Individually Smart, Collective Stupid

Individually Smart, Collective Stupid

Posted Mar 26, 2008 7:39 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Individually Smart, Collective Stupid by mikov
Parent article: A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

I personally think that it is naive to consider whole companies "evil".

I am not sure of that: a company is an organization, and organizations can be less evil or more evil, just like people. Imagine if we said: "Hey, the Mafia is neither good nor evil: they are just an organization, just like the Catholic church or Doctors Without Borders". Sorry, but some organizations are more inclined to commit crime than others.

There is something called corporate culture, and it includes a tendency or willingness to do evil or be fair. Standard Oil was bent on keeping a monopoly, just like Bell or now Microsoft. That doesn't mean that good things can't happen despite that environment (think Unix), but it can be harder.

A company is a business entity which has to make money (especially if it is a public company).

That is true, but a bit lopsided. Making a profit is only one of the objectives of a company, and not always the most important; there is also maintaining its stock price, keeping a good public image, respecting the law, making its employees happy, keeping ahead of the competition... And that is besides its particular objectives such as delivering product or developing free software.

Focusing only on one objective for a company is not likely to capture the whole picture. Case in point: what is more important for Microsoft, keeping its monopoly or making a profit? And now its logical consequence: is Microsoft likely to lose money in a deal, just to keep its monopoly in a market?

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