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Comment by Hendrikto | Hacker News Reader

> “It’s important that one day, maybe in 100 years, maybe in 300 years, a great-great-granddaughter of mine will walk into that room and say, ‘Hey, you don’t know me; I actually control the place. The way you’re acting is not how we built it,'” he said.

> These may sound like more outlandish proclamations from Neumann, who has a flair for the dramatic.

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Does anyone know what sort of "moral compass" Neumann may've been imagining his great-great-granddaughter imposing in 300 years?

I mean, that's just a really weird scenario. Even ignoring the implausibility of modern offices being a thing in 300 years from now, much less being controlled by the same company, what exactly would've motivated Neumann's great-great-granddaughter to walk into an office space in which she'd apparently be an unknown stranger to critique the behavior of someone in it?

To be clear, I'm not asking for someone to make this sound reasonable -- just, what sort of scenario, reasonable or otherwise, might Neumann have been imagining here?

In fairness, this is kind of how people expected great media dynasties (like the Bancrofts or Sulzbergers) to work. And this is also a bit weird, because while now the idea of publishers as having a critical democratic function—and being more than just profit-seekers—is well-established, fifty years ago they were also brash big businesses, a bit like tech companies now.

I guess my point is that “changing the world” vs “making a buck” seem to be weirdly in the eye of the beholder.

Neumann seems to have either believed or tried to convince others that WeWork had some sort of greater mission beyond merely short-term office space. I think it’s nuts, frankly, but this is the logical extreme of the more well-established phenomenon of trying to convince investors your food/cookie/pot-delivery website is a “tech company” to justify insane PE ratios.

I don’t know my point. Maybe there are just a lot of idiots out there. But is it the founder, the VC, or the customer who’s the idiot? Seems to generally depend upon timing.

My theory is when you are trying to run a business that doesn’t generate cashflows and have no idea how you are going to get to that point, you start wasting your time with crazy stuff.

Everyone knows there is a big difference between a company like WeWork and Apple. There is also a big difference between other money losing unicorns that have a path to generating positive cash flow, albeit perhaps at a much smaller valuation.

Consider this is a person who was operating a company with a (SoftBank granted) valuation of a company that should have been throwing off billions of dollars in free cashflow. Instead, this guy had never run a successful or positive cashflow company in his entire life. If you pulled the average person off the street, told them they were extremely smart and successful, and put them in the exact same position as Mr Neumann, I’m going to guess they would be doing things as weird as he was if not much, much stranger.

I think the simple explanation here is that he's just an idiot.

I have another theory: he went from zero to a company valued $47,000,000,000. That's a drug...

Sounds like it was just a fantasy, rather than a scenario with internal detail.

It's interesting that he takes solace in the possibility of arbitrary exercise of authority by absentee owners.

To be fair, competition and investors tend to pressure corporations to place profit above any other values - the only way to maintain those values is to be forced by an external, 'arbitrary' force, like the law, or eccentric owner unconcerned with pure profit.

An external, accountable force like the law can work but not a truly arbitrary one like heirs not subject to any constraints.

But they are subject to constraints! They're subject to the law (ideally, anyway...), so the two options aren't in opposition. So yes, it can't work reliably, but still better than the pure profit motive, which is guaranteed to forsake any other values.

Do you know any projects that try to solve this problem?

Hundreds of years later, company loses site of its mission, descendant of the great one (second coming) appears and steers company back to greatness.

Kind of a strange fantastical vision out of the fiction category. Not something I'd expect the would-be CEO of a public company to seriously suggest.

Honestly, it's kind of insulting to himself. If I had as many delusions of grandeur as he does, I'd assume I'd instill the company from birth with such unwavering great culture, that it'd never go astray even 300 years in the future.

It seems like he’s pretty confidant he’ll be able to instill unwavering values in his family though.

I wonder which of those is more likely, but they both seem pretty fantastical.

I don't think beings will even be "walking" into "rooms" to "say" stuff in 300 years.

do you think we will have ascended to pure energy or all be dead?

asking for a friend.

Likely those chosen ones shall ascend to the fourth plane of existence, leaving all others to suffer in the third. Just like in NG+.

Like the ancients, huh?

Says the guy who used company money to buy real estate and then lease hem back to the company.

Only a crook can say these kinds of preachy things.

'Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.'

- lazarus long (time-enough-for-love, r.a.h)

Damn, I mean what a family. The moral compass. Gosh, I hope I can achieve someday the level of moral righteousness that he has. Wow.

It often works and may even be required for corporations that exist for centuries.

The United States was founded by a group of men based on ideals strongly influenced by a fraternity. That fraternity has steered America for much of its history. Otherwise common ideals fracture quite easily under duress.

Probably that's what Adam had in mind. A family based institution culling certain ideals that serve as the guiding light for the company.

Like what Christian Bale did in Batman begins?

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