Are there any good companies anymore?
I’m concerned about the environment but I don’t consider myself to have very radical political views in general. These are areas I’d want to avoid. What’s left? What areas could I pursue that are also potentially doing interesting things online?
- AdTech. Most obviously the known harm some social media can cause to democracy by fueling rage, but also systematic economic problems related to e-commerce below. - Most e-commerce. Trying to get people to buy material things they don’t need. Bad for the environment. - Crypto. Companies fall into one of 3 categories: terrible for the environment, a Ponzi scheme, or neutral but legitimizing or encouraging projects in the previous two categories. - FinTech/e-commerce platforms. Trying to get people to buy stuff they can’t afford, on credit, and don’t need. Bad for the environment and society. - Gambling. Duh. - Gaming with in-app-purchasing. Exploiting people prone to addiction or with low impulse control. Immoral and bad for society. - Fossil-heavy industries. Air travel, booking and similar. We need to fly occasionally, but I now celebrate when flying is reduced. I don’t want a bonus to change that.
I’m not judging anyone, I’ve worked with several of the above myself. I just want to do things differently after 15 years.
This is not a discussion thread about my claims above, I respect if you consider them ridiculous, but we’re not very likely to have a fruitful discussion on this particular topic.
73 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadIf I would have to guess, OP may want to go into a non profit or a creator based company like Kickstarter or companies that have joined to be a B Corp [0]
[0] https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/
B Corps are bullshit and should not be seen as a sign of quality.
What company is this anyway?
> then one would just tell B Corp to remove them the list no
This is not something that flew under the radar and can trivially be removed - the aforementioned company's business model is well known for example and despite that they became and are still a B-Corp.
My point is that B-Corp is happy to accept companies whose business model preys on and profits off vulnerable, financially-illiterate people, directly contradicting their claim of certifying companies which have a "positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment" (from Wikipedia, emphasis mine).
https://bimpactassessment.net/complaints-procedure
It seems you can get them removed and it does look like you are complaining about a company that shouldn't be a B Corp, so you could take your complaint there.
Not sure if that means that all B Corps or B Corps are bad in general.
Then maybe OP needs to pack up and leave the Earth, because there are no good companies and everyone is terrible and evil.
I jest, but seriously, he/she should get a grip. If OP thinks everything is terrible, maybe the problem isn't the companies...
The only solution is living on a farm and completely isolating yourself from everyone. You also can't use any products or services produced by anyone because the chain of profits goes the other way too.
Short of obviously bad companies (like those selling cigarettes perhaps), most companies are mostly doing good things for mostly good customers who are mostly trying to do good things and so on. I know a good number of people and while some might be a little greedier than others, and some others are disorganized and get themselves into situations where they are desperate and do something not great, none of them are genuinely bad people. Some of the very best people I know work in ads, and some of them at Facebook.
I don't know your background or what kind of work you like to do but if this sounds interesting drop me a line.
Even the most innovative company that treats its workers fairly and compensates them “well” across the board is probably doing something somewhere that will put someone else out of work.
I’m sort of ranting here, but I feel it’s very easy to go down this rabbit hole of complaining about X or Y or spreading negativity, and even on HN, we seem to spend quite a bit of time painting things in large brush strokes and labeling just about anything anyone is doing as being nefarious or having some ulterior motive.
I can’t say this is really productive.
There's is a huge difference in the harm created by someone working on, say, Jira vs. someone building interactive cigarette ads that subtly appeal to children.
There are also lots of companies much more evil than most: Facebook is the most obvious example.
There are companies that aren't particularly evil at all, like the ones working on carbon capture tech.
Does a company's product or service determine whether they're evil or not evil? What if the carbon capture tech company builds something great for the environment, but has dependencies on a supplier that uses exploited labor in the developing world? What if that same carbon capture company has a "significant" wage gap between the average employee and the executive level?
It's interesting you pointed out that Facebook is evil, but by default, a carbon capture company couldn't possibly be evil "at all".
And that speaks to my point – your definition of evil is based on your set of beliefs, which I'll simply refer to as your politics. It's not necessarily "objective", no matter how hard you believe it is.
>The logical conclusion of your comment is that all companies are equally harmful (or that any attempt at distinguishing between them is pointless), which is blatantly untrue.
No, that's actually not what I'm saying at all.
The key word I used was "particularly" -- meaning that it doesn't stand out among any evil things a company might do. Nothing in particular about its product is evil. It's essentially an air-cleaning company.
> Does a company's product or service determine whether they're evil or not evil?
Yes, of course. It isn't the only factor, but it is obviously a factor.
> What if the carbon capture tech company builds something great for the environment, but has dependencies on a supplier that uses exploited labor in the developing world? What if that same carbon capture company has a "significant" wage gap between the average employee and the executive level?
I think you're getting really stuck on the trivial, hypothetical example I gave. Any company in any industry can be evil.
You are absolutely washing away all these shades of gray by saying this discussion isn't productive. All companies are a little bit evil, but there are distinctions that matter.
And no one is trying to tell you or anyone else what morals to apply to companies. I'm only taking issue with you wasting the time to tell everyone else here that they're wasting their time. If you're so bogged down by the subjective issues here, fine! Lots of people are. Just move on and don't try to shut other people down.
You’re now whitewashing your previous comment instead of standing by it. :)
The original topic is, “Are there any good companies anymore?”
My response was that any company can be considered good or bad depending on what lens you use, and that applies equally to some of the most prestigious (or formerly prestigious) companies in the world just as it might to companies who aren’t household names.
That is a valid response.
>Lots of people are. Just move on and don't try to shut other people down.
The irony is that you don’t like what I have to say, so you’re actively trying to shut me down.
Censoring dissenting opinions because they don’t feed into the narrative you want. :)
What you *can* conclude is that all companies are harmful in some aspect.
This is equivalent to saying, "All companies are evil; everything is subjective; let's just give up."
It may not be what the commenter intended, but that's what comes across.
That’s my comment you quoted, and I already flat out wrote that this isn’t what I’m saying.
You might re-read what the original poster of this thread wrote, listing all the problems they see across a range of different industries and services.
Since it’s not clear to you, and since you made a comment about actively trying to stop me from sharing my opinion because it “wastes peoples time”, I’ll try to explain again. Hopefully if you still disagree, you’ll just downvote me instead of continuing with your personal attacks at me.
My point is that everyone has some set of values important to them. From a certain lens, you can find some fault or egregious (but perhaps legal) behavior in just about any large company. Corporations are complex. Even the best intentions result in some screw ups, or the leadership is well aware of an issue but does nothing because the bottom line is more important. Or maybe a certain issue coming to light may result in massive layoffs, etc etc.
To say are there any good companies isn’t productive of a topic in itself. What are your values? Maybe you believe FB is evil because it’s leadership knew about the impact of its services on teens and their mental health. Or maybe you believe that FB simply offers a product, and as long as no immediate law is broken, parents and families should moderate their child’s access to social media.
They make good products that, at the margin, help people.
I had a good time there, did good work, and liked and respected my coworkers.
Advertising: Bad to advertise lies, good to advertise truth E-commerce: Bad to sell consumption, good to sell solution Crypto: Bad for the environment, good for personal empowerment Finance: Bad for irresponsible spenders, good for people with low assets relative to cashflow Drugs, gambling, etc: Bad for the long run, good for the short run.
Even God, a construction meant to represent pure goodness, is bad to half of yall
Practically - no. If they do exist, they are impossibly difficult to find.
If there were ever a misanthropic worldview, this is it.
To be alive in the year 2021 and think that all is bad or worse than some halcyon prior age is, if not ridiculous, horrifying.
If you and OP are not familiar with anything you feel is worthwhile to work on as a company, then I pity anyone who has to be around you. My advice to OP is to figure out why he/she is unable to see enough good in the world and has to ask HN for where that value is.
>To be alive in the year 2021 and think that all is bad or worse than some halcyon prior age is, if not ridiculous, horrifying.
and think that [..] -> is your own assumption. I don't think this. Now that you know, maybe we can have a more positive conversation.
>My advice to OP is to figure out why he/she is unable to see enough good in the world and has to ask HN for where that value is.
'Figure it out' is not good advice in any situation. Its along the lines of "If you can't see why you're wrong then its your fault".
And I believe that problem will not be solved with whatever industry they go into, because it's a fundamental problem of psychology and outlook.
That's my constructive advice. Thousands of years of humans have managed to find meaning without hating everything, and the era we live in isn't uniformly worse enough to think those humans had it easier than we did.
Again, can you please stop with the assumptions? I don't believe this. I clearly said if you're an idealist you will find the world shitty place. I don't know what about my phrasing was confusing (though admittedly, English is not my native language). Are you honestly wanting to have a good faith conversation?
Just because I don't find things ridiculous doesn't mean I align with someones beliefs. I can disagree with someone without disparaging them. And I'm quite certain you can too.
No you didn't. You edited it after the fact. My quote was as-is, with the period.
Whether or not you have that view, the OP clearly does, because he/she can't seem to find value in anything and has to ask people. So the advice would be (in your modified post): "don't be an idealist." If your "ideals" cause you to be so oblivious to potential good things in the world, you're a misanthrope and I look down on your morals.
>because he/she can't seem to find value in anything and has to ask people.
That's the point - I think your interpretation is incorrect.
At many industries you won't. But it can be quite an effort to find such jobs - and of course succeeding at the interview unless salary/location are suboptimal.
As far as choosing a company goes, one strategy that I have is to keep lists of companies that do things I like. When I'm looking for work, I go through those lists to see who's hiring. I've got a list on Twitter of companies I like, a spreadsheet of companies that I like and links to their jobs pages, and when I come across a job posting that looks like a role I might like, I add the link to it as a todo item in a specific category of my todo app, and when I have some time I send off an application, just in case.
I now work for a book publisher (one of the "big five" in USA) that's part of an organization that includes major scientific publishers. Promoting literacy and science are key values of the overall org. It's also privately owned, which assists focus on values and reputation.
In 2021, working for a team that's still advancing the values of the Enlightenment feels... remarkably meaningful.
Absolutely there are companies doing great things to solve some of the very issues you mention.
I feel the same way about all of the industries you mentioned, and I've never worked for a company in any of those industries for that very reason.
There are, however, good people. They may make money working for companies or even owning a share. They might even do good things because they actually want to rather than showing it off. You can definitely be one of those people, even if you need to choose a lesser evil company to help you get there.
* What would you be proud to be remembered by after you die? I worked in adtech for a long time. No one is proud of me for that.
* There is a lot of unrealized potential in edtech. I work in education now. If you want to add millions--or even billions--of dollars to future GDP, education is the place to be. Look for an effective company.
* Pay is only worth so much. The last two jobs I took involved significant paycuts, and it was worth every penny to do something I felt was worthwhile for hours that didn't destroy the rest of my life. Never been happier. YMMV, of course.