Weird circumstance. Friend of a friend of a friend of a friend sort of thing. Apparently I was just autistic enough for him to be engaged because I kept asking questions and he kept answering them. I managed to stay mask on for the most part
He has a whole grooming regimen. Very convincing. Nails done, pores squeezed, hair plugged, etc
It's darkly funny how many business dweebs watched this and what they got from it was "I need to up my card game".
honestly this beats the shit out of the moody, dead serious daniel craig bond movies. still don't know the plot of any of them because all the lines are whispered and in an English accent.
I can name 4 reasons why a propeller plane wouldn't go straight down the runway without a pilot inside controlling it
https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/aerodynamics/why-you-need-right-rudder-on-takeoff-to-stay-on-the-centerline/
He did some typical dodges on that and changed the subject pretty quick.
“I have a legal responsibility to my shareholders”
“If I wasn’t doing it, someone else would”
“If the governments wants to change how we operate they’ll need to regulate us, not just ask nicely”
“The technology and infrastructure’s not there to change”
Stuff like that. I will say, all of those are true statements lol
“If I wasn’t doing it, someone else would"
Me as I kick in the air vents and light an oil fire under the air intake of a bunker so that I can eat whatever food they squirreled away.
I always wondered about this from individualist perspective: do they not see that this (“someone would still do it”) is not an absolution from sins that they think it is?
I'm sure its a bit easier to sleep at night with millions of dollars tho
It is, but this is very common refrain when someone tries to talk morality with those types. Do they believe it themselves or do they lie to others and sleep soundly
I just dont think they think about it. They know its a flimsy argument, but they'll keep saying it. if they start digging a little deeper and really contemplate their role in society, im sure they just check their bank account and are immediately calmed
I don’t think this guy was a psychopath, but I asked him how he deals with less wealthy family and friends constantly asking for money and he says he tried to help for the longest time and still supports several members of his family, but it came to a point where he couldn’t sustain it without losing his own home and people just kept asking for more despite being pretty comfortable themselves. He said he wasn’t giving them a means to support themselves, just making them think of him as an infinite money machine. What he said was, “my account told me I’d be homeless in 3 years if I didn’t cut back”. That’s a guy with several homes, btw. So he started giving them jobs in his companies and now says “I’m not a bank”. Everything is now a one-time gift. No loans. No recurring expenses except for like his parents and his partner’s parents.
I wanna be clear that I’m not making excuses for this guy. But I thought it was really interesting how the dynamic played out. I think a lot of imperial core people would have a similar attitude to supporting people in developing nations.
A Marxist would probably agree though (with caveats). That is, someone else would do it as long as the capitalist class continues to control production.
Exactly, material conditions. The problem isn't the individual actors it's the system that we've set up to encourage their horrible behavior.
I expect the difference between the CEO and a Marxist is that the CEO believes that these are the only possible conditions that can exist. Think there was a Mark Twain quote posted around here that was something like "It's very difficult to get someone to believe in something when their paycheck depends on not believing it."
Nah, the good ones know the things like socialism are very possible if they loose their grip. They know the same things we do, they just like the system because they benefit from it. Many likely believe they earned it, even if just being born to a rich fuck is what they consider earning it they still can convince themselves that they earned it. I think thats why shit like eugenics is so popular among the super rich, especially new money rich. They want to think they're special and that's why they got what they have. But at the end of the day they're only delusional about minor things (to them) like "justifying your actions to yourself". That's a very minor issue to them. Things like general economic theory cannot possibly be really understood with some understanding of marxism. I'm talking actual economics, not the stuff used to con dumbass rednecks like the "austrian school" shit. A good capitalist understands the game the same as a well read socialist, they just like the system and want to perpetuate it.
Yeah man maybe someone else would have done it but in this universe you're the one who did now face the wall
“I have a legal responsibility to my shareholders”
:brainworms:
I know people love to say this, but it's absolutely untrue, right? If your investors don't like your style isn't their main recourse basically limited to selling their shares?
There's some case law in the USA, not going to do any digging to find it, that basically states that the CEO's only responsibility is to be financially responsible to their shareholders/investors. So yeah, I'm pretty sure its true.
If a CEO were to make an intentional change in the business that negatively affected profits, the shareholders would have legal recourse to sue them at worst or fire them ASAP at best.
I assumed that it wouldn't be legal to be completely negligent, but I'm questioning the idea that you're required to be as depraved as possible.
I believe the case law is related to Henry Ford wanting to pay his workers more and the courts ruling he had a fiduciary responsibility to maximize his shareholders' return.
It's a little less clear cut, I guess, but still affirms the general principle that you're not allowed to use the resources of a publicly traded company to advance the common good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
It seems like it would be more about giving them cover when they do something, to make it harder to take legal action against capitalists that do something awful i.e. the tobacco industry people wouldn't be punished because they had a "legal responsibility".
It's not exactly true but kinda is. The CEO is told what to do by the shareholders and if they don't do it then the CEO is removed. And the shareholders always every single time demand more profits for themselves. So the CEO has to get more profits or else he's fired.
At the end of the day it is the shareholders who are demanding more profit instead of running the company in an environmentally healthy way.
The whole shareholder system is set up to force the companies to ruthlessly go for profit and nothing else
“If the governments wants to change how we operate they’ll need to regulate us, not just ask nicely”
I would have bashed his face in right there
His bodyguard was in the room. Wouldn’t have ended well for me
Bodyguard is also a family friend. He wasn’t on duty, but I’m pretty sure he has his concealed carry permit
Kidnapping rich people or their families is a fairly attractive crime. I doubt any big company CEO takes a shit without a bodyguard in the bathroom
Bezos spends like 2 million per year with security, walks around with a dozen bodyguards and has bullet-proof walls and windows in his office
Just googled it and Zuckerberg spends 20 million per year on security. Some employees say he has a secret evacuation tunnel under his office, and won't even go into a meeting with his own staff without multiple plain-clothes bodyguards
how long before the ultra rich develop a new form of the glass delusion?
We talked for a while about his prepping. He didn’t call it that, but it was 100% what he was doing. He has a house in Cali that burned down in the wild fires and rather than move to one of his other ten houses, he’s taking a giant ass check from his insurance company and rebuilding it. He has his own fire truck on the grounds and a giant private tank of water hooked up to it. When the tank gets low from other utilities or just evaporation, he has another tanker of water delivered. His reason for staying? “I really liked that house”
Did any of your questions, or his answers, involve the long-term viability of oil extraction as a business model?
In other words, does he seem to be piloting something to last decades into the future, or is it all about profit maximization in the immediate future?
He’s got a few other businesses he’s delved into. Currently looking into growing weed
Did he show any interest in you, as a person? Asking what you do for a living, what you're into, etc?
Yeah, sure. Basic formalities. I talked a bit about myself, but tried to keep the conversation high level or about him. He grew up a few blocks down from where I did, just a couple generations apart. Dude is definitely New Money. His disconnection from the working class comes from wealth alone, not generational attitudes. He’s kind of obsessed with dollar stores. Loves visiting them to get a bunch of random shit and give it away
Did he tell you they have trouble getting programmers and data scientists because they don’t want to be seen as joining the dark side? Naturally, they’re doing a ton of PR and it’s pretty effective on lib minds.
Their roadmaps all have ambitious renewable goals, but then they just change the roadmaps or obfuscate vis statistics and methodology.
Notice they’ve also switched from being O&G companies to “Energy” companies.
He tried to recruit me, actually. It’s very possible that’s why he took an interest.
They have trouble getting programmers because O&G companies make all of their workers subject to hair drug tests, even office workers, and the jobs are usually in shitholes without much tech presence.
how did you hold back from trying to immediately murder him?
Bodyguard. Jail. Turns out proximity isn’t our main barrier to eating the rich. They’re not hard to find
Definitely more. Like, I can 100% understand how the guillotines happen. This guy wouldn’t give up his fire truck for the proletariat
I interacted with plenty of these types when I was a kid. Usually more old money folks though. Most memorable occasion was when this one guy invited my dad (and by extension, me) to lunch with him and his mistress, and alternated between eating his food and screaming into the phone at some dude in Europe about the markets there.
Old money people are insufferable. Their kids act like straight up lordlings
