Answering my own question: looks like it. They brought it back in 2015 and are going back overseas in 2019.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2400138/black-diamond-layoffs-...
https://companyweek.com/articles/as-black-diamond-bolts-to-c...
As another example - Jorgenson Pony clamps were made in Chicago until they closed down (like 15 years ago). They're the gold standard for woodworking clamps. Solid as a rock. The company announced they were re-making clamps. In China. At the world's largest clamp making plant.
They're garbage now. Materials are cheaper. The QC is nowhere near as good as they used to be. The price is more, even adjusted for inflation, than what they were when they were Chicago made - because people are buying the trusted brand name and getting burned for it.
It's just sad. I can't imagine that I would ever trust something like climbing gear to outsourcing. No thanks.
This is why the father to son family business model may prove more enduring.
If their comp package is weighted towards the five year term, they absolutely care about five years from now.
I'd like to add: there is no incentive for it either, shareholders want returns NOW, and so they want CEOs to act in their interest NOW. Most shareholders aren't looking at their "ownership" stake with compassion for employees at the company, or any form of responsibility to other stakeholders, but solely for their own bottom line.
I know this is the received wisdom, but as a shareholder, I emphatically do not want this. I want long-term value, as I am a long-term investor. I hate that I have to watch out for shady things like this and adjust my holdings accordingly.
Many of the biggest shareholders are major pension funds with 30 to 50 year time horizons. They absolutely do NOT want "returns NOW" with the implicit assumption that future quarters don't matter.
That is true but it is also true that they can’t risk waiting 30 years only to find their investment is worthless. Hence the insistence on quarterly reporting.
I understand that it's rational behavior for someone driven exclusively by money, but that's an important qualification. Most people are not money robots, so they aren't given these jobs.
Generally, a non-founder CEO is a ferociously competitive person--probably to the point of being pathological. They often "play poker" in situations where there is very little upside to doing so.
Great salespeople are often the same way, they simply can't turn it off.
You are asking a leopard to change his spots after he has started eating the antelope.
That was precisely the parent comment's point.
But it shouldn't be a strong incentive, right? Getting fired from a CEO position is fine, you're almost certainly set for life. I understand this is sort of a circular argument, because anyone who doesn't buy into this incentive structure won't be hired as CEO, but my point is that somebody who is willing to go along with this system isn't really behaving rationally in the normal sense of the word.
The behavior won't change until the incentives do.
What sense of "hold up" are you using here, "support" or "delay?"
Yes I have purchased climbing equipment on Amazon but I always felt bad about it.
https://blog.weighmyrack.com/black-diamond-manufacturing-pro...
Whereas a manufacture in another country might say: "For that little money, I won't do the job.", in China the answer is more like "For that little money, I'll do the job [but I'm going to rip you off, and for how little you're paying, you should already know you're going to get ripped off.]"
Got any links for a person to learn more about this cultural difference?