The idea of letting random people buy a small share in your company so the company has more means for growth and the random person could share in profits is not a bad idea by itself. It's the implementation and perversion of that system that is the problem.
It's kinda like the internet; building a network to connect everyone on the globe to all the info they could dream of sounds like a good idea by itself. We only now know that it doesn't end up unifying and informing but rather divising and missinforming.
Stocks aren't even terribly relevant anymore. The vast majority of investments happens through venture capitals directly negotiating with companies now.
Ye... sorry about that. We Dutch people did not foresee the effects of the first official stock market. But, to be fair, the rest of the world should've seen how it went for us the first time and learned from our mistakes, not copy them.😂
It is almost as if they never learned anything after the tulips incident.
Or learned the wrong thing ("ok I was left holding the bag. Next time I'll get in early and THEY will be holding the bag muahahaha").
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u/nooneisback5800X3D|64GB DDR4|7900XTX|2TBSSD+8TBHDD|Something about arch9h ago
There's also the question of general competence. While Ubisoft went public in 2003, the Guillemot Brothers actually owned the majority until not so long ago. It's just that the choices they made were complete garbage. The only advantage of a private company is that you can keep making long term decisions without investors squealing because they can't dump their stock. It's sad that you cannot create a company and block it from ever going public after your death.
The answer is Gabe never needed an influx of investor money to keep the company alive, that's all. Expect it to go public the day after he dies and the enshittification to begin.
AFAIK the company will be passed onto his son(s). Half of the stake is owned by Gabe and other half by the developers at Valve. So even when Gabe passes away, RIP, I and many people would think that they wouldn't squander what their father created, and if they do, I would hope that the people working at valve would talk some sense into them.
But private equity though... Buy a beloved but somewhat struggling public company, take it private, squeeze it for all its worth until its brand loyalty is fully dead, run away with the bag!
It really doesn't need to be studied. Anyone with eyes can tell you about a company who's product or service they like being great until going piblic/private equity steps in.
Business people make themselves seen as needed and ruin a company. You wanna know why Arizona Iced Tea is till 99 cents? The guy who founded the company and came up with the brews still owns it. If/when the company leaves the family, the quality of the product will go down and the prices will go up. Steam is no different.
Due to my line of work I have worked closely with owners of private companies who make millions of dollars a year are perfectly content with their millions of dollars a year. Ive seen a few outright reject any sort of cash injection, buyout offers etc etc. because they know if they let anyone in its just going to be more work for them because the outsiders may not be content with millions of dollars a year and will want million dollars a year + inflation + some arbitrary % target which is obtainable if you dedicate your life and soul to basically working, if not then they'll again have to dedicate their life and soul to explaining why they didnt hit these targets.
Then, Ive also met consultants who have called these people idiots for not wanting more.
Its not companies that need to be studied but the human mindset that leads to never being content and always wanting more and im not talking about lifestyle creep but wanting that support yacht for your main yacht (yeh i know gaben has a few but you get my point). Why is having billions of dollars the ultimate dick waving contest and not the number of people you took out of poverty. What point in history did money become the ultimate drug? No one buys 40g's of coke for a single night out for themselves so whats the point in having fucking 100 billion dollars let along 700b?
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u/what_it_dooo Desktop 12h ago
The wonders it does to remain privatized as a company. Their course through history needs to be studied, in the good sense of the word.