On Friday, 10 November 2017 at 14:28:10 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad
wrote:
On Friday, 10 November 2017 at 12:55:24 UTC, Tony wrote:
Very few companies are not "all about making money". That is
why Americans were laid off by the millions and replaced by
workers in countries with much cheaper labor rates. Bad for
the workers, good for "making money". Apple isn't unique in
making all it's products outside the USA.
I understand what you mean, but I don't think it is a
scientific fact that companies are all about making money. They
are run by humans with a set of beliefs and desires which they
operate under…
But those humans at the top, working for public companies, are
monitored by a board and stockholders who place "making money" as
the main, and normally only, measure of their job performance.
Anyway, even companies that are all about making money need to
think long term, meaning to take care of their long term
reputation. Microsoft was not all about making money in the
90s, but they were all about growing and retaining market share
using bad business practices and that cost them their
reputation among IT professionals.
"growing and retaining market share" is a part of "all about
making money", to me. My definition of "not all about making
money" is when a company does things to benefit the environment
or citizens or employees that they could have legally avoided,
which gives them lower profits than they would have had from the
other course of action. There are donations for various causes
made by some public companies, but I think those are normally an
insignificant percentage of their profits.
Companies like Amazon are more about growth than making money…
Some banks are more about being big than making money long
term… Too big to fail and the government will save your ass.
Etc.
I see Amazon as foregoing profits now for growth - and also
wiping out the competition - in order to reap massive profits in
the future. At least, I haven't heard of them foregoing profits
in order to benefit employees, citizens or the environment. Their
stock price has a very high valuation (PE ration of 285.1),
reflective of investors expecting massive profits in the future.
I don't know. I use a mac daily, but there is not a single
product in their line today that is anywhere near good value
compared by what you get by building your own Linux/Windows box
or buy a quality non-Apple product from Samsung or Asus…
That is what I see as the Apple way of doing things from their
beginning back in the late 1970s. They make premium and/or unique
products and then mark them up more than anybody in the industry.
Their products have always been unique with regard to the OS
(except for a year or two when they allowed Mac clones) making
the situation that no other manufacturer can offer an identical
product.
