Movie Bid-ness

I'm in business school and should have an MBA by next May, so this gives me a different perspective on the issue. Here are my two cents.

First of all, the goal for Regal is merely to survive. Yes, with your typical corporate company, especially companies listed on a stock exchange, the goal is to make money at any cost (there is no second goal), but with penny stocks like Regal, the goal is merely to survive. They know they can play this game of laying low and keep the company around, not too worried about people pushing them to make money. Most analysts have given up on them doing that.

And this leads to the motivation of the higher ups. They know they aren't doing much with the current company, and so they know that they won't look so hot when looking for a new job. And, since people don't much like change anyway, they will keep the status quo to keep their jobs. Even if the status quo is absurd mediocrity, or less. Change is bad.

And, in fact, you can even make the point that growing to higher profitability would be bad. Then you gather attention again, and people start expecting you to make money. And, if you go back to not making money, your chances of being fired go up even still. And, even if this isn't true, you can't be sure of it. You know the current situation means you have a job, so it's best to lie low.

In this vein, if you take any risks, there are so many possible bad outcomes that it's simply not worth it. So, you open up another booth to buy popcorn at. If it fails, you look bad. Very bad, possibly. And if it succeeds, people expect you to come up with more good ideas, increasing the chances that you'll look bad. Also, with the simple rule that most people don't like change, you'll have people start to hate you for doing good things. Because you're making them look bad. Another good way to lose your job.

Let's look at Google, a rare company I love. They have given the consumer an incredible variety of services, including the great search engine, 1GB email storage (which forced Hotmail and Yahoo to follow), and this webpage. All for free. They are a brilliant company that improves the life of everyone. Now, have any of you seen how hated this company can be by the powers that be? Did you see any of that when the company went public? It's was a venomous force, along the levels of condemning the worst of evil. And you know why? It's because they represented change. They showed some people that they could shake up Wall Street by being creative, and cost an number of people their cushy payday. Who cares if it makes the IPO process more fair and more efficient for the buyer, for the common person? It's affecting me. They might not even know if that's the reason they're so mad, just as the Regal suits won't say that they don't innovate because taking risks isn't rewarded. But that's the motivation - that's the reason why.

And there's no point in getting mad about this. It's as pointless to get mad about gravity; it's just going to be there, it's just human nature. What it really means when you think you can do it better is that you have some creative ideas, and you would like to see them implemented. That's why I'm in B-school; to learn how to do this effectively; killing bad ideas at the bud, and pushing good ones to success. I hope I can. I'm really interested in this talk of building a better business. It is possible to create a company, build a relatively high amount of wealth with that company, and still create a product or service that people love, with jobs that people truly enjoy and feel creative at. That's the goal. It's a shame that others don't think the same... but, that's just human nature. Mediocrity is easy.

UPDATE: Hell, other people made similar points to me earlier. I just now got around to reading them. But I enjoyed my minute on the soapbox.