Thats not true. Privately owned firms tend to be really bad because they don't have a feduciary duty to long term value. They suck everything dry. Private equity is the reason why daycare costs so much yet the daycare workers make minimum wage.

I think we're probably not on the same wavelength. Privately owned doesn't mean bad, a one person owner operated plumbing business is not bad.

Publicly traded corporations are also really bad because the goal is increase in share price at the cost of long term success often. If you can show profit or revenue growth at the cost of losing customers by cutting costs that's positive over there.

Single person ownership of a company where the person cares about the company providing good value instead of making money is very different from maximising profit or resale value.

So the dissonance I think mostly stems from the example of daycare that you made and your conclusion that private ownership is worse than publicly traded companies. If the daycare was publicly traded it would probably look the same since none of the owners really care about the staff. On the contrary an owner operated business often do care about staff and their development at the cost of their fiduciary duty.

Private equity would gut a business for cash. Publicly traded would syphon away all customer value to increase the stock price. Owner operated business normally does neither since it's their baby.