Important point there. Your success was, in no small part, due to your employees. The vast majority of people must work for others for anything more than a tiny shop to exist. Manufacturing, in particular, needs hundreds/thousands of people willing to work for someone else. It would be impossible for each “entrepreneur” to build a car, or a refrigerator, entirely by himself, in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time or cost.
And upset the plantation system we have. where the JC’s think they are God, and the workers have to tug their forelock and grovel for crumbs from his lordship?
I don’t want to speak for @flyerboys but the phrase in question was “not cut out to be entrepreneurs” as opposed to “able to run a business.”
They are different thangs. Entrepreneurs, in most cases, need to be able to put their time and money at risk and have a vision and plan why taking those risks are preferable to the status quo.
Not everyone can, needs to, wants to, or should fit into that category.
Or they would build it such that it requires the fewest number of humans possible. Then they would pay those few particular humans a lot to keep all the machines doing the actual manufacturing running well.
Actually if you go back to what I originally wrote.
That was the original intent. But lets be clear, starting a company and running it is the basic definition of an entrepreneur. Just because one runs a software company and the other a barbershop, makes no difference. They are both putting their capital at risk.
A lot of people are simply not smart enough (about a third of the population is dimwitted, literally), and many who are smart enough lack the daily discipline necessary to be significant entrepreneurs.
I was a very successful private consultant. But I only took jobs that fascinated me and could be completed within months and had big payoffs. I did not want to be an entrepreneur, nor did I particularly want to be in business. I wanted to screw off, surf, mountaineer, and ski, and so I did a consultancy. I do NOT count that as being anything like an entrepreneur. And I know a lot of successful businessman like that. I, like many electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc I know, was basically an employee who cost extra and did his own advertising and accountancy.
I became an entrepreneur, creating and preserving about 150 good paying jobs, only because my furious raging energy as a gay rights activist powered me and disciplined me in my gay rights focused businesses. A big chunck of JC`s had made cynical alliance with powerful people, mostly preachers and bishops, who wanted my dead. That was the motivation.
My point is that I do not think many people could rationally choose to be an entrepreneur. It happens like catching the flu happens, and that makes a lot of the luke warm moralizing and self-importance around this subject rather vomitous for me.
The crux is we need a society that pays working wages and provides services everyone needs, such as public health and education, as fundamental to all sane policy.
“We could save taxpayers money if all those persons lacking motivation were motivated by something” is the notion that enrages me. Because the motivations in mind are hunger, homelessness, destitution, disease…
The “open range” physical environment in the photo in syke6’s post is typical of many new corporate campuses housing technology / “think” workers. Tall, open ceilings. Ugly hanging fluorescent fixtures or LED can lights hanging down for “task” lighting to desks. “Fish bowl” conference rooms and open collaboration areas with public white boards for brainstorming sessions. Highly polished concrete floors. All open and unencumbered. Except of course for senior managers (typically director and above).
The (claimed) goals? Make the environment seem open and expansive. Eliminate walls to encourage continuous collaboration among team members. Give employees a new, refreshing, “out of the box” work environment. Use some of the space for on-premise amenities like an espresso bar, deluxe kitchen galley and upscale vending machines, etc. Maybe even an outdoor patio or workout room and showers. Concrete floors are easy to clean and don’t wear out. In some situations where management isn’t willing to go full “open ranch” and still insist on cubicles, they try to go halfway by using half-height cubicles where the cubicle walls stop at about eyeball height when sitting.
The actual results? Concrete floors reflect sound EVERYWHERE. Heels on dress shoes (women and men) reverberate throughout the space. Employees surrounding their computer on the left and right and behind it with ugly cut up cardboard boxes to break sight lines so they don’t feel like they’re being stared at by co-workers. Employees spending HOURS on conference calls trying to use headsets to avoid disturbing neighbors or NOT using headsets and DISTURBING neighbors. Employees listening to music on headsets all day just to drown out surrounding noise. Employees working AWAY from their desks to escape noise or just to avoid clashing elbows with neighbors. In cases where half-height cubicles are used, employees are in the same boat with zero noise reduction and continuous visual distractions. As a result, no one is at their desk where expected to allow for collaboration (are they out for the day, working from home or just literally hiding in the building?).
The REAL reasons this architectural style continues to be used? This style of building uses “slab construction” for not only the floor but the walls and is DIRT CHEAP. A building like this can literally be built in about 6 months after permits.
Limiting offices to a bare minimum means very limited capital investment in the interior improvements, ideal when you are just leasing the building or want to be able to unload it a few years later. The “furniture” in these types of environments is even cheaper than the cubicles of yesteryear, creating more savings. Most workers are given laptops with wifi connectivity and IP phones with a PC client so you can avoid the expensive network cabling required with older approaches assuming fixed cubicles and offices. And no leaders choosing this architecture have ever talked to the employees working in the veal pens. The wide open spaces look “cool” to a new visitor for maybe a day or two. After the newness wears off, it feels like a Stalinistic work camp.
This “open range” approach MIGHT work for a firm where ALL team members work in the same building and are expected to work Monday through Friday IN THE OFFICE. If the team is part of a national or international firm where 50% of the team will always be somewhere else, this office architecture provides ZERO benefit to anyone having to work in it. The only benefit is cheaper construction / lease costs and reduced capital improvements expenses to the internals of the building.
But how do you build a modern society accounting for that?
In the old days, we just ignored them. They got by doing labor intensive jobs not requiring much in the way of smarts.
Those jobs are gone. You can’t even work competently in retail without a few technology skills. Or dig a ditch with tools other than shovels etc.
I exaggerate, but not by much.
Oh, and by the way, a third of 8 billion is a big number… (even a third of 300 million is material within the US)
As a 30 year old I worked for six years in a small Chinese company. There were only a few people that worked hard. The rest quit. The idea that Chinese people work harder is a prejudice stereo type. The mom and pop was demanding. Most were incapable of working.
And yet the documentary showed Wendy that:
“The contrast between the Chinese workforce (disciplined, highly motivated, fast and focused on their work, despite very long hours, few days off and low pay) and the American workers (slow, whiny, entitled, sullen) is so sharp that if this had not been a fly-on-the-wall documentary I would have thought the writers cooked up stereotypes…”
I suspect it is because the Chinese workers have healthcare that covers them from the cradle to the grave and the American worker doesn’t. Its a proven fact that workers that have healthcare are more happy and satisfied.
Or, is the documentary “JC” propaganda that offshoring of production is all the fault of USian workers?
Living in the big three’s front yard, I have heard the “JCs” whine for decades. All their problems are entirely the fault of the government, the union, or the Japanese. It’s never the fault of self-deluded “JCs” that think they are infallible Gods, and worth every 10 Million they pocket each year.
In somewhat related “news” wrt treatment of workers, a state government is moving to override local worker treatment laws that include things like a mandatory 10 minute break every 4 hours for water and cool-off. Apparently, the “JCs” that push the legislation find it cheaper to have workers keel over, than to give them 10 minutes out of the heat. That state leads the nation in heat related deaths.
Let’s see. One of the producers went on to make another film, 9to5.
“A campaign against the abuse of female workers by their male bosses, which starts in early 1970s Cleveland, leads to a popular fiction film with Fonda, Parton and Tomlin.”
And the Obamas are in on it, as Barack and Michelle bought the film.
Maybe it’s a sign of supply side (or is it demand side) economics.
Or maybe it’s a result of the teachers’ union not doing a good enough job.
I used to argue with our CEO about the need for better benefits for our employees. His stance was the swinging (male appendage) don’t care about benefits. They only want enough beer money for the weekend. I always countered that may be true, but the employee I hire that is married, has 2.5 children, a mortgage and a dog wants and needs good benefits. Health/Life/Dental/Vision insurance is important to them. Along with a good vacation policy.
The question then becomes who is the better employee? The swinging (male appendage) or the family man? I will guarantee the family man will be at work on Monday. The swinging (male appendage) maybe/maybe not. Depended on how much beer was consumed.
**It’s no surprise that every country with some form of universal healthcare is statistically happier than the United States. **
This week the United Nations released their 2013 World Happiness Report, and all countries in the top five have at least some form of socialized medicine, with Denmark snapping up the number one spot. Do you know where the United States came in? Number 17.
This issue is mom and pop Chinese firms may let a worker go extremely fast. Either sink or swim. There are people in China Town NYC with jobs just watching merchandise and nothing more. You can find building lobbies with goods and a couple of people just sitting there doing nothing.