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MisterBastahrd11/08/20241 replyview on HN

No, we can't, because it rarely ever works out that way.

I've yet to work at a family owned company where the children were anywhere near as competent as their parents, and I've worked at multigenerational companies, so imagine that.

The one I spent the most time with was a publisher whose founders were Tulane educated intellectuals who walked the walk and talked the talk. The next generation sounded like they fell off an alligator tour air boat with the intellect to match. Their children are the dumbest group of human beings I've ever seen graduate from high school. Utterly and completely useless for anything other than getting hammered on the weekends and keeping random desk chairs from rolling away. Yet they were guaranteed jobs, even as the company's numbers continued to dwindle and they continued to use far more resources than they contributed. No Christmas bonus? That's because they needed to pay these morons enough to live in the same neighborhood as their father, meaning that they needed to make about 80% more than anyone else in their roles.

Ownership is not leadership. Leadership takes a set of skills that many people don't possess, and it's less common with the children of the well-off.


Replies

hammock11/08/2024

That is likely to be true if we take a limited firm-centric view (the local shop will never be the best it can be if the next guy has to be the first son of the last guy). But having a multigenerational shop and shopkeeper, or farms and farmers, may be better for the larger community than a Walmart headquartered in another country or a commercial farm that couldn't give two shits about the locals.

Not saying it is better, but in some cases it probably is. Certainly could be in some cases