VC firms are pioneering a new investment strategy: acquiring established businesses and optimizing them with AI to boost efficiency and customer reach.
Isn’t that what we call “Innovation” in our capitalist society?
You build a thing. Pour your blood sweat and tears into it. Some VC goon buys it during a downturn. They fire most of the staff. Strip the copper out of the walls. Make the service shittier and shittier until all that is left is its faltering brand recognition then sell it all for a bundle to the very next sucker they can?
Innovation is enshittification these days. It used to be invention, where entirely new products and materials came about. Then there was innovation, incremental improvement coupled with price hikes. Now “innovation” seems strictly rearranging deck chairs with worse service, and reducing employee count for increased profits.
In the 90s it was “selling it for parts” where the market value of the whole company was lower than the component parts, so buy it on the open market for a bargain, then slice and dice and profit.
These days, they’re squeezing the lemons for all they can get.
The “corporate raider” existed before that, infamously thanks to people like Frank Lorenzo dismantling Eastern Airlines in the ‘80s or Icahn to TWA. The late ‘70s and early ‘80s were rife with corporate raiders.
Isn’t that what we call “Innovation” in our capitalist society?
You build a thing. Pour your blood sweat and tears into it. Some VC goon buys it during a downturn. They fire most of the staff. Strip the copper out of the walls. Make the service shittier and shittier until all that is left is its faltering brand recognition then sell it all for a bundle to the very next sucker they can?
Innovation is enshittification these days. It used to be invention, where entirely new products and materials came about. Then there was innovation, incremental improvement coupled with price hikes. Now “innovation” seems strictly rearranging deck chairs with worse service, and reducing employee count for increased profits.
In the 90s it was “selling it for parts” where the market value of the whole company was lower than the component parts, so buy it on the open market for a bargain, then slice and dice and profit.
These days, they’re squeezing the lemons for all they can get.
The “corporate raider” existed before that, infamously thanks to people like Frank Lorenzo dismantling Eastern Airlines in the ‘80s or Icahn to TWA. The late ‘70s and early ‘80s were rife with corporate raiders.