Marginalium
A note in the margins
May 23, 2025
Marginalium
My commentary on something from elsewhere on the web.
The Era Of The Business Idiot. Intro through some of the sillier uses of AI into a critique of the Rot Economy:
a useful description for how tech companies have voluntarily degraded their core products in order to placate shareholders, transforming useful — and sometimes beloved — services into a hollow shell of their former selves as a means of expressing growth …
…
Milton Friedman once argued … any social responsibility — say, treating workers well, doing anything other than focus on shareholder value — is tantamount to an executive taxing his shareholders by “spending their money” on their own personal beliefs.
Then, into a screed about why a lot of business decisions make sense in this light, even when superficially they seem silly. I liked it, even though there’s nothing particularly new.
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