[baxtr]

Yes I agree, we need more public companies in Europe.

Private companies are inherently less social since they don’t allow ordinary people to participate in growth.

In this sense, they’re selfish.

PS: yes I know that there are also downsides to public companies. But looking at the trade-offs I prefer that success can be shared as broadly as possible.

[bell-cot]

At least in America, "a successful private company went public" often translates into "ordinary people got a bit of gold, selfish vulture capitalists butchered the goose, and there was precious little success or growth for anyone after that".

(Also - might your "allow ordinary people to participate" sympathies extend to people who would like to participate in your own financial affairs?)

[riku_iki]

> "ordinary people got a bit of gold, selfish vulture capitalists butchered the goose

some ordinary people who worked hard and made it happened: founders and early workers, usually rewarded very well

[baxtr]

Yes, exactly!

Selfish VC becoming filthy rich through an IPO is exactly my point. Up to an IPO a private company will only make their owners rich - in your example "selfish vulture capitalists".

After an IPO anyone can participate. When Google, Amazon, Apple went public, VCs got rich. Everyone after that included every day people like you and me.

[bell-cot]

No - the selfish vulture capitalists are the outsiders who purchase a private company which has been successful for many years, then butcher it. There is no IPO - it is "you own X, and we are offering you $Y million to sell it to us".

After that - X's best assets are sold off (the VC's get the money), X goes deeply into debt (again, the VC's get the money), many of the employees are laid off, and X generally goes bankrupt within 7 years - because what is left of it can't make the payments on the debt.

[Gooblebrai]

I don't understand your comment. You are both talking about public companies, and suddenly you are now talking about private equity?

[bell-cot]

(You're right - I made a mess of things, and inter-mingled the cases where a privately-owned company is sold directly to private equity / vulture capitalists, and the case where a privately-owned company "goes public" - but that still does not lead to a happy ending.)

[lotsofpulp]

>the selfish vulture capitalists are the outsiders who purchase a private company which has been successful for many years, then butcher it.

Sounds like the selfish vulture capitalists are the insiders who sell the company.

>X's best assets are sold off (the VC's get the money), X goes deeply into debt (again, the VC's get the money), many of the employees are laid off, and X generally goes bankrupt within 7 years - because what is left of it can't make the payments on the debt.

This doesn't make any sense, because X is the original asset. If part of X is sold, then the remaining portion of X loses value (assuming the sold part is the good part). If X is used as collateral, then it also loses value.

[zyx321]

Privately-owned companies can provide better value to their customers. They can invest in customer trust and brand value that pays off over decades, not quarters.

They can also choose enshittification, but they are not pressured into it like companies with institutional investors are.

As a Hetzner customer, I would lose out if they went public.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Private companies are inherently less social since they don’t allow ordinary people to participate in growth.

Consider two possibilities. The first is, if you want to make money in an industry, you start a company in it. Lots of people start companies because lots of people want to make money and then there are lots of companies, causing the profits to be widely distributed.

The second is, if you want to make money in an industry, you buy shares of an existing company. You have to buy them from whoever currently owns it, so the ones who got in early become billionaires, meanwhile even if an ordinary person were to invest their entire net worth they wouldn't even own 1% of the company so they have so little influence over it that it isn't even worth their time to vote their shares, and therefore have no influence over it at all. But you still make some profit while not having to actually do the work of building a company, so more people do that instead of entering the market themselves and then there are fewer companies that are each bigger.

The second one leads to market consolidation and concentration of wealth and power, so which one is actually less social?

[nchmy]

they offer by far the best value servers in the world. If that's selfish, so be it