Just finished a decade long expedition of starting my business, growing it with love & tears to an exit to a venture funded giant in the space, being on their leash for a few years, & getting laid off just this week. AMA why capitalism will self consume. And since I have some time now I can try to articulate what I think will replace it.
What does “exit” mean in this context?
Acquired / sold business
Was that overall good/bad for you?
I was at the lowest points in my life when I sold my business. I wanted an out, I got one, I consider myself lucky compared to the rest who didn’t get an out. Sharks gonna shark & they’ve wronged me by laying me off. I’m not even mad, glad actually to be outta there & free to pursue what I think matters.
Was the exit package worth it? I have had one friend who sold their business to a massive firm for 300 million, and another who essentially got a commemorative pen and a 5 dollar bill. It seems to be a extremely fickle and a complete tossup.
I will just say it was somewhere between those two extremes, lol
Why do you think capitalism will self consume? I wanna hear the perspective from the capitalist side
Because in the current form of capitalism, the CEOs & leaders at the top cannot correctly prioritize for long term. Their incentive structures (all the way from Wall St analysts down to CEOs & regional directors) are aligned only for quarterly growth metrics, even if they hurt the business less than a year or two later. The CEO gets a bonus for laying off 1000 people thereby making the business leaner & profitable this quarter, who cares about even the next quarter. They are short sighted, which is also clear from the assumption of endless growth from finite resources. I will also say that folks at the top (typically MBAs) are too data obsessed without understanding nuance of their own business model.
That checks out - the short sightedness of capitalists causes our economy to implode every few years. What do you mean about MBAs being too data obsessed?
Human minds are simple. We understand numbers, but not abstract patterns. We understand temperature, but not weather. If we try to view the world or businesses in just terms of data, we don’t capture / understand the real world. Real world is far too complex & nuanced to be captured with data & numbers. You have number for CAC (cost to acquire customer) but nothing for brand recognition. You have number for LTV (customer lifetime value) but nothing that explains their use case. You have number for customer retention & NPS (net promoter score), but nothing for customer loyalty. You have a number for MAU (monthly active users) but nothing that explains their breakdown or the relative importance of them to your business (for Reddit CEO for example, a top contributor and an AI bot are the same, which is one active user). We can only visualize things that have numbers, graphs, trends, top 10s. Anything that doesn’t have a number associated with it, plays no part in business decision making. It takes wisdom & humility to know the data might not be painting a true picture.
PS: take it from someone who’s been a numbers & data person all their life
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Do you have any upcoming plans?
Where does your understanding on all of those systems affect your decision making to reconciliate for your own long term career/professional prospects with immediate needs for a roof over your head?
Asking because I have a mostly stable job on corporate world, and I have been wondering around that problem space quite a bit, preparing for when layoffs hit again.
Absolutely, we all need bread, so we all gotta do what we all gotta do. But that never stopped me from dreaming a few revolutions. Now I just have more time on me :)
I will give you more - I was a capitalist, in that I ran a business, but I might have been the worst capitalist ever, turns out I had too much empathy, I treated my customers & employees as not just humans, but as family, fuck me, am I right?
Speaking of understanding of those systems - I want to share this golden nugget with you and the world - even the most capitalistic of organizations run on the engine of cooperation & excellent teamwork under the hood. In short, cooperation runs the world, competition only ruins it.
