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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>We won't get anything other than this unless Google decides to do a huge round of buybacks and go private. The spice must flow because only growth makes money for the people who actually own Google.

And after they go private why do you think they won't care about growth/money?

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They will still care, but they have more freedom to take the longer view.

A longer view of what? Taking advertising market share from Amazon and Facebook? Let's be real, even if Google were private and didn't have to dance to the tune of Wall St come earnings season, it's not like they'd be using their billions for the betterment of humanity.

They have the freedom to take the longer view right now if they want. There's no law mandating they be driven by quarterly profits.

If you're public you must grow, if you're private you can choose when and how to grow based on what makes sense for the business. The only thing really pushing you is competitors and inflation. There are no shareholders/investors breathing down your neck for returns.

When you're private you can actually say, "you know what, I'm content where we are being filthy rich."

You can only comfortably say that if all of your co-investors are on board (or you have none - unlikely in Google’s case) and if you will never need to raise any additional capital for any reason. It’s very difficult to run a modern business, especially in tech, without being beholden to anyone.

All true, although in some cases you can avoid the "need to raise capital problem" by using normal business loans rather than selling ownership stake. You still need to grow to pay back the loan but you don't have the problem of new investors with their hands in the pot making demands.

Yes, but even then there’s a good chance your bank will impose covenants on you that are not necessarily aligned with your own goals.

But why do you think "investors/shareholders" are bad and private owners, good? Private owners are just 100% owning shareholders, whatever notions you have about one group you should have about the other.

You have no guarantee a private owner wouldn't speed up the enshittification process.

> You have no guarantee a private owner wouldn't speed up the enshittification process.

Sure, but as a private company at least you control who who wants to do that and are not bound by the "the price must go up" behavior of the shareholders since you only care about the dividends (this is a oversimplification).

> you control

You who? The owner?

> behavior of the shareholders

The owner is a shareholder too. It's all the same thing, you're creating distinction where there is none. If anything a public company has way more controls and transparency. People usually cry when a company is taken private by private equity to squeeze every cent out of it. What do you think private equity is if not "a private owner not bound by shareholders"?

I understand your sentiment but human history has shown us that "being content being filthy rich" is short lived at best. It is a way of keeping score and even people who no longer need to work at all don't just want more money, they want a LOT more money.

Perhaps only the famous/notorious people you read about. The industry drives CEO behavior, not individuals or even one class of individuals.

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