Seeing the latest discussion on patent law and the feedback on the latest podcast, I wanted to share an experience I had with Joe at the roundup.
As a bunch of geeks getting together in Crested Butte, it is always too easy to criticize the markets and managers. Nobody's there to defend them :) Hopefully we have Joe, and he is quite right about it: "The system proved itself, if you want to hit on it or change it, you better make a good argument!" And during one heated discussion I answered: "It does not work! Look at it frankly it used to work but it does not anymore!". And I got the look from Joe :) For a good reason, sorry about that. So, I'll try to explain my point of view as short as I can. Since 1998, I co-founded 3 companies, sold 1 of them (2 times!), and I'm still working for the 2 other ones. It did not make me rich (far from it), but the companies employed more than 250 people during that time, so I'm quite proud of it. To the point: Today's US free market is broken for one simple reason: Wall Street matters a lot more than customers and consumers. In the US in the 50s the salary ratio between lower-middle class and top executive was around 50 times, today it's 430! Plus the amount of cash injected by the FED, the American Banks into Wall Street has multiply itself by 4 since 1980. So (and I personally experience it everyday for last 4 years), for a business man pleasing Wall Street is a lot more profitable than pleasing your customers. Here I run a nice query on wolframalpha comparing the ratio between money supply and total market capitalization. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=money+supply+/+market+cap+ALL Something strange is happening :) That's why the US has: - An extremely low broadband penetration, with ridiculously high price per MBps, - An antique auto industry that should be leading the way towards gasoline free transportation, - Cable companies that will do everything to not give their customers what they want (a la carte, integrated TiVo, Hulu box, ...), - An RIAA and MPAA which are pouring money to ridicule the entire world on keeping their out-of-date business model, - IBM which is selling the most expensive outrageous piece of crap software to 50% of the market, - ... Apple and Google are exception in this world because their leaders stick to: "I'll please my customers first, Wall Street will get what they deserve, no more!". Today, it's a really hard to sell value proposition for shareholders, but it used to be the natural way of business. Before the 80s there was more money in the hand of US middle-class than anywhere else. Making a successful product, that please the consumer was making you rich. It is what free market supposed to be. Today, tricking the book, merging or cutting companies into pieces, reducing your cost, provide immediate gratification. The amounts are way above what you can get from your customers. It's too tempting! Don't get me wrong, Free Market and Capitalism gave us amazing things, but it got corrupted. I'm writing this because from my point of view there are many American meme that really annoys me: - Government intervention is a bad thing. Who do you think you have more influence on: Your Congressman or IBM CEO? - Regulating business is a bad thing. The latest ruling against the FCC is a very bad sign. If the American people have a problem with the FCC it can be changed, but if you don't like Comcast you're screwed and they don't give a F#$%$K about you (Wall Street protecting their monopoly). - Free Market and Business have a morality. I know for a fact that you can be a real psychopath (and I mean a disgusting half human with absolutely no brain ability to feel human emotion), and a very successful business man. The business environment needs to build its morality, it does not have any. Sorry for the length, and since I hate people always complaining without proposing solutions, here is my crazy one: Give ownership of the FED to the American people! I mean not the government, just give all the shares of the FED to every voting American. It'll break the upper circle between the FED, Banks and Wall Street. So, Joe I love talking to you, and hope you will not change :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
