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This feels like someone knocking on my door and saying "Welcome to the neighbourhood!" even though I've lived here for over 15 years
If you’re the kind of person who would do that, you never become Bezos in the first place.
My Dad owned a business my whole life. It was profitable, but it didn’t expand. I ask him once why he never grew it, and he said it’s nearly impossible without climbing on someone’s back–your vendors, your customers, your employees. Particularly that last one. You don’t wait until your business is big to be a good human being. The very first time you have to choose between your own profit and your employees health insurance, you choose the later. You give maternity leave even though the government doesn’t make you. You dock your own salary to not lay people off during a recession. You have adequate staffing and reliable hours. Anybody who says you can’t run a retail business on a normal, reasonable, predictable schedule you know in advance is full of shit. My Dad did it for 35 years (always have one more person than you think you need, and 98% of your staffing problems vanish). It’s just not maximum profit. If you don’t prioritize extracting profit from every corner of your business, you never become rich enough to give billions away.
(One of the things my father is proud of is that by the time he retired they hadn’t needed to take a help wanted ad in 30 years. Turnover was low, and when a spot opened, referrals filled it.)
Our family owned & ran a few steel mills in Youngstown Ohio. The man who owned Fitzsimmons Steel lived in a normal single family house - here,
He paid fair wages - during the Great Depression not only didn’t he fire anybody - he opened the kitchens up to the families of his employees so that no one starved. Everyone made enough money to live a good life. Everyone retired with benefits.
The house my mother grew up in - (with 4 siblings) & said grandfather after he was too old to live on his own - which also had 2 maids - was this big - this house,
It was really nice inside and well decorated - but it wasn’t outrageously big. They drove Cadillacs not Ferraris.
Business isn’t necessarily evil. It can be done in a way where everybody benefits in a fairly fair way.
My family could have been way more rich than they ever were - but those who had the companies believed that the whole point was to better the community - to all grow & prosper & be better & stronger together.
Greed doesn’t have to be the driving principle of industry & business. We all do better when it isn’t.
