Oddly enough I tweeted this before I read the NYT piecehttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1300979616715141121 …
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Kinda like history repeating itself. After the Darwinian capitalism of the 1920s-30s, post-war economy saw the rise of comfy Organization Man with his social ethos and rotary clubs and feminine mystique kaffeeklatsch wife. Lasted 30 years. We’re coming off another Darwinist era.
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Unlike the poor, the middle class don’t actually want a bigger share of wealth. They want the foot off the accelerator and a protected, slower-changing environment where leisure > effort. When they don’t get it, they make do with ritual design consultants and stuff.
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I’d be inclined to dismiss this as “3 data points make a trend” NYT article, except it isn’t. This is unfortunately definitely a trend that’s been building for years. Huge appetite for this kind of meaning-pampering in entitled-techie land.
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Hehe some people are offended that this desecrates religion and tradition, I’m offended it desecrates the bleak, stark, soullessness of business
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Registering a bet with Toby for future referencehttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1301185633461755904 …
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Distinction between active vs passive environmental designhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1301183767625826314 …
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In general, business trends strike me as faddish when they have specious or non-existent relationships to the basic existential function of businesses: to make and sell goods and services at a profit, creating wealth for owners and time-for-money trades for workers.
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If you can’t trace a robust connection to the balance sheet, it’s either a perk/in-kind comp (like buffet lunches and on-site laundry), some sort of distraction theater, or a manifestation of fundamental causal confusion about what drives what. There’s a lot in that last category
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Perks and theaters are often misread as causes of success. Eg: buffets A: Perk hypothesis: Just a convenience for high-value employees B: Theater hypothesis: Sucker them into working longer hours cheaply C: Causal hypothesis: improves morale/culture, boosting productivity
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IMO it’s mostly A. The business is profitable enough to pay for such perks. B is a cute suspicion. Other forces drive workaholism way better than buffet theater. C is basically wrong. Strong culture and business success form a virtuous cycle that does not pass through “buffet”
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