[geeks] the end of the internet as we know it.

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Wed, 5 Aug 2009, Phil Stracchino wrote:

>> Their perceived responsibility is to drive up the stock price, not keep
>> the company around forever.
>
> Yup.  Short term thinking.  Suicide in the long run.  But that's
> somebody else's problem.
>
> The problem is, we're ALL "somebody else".

I think the problem could probably be solved by some sort of "cyanide
pill" clause in the corporate charter wherein the company's IP becomes
public domain after some circumstances of corporate devaluation or
takeover.

Right now, it makes sense to boost a company up, hoping that it'll
eventually crash.  Few people holds corporate stock long-term in the
American markets anymore, and so much stock is held indirectly through
mutual funds that there isn't a tremendous amount of damage for J Random
Techcorp, Inc to go bust.

Basically we've discovered (again) that by insulating people from
long-term harm, they make stupid short-term decisions (see also:
socialism, welfare, and bail-outs).  What keeps this going is that the
implosion of one company directly benefits another.  Go bust and Sun, IBM,
or Microsoft will buy you up, pay the execs to go away, and then make
profits on the IP your company was too stupid to market effectively.

However, if the IP would go public-domain during an acquisition, we'd see
several benefits:
    a) Implosion of a company would benefit the industry and the state of
       the art, as a whole.
    b) Corporate executives would have a vested interest in keeping the
       company profitable around the corner, since there'd be no one to
       reward them from screwing the pooch.

The problem, of course, is that there are only two groups of people who
could cause this to happen:
    1) The executives themselves who form the corporation.
    2) The VCs investing in the corporation prior to IPO.

In the American markets, things have come to be such that those with the
most control over decisions that affect the longevity of a publicly-traded
company have the least incentive to ensure said longevity.  Witness how
large privately-held tech companies like SAS manage things versus how
large publicly-traded tech companies like CA and HP manage things.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke < "There is great satisfaction in building good tools
Elgin, TX          > for other people to use."
USA               <                                     --Freeman Dyson