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Comment by allears | Hacker News Reader

This has been true for a very long time. It's not a modern phenomenon.

There was probably a "golden age" in the middle of the last century when it was a good idea to be a company man. But before that, and after that once the MBA mentality took over, workers have been treated like disposable units.

It only makes sense for a worker to strategize to maximize their own career and income, instead of placing their loyalties in a company that not only doesn't care about them, but actively propagandizes in an attempt to make its workers feel like "family."

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We ought to stop blaming the "MBA mentality". I dislike them as much as any IC, but they aren't the issue. The issue is how wealth is distributed. Just after WW2, in my country, if a salaried woodworker in a chop added 1000$ of value on average each month after all other costs were paid (sales, stock, distribution), he took home 600, gave 100 to the government and 300 to his shop owner/shareholders. Nowadays, his added value is 2000€ each month, he takes home roughly 860, give the government 120, and the shop owner/shareholders take the rest, more than half of his added value.

This is hn. Everything bad about modern capitalism is apparently the fault of mba people.

(No I didn’t do a mba)

I worked for several small projects and startups. All of them became shitter for employees when MBA people took over.

>All of them became shitter for employees

You don't hire MBAs to improve employee experience

who is behind the shift to owner and shareholder?

It’s a natural progression where technology has improved production increases. However since the workers of the world have a very limited share of the ownership of the means of production, they don’t get anything from this increase in production output.

Ok, but who is behind enshittification, planned obsolescence, corporate consolidation, private equity raiding, brand value extraction, etc...

You don’t understand, it can’t be MBA types because it’s just the natural progression of the world to become worse and worse. Obvious right? Now sit down and consume.

That comes from buying companies, not owning companies. I think the stock market is the biggest problem, or for the housing situation companies buying a large number of houses is the biggest problem, or for medicine buying up patents to rack up prices is the problem, or for software buying up games/programs and filling them with spyware is the problem etc.

Builders typically aren't that evil, but builders sell to exploiters who are evil and exploit it as much as possible. You see this everywhere, that extra level of indirection where you aren't fine with exploiting people but you are fine selling your work to those who do exploit people. Exploiters are a tiny minority of people, but that is enough since they can buy up all the assets to exploit and thus become very wealthy.

Edit; And yes, those exploiters often have MBA degrees. Not everyone with such degrees of course, but the overlap seems pretty large.

It's profit. Revenue minus expenses. Companies that optimize profit better than other companies are more successful. Emergent behaviour like evolution. Companies that don't optimize will not grow as much or even decline or disappear. It's self-selecting.

Planned obsolescence, private equity raiding, brand value extraction: these are steps to increase revenue.

Enshittification, corporate consolidation: these are steps to decrease expenses.

actively propagandizes in an attempt to make its workers feel like "family."

In my experience, post-COVID they’ve given up even maintaining that illusion.

Companies saying "we're a big family here" are deeply amusing to me as someone who had a turbulent home life as a child and who only talks to his relatives once a year on Christmas.

I think the people saying this don't think about people who have a still-acrimonious relationship with their family. If you're telling me that you're a big family then I am not interested.

I was laid off with zero severance and no recommendation etc from a company that was big on "we are a family".

Never heard from one single person there after the layoff. I was like yup this is how my family is too.

Ever since I have always felt joining a company is like getting adopted into another dysfunctional family.

The difference between a company and my family is that the company I work for always pays me to keep me coming back whereas my family it's more hit or miss.

I'm old enough that my father worked for one of those "golden age" companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wometco_Enterprises

It was a conglomerate, starting with theaters then adding TV and other entertainment, plus soft drink bottling and more.

The individual companies were well funded, they had plenty of staff, and there cross-company staff discounts. My dad worked for the TV station WTVJ and we got discounts to go to the movie theaters owned by Wometco.

There was a yearly Christmas party for staff and family, and the Wometco would be flown in by helicopter, dressed as Santa.

After his death it got bought by KKR in a LBO, split up, and sold for parts. Staff was greatly reduced and overworked. The Christmas party was no more.

My dad worked for Borden and Kraft, which were similar. They were also bought and split up by KKR.

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