Re:Google Announces 12K Layoffs: A difficult decision to set...
by nine_k on Friday January 20, 2023 @09:58AM
(#34453956)
Pretty funnily, quite a few companies in the US seem to exist not to maximize profit.
Some, like Amazon, immediately reinvest the profits into their growth and avoid taxes on the profits.
Some, like Uber, seem to exist to only sustain an illusion of future possible profits. Most of startups in the era of cheap money were manifestly unprofitable, and spent more and more attempting to achieve growth and grab the market share.
Beside these, there is a number of barely profitable companies that just exist to sustain their business and give the owners and a few employees some daily bread. Most small restaurants and small stores are like that. They maximize not the short-term profit but the probability to keep earning something in foreseeable future, a bit like subsistence farming.
Some, like Amazon, immediately reinvest the profits into their growth and avoid taxes on the profits.
Some, like Uber, seem to exist to only sustain an illusion of future possible profits. Most of startups in the era of cheap money were manifestly unprofitable, and spent more and more attempting to achieve growth and grab the market share.
Beside these, there is a number of barely profitable companies that just exist to sustain their business and give the owners and a few employees some daily bread. Most small restaurants and small stores are like that. They maximize not the short-term profit but the probability to keep earning something in foreseeable future, a bit like subsistence farming.