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Xbox biz guy deletes his X account less than 24 hours after saying game devs who don't embrace AI 'should not be in the business of being a business' (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 11 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

The moment companies opt for money at all costs, they become evil and inevitably fill themselves with people like him.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Companies are not separate entities with their own wills.

    Who hires those evil people? It's not the building. It's not the business registration with the government. It's someone like him.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Sometimes nobody hires them, they're one of the founders. When they're hired, said companies would never screen "wants money above all" as a negative trait.

    Corporate culture exists and tends to be a reflection of the higher ups, but like any culture, it's not immutable. Whether it was already like that from the beginning or became so later on depends on each company

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Businesses also make those people. Once they align your incentives toward making the company the most profit, you will gradually become an out-of-touch weirdo that fetishizes productivity and thinks empathy is weakness.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    Again, who sets those expectations and hammers them into employees?

    It's not "businesses". It's business people. It's MBAs. It's c-suits. Stop making it sound like some machine with no face. Whether you mean to or not, that makes it harder for some to actually see the problem.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    The incentives in capitalism are what sets it up for the business owner and makes them the original out of touch weirdo believing contradictions and setting the incentives for the rest. I firmly believe that a person's whole worldview is largely shaped by their incentives. Most people don't do evil things that they think are evil. They mold their ethics, morality, philosophy, and even interpret their religion to make following their incentives virtuous.

    Andrew Carnegie at 33:

    I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes!...I will resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading systematically!

    He later became one of the most ruthless robber barons of the gilded age. Bad behavior is done by individuals that should be held accountable. But accountability can't outperform incentives. The incentives must change for a systemic change in behavior to occur. You could fire all C-suite and promote the best and after a while, you would be back to the same behavior.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago

    This. Every single company which has done an IPO and sold shares has sold any chance they had of being respectable. Without exception. They might remain profitable, in the short term, but they have permanently rescinded all possibility of respect or virtue, and in most cases already signed the death certificate for their company. It is impossible for a publicly traded company to do the right thing. It is sometimes possible for a private company to do the right thing, and that is only possible because of the lack of fiduciary duty to shareholders. Once you have shareholders calling your shots, you've sold yourself to the worst kind of devil and you're legally required to maximize the return on those shareholders investments, meaning that honest and virtuous business dealings are immediately out the window permanently. "Money now at all costs, NOW NOW NOW" becomes the sole focus of the business and every single other consideration is banished in favor of it.

    Many businesses don't actually survive this. I wish it killed more of them.

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