Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

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Unfortunately the word "company" encompasses hundreds of millions of entities, of enormously different cultures, attitudes, ethics and so on.

Personally, I think behavior does (and likely has to) evolve with size. Unfortunately bigger tends to be worse.

Culture is also primarily a top-down flow. I'd the CEO is a screamer expect screamers all the way down and so on.

Of course there are companies, too many of them, that behave badly. There are too many people who treat other people as nameless, expendable and exploitable. There are also many others, the ones that don't make the juicy comments on reddit, which behave well, treat people as people, and so on.

Treating your work-place as a hostile environment can be emotionally and mentally draining. It can be counter-productive if the environment desires to support you.

Equally, if your environment is hostile then at least be looking elsewhere. Not all companies are created the same so there are likely better options elsewhere (although getting those posts is harder because people tend not to leave.)

Your advice rings true for many companies. But people stay in those places because they believe everywhere is the same. So a more nuanced advice might be to understand the culture and behavior where you work and decide if that's a culture you want to assimilate, and support, long term or not.

For the record, the place where I work has never expected anyone to do emails etc out-of-hours and you'd be laughed at if you suggested people should behave otherwise.

I wonder how much of a thing "long-term culture" really is in the tech industry. The culture at Google in the year 2024 looks very different from the culture at Google in 2010. In many ways the culture at Microsoft in 2024 is radically different from the culture at Microsoft in 2001.

I do agree with the notion that company culture trickles down from the CEO over time. So that suggests that company culture can shift as CEOs come and go. Another factor that can impact culture include market pressure. I can say with some confidence that the relentless squeeze that shareholders put on operating costs undeniably has a direct impact on practices and policies that govern the quality of the average employee's experience at work.

I disagree. The fundamental idea of a company causes this behavior. They, the company, actually doesn't have a choice.

You have to turn a profit and the only way to achieve that is exploitation. You have to take labor and pay less than it's worth and pocket the difference. There's no way around it.

You might say "well you can be less exploitative" - but not really. Because you ALSO have to thrive in your market. Even if you are an angel sent from God to save corporate America, your competition isn't. They lie, they cheat, they steal. If you don't you're a sucker, and it's only a matter of time until your company goes under.

Because consumers will choose the cheaper option almost every time. And they don't actually know much about the company, they only know advertising. And they don't know much about the product either, because products are complex. Even domain-specific products, like, say, medical equipment - the buyers don't know shit. They know what the product should do, but do they know the materials are reliable? Do they know the power system is reliable? Do they know the software is written in a memory-safe manor? No, they don't.

So you lie (advertise). And you steal (pay your employees a low wage). And you cheat (use capital to undercut competitors, sometimes selling at a loss in new markets). And if you say no, then you will be replaced by someone who does. Nobody has any choice in this system.

> Because consumers will choose the cheaper option almost every time.

Largely true - but the key word is "almost".

> You have to turn a profit and the only way to achieve that is exploitation. You have to take labor and pay less than it's worth and pocket the difference. There's no way around it.

But this is NOT the only way to achieve lower prices. Lower prices can be achieved by simple things like keeping your employee turnover at a minimum, not going through rounds and rounds of layoff+hiring cycles, not wasting time on "performance reviews" and other BS management activities - and generally treating employees and customers as an asset. This is automatic cost savings that can be passed down to the customers.

Do you know why customers are willing to pay higher prices at Trader Joes? It is because the store is always staffed, clean, and full of inventory with happy employees.

There is clearly a higher quality way of winning. The factory-style squeeze and replace seems rather naive and stupid from a branding and long term return perspective.

As I've said, you can be less exploitative. You can't be not exploitative.

> happy employees

Trader joes employees are not actually paid very well. They're paid okay. Also trader joes is not very successful. They're a small niche, only profitable in the whitest and richest parts of the country.

> seems rather naive and stupid from a branding and long term return perspective

Yes, to an extent. But branding, as I've alluded to, is mostly advertising. The reality of your product is a tiny tiny part of your brand. How your brand is advertised is a much bigger part.

Luxury goods are often not actually higher quality. They just advertise to rich people and have big "no poors allowed" signs on the front door. They create an artificial scarcity in people's minds, and monkey brain says "ooo ooo rare = valuable!!"

Trader joes is cleaner, sure, and the experience is nicer. But from a food quality perspective, how much better is it than Walmart or Target? ... not much. I can find produce and whole-foods at both locations and I can live an equally healthy life with a diet consisting of only foods from Walmart.

But Walmart doesn't have the prices written on cute little chalk boards, so...

> You can't be not exploitative.

This is not true. Specifically because you are pointing out that exploitative companies will retain more money than non-exploitative ones and thus not be beaten in competition.

However, it is paradoxically also true that the same competition is beaten merely by high quality - leading to higher margins. Cost cutting is not the only way to squeeze margins.

> Trader joes employees are not actually paid very well. They're paid okay. Also trader joes is not very successful. They're a small niche, only profitable in the whitest and richest parts of the country.

And yet, they are nowhere close to running out of money and have a firm loyalty against cheaper competition. Exploitative cheap is not the only way and you are proving that same point.

> Yes, to an extent. But branding, as I've alluded to, is mostly advertising. The reality of your product is a tiny tiny part of your brand. How your brand is advertised is a much bigger part.

> Trader joes is cleaner, sure, and the experience is nicer. But from a food quality perspective, how much better is it than Walmart or Target? ... not much. I can find produce and whole-foods at both locations and I can live an equally healthy life with a diet consisting of only foods from Walmart.

Yes you can find the same produce at whole-foods or walmart or target. And yet, trader joes survives and is expanding. Once again, you are proving the same point - cheap exploitation is NOT the only way to win.

No, because if you're not exploitative that would mean you're producing exactly as much money as you're paying out to your labor, or less. This is impossible in a capitalist system, because you go under.

It can be done and sometimes is, but we call that charity. I've seen some businesses that take 100% of their profit and just redistribute it to their employees. But they can never expand, only float, and the company exists on borrowed time.

The difference here is made up with capital - as in, we're told the myth that capital is the reason why businesses pay less for labor than it produces. Because they provide the capital.

In reality, capital can be democratically owned and capital is also not the cornerstone of our economy. People, labor, is.

> No, because if you're not exploitative that would mean you're producing exactly as much money as you're paying out to your labor, or less.

This is an incorrect understanding of exploitation. Even in the most ethical corporation to have ever lived, 100% of the money earned will not go to labor. The money earned by a corporation is always paid out to

1. Employees/suppliers

2. Government

3. Shareholders

4. Company's own balance sheet

The exploitation part happens when companies cut on 1 to boost 2, 3, and 4. They do so to boost margins.

But strictly speaking, they could cut 2 via tax deduction maneuvers, cut 3 via shareholder return cuts, and cut 4 via plain old not saving more.

Cutting 1 is the most visible cut there is. Within 1, they could cut labor, quality, suppliers, advertising, what have you. Everything is shortchanging the company.

There are so many levers at play here. Exploitation only starts at stripping your company's assets (labor, loyalty, real estate, supplies, customer goodwill) in order to boost other aspects - usually 3 and 4.

There are economic systems in which 100% of the value produced is paid out to laborers. We're just not in one.

> Exploitation only starts at stripping your company's assets (labor, loyalty, real estate, supplies, customer goodwill) in order to boost other aspects - usually 3 and 4.

First, this is merely an opinion. It's not a matter of me "misunderstanding" exploitation. It's an opinion that this is when exploitation starts.

Also, this is UNAVOIDABLE. You MUST, necessarily, take some money away from labor to give it to 3 and 4.

Your entire thought process rests on this word here - "stripping". What is that? When does that begin?

Is one dollar stripping? To me, yes, to you, no. What is that magic number? And, if you can find that magic number, why is it correct? And who decides?

> There are economic systems in which 100% of the value produced is paid out to laborers. We're just not in one.

You will need to give examples.

> Also, this is UNAVOIDABLE. You MUST, necessarily, take some money away from labor to give it to 3 and 4.

Absolutely. Can you point at where this was not implied?

> Your entire thought process rests on this word here - "stripping". What is that? When does that begin?

This where your understanding is completely off. It seems that you are missing the forest for the trees. Instead of focusing on "stripping", try to ask the question, "What steps can the company take when they are stagnating in revenue or margins?"

Peace!

The problem is you're not able to quantify where the problem begins. I am, the problem starts at 0.

Apparently there's a point where siphoning money from labor becomes bad. When is that point, according to you? You have no idea. What's that number? I dunno. Apparently nobody on Earth knows.

But you're telling me you understand exploitation? Yeah, fat chance. It's obvious you've gave a very minimal amount of mental effort into your views and outlook on economy and just ran with it. If you're not actually able to quantify what the problems are, reliably, you don't have an opinion. You have a delusion that makes you feel good. Which, granted, is easier and simpler to sell to voters. But it's also nothing - it's fluff.

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