.

[bill_joy_fanboy]

This was also my experience.

I've been a perfect tenant my entire life, and I was still always treated like trash by every landlord I've rented from. I don't think they make a distinction.

[bill_joy_fanboy]

> I don't want money for free. I want to be able to earn it, and earn well. I want to feel like I've accomplished something.

Well, if that's true then I wouldn't bother being a landlord. Being a landlord just means your name is on the title of a building such that it allows you to extract money from people who need a place to live. It's not creative, it's not original, and it's only possible because they aren't making any more real estate, but they're always making more people.

I said above to another commenter: I would also like to be a landlord one day. I'm sure I'd be a decent one. But, I won't be pretending like I'm doing anything productive... I'm just extracting money from the fact that my name is on a deed. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's just how our economy is set up, and, like everyone, I plan to try and take advantage of it. I won't be kidding myself, though, that I'm somehow a productive or noble small business man.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>Well, if that's true then I wouldn't bother being a landlord. Being a landlord just means your name is on the title of a building such that it allows you to extract money from people who need a place to live.

And, I expect, as a point of fact... you haven't bothered to be a landlord.

>It's just how our economy is set up, and, like everyone, I plan to try and take advantage of it.

That's how you perceive it. But the reality of it is that while many are hustling, few are prospering, few enough even that reasonable people might wonder if the few successful ones are the result of luck more than having figured out the get-rich-quick thing that everyone's been trying to figure out for millennia. Good luck, I suppose.

[c22]

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.

[bill_joy_fanboy]

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.

[marcus_holmes]

> The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures.

This isn't a business. And if you found a way to do this, you'd be subject to endless audits and AML/CTF suspicions because actual businesses don't look like this.

Business owners come in a range of personalities, just like everyone else. Some are selfish and unreasonable. Some are altruistic and generous. Some are purely in it for the money, others really love building teams and working in a friendly environment. Some have global ambitions, others just want to get by with as little effort as possible.

[em-bee]

as a freelance software developer working from home my expenses are practically zero.

[marcus_holmes]

Then you're not doing your tax returns properly.

You can claim depreciation on all your hardware (including your desk and chair).

You should be claiming some of your rent/mortgage as office expenses. And, obviously, your broadband cost, your electricity bill, your heating bill (if different), etc.

You can claim all the coffees you buy potential clients.

Having zero expenses is absolutely not what you want to efficiently run your business.

[em-bee]

depends on the country. the value of doing all that work is simply not worth the money i would get back. so why bother?

[xp84]

> 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.

[t-writescode]

> 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.

[csomar]

So... I don't get the point here?

[OldfieldFund]

If you want these things, you're playing the wrong game

[t-writescode]

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]

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.

[WalterBright]

Every business owner wants to minimize costs. Every employee wants to maximize their compensation.

In other words, the Law of Supply & Demand.

[nathan_douglas]

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.