This is interesting because the GP, I think, didn't intend to say "private" to mean "privately held", but I think it's worthwhile to note that GameStop and Guitar Center are publicly traded while H-E-B is still family owned.

H-E-B does a lot of things that are more benevolent than the kind of behavior that we're used to seeing from publicly-traded organizations and I can't help but wonder if the private ownership (truly private, as opposed to publicly-traded) has something to do with that.

H-E-B is one of the things I will really miss if I ever have to leave Texas. They're always there any time there is any kind of disaster, to provide relief. I've even heard that they treat their software engineers well (they bought Favor). They're really a one-of-a-kind company. I hope they never IPO.

> H-E-B does a lot of things that are more benevolent than the kind of behavior that we're used to seeing from publicly-traded organizations and I can't help but wonder if the private ownership (truly private, as opposed to publicly-traded) has something to do with that.

I think I tentatively agree with you. I work for a company that was once privately held by a small number of owners who were primarily invested in that company. The impression I got from the old-timers was that management was a lot more generous back then. However, once they sold to a publicly traded firm, the squeeze started and it's never really stopped.

Sometimes an individual person can be satisfied with their wealth and position and focus on other things, and individuals can be influenced by moral and ethical ideas. The market, on the other hand, is like an amoral monster that's always eating but never satisfied.

How is finding an anecdote a invalidate a generalization? The majority of the most powerful global corporations are US companies. They don’t (in general) get that way by being incompetent.

You can't support a point about private companies in the US in general with a point solely about powerful global corporations that are US companies.

I'd argue that once you reach a certain level of size, it's very easy to fail upwards.

See: Amazon. They are incompetent in many aspects of their business, but due to their sheer size that incompetence is shielded by their other investments.