[jongjong]

In most of the west, technically talented people are fully subjugated to suits so I'm not surprised.

Sometimes, there are brief moments when technical people are given the control they need to deliver... But after a few years, they are again subjugated to MBAs in suits again and the capacity is lost.

I see this constantly nowadays. As a technical person, there are many companies/roles where the constraints set you up for failure from the beginning. I've delivered some very complex projects but I've also worked at jobs on far simpler projects where I knew since day 1 that the project wouldn't pan out due to counter-productive technical constraints being imposed... but you know the company is well positioned in the financial system and that the outcome won't matter; so you take the job anyway. You still get the high pay and the prestige from the brand name. There are many companies like this where people seem to keep failing upwards and stock price always goes up.

[Danox]

Lawyers and finance people everywhere at the top, running everything with problem solvers shoved to the back of the line.

China will suffer the same fate if they allow lawyers/MBA’s to run their country.

[orphereus]

Shouldn't free market reward companies that go the other way and where people don't "fail upwards"? It is kind of demoralising to think otherwise, but it seems it is true.

We see it everywhere. Bad companies making bad decisions keep surviving, and actually the vast majority of companies are like this.

One implication is that MBAs in suits that make bad decisions are actually right and their decisions are not bad. The other implication is that there is no free market, no meritocracy and the truth is, game was rigged from the start.

Edit: I should add that most of this is anegdotal evidence and a general feeling I have. It is not a very powerful argument I'm making.

[inigyou]

The market rewards companies that know how to play the market, and the market isn't a free market.

[jongjong]

I agree, a free market would work that way... Yet 'fail upwards' and zombie companies seem to be the default. Personally I don't believe that what we have in the west is a free market. I think these days, it's probably less free than the one in China. The market here is completely smothered by regulations.

For example, about a month ago, I saw a video about people farming frogs in China... To collect secretions for medical use. At first I thought WTF. But then they mentioned how much it sells for and I thought "Wow. We have a lot of cane toads here everywhere, it would be a great business to do here." I actually started thinking of doing this... This is really out there for me because I'm a software engineer; but I started seriously considering this. But guess what? I did my research and turns out it's illegal to do it in my country (Australia) because the frog secretions would be considered an illicit substance and you need to go through some expensive process to obtain a license. Yes, you need a license to farm frogs...

A few weeks back, I read news about someone who got arrested for farming cockroaches (as reptile food for zoos)... It's like all the entry-point business opportunities have become illegal.

Every time I heard of a case like this where some really good niche business opportunity is illegal in Australia, I asked my AI if this practice is legal in China and the answer is almost always yes.

The other day, I was watching a documentary about Philippines and I saw a kind of makeshift resort built literally on top of a coral reef. Really amazing looking. They seemed to be getting good reviews and actually making money... This would NEVER be allowed in my country. At best, you could purchase a ship for millions of dollars then apply for expensive licenses, then you'd have limits on how many people you can take at a time, etc... So many constraints and regulations. Such artificially high capital requirements. It would be a worse experience and less profitable; and you'd have to be filthy rich just to get a chance to engage in that highly constrained, mediocre business activity.

[xyzzy123]

I like your moxie and I also agree Australia is an over-regulated racket... but I'm also glad my neighbours aren't mass farming frogs or cockroaches in my suburb without talking to the council first.

My brother had a neighbour build a crematorium next door in NZ; not an industrial or rural area, just the suburbs, no permits, no consultation, no notification. Very entrepreneurial. They got shut down but the flip side of "you can just do things" is surprises like a plume of smoke and the smell of burning corpses when you step outside.

[Danox]

I am hopeful that Australia and New Zealand come to their senses like Canada has had to because of the mad king…

With friends like the United States, China, and Russia, they’re gonna have to decide to stop coasting and for once try to move to the front of the line.

[LadyCailin]

“Overhead to starting businesses” is not the only metric to take into account though. I’m not going to defend any given regulation necessarily, but your ad reductum fallacy is to think that’s the ONLY factor that must be considered. Consumer protection, environmental protection, worker protection, etc, etc, all can and should be taken into account in the calculus for regulations. Besides, many problems with starting a business come from monopolistic practices, not regulation, and reducing regulations will just make it cheaper for the mega corporation to keep their monopoly, at the cost of all these other factors.

So anyone who just goes “grr, regulation bad”, I can’t take seriously. If you have specific examples of regulations that are objectively bad, and should be removed, that’s fine, but the examples you cited protect something else, and ignoring that is intellectually dishonest at best, and blatantly partisan at worst.

[petra]

There are plenty of businesses that could be built under current regulations.

It might be a bit Harder, but business is difficult.

[mrkeen]

The market does reward proficiency. We live in the punished timeline. No contradiction. Most software is buggy and most businesses fail.

[orphereus]

What does punished timeline mean?

[mrkeen]

It's the corollary to your statement about the market rewarding competent companies.

The market punishes incompetent companies.

Just being aware that the market rewards competent companies is not enough to magically turn companies competent.

[Danox]

In time, maybe? The problem is the damage done until that happens.

[Danox]

The problem with MBAs and lawyers is that they are not problem solvers. They are the embodiment of short-term thinking not all just most.