EP 424: How the Game We Play Changes Our Work
\u201cThis cancerous economic principle means that executives and venture capitalists have abandoned the concept of value within a business. Through decades of corporate greed, production has become almost entirely separated from capital, meaning that executives (and higher-ups) are no longer able to understand the nature of the businesses they are growing.\u201d
\u2014 Ed Zitron, \u201cAbsentee Capitalism\u201d
This might sound weird\u2014but most companies today aren\u2019t in the business it appears they\u2019re in. Netflix isn\u2019t really in the content business. Facebook isn\u2019t in the social media business. Etsy isn\u2019t in the handmade marketplace business. Instead, companies are in the growth business.\xa0
And this impacts all of us, tying how we work not to the production of valuable products and services but to the potential for capital growth. Even for independent workers and small businesses, the capital growth game sets the rules and obstacles for the game we play.
Today\u2019s episode is about gaming the system\u2014how the game we play dictates the decisions we make and the actions we perform. After all, you have to know what game you\u2019re playing to know how to win. And you also need to decide whether that\u2019s the game you want to play.
Footnotes:
- \n
- \nGames: The Art of Agency by C. Thi Nguyen \n
- \u201cBent but Not Broken: The History of the Rules\u201d via NFL Operations \n
- CBS Sports: \u201cResults of 2023 Rule Change Proposals\u201d \n
- MSNBC: \u201cBuzzFeed News to shut down\u201d \n
- \u201cAbsentee Capitalism\u201d by Ed Zitron \n
- "Amazon's Trickle-Down Monopoly" by Moira Weigel \n
- \u201cThe Valuable Business of Maintenance Work\u201d by Tara McMullin \n
- \nWhat Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting by Tara McMullin \n
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