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Comment by WheelsAtLarge | Hacker News Reader

Just keep in mind that a business's role in society is to deliver something and bring in a profit. So if you don't bring revenue directly to the bottom line you are in line for layoffs. Don't fall in love with your job. The business is not in love with you.

I suspect the fund's trading strategy was less than great so they had to cut expenses ASAP. I can't imagine why they would get rid of the person who would have to maintain the code, if they didn't need to do it. There is no such thing as a no need for maintenance code. If I was the CEO, I would have been terrified if the code was running without someone to make sure it was running correctly.

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You overstate their role when you say it includes 'delivering something'.

The people who run most businesses would be perfectly happy delivering nothing at all and bringing in a profit. That's why businesses in the western economic system all end up turning purely into investment funds if left unchecked.

All profit, no product.

> The people who run most businesses would be perfectly happy delivering nothing at all and bringing in a profit.

To be fair, to the degree that your statement is true, then I think most people who are employed by businesses would be perfectly happy delivering nothing at all and bringing home a paycheck.

As someone who worked in pricing for a SAAS company I often explained what I called the “greed-charity” scale with 0 being “full greed, take in money but provide nothing” and 10 being “full charity, provide everything for free” and ask “what does a 5 look like for this product/feature”?

Today business are more focused in making profit, delivering something to society is just a side effect.

That's always been true. It's also why free markets work so well - they make money by providing to society what society wants.

> Just keep in mind that a business's role in society is to deliver something and bring in a profit.

No, that’s just another lie you’ve been made to believe. Corporations exist to serve the public good. The freedom they have been granted by the laws passed by nations is to facilitate that end. All it takes to change the rights of corporations is a change in law (not a Constitutional change as it would to change the rights of people).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1322201?seq=3

That is the role as envisioned by a particular, relatively modern theory. It was invented to destroy many existing institutions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value

And it's been profoundly destructive.

"Don't fall in love with your job. The business is not in love with you."

Hallelujah brother - well said.

We need to teach this as the type of relationship early but frankly society starts off very young teaching people to be “rockstars” and work 80hrs to be better than the “lazy” and the “poors” and in some circles “the immigrants.”

This is by (capitalist) design.

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