Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tptacek 4936 days ago
This comment suggests that Best Buy, a publicly traded company, is incentivized to minimize its gross margins. That is an extraordinary claim.

Meanwhile, Best Buy no longer operates the buyback program. The program wasn't a golden goose.

1 comments

You misunderstand. Minimizing margins and maximizing revenues are not mutually exclusive. Also, saying an entity is publicly traded irrelevant, as you are suggesting we know every detail about a company simply by reviewing their financial documents and investor relations mail; this is not the case.

Furthermore, I will happily make the "extraordinary" claim that, in general, large companies are incentivized to minimize margins to reap the tax benefits. Then again I am Joe Blow with a whole 46 karma, therefore, I must not be as smart or knowledgeable as a lurker like you with 1000's of karma, right? (oh and this one is a rhetorical question)

As usual on this particular site, if someone doesn't like the truth, they simply think its wrong because they don't like it. I half expected to get super down voted by all the closed minded individuals that have <~500 karma, but I guess you had the skeleton shift ehh tptacek.

As far as the golden goose goes, even if they scrap the program they are still better off. Does it sound better pouring far more money into building what you think is a golden goose only to make a lemon? That and they still have the system if they want to modify it and roll it out again a couple years from now. Also, they got the system right away and immediately got feedback from it. They saved a lot of time, time that they will use now on more lucrative projects.

Best Buy is priced in the market in part based on their margins.
I can only assume that you have failed every economics course you have ever taken, because if you left without understanding the concept of supply and demand orthe concept of value, then there is really nothing I can say to you other than avoid procreating. Though I certainly wish market pricing was determined via plot hole. It would certainly lead to more entertaining conversations. Next you can explain to me why the world is flat or why water is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen, or some other fundementally flawed concept. Have you written any books? I think I could do an entire 2-hour talk on just how fucking stupid you are. You my friend are a gold mine.

Ohh maybe you have a blog. But, in all seriousness, avoid procreating, there are enough retarded people that society has to care for.

That is the nastiest comment I have ever seen on HN. Why?